Unit Descriptions: Air, Naval, Land

[warspite1]

I have seen the Bearn write up. I like it - nice one. I would suggest we get further comment over the next few days and see where the land lies. It would be most useful to hear too from others who have contributed to the write ups, for their thoughts.

[Plainian]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I'd add that the writeups miss the range, in nautical miles (with speed). It's an interesting figure.

I'd also add that seing the main armament quoted as "mm" at the top of each 'biog' for British naval units, then described below in terms of inches was a bit disconcerting. But then this has already been discussed.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

I do agree that USS Enterprise does need a much more detailed write-up.

If the original authors are not offended, I could offer to rewrite any (or all) carriers of all nations, as that is a speciality area of mine.  The sort of areas that need to be stressed, for example, are speed, the US Navy's decision to sacrifice protection for aircraft capacity, the aircraft types carried at different stages of the war, and notable doctrines (e.g. damage control - the finest carrier the Japanese ever produced, Taiho, was destroyed when some moron thought it would be a good idea to clear the avgas fumes out of the hangar by switching on the electric fans).

I have sent Steve a write-up for Béarn, and you can decide if my style is acceptable.

Marcus,

If the person who did the original writeup has no objection to you doing rewrites, then I have no objection.

But if they do object, then I would only want to correct factual mistakes.

Ideally, this would be a collaborative effort - with everyone having a common objective. Unanimous consensus would be very nice.

[brian brian]

I think the Bearn one will be one of the more heavily 'clicked-on'. Every WiF player knows about that ship. Few of us know the actual details.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here 'tis.

[brian brian]

wow. so Roosevelt never played option 4. I can think of worse fates than being blockaded on a Caribbean island during WWII.

I like using the Bearn on the map, even risking it going to the Repair Pool where it will end up Vichy. If the French draw that nice American made fighter-CV plane unit it can be a big help in the Med.

Great write-up, I also like hearing about the activities of Light Cruisers.

I've been reading some Samuel Eliot Morrison lately, and he likes to wistfully point out the Japanese practice of using a CL to lead a Destroyer division and how well that would work out for them.


And I like that is has been nice and quiet in here .... again YAY Playtesting!!!

[Norman42]

I look at it this way:
 
First, this isnt an encyclopedia of all things WW2, its a game, and the write-ups while nice 'chrome' are 100% un-needed for the game to function. 
 
Second, they are being done by volunteers, each with thier own style and knowledge base and bias as to what facts are important.  Expecting a uniformity in this situation is fairly difficult.  To get that you would need a far more comprehensive organization and template then is currently in place. I think the present format listing primary armament, speed, armor, and size is enough in the way of standard 'hard data'.
 
Third, there are what...6500 counters/write-ups to be done? That is a large undertaking, and to expect a Wikipedia-like entry for all that is beyond what I think the scope of the "write-up operation" is intended to be.  Besides, some units/ships have very little to distinguish them.  Yes, a ship like the Enterprise, Bismarck, or Ark Royal are going to have large detailed writeups, but an obscure Yugoslavian destroyer flotilla or a cruiser sunk by a mine in its first week at sea will not. 
 
We *could* fill up the write-up with minutia about the slope of the armor belt, or the benefits of different calibres of each anti-aircraft gun, and the differing horsepower of the engineering plants, but that isn't what these write-ups are about.  They are to add a little bit of colour to the square little piece of cardboard(pixels).
 
Personally, I think less is more.  Aiming for 3-5 short paragraphs (depending on the history of the unit) as a summary of their creation, actions, and fate is plenty. We aren't Jane's Book of Ships 1936-1946.  These write-ups should whet someones appetite to go read further books on the histories of WW2.
 
My 2 cents.
 
 
 
 

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Plain Ian

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I'd add that the writeups miss the range, in nautical miles (with speed). It's an interesting figure.

I'd also add that seing the main armament quoted as "mm" at the top of each 'biog' for British naval units, then described below in terms of inches was a bit disconcerting. But then this has already been discussed.

Fair point re the armament. I used mm because that was the measure used in the template I was first shown - although being from the older generation I am more at home to feet and inches. I sort of naturally defaulted to this measure when actually writing up the unit for that reason. Happy to insert both measures in the bullets to aid clarity.

[warspite1]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Norman42

I look at it this way:

First, this isnt an encyclopedia of all things WW2, its a game, and the write-ups while nice 'chrome' are 100% un-needed for the game to function. 

[Warspite1][100% agree with that]

Second, they are being done by volunteers, each with thier own style and knowledge base and bias as to what facts are important.  Expecting a uniformity in this situation is fairly difficult.  To get that you would need a far more comprehensive organization and template then is currently in place. I think the present format listing primary armament, speed, armor, and size is enough in the way of standard 'hard data'.

