Stacking limits on Atolls - Honor Rule?

[Mike Carroll]

What do people think would be a reasonable stacking limit for an Atoll. I am thinking perhaps:

A regiment of infantry
2 artillery or coastal defense units
1 AA Unit
1 tank unit
2 engineer units
1 HQ unit
10 aircraft per level of airfield. - Excluding float planes supported by a tender

Obviously there will be atolls that this is not appropriate but better than the current state which has several infantry divisions and other units able to be stationed there.

[Helpless]

I think we need them, but may be expressed in AP or in men/guns present. Also there should be attack limit as well.

[general billy]

I disagree with any stacking limits. If you cant take it, you should bypass it.

[Andy Mac]

I disagree with stacking limits for the attacker unless a limit to the level of forts on atrolls is included.

A single regt with lvl 9 forts will require multi divional assaults to shift forts are to powerfull and the Japanese have to large an ability to fort up.

Andy

[Mike Carroll]

I would agree with no limits on attacks unless forts were limited. I just do not see stacking 100,000 troops on Midway or Wake, that is totally unrealistic. Even the numbers that I postulated above would be in the area of 15,000 to 20,000 men. I think the single regiment is hard and fast. The question I have is how many artillery, tank, and engineer units. I believe at Tarawa the the Japanese had dug tanks in as bunkers etc.

I am not sure but I think that the attack force for Tarawa was 3 divisions plus other supporting units. I think ultimately if the enemy wants an atoll they throw raw numbers at it and get it. They should have to get back to the stacking limits within several days however.

I also think that without this honor rule it makes the battles for Wake and Midway very difficult for both sides. Initially for the Japanese to capture and then later for the US to retake.

[orabera]

I agree there needs to be a limit, I would hope there will be something in the code to take care of this.

The house rules for the old Pacific War included limitations on deployments to Atolls.

Just some rough calculations for Wake, 60,000 men in 2 1/2 square miles, equates to 1 man every 900 square feet. Thats before acocunting for artillery (Field, AA, and Coast), airfield, airplanes, hangars, barracks, roads, suply depots, ammo bunkers and such. Op Art of War had a calculation for increasing casualties in overstacked hexes, Wake with this many men, would take absolutely horrendous casualties from any sort of bombardment. Every shell guaranteed to hit soemthing, the effect of every hit multiplied.

[general billy]

The whole point in taking an atol is to ensure that you wont lose it to the enemy. When I take them I always take them in force and defend them in force. If you reduce the number of units defending it, you only going to let the enemy be able to take it, and thus what was the point taking it in the first place. I know in real life it be hard to have thousands of troops in a small atol but unless there is code in the game I dont see how you can decide what is required. They is so many factors in attacking an atol. Unit preparation, fatigue, leadership, supply. Only time I have success on atols is when I go in heavy. If I cant get 2 to 1 odds. I wont capture it. Remember atols forces your units to shock attack and thus you lose 1/3 or somtimes more of your combat strength. In WPO taking on an atol is even more difficult than WITP. You have no airpower and plus you dont have any good recon units so u dont know what u up against. Even bombardments are too weak in WPO.

What I think is bombardment affects should increase on atols to a stage that it can kill alot or most of the enemy units stationed there. Put more men on an atol and you will lose more when the enemy bombards you. Thus forces you to use your navy to protect your atols.

[orabera]

An increase in Bombardment effects would work for me. While physically possible to put massive numbers of troops on an Atoll, there should be an increasing penalty past a certain level.

[Mike Carroll]

I certainly understand your point, however, there is a physical limitation on how many troops you can put on an atoll. There should probably be stacking limits for some of the islands as well, but that could be overly complex.

It would be nice if the code could limit it but until that happens I think a general honor rule could help the situation. Again I am not trying to be arbitrary, that is why I am asking for feedback on the numbers above.

In one of my WITP games I had 150,000 troops on Wake. That is rediculous.

[String]

Ugh, if you see something like that. Just bypass it.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Mike Carroll

I certainly understand your point, however, there is a physical limitation on how many troops you can put on an atoll. There should probably be stacking limits for some of the islands as well, but that could be overly complex.

It would be nice if the code could limit it but until that happens I think a general honor rule could help the situation. Again I am not trying to be arbitrary, that is why I am asking for feedback on the numbers above.

In one of my WITP games I had 150,000 troops on Wake. That is rediculous.

In the historical-realism domain, the maximum for defenders on "single" islet atolls is probably 1 "regiment" for defenders and 1 division for attackers. If the engine will not allow 1 division to defeat a regiment dug in a level 9 - then we would have to wait for the code to get fixed to implement a fix ( in the historical-realism domain ).

If however, we leave the historical-realism domain behind a just consider WPO to be MOO on one planet ( a.k.a. SMITP = SpaceMenInThePacific ) - then the advice to bypass is legitimate - though in order to "see" 4 divisions on Wake - one might need to use the "recon sacrifice" ploy on a regular basis. There is no other sure way to "see" what is on an atoll with out the air recon capability in WITP. But if the Japanese put 4 divisions on very many atolls, there won't be very much anywhere else and in some scenarios this can be exploited.

Unfortunately, in Scenarios like Cautionaries, which "force" the action into a smaller chunk of the map ( along the WPO historically planned lines of advance ). Putting 4 divisions each on Wake, Eniwetok, Kawjalein and Jaluit, might be a show stopper. However, due to the PP restrictions on the Japanese in Cautionaries, this would not be possible until after the scenario ends. At most 2 divisions could be put on each of these 4 spots until after the point where the US should be attacking. But 2 divisions, dug in facing 2 divisions attacking is still problematic for the attackers. Ultimately a scenario like cautionaries, which is designed to live more within the constraints of the historical-realism domain, will probably need a house rule ( or a code change ) to restrict LCU stacking on atolls. But this is not a new problem. We've had LCU stacking issues on the list for WITP from right about the beginning. So hopefully it will be addressed in the code one day.

So for those of you who feel constrained by the historical-realism domain, consider a house rule for atolls to allow a ( reasonably supported ) regiment to defend and a ( reasonably supported ) division to attack. And for those of you not so constrained, prepare to employ banzai-recon units to enable you to "see" the enemy divisions piled up on the atolls, so they can be avoided. It might also be worthwhile to keep a more careful record of your "sigint" report which will every now and then have useful information about the location of enemy divisions.

[Rysyonok]

I disagree with stacking honor rules.

The current logistics and loading/unloading algorythms penalize overstacking as it is.

The only abuse I see is 25 engineer units turning a 0 atoll into 3 in a month :p But hey, I've been advocating against engineer details on those base forces all along...

[Helpless]

The main restrictive factor on atoll islands is available land area. Just some of them:

Name Area,km^2
Marcus 1.2
Wake 6.5
Midway 6.2
Eniwetok 6
Kwajalein 6.33
Wotje 8
Jaluit 11
Makin(Butaritari) 20.3 (13.6+6.7)
Tarawa 26
Truk 100

Obviously that there should be some stacking limit for defender and for attacker. Also there should be fortifing limit (the same as for port and airfield). All these would require to introduce a new dimension to the land combat system.

The more i think about house rules on stacking the more it seems to be complicated to implement and follow them...

Besides already mentioned logistics penalties, large stack of LCU on atoll is an easy target for naval bombardments, turning them to unsupplied slowly dying victory points [:D].