Stength Number

[goodwoodrw]

G'day all, the strength number, how is this number calculated? Is 4 on an armd icon different to an Inf icon. the naual states the 9 is twice as strong as 8. that makes a unit of 9 20 times stronger than a unit with the strength of 1 is that correct. I don't I've seen too many units over the strength of 5 or 6.
please
Ron

[Arjuna]

You mean "Combat Power" see page 129 of the reference manual.

[goodwoodrw]

G'day Dave, yep combat power, I've read page 129, so what combat power is killing ability so a 5 in an inf unit has the destructive power a 5 in an arty or an armd unit is that correct?

[Arjuna]

Pretty much. Just remember that this is an exponential value - ie 2 is twice as powerful as 1 and 3 is twice as powerful as 2 and 4 is twice as poserful as 3 and so. A five is a king hitter![:)]

[GoodGuy]

Is it possible to allow for merging of stragglers/remnants manually in a future installment? Like in Normandy, paras from various Bns had been gathered by Gavin (other COs might have done the same), in order to clear Sainte-Mère-Église, where this mixed bag then proceeded to secure vital bridges behind the beaches.

In real combat, the officer with the highest rank would take over, collect troops, and then mount an attack or defend on objective. Like a straggler-AT unit with let's say some 15 troops but no heavy weapon/gun left would be ordered to join the line troops, most likely. In the game, regrouping takes place, i don't know the algorythm for that, but it looks like a unit would only join other units if it lost most if not all heavy guns and if it suffered a certain percentage of casualties.

In the game, the commander in charge - the player -, should be able to merge battered units, to combine 2 or 3 battered AT units for example, where each one of them has 1 AT gun left. A field commander would not be stubborn and risk the loss of all those single units, if he could combine them to get a unit with punch again.

This would also allow for a whole new experience regarding the german Kampfgruppen, where either the highest ranking officer took charge of a mixed bag as a makeshift solution, or where an officer was appointed to form/lead a KG, or where the strongest mix of units/remnants was believed to achieve the best result.

Would that be possible?

[Arjuna]

Good Guy,
 
I understand where you are coming from and yes it would be nice. But alas, a unit must have an Estab and we can't yet generate these on the fly. They must be compiled into the game and linked to the scenario. About the best we could do was pick an existing estab to use and then pile in rump units, culling out any weapons not in the estab. That could work. In any event it would require a bit of UI and AI coding to work up. Not a huge job but not a small one either. It's too late for BFTB but I'm raising a TT item for it.
 
TT3580 - UI - AI - Allow users to merge rump units into a single unit in the Game

[GoodGuy]

Great, a TT ! Thank you.
I am a bit confused regarding the terms rump unit and "culling" out weapons, though.

Would the rump units get thrown in to "replace" the stragglers, in order to allow mergers? Would they be a fixed part of an estab, so that the engine can place these units on demand? Sorry, I guess i don't get it .

[Grell]

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

Great, a TT ! Thank you.
I am a bit confused regarding the terms rump unit and "culling" out weapons, though.

Would the rump units get thrown in to "replace" the stragglers, in order to allow mergers? Would they be a fixed part of an estab, so that the engine can place these units on demand? Sorry, I guess i don't get it .

I am confused as well.

Regards,

Greg

[Arjuna]

A rump unit is the straggler - ie it's been reduced to a rump only - probably a bad expression on my part...don't worry about it. Culling means "removing from" and so if you have an AT unit with a 76mm AT gun remaining and you want to absorb it into an inf unit, then you would add the personnel and small arms from the AT unit but leave its AT gun behind - ie it would be destroyed.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

[]... so if you have an AT unit with a 76mm AT gun remaining and you want to absorb it into an inf unit, then you would add the personnel and small arms from the AT unit but leave its AT gun behind - ie it would be destroyed.

Great, that would be perfect if the player wants to obtain personnel to strengthen a given INF line unit.

But that brings up new questions, hehe, oh I don't want to make things more complicated, i am just curious:

So i guess if the inf unit in your example (let's assume it's motorized) would have a sufficient number of vehicles which would be able to tow a 76mm AT gun, they would still leave that AT gun behind? It isn't possible to render that remaining AT gun as well, technically, with that ermmm "rump"-method?

Another example, if you have 2 different AT units, where each one has let's say 15 troops and only 1 AT gun left, it would be neat if the player could merge these without scrapping the AT guns. A merger wouldn't have any benefit for the commander/player if they'd just convert to line troops in order to shoot at tanks with their "airguns". See? [:)]

The germans, for instance, had to take care of vital assets due to the strained situation regarding raw materials, hence them using wreckers (Bergepanzer Tiger) and other vehicles to obtain crippled equipment. A commander wouldn't scrap undamaged guns right before a merger, would he?
Maybe that's not possible with this game engine, but I still don't get why heavy equipment would have to culled before a merger.

[Arjuna]

It's a limitation of the game engine. If the estab doesn't have the equipment type and we added it anyway, then it would be culled the first time the unit took a casualty, due to the culling code that's already there. Moreover it wouldn't get resupplied with ammo for any item not in the estab. There's probably a whole pile of other things that would happen as a result...but I can't recall right now.