[Warspite1][Broadly agree although a couple more additions would not be too onerous if enough people thought it would help]

Third, there are what...6500 counters/write-ups to be done? That is a large undertaking, and to expect a Wikipedia-like entry for all that is beyond what I think the scope of the "write-up operation" is intended to be.  Besides, some units/ships have very little to distinguish them.  Yes, a ship like the Enterprise, Bismarck, or Ark Royal are going to have large detailed writeups, but an obscure Yugoslavian destroyer flotilla or a cruiser sunk by a mine in its first week at sea will not. 

[Warspite1][Agreed as per my original post the length of any write up will necessarily be governed to an extent by the unit history - but my wider point was without some kind of framework agreement on what is required we may get (and have currently got) just a few lines on the Enterprise while a second person may choose to write a small book on a minor vessel. As a presentation this in my mind would look odd]

We *could* fill up the write-up with minutia about the slope of the armor belt, or the benefits of different calibres of each anti-aircraft gun, and the differing horsepower of the engineering plants, but that isn't what these write-ups are about.  They are to add a little bit of colour to the square little piece of cardboard(pixels).

[Warspite1][Hence my comment on broad agreement for what needs to be included]

Personally, I think less is more.  Aiming for 3-5 short paragraphs (depending on the history of the unit) as a summary of their creation, actions, and fate is plenty. We aren't Jane's Book of Ships 1936-1946.  These write-ups should whet someones appetite to go read further books on the histories of WW2.

[Warspite1][I think the problem is that less can be well...... less. Lets use Creation, Actions (WWII history only) and Fate for example as the 3 key headings and within that a guideline that:
Creation - is about when? - and if interesting why - for what purpose?
Actions - very brief service history which should be briefly expanded only where particularly interesting e.g. Midway, North Cape
Fate will either be a scrapping or sold date or a brief expansion on the engagement that sunk her.

Then, provided all those core bases are covered, if someone wants to spend time writing more on a unit then fine - but at least every unit will have a basic treatment]

My 2 cents.

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Okay - here is the note I sent to Steve previously

Firstly - let me say that I think the write ups are secondary to the main issue - i.e. getting a working game on the market.
However, I think that if write ups are going to be included - and personally I believe that they are a superb addition to the game - then they need to be done "properly". 
Let me be clear, I am not saying that I believe my write ups are necessarily the way to go and am happy to listen to any criticism but I am generally happy with the approach I have sought to take i.e. a structure for the write ups so that for each ship I will get:

- Key Facts and Figures
- Brief background as to the reason the ships were required in the first place, class, no of ships etc
- WWII service history only - encompassing brief details of theatres operated in and only expanded slightly in the interests of brevity where there is a more famous or interesting episode e.g. River Plate, Hunt the Bismarck etc
- Fate

Reading the existing write ups of the three Australian County class sisters, I think they are simply too brief to give the reader any real insight.

.P  A County Class Cruiser, the HMAS Shropshire was commissioned by the Royal Navy in September 1929, but
was transferred to the Australian Navy after the HMAS Canberra was sunk in 1942. In the Royal Navy she
served in the South Atlantic as a merchant escort. In the Australian Navy she saw action in the battles of
Surigao Strait and Linyagen Gulf.
.P She was decommissioned in 1949. She was supposed to be renamed
Canberra after the HMAS Canberra was lost, but due to the fact that the US Navy had a ship with that name,
she kept her old name. This was the only ship ever to be named after Shropshire, England.

If the author would be agreeable, I would like to see these expanded in the way that her 10 sisters have been written up.
(I have added my Dorsetshire write up at the bottom of this post). 

Another example.

For the write up of HMNZS Gambia:
- Armour detail is missing
- There are references to Royal British Navy? and British Navy?
- The second paragraph simply repeats the facts section in more words - no value added.

HMNZS Gambia was originally commissioned into the Royal British Navy as a Fiji Class Cruiser, but
  was decommissioned into the New Zealand Navy in September 1943. Her battle honours include
  Sabang, Okinawa, and Japan. She was handed back to the British Navy in February 1946. Her first
  mission after rejoining the British Navy was to transport large quantities of gold bullion from Australia to
  England.
  .P She was finally decommissioned in December 1968. Her engines gave her a total of
  80,000 hp, and a top speed of 32 knots. Her main armament was a total of 12 152mm guns. At full load she
  had a displacement of 9,000 tons.

Last example - USS Enterprise

Commissioned in May 1938, the USS Enterprise was the sixth aircraft carrier to enter the lists of the US Navy.
   She would serve throughout the entire war, participating in almost every big battle in the Pacific. Although not
   in port during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, bombers of the Enterprise did participate in aerial
   battles over the port, and 6 of them were lost. The USS Enterprise was the flagship of Admiral Spruance’s
   fleet during the battle of Midway.
   .P She would go on to earn a total of 20 battle stars during her operations in
   WWII, the most of any ship in the US Navy. The Enterprise was finally decommissioned in February 1947.
   .P She was the only ship outside the Royal British Navy to earn the highest decoration of the British Admiralty,
   the British Admiralty Pennant.

