Team Experience

[TIMJOT]

Originally posted by Jeremy Pritchard


This type of memory and detailed micro-bits will improve the game, much better so then adding flashy unecessary bits. Something else along this memory that I would like to see is different penalties to reflect reality as well. For example, air combat experience loss when changing aircraft types. Plane types that are similar (i.e., P-38G and P-38J) should not have the same experience loss as changing the air group to have a completely different type (i.e., P-39 to P-38G).


Maybe instead of figuring out a TF experience, there should just be a TF penalty? When you form a new TF, you might get certain negative and positive group factors.


(+/-) National Differences/Similarities

(-) Language Differences

(+/-) Theatre of Operation Differences (i.e., a ship that spent a lot of its time in the North Pacific will have a lower chance in working with a ship that operated in the South Pacific)

(+) Served in the same TF at a previous engagement

(+) Have been in the current TF for X amount of time

(+) A part of a pre-war unit

(+/-) TF Commander organization factor (possibly a new experience level to be included for all TF commanders)

I dont think it would be too hard for a program to be included to determine wether or not a certain ship has been in the same TF as another friendly vessel.

These positive and negative factors will be added up and averaged to determine the TF experience factor (could be negative or positive, but a base level of 0). Should you want a higher TF experience factor, there should be an option to 'work up a task force' so it would perform certain non-combat operations to bring up the TF experience factor.

Sp, a TF with high experience, but a -2 TF experience level will have a tougher time against a medium experienced level 1 TF experienced TF.

This was one of the main things that the Japanese had for them for the first few months of the war. They tended to use pre-war formations, which would have their high experience combined with high TF experience. When up against Allied vessels (many of which would have high experience, notably the RAN and RN) the hodgepodge Allied TF's that never worked together suffered. However, when you look purely at experience level they are not that different (the only navy with actual war experience was the RN and RAN, the USN and IJN should have similar daytime experience).

However it is done, however simple they can make it (simpler the better), I feel that it would be an important aspect to add, especially when you add the British and the Dutch into the equation. Otherwize, you will end up with mixed nationality TF's either being too powerful, or too underrepresented in ship experience to compensate.

I agree all this is quite desirable and I would love to see something on these lines in the game, but then again Im not a programmer and I wouldnt want the game to be delayed years in order to get it. The game engine as is; is quite playable if not totally realistic. Maybe the scale of WITP makes it less than neccessary for the game.

[byron13]

Yeah, guys, I'm not saying this is a bad idea. And it certainly is realistic. My point is that it very unlikely you'll see it because, as you start to program it, it is a considerable undertaking that will be subject to bugs.

1. WitP is going to be based on the UV engine, and I'm guessing that most of the programming is going to be focusing on adding those functions - like production - that are not accounted for in UV and in fixing real problems that exist in UV. I don't expect them to be adding too many bells and whistles - especially when the programming expense far outweighs the benefits gained.

2. This is, again, subject to bugs. "Memory" of how long each ship on a side served with every other ship on that side and in what capacity is complicated enough where you are likely to have bugs. After the beating Matrix took on the bugs in UV, why set themselves up for more people vowing to use their game CD as coasters for such a nominal gain?

In summary, I'm saying this is a good idea, but we're not likely to see it. And, to the extent I have any say :rolleyes: , I would advise Matrix against it. I'd rather they spent their time finding and reducing the inevitable bugs in the more basic functions of the game. (Or in improving the optional production )

[Ron Saueracker]

I'd nix this idea. Ships crews turned over on a regular basis, most likely nullifying any advantages gained by time spent operating together. COs don't change over 4 or 5 years of game time, so why go to this level of detail? There are more important issues to improve upon/include than this. How about making air ops more flexible, for example. I really can't agree that an entire fighter squadron is required to fly LR CAP, but with this engine, it does. Perhaps splitting the groups into divisions, or adding a sliding % bar for the LR CAP mission would do?

[Raverdave]

Originally posted by mdiehl


Raver -- The vastly overwhelming majority of Malay actions were daylight actions. Most of the night actions, night landings in and night river crossings in particular, were *largely* unopposed. If you look closely at the Malay night actions that did occur, I'm sure you will find a litany of interesting open flanks, undefended fords, crying needs for machine guns, and so forth. If you throw enough troops at a weakly defended objective at night, you will succeed despite the inevitable ill-timing, lost units, friendly fire casualties and so forth.

So what do you call the final assault on Singapore itself, conducted at night, across a water feature and against entrenched troops?

Night movement was during WW2 just horrid on unit cohesion, and on CAC, which is the reason why the US/UK nations

agree

and Japan (prior to the G'canal campaign) did not *routinely* use it.

Disagree.....the IJA first developed the night attack from their experiances in the Russo-Japanese war. It was further refined and used in operations in China.

It was only really suitable for squad-sized units (infiltration, saboteurs and so forth,

Incorrect as far as the IJA was concerned, they employed unit sizes from Company to Divisions.

as with USN Seals and the interesting RN canoe-raiders in Singapore harbor). IJN troops were not better at night combat than anyone else, and when they tried it in the PI after their initial landings they got wupped. The attempts to infiltrate Corregidor -- disasters. At the 'Canal -- disasters. At New Georgia -- disaseters. At Buna -- disasters. At Saipan, Iwo, Guam -- same.

PNG, Burma, Malaya, China, all had successful night operations conducted by the IJA.
Well I could spend the next few nights digging up examples of when and where IJA night attacks were successful.............but would all that work that I put in make any dent in your views? I think not, you seem set in your ways.

