massive bombardments in china

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball


A fix is coming, but I also don't want to turn the clock back to WITP; in WITP, massed artillery was pretty useless, and not even worth it in China. As Japan, all you could accomplish with artillery in China was to train Chinese troops. Massed artillery is never useless...., provided you mean "massed" in the Russian sense. More than 5,000 artillery tubes per hex (25,000 WITP "Guns") WILL disrupt your opponent! Of course it will also require 12,000 railway boxcar loads of ammunition to fire one 8 hour barrage with all those artillery tubes. Artillery will work..., but it is FAR MORE expensive to use it than the game implies.

The best spot is somewhere in between. Agreed.

1 tube = 5 WitP guns? Are we sure about that? I would have thought it was 1 tube for 1 gun?

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

1 tube = 5 WitP guns? Are we sure about that? I would have thought it was 1 tube for 1 gun?

WITP "guns" include all kinds of things that would not fit the artilleryman's definition of a "tube"...., from MG's on up. One in five is probably a generous estimate of how many are really artillery. It's just another strange and goofy part of the WITP land combat "system"...

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

With so much firepower directed at it, the Cobra example would make it obvious that a bombardment with just 20 tubes per square mile would hardly be felt, and casualties would be minimal. The individual units themselves should barley lose a squad or two with such diluted firepower.

Jim

those 20 tubes wouldn´t get a target area that is a square mile but would focus on a much smaller area where either troops are spotted or expected though. And I wouldn´t want to be in that area where 20 150mm guns are firing.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

Another issue is the number of units able to attack in a 46 mile hex.  THAT's absurd.

To the point of madness. We have looked at this artillery stuff, but as long as some players insist on making monster stacks like this, the whining about "absurd results" sounds rather hollow.

as many people here pointed out with real life examples, troop concentrations in real life by far could exeed those stacks being seen in the game, so in this case you shouldn´t blame the players but rather the game. The problem ins´t the stacks, it´s the possibility to do never ending bombardments as there are no supply constraints at all. At the moment it´s pointless anyway to discuss as patch 2 has (something) changed so we´ll see.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

My suggestion is to make HR for both players not to use the bombardment button. I can't recall any continuous  bombardment attacks that lasted weeks and killed many thousands in the Pacific threatre. Also heaps of distruption and fatigue. The Japanese pre-invasion bombardment of Singapore can't be undertaken in the game because the Japs can't bombard across the straits in the game and once the Japs have crossed the straits to Singapore their bombardment won't be "historical" because they are already on the island. The other Japanese bombardment of Corrigador can't be undertaken as that island isn't in the game and the US surrender when Bataan falls. I don't recall any other Japanese bombardments that lasted days or even weeks like in this game. I don't think that the Allies employed any prolinged bombardments that occur in the game. Without using the bombardment button both players will have to use different tactics.

[Anthropoid]

Would it be easy for the supply system to get less efficient when there is a large stack. I suppose that that would be easy.

Harkening back to TOAWIII: might also be neat to try to simulate traffic jams a bit? = in excess of a certain number of units in a hex that are in either Move or Strat Move/Road in the same hex and some probability for a 12 hour delay or something?

[bklooste]

The problem is monster stacks so why not simulate depth for such large units . Generally the  frontage ( ie units capable of combat) would be 1/4 for such a large stack as divisions dont really intermingle meaning you cant really get more than 1-3 divisions attacking each enemy division.

[Whisper]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

ORIGINAL: Whisper
A game hex is 40 miles across, so it is 1,600 square miles in area. if it is in nautical miles, that makes it 46 statute miles across and 2,116 square miles in area.

Area of a hexagon is calculated by summing the area of all 12 triangles formed by the apothems of each side. Not by multipling "length x width" as with a square.

Not that I _knew_ that before I found this site, but here ya go [:D]

ttp://www.math-prof.com/areavolume/hexagon.aspx

Hexagon 46 miles across:

Area of hexagon = 5,497.53 square miles

LOL [:D] you need a geometry refresher there. This is a square and a hex and a circle, all 40 miles across.
The square has area of 1600 and 2116 if it was 46 miles across.
The circle has area of 1256.6 and 1661.9 if it was 46 miles across.
The hex is somewheres between the square and the circle.

[Canoerebel]

Reducing supply is a start, but only that.  Clever players will still find ways to build up sufficient supply to support Artillery Death Stars. (In China, a single turn of bombardment by a Death Star may be sufficient to ruin a stack of well-entrenched Chinese units thus blowing a hole in the Chinese MLR and making it essentially impossible to defend China).  I suspect the Allied player, later in the game, will find stockpiling supplies even easier than the Japanese player.
 
First and foremost, the effects of bombardment against fortified hexes must be decreased substantially.  Or, at the very least, the likelhood of "nuclear" effects should be reduced considerably.
 