You posted Norman42 write ups of three French ships on Saturday.  Personally I would have added a section on why they were built, class etc but in my view these were absolutely fine. They were brief - but only because the ships did not particularly warrant more and moreover they each had the same structure - which I think is very important.

I`m afraid what I know about computers is not worth knowing so I cannot help on the technical side but am keen to see the historical aspects done in a way that really give the reader - regardless of prior WWII knowledge, a real taster for what the unit he is commanding is all about, what she did and what happened to her.   

Dorsetshire write up

.P HMS Dorsetshire and her sisters were the first heavy cruisers built right
up to the 1922 Washington Treaty Naval limits (standard displacement 10,000
tons and 8-inch main armament). These limits had been set as the Royal Navy
already had cruisers this large (Hawkins Class).
.P Athough Britain needed more numerous smaller vessels, the building of large
cruisers between the wars by Japan had to be countered by the Royal Navy - the
County class were the result. There were 13 ships built including two for the
Royal Australian Navy. After the sinking of one of these - HMAS Canberra - the
British government agreed to the transfer of HMS Shropshire to the Royal
Australian Navy.
.P World War II gave the County class the opportunity to prove themselves as
excellent all-round vessels, noted for their combination of range, strength,
sea-worthiness and weight of fire.
.P HMS Dorsetshire was completed in 1930. In December 1939, a couple months
after war was declared, Dorsetshire was transferred from the China station to
Ceylon to link up with her sister ship Cornwall and the carrier Hermes - Force
I. Force I took part in the search for the pocket-battleship Graf Spee.
.P She operated in the South Atlantic for a short while before returning to
the UK in May. She quickly departed for West Africa and in June, set out to
follow the French battleship Richelieu which had left Dakar for Casablanca.
The Richelieu was eventually ordered to return to Dakar and Dorsetshire
continued to monitor French Naval Forces off Dakar throughout July.
.P In September 4 she had minor repairs in South Africa before returning to
Freetown. By November she was operating in the Indian Ocean and bombarding
Italian Somaliland. Thereafter a further spell in dock in South Africa was
followed by a patrol in the South Atlantic looking for the Admiral Scheer.
.P Dorsetshire`s most high profile engagement of WWII was the hunt for the
battleship Bismarck that had escaped into the North Atlantic in May 1941.
It was Dorsetshire that on 27 May was ordered to torpedo the crippled Bismarck
at the end of the battle. Dorsetshire recovered 110 of Bismarck's crew from
the sea, before being forced break off the rescue because of the presence of
a U-boat.
.P After this Dorsetshire undertook a further period of convoy escort and in
1942 she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean. The Japanese
1st Air Fleet, fresh from 5 months of uninterrupted victory since Pearl Harbor
entered the Indian Ocean for what was known as the Indian Ocean raid.  During
this raid, Dorsetshire and her sister ship Cornwall were caught in the open
and without air cover. They were attacked by carrier based aircraft south-west
of Ceylon on 5 April 1942. Dorsetshire was hit by ten bombs and sank quickly.
234 crewmen died. Cornwall was hit eight times and sank about ten minutes
later.

I am sorry for not replying sooner, as I am probably the one that should have been the first one to reply to this post.

When I started working on the naval counters I did so with no idea as to what I was getting into, and talked to some of the members in here to sort out some "rules of thumb" about what I should write.
a) I was not to write a new Jane's. We agreed on that .5 pages max would be good.
b) the information would be mostly conserning the era of the game, aka WWII
c) proof-reading was going to be needed, mainly as english is my second language, and I at times would think of what to
write in norwegian, and then translate that into english. Not really a problem unless I was getting too tired at the time I
was writing.
d) some odd piece of information would be nice to give some extra flavour to the writeup.

When looking back, I totally agree with you, some of the ships are way too brief, and the Australian and NZ ships particulary so. Why? Well they are the very first ships that were done [:D] I was still trying to figure out what to write and what not to write at the time, and obviously took a too strict aproach in the first few counters. About the Enterprise, that description was alot longer, but it seemed I started deleting to make it somewhat shorter, and in the end deleted way too much [;)]

This being said, and seing what you say in your post, I want to point to my point a). Although write ups should be well done, it is not always possible to say all one want to say. If I did, I am guessing the file on ships like the Bismarck alone would amount to 10+ pages...

And to Froonp, I agree, they do miss range, a stat that I did include in the beginning, but which I ended up removing as that very part of information at times (on some more less known ships) were harder to find than anything else, and when I decided which stats to include and which not to, I wanted to keep those that I could find for every ship.