Even now, most modern armies are not particularly night combat capable. The mainstream 1st world armies (UK, US, and to a limited extent Russia) have worked at this, and are aided by GPS, personal radios, IR instrumentation, UV optics, laser targeting and so forth. Yet it still can easily become FUBAR in a fast and horrid way, according to some pals of mine from Ft. Knox. There was this storey of some Bradleys driving off a bluff in NM or TX. For the most part, good night observtaion tools still give the advantage to the defender in night combat -- at least until artillery or something forces him to move from his position.

I was in the Infantry, and we did train for night ops. It was not fun, and yes it could be very very confusing, but that was the whole idea of training......to reduce the confusion. Any operation at night is NOT the prefered method of engaging the enemy, but you have to be able to conduct all types of operations at night, after all that is the role of the infantry, "By day or night, regardless of weather".

[Jeremy Pritchard]

Actually, the Japanese landing on Singapore was against the overstreched and worn out Australian formations. In no way was this an attack against powerful forces.

Most of the problems encountered with the Japanese at night is due to infiltration tactics, not massed assaults. These were mainly raids, ment to disrupt their opponents and cause them to withdraw the next day (what happened in Malaya, Burma and New Guinea). There were very few nighttime pitched battles, and these resulted in very few casualties primarily because of the innacuracy of fighting at night.

Night tactics were generally used to confuse your opponent, to win a battle without fighting it. It worked up until a point, but failed horribly against a concentrated defense (what the allies learned to do in late 1942).

[Raverdave]

Originally posted by Jeremy Pritchard
Actually, the Japanese landing on Singapore was against the overstreched and worn out Australian formations. In no way was this an attack against powerful forces.

Yes but it was still a night operation, conducted at divisional level. A night attack across a water feature. The Assault on Singapore was one of the best infantry assaults of the war, ranking in my view with D-Day. As to the reason why Singapore was lost, well that is another great subject for discussion but in a nutshell it was due to Percival in the main, but Bennett also shares some fault.

Night tactics were generally used to confuse your opponent, to win a battle without fighting it. It worked up until a point, but failed horribly against a concentrated defense (what the allies learned to do in late 1942).

And for that exact reason is why it should be allowed, the infiltration and flanking done at night caused major problems for allied forces (God knows they had enough problems with these tactics during daylight).

[John Carney]

IJA often used night combat, but to say they were better at it.
Early in the war they were succesful at it, but their losses were sometimes very high.
The US used a night attack to take the airfield at Buna. Lt Robert Odell's account was very good, and most of his unit was killed or wounded in the action, after it had been severly reduced by the march from airfield they were landed at. But the US attack prevailed.
How do you model in when a small penetration causes a larger unit to retreat, not knowing the real number of enemy troops commited to the battle. The real benifit of night combat.

[mdiehl]

So what do you call the final assault on Singapore itself, conducted at night, across a water feature and against entrenched troops?

I call it an example of a massive assault on a thin exhausted line, consistent with my earlier observation that night attacks tended only to work when circumstances of the defense were already pretty adverse.

No one said that the IJA did not attempt such attacks, only that they tended to succeed only against a enemy already in disarray (low readiness, exhausted, ill-trained, or poorly equipped so that they lack defensive firepower). The results of night attacks after the Malay campaign were pretty much substantial disasters. And as Jeremy noted, casualties were still pretty high.

So, you'd have some really expert Japanese divisions in the Malay campaign, attacking with their EXP halved at night, against some mediocre divisions whose readiness was wuite reduced. In the Singapore attack, if the game were the old PW, it'd shake out as something like IJA exp (average around 70) halved to 35 for night attack, vs. RIA forces (EXP around 45, IIRC) halved to 22 for want of readiness. The IJN would still have the advantage, and the low EXP and readiness of the Singapore troops would still lead quickly to a morale failure and surrender.

[ltfightr]

I agree that task group exp. would be difficult to manage as a player. Plus I sometimes dissolve task groups and reform them using the same ships for various tasks. How would you keep track of what ships were used together. If I use the same ships did I just form a new task group or did I not? I think this would open a big opportunity for this routine to be very buggy. I think that ship exp is a good compromise.

[Jeremy Pritchard]

But the thing is, ship experience is not a good identifyer for how well a TF will work together. Relying on just ship experience will result on one of two things happening.

#1. Allied TF's are too effective in the early war.

#2. Allied ship experience is unrealistically handicapped to represent TF ineffectiveness in the early war.

This is one of the features that I would rather see instead of R&D and Production. It adds another realistic 'headache' to the fleet commander. Instead of setting up TF's willynilly keeping them together and building up experience as a group (could be very small factors, a factor of 3 could be seen as a good experience level for TF's, it does not have to be in the 100's).

The biggest complaint is about the inconvenience of the situation, but it is designed as an inconvenience to replicate a real one. It is not to say that a recently formed TF should have poor experience, but rather that one that has worked up for a while will perform better then one recently formed, but the recently formed TF will nto necessarily perform at levels poorer then it should given its experience.

[ltfightr]

I am currently opposed to Task Force experiance. Not for the inconvience as my first post may have led people to think.

While it will be a pain with the right reports and memory allocation it would be workable and realistic.

My biggest objections are:
1. I do not want to further slow down the development of the game. I want to play now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. I think (since I do not write code) that this will be a major program code change. This looks to me to be a bug nightmare.
3. I would rather them spend the development budget on production controls/options, alternative start situations and making the game as bug free as possible. Lets face it there is only so much development $$ and time before the game must be sold for the company to survive.