In addition to heightened supply use and diminished effectiveness against fortified troops, shouldn't sustained bombardments result in high disruption and fatigue levels?  This will reduce or prevent nonstop Death Star activity.   

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Whisper

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

ORIGINAL: Whisper
A game hex is 40 miles across, so it is 1,600 square miles in area. if it is in nautical miles, that makes it 46 statute miles across and 2,116 square miles in area.

Area of a hexagon is calculated by summing the area of all 12 triangles formed by the apothems of each side. Not by multipling "length x width" as with a square.

Not that I _knew_ that before I found this site, but here ya go [:D]

ttp://www.math-prof.com/areavolume/hexagon.aspx

Hexagon 46 miles across:

Area of hexagon = 5,497.53 square miles

LOL [:D] you need a geometry refresher there. This is a square and a hex and a circle, all 40 miles across.
The square has area of 1600 and 2116 if it was 46 miles across.
The circle has area of 1256.6 and 1661.9 if it was 46 miles across.
The hex is somewheres between the square and the circle.

If the hexes dimensions are "across" then yes, you are on to something. But if the hexes have 46 mile long sides then the link I posted would be right.

What distance is each hexside supposed to represent? . . . assuming 46 miles across I should be able to figure that out by myself, but . . . um, got work to do! Yeah! Thats it!

[Whisper]

ORIGINAL: vaned74

I agree with Jim on the analysis and also Mike earlier about supply consumption.

Stacking is not really the issue.  Supply consumption for artillery is way off, by maybe a factor of like 10+.  Increase supply consumption considerably and your a long way there - imagine as Japan having to pour 10,000 tons of supplies a day into a bombardment of this magnitude (and as noted above, this is not a big bombardment by WW2 standards - most of the 2400 guns were small 75mm in the divisions and brigades and I'm guessing there are probably 800-1,000 mortars of 81mm or less in size in that total as well).  All told you may be talking about a total of 800 guns of 100mm or more and those in the 155mm to 240mm perhaps less than 200.  Not a lot of heavy arty by western standards for basically 18 division equivalents.

Effects as Jim pointed also need much tweaking - it may not be the 'effect' per individual gun but the distribution and/or replication of that 'effect' on the units in the hex.

Remember that the main effect of bombardment, especially on the tactical offensive, is generally neutralization - as was cited vs. Panzer Lehr. This is particularly more true in the case of troops in fortifications - the primary effect there is neutralization and disruption of communications/spotting until your assault troops can close in. Note that artillery used in the immediate tactical defensive is generally more destructive in its effects. Although, on an operational level it can be very disruptive - think of the pre-assault phase bombardment by the Soviets at Kursk designed to disrupt the German assembly areas. Not an overly 'destructive' bombardment but caused a lot of delay and loss of coordination/timing amongst the assaulting troops as they had to take cover (I would liken this to a "bombardment mission" in WitP by the defenders).

So, I think in terms of the following changes to AE:

1) supply consumption increased dramatically for bombardments; perhaps even the toggle to select a bombardment level and or type (rear area disruption vs. front lines, etc.; counter battery...)

2) better counter battery fire effects

3) more disruption caused by the attacker's artillery in deliberate or shock attacks; more destruction caused by the defender's artillery when subject to deliberate or shock attacks

4) less destruction and more disruption caused by straight bombardment missions

By the way, supply consumption for warships reloading their primary armament is also way off - by similar if not greater proportions.  For example, to refill a standard 9 gun battleships main armament may cost me something like 9 guns * 1 ton per round * 9 'ammo' per gun or 81 tons.  The 'ammo' represents a lot more than 1 round; but, when resupplying it only appears to count as '1'.

There should be some kind of cutt off for stacks too. You can pack a lot of people in 1600 square miles. In Normandy there was more than 40 divisions on both sides in the same area. but 20 divisions just do not open a can of whup@$$ on the other 20 in a day and I don't care haow many shells you have in stock. I can see 3 or 4 with some corps arty support today and 3 or 4 different ones with different corps tomorrow, but the big stacks are not good it lets too much happen too soon..

BTW I know one of the devs and he was trying to get the warships relaoding supply changed but it could not get done. that would have been some good juju.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Whisper
but 20 divisions just do not open a can of whup@$$ on the other 20 in a day and I don't care haow many shells you have in stock. been some good juju.

Exactly, that’s the main problem with all the changes made to land combats in AE. Someone wanted to make it so it was easy to bash your way through a hex full of combat units, but that just didn’t happen in real life. It appears they gave no consideration at all to realistic casualty rates when they made the changes.

The entire Normandy Campaign up until early August when Patton broke out into the Brittany Peninsula would have occurred in just one hex in game. It took the allies 2 months to attrition down the German forces to a point that allowed them to finally overcome the defenders. And they did it with over 5,000 dedicated aircraft, thousands of Army and Corp level heavy caliber artillery tubes and dozens of heavy ships, all dedicated to supporting the battle that occurred during that two month attrition campaign.