This being said, atm I would say that we should try to finish all counters before going back on the ones allready done, with maybe the exceptions brought up in this post. Am I gonna get pissed if my descriptions are scrapped? Nah cannot even imagine why I would [:)] I only started doing those write-ups to get some progress anyway.

Terje

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I think the problem is that less can be well...... less. Lets use Creation, Actions (WWII history only) and Fate for example as the 3 key headings and within that a guideline that:
Creation - is about when? - and if interesting why - for what purpose?
Actions - very brief service history which should be briefly expanded only where particularly interesting e.g. Midway, North Cape
Fate will either be a scrapping or sold date or a brief expansion on the engagement that sunk her.

Then, provided all those core bases are covered, if someone wants to spend time writing more on a unit then fine - but at least every unit will have a basic treatment]

My 2 cents.

I think you will see that this is indeed the way these writeups are done, and the very points you have shown here are included in 95% of the counters.

Terje

[Mziln]

ORIGINAL: Norman42

I look at it this way:

First, this isnt an encyclopedia of all things WW2, its a game, and the write-ups while nice 'chrome' are 100% un-needed for the game to function. 

Second, they are being done by volunteers, each with thier own style and knowledge base and bias as to what facts are important.  Expecting a uniformity in this situation is fairly difficult.  To get that you would need a far more comprehensive organization and template then is currently in place. I think the present format listing primary armament, speed, armor, and size is enough in the way of standard 'hard data'.

Third, there are what...6500 counters/write-ups to be done? That is a large undertaking, and to expect a Wikipedia-like entry for all that is beyond what I think the scope of the "write-up operation" is intended to be.  Besides, some units/ships have very little to distinguish them.  Yes, a ship like the Enterprise, Bismarck, or Ark Royal are going to have large detailed writeups, but an obscure Yugoslavian destroyer flotilla or a cruiser sunk by a mine in its first week at sea will not. 

We *could* fill up the write-up with minutia about the slope of the armor belt, or the benefits of different calibres of each anti-aircraft gun, and the differing horsepower of the engineering plants, but that isn't what these write-ups are about.  They are to add a little bit of colour to the square little piece of cardboard(pixels).

Personally, I think less is more.  Aiming for 3-5 short paragraphs (depending on the history of the unit) as a summary of their creation, actions, and fate is plenty. We aren't Jane's Book of Ships 1936-1946.  These write-ups should whet someones appetite to go read further books on the histories of WW2.

My 2 cents.

I somewhat agree with you and I have done alot of writeups. It is nice 'chrome' and is 100% un-needed for the game to function. But...

It is amazing what you can find out while researching the Leaders, Land Units, Air Units, and Naval Units. It also allows you a chance to get involved with the development of the game even if you are not on the betatest team.

I for one didn't know that LtCol Ichiki not only commanded the first failed Jaapanese assult on Guadalcanal. But...

As a Major he was the company commander that ordered the attack on Wanping, precipitating the first real battle of Second Sino-Japanese War (and World War II).

He was also in command of the 28th Infantry Regiment which was the force assigned to assault and occupy Midway Island.

[jesperpehrson]

Rewriting should be second to writing write-ups for all counters. Time is an issue and we still have plenty to go before we are near done. That said I am sure no-one will mind some tinkering with "their" writeups in the end. I am sure I got some facts and details wrong or perhaps missinterpreted and I would love to get them right. 

[marcuswatney]

Steve, in the Béarn write-up you've added a spurious reference to the ship being sunk on 27 Nov 1942 (the date the Vichy French fleet in Toulon was scuttled).  But Béarn, being in Martinique at the time, survived to the end of the war.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

Steve, in the Béarn write-up you've added a spurious reference to the ship being sunk on 27 Nov 1942 (the date the Vichy French fleet in Toulon was scuttled).  But Béarn, being in Martinique at the time, survived to the end of the war.

I added nothing but formatting commands.

What you are referring to is the presentation of ADG data for WIFFE. The unit data is taken from the WIF FE countersheets - which is where that date came from.

[jesperpehrson]

Over 700 land-writeups done! Just another 350 to go! Go team Steve (Zissou? [X(])!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are a couple from Rob on ASW units.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd and last in the series. I had to put the stats on the side - this is pieced together from 4 screen shots.

[Froonp]

During the design of CoiF, I asked about what the counters represented, and I was answered that by the designer :

1 ASW = around 5 to 20 DD/DE/corvette type units, depending on which class & the unit's factors, etc., etc.
1 ASW-CV units = around 6 CVEs.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

During the design of CoiF, I asked about what the counters represented, and I was answered that by the designer :

1 ASW = around 5 to 20 DD/DE/corvette type units, depending on which class & the unit's factors, etc., etc.
1 ASW-CV units = around 6 CVEs.

Patrice - just to be clear was your comment for info or are you suggesting that this be incorporated into the ASW write ups?