That kind of concentrated firepower could never be achieved in the Pacific theater, except perhaps after all the 1946 late war European transfer arrivals show up on map.

No matter how much some people may want things to be different, it was simply not possible to rapidly destroy and overcome a large body of troops, no matter how much firepower you threw at it. And in the Pacific where densities of tubes, aircraft and anything else except ships was much lower than they had in Europe, it would take far longer to do a similar job on a huge stack like the Germans who defended at Normandy.

Jim

[Whisper]

I was a tester for one of the devs for a lot of this stuff and we looked at a lot of normal confrontations, using a lot of battle results, and these look fine to me in random battlespace. I do not know what I am allowed to say about how results are calculated but regular battles have regular results. It is the weird big stack battles that have the weird everybody dies results.

There is something that happens when the stack gets bigger than what you think a normal stack should be. I have heard people refer to it as a exponential effect. If you play with units as they are supposed to be played with, everything works out just fine. If you make gigantic Death Stars other strange things happen.

This is why I think there should be a cut off for hex to hex combat. To cut off the weird exponent effect.

[khyberbill]

I was a tester for one of the devs for a lot of this stuff and we looked at a lot of normal confrontations, using a lot of battle results, and these look fine to me in random battlespace. I do not know what I am allowed to say about how results are calculated but regular battles have regular results. It is the weird big stack battles that have the weird everybody dies results.

There is something that happens when the stack gets bigger than what you think a normal stack should be. I have heard people refer to it as a exponential effect. If you play with units as they are supposed to be played with, everything works out just fine. If you make gigantic Death Stars other strange things happen.

This is why I think there should be a cut off for hex to hex combat. To cut off the weird exponent effect.

What should be the stack limit? What is the size of a normal stack?

[vaned74]

...my sentiments exactly - and Bill is my Allied opponent.

What size stack is enough?  What size stack is too small?  What is "playing with units the way they are supposed to be played with?". Not being argumentative, just have no idea what this means.

The reality is there is nothing unusual about the numbers of men engaged, the problem is in the way the model treats stacks of troops.

Fundamentally, if you look at the troops and AV, the attacker is bringing about 3 times the AV of the defender.  Standard rule of thumb for combat is 3:1 at the point of attack - moreso if the defender is in heavily fortified terrain.  So, one can put stacking limits up - say 10 division equivalents for the defender, but how many can the attacker bring - if he is limited to the same number then?  And how does one decide who is the 'attacker' and who is the 'defender' when they are in the same hex.

There is no solution other than simply working on the model, refining it, and adding supply costs more commiserate with actual combat consumptions (and not just for artillery bombardments - del. attacks, shock attacks etc should require more supplies than they apparently do right now).

By the way, the solution seems to already exist for supplies vs. stacking for the island fighting. The attacker can bring extra men, etc. into the fray but the supply cost is exponential.

[Barb]

I would say a Corps per hex is the right amount of troops for the game. Take this battles:
Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Leyte, Iwo-Jima, Okinawa, Arakan, Imphal, Ledo road, ...

(each had an attackers concentration of approximately 1 corps per hex)

Taking Ichi-go for example, something like 3-4 divisions were at the spearhead while the rest was covering flanks and rotating in and out of combat in front.

[vaned74]

About the only realistic thing I could think of for stacking limits would be not a limit on how many units were in a hex but, how many units could be in bombard, attack, or defend stances - ie, the rest have to be in reserve.  Thus, you could achieve the effect as an attacker of rotating fresh units into the line and the defender would have the opportunity, based on troop experience and leader ability, to have units from reserve move into the frontline.

[Altaris]

ORIGINAL: vaned74

About the only realistic thing I could think of for stacking limits would be not a limit on how many units were in a hex but, how many units could be in bombard, attack, or defend stances - ie, the rest have to be in reserve.  Thus, you could achieve the effect as an attacker of rotating fresh units into the line and the defender would have the opportunity, based on troop experience and leader ability, to have units from reserve move into the frontline.

I was about to post the exact same thought. I think having a cap on number of units attacking or bombarding, and on defense combat mode, works well, with no cap on other units but they have to remain in reserve. Since reserve defenders don't get bombarded, this could help with the massive number of casualties from bombardments as well.

This almost seems to be the idea behind the current reserve model, but there's no engine enforcement to make it work this way.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: vaned74

About the only realistic thing I could think of for stacking limits would be not a limit on how many units were in a hex but, how many units could be in bombard, attack, or defend stances - ie, the rest have to be in reserve.  Thus, you could achieve the effect as an attacker of rotating fresh units into the line and the defender would have the opportunity, based on troop experience and leader ability, to have units from reserve move into the frontline.

Being a complete idiot who cannot even calculate the area of a hex accurately, I just wanted to say that this sounds like a good idea to me too!

[Mike Solli]

In my PBEM (whenever it starts) we've decided on a maximum of 5 artillery units in a hex.