Comprehensive Wishlist

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yes.

To be strictly accurate, in the cases I have encountered, naval gunfire has exerted a strong effect only on fighting near the coast -- much closer than the range of TOAW ships would permit. Therefore, the game should simulate that.

For whatever reason, most ships did not provide naval support very far inland. I suspect that it was because they generally lacked any kind of good fire control coordination with the army, and so had to confine themselves to shelling what they could see, but that's secondary.

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

A "fact" used without context is a dangerous thing.

I can think of lots of reasons other than "it was not possible". (In fact, it's absurd to think that it was not possible.) For example, that battleships are costly things to repair or replace and therefore Admirals like to keep them out of range of shore batteries. If shore batteries could be placed on interdiction...

Not to mention the fact that the sea has a tendancy to move in several directions at once making the shells land in a not so precise fashion. I've never had the opportunity to take part in a live fire exercise from a ship so I'm about as far from knowing anything about it as you can get. But if the ships were at anchor in a harbor...

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

If I were writing an encyclopedia I would not use other encyclopedias as my primary source- no matter how good they are.

Like a photocopy (an HP photocopy at least), with each iteration you get further and further from the original image. If you want to produce the best image possible, you have to go back to the source.

An encyclopedia, unlike a wargame, doesn't have to work to be successful. It just has to sound good.

A better example would be, say, a bridge design. If the bridge didn't fall down, and carried its traffic for decades, it's worth studying it. I can use the Golden Gate Bridge as a templet for design elsewhere. I don't have to start from scratch.

A wargame is an engineering project - similar to a bridge. To the extent that the wargame successfully simulated reality (and, as I said, there can be a multitude of metrics that determine that - not just a simple "who won?"), valuable information can be gleaned from it.

The problem here is two-fold.

First, merely that the design 'works' does not demonstrate that the data it rests on is valid. See 'Battle of the Bulge' again. Some real howlers in that OOB -- but the design does 'work.' It delivers historical results.

So your assumption that the data contained in a wargame that delivers historical results is necessarily reliable is absolute tripe.

Second, your notion of 'working' appears to be obtaining historical results. As the SPI designs I have mentioned demonstrate, historical results can be (and are) obtained by means that in fact distort or even contradict reality. Your approach is the equivalent of arguing that wealth is a sign of God's favor, and that therefore Al Capone was a good man.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yes.

To be strictly accurate, in the cases I have encountered, naval gunfire has exerted a strong effect only on fighting near the coast -- much closer than the range of TOAW ships would permit. Therefore, the game should simulate that.

For whatever reason, most ships did not provide naval support very far inland. I suspect that it was because they generally lacked any kind of good fire control coordination with the army, and so had to confine themselves to shelling what they could see, but that's secondary.

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

A "fact" used without context is a dangerous thing.

I can think of lots of reasons other than "it was not possible". (In fact, it's absurd to think that it was not possible.) For example, that battleships are costly things to repair or replace and therefore Admirals like to keep them out of range of shore batteries. If shore batteries could be placed on interdiction...

Not to mention the fact that the sea has a tendancy to move in several directions at once making the shells land in a not so precise fashion. I've never had the opportunity to take part in a live fire exercise from a ship so I'm about as far from knowing anything about it as you can get. But if the ships were at anchor in a harbor...

I can think of lots of excellent reasons -- but precisely which are or aren't valid is really secondary.

It generally didn't happen. That's all we need to be sure of. When one finds examples of effective naval fire support, they usually occur within a few km of the sea. Over and over -- the panzers can bull down to within about 5 km of the beach. They're not getting torn up and tossed in the air thirty km inland -- they get whacked when they get right down to the coast.

Obviously, a system like OPART has to go with what generally happened. Right now, the default assumption is that a battleship can provide devastating fire support up to 30 km inland. If we were going to go with what actually happened, the default would be that ships can only provide fire support in coastal hexes. This could be fine-tuned, and modified, and made modifiable in the scenario designer, and so on -- but that would be the simple solution.

[ColinWright]

Thinking more seriously about the ship/fire support thing, another consideration that would have to be taken into account is that ships that under the current system, ships that provide fire support from hexes adjacent to the target are prone to sudden evaporation.

One way or another, either that would need to be dealt with (it already may be dealt with by the impending change in bombardment rules), or the range would need to be extended to a minimum of two hexes.

Anyway, we have nowhere to go but up. Right now, ships can do grossly ahistorical things.

[dicke bertha]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: jmlima

So, please elucidate me. Firstly you say that the wishlist does not serve as more than a repository of info that may or may not be used, ...

Correct. It's just a list of everybody's wishes.

...then you say that looking through the wishlist would delay the issue of a patch that has been in the works for well over a year.

No I didn't. I said doing a feasibility study for the hundreds of items would do so.

Please tell me the connection between both things. What's the connection between both

?? I guess that there's hundreds of items on the list.

I must also add that Ralph said that the patch was done, and now going through playtest to iron bugs.

Ralph get's carried away a bit. I suppose you could say that all the features are implemented, but not bug free. But, I would say they're not finished till all the bugs are out.

Second, if that's the way you guys work, then I will refrain from further comments. If you guys cannot even estimate how much work it will take to make a small change contained in a patch , then please tell us how do you expect to even be able to pull off a TOAW 4.

Start. Then continue till we're finished.

And a third question, if the programmer does not read the wishlist, then who directs him about the changes to be introduced? Who is in charge of the overall team? Who judges how long would something take Ralph to do?

Ralph decides what he wants to do. But he is persuadable.

jmlima, I find your questions very to the point, and Curtis's answers curt and arrogant. It is absurd that Matrix has no official person to answer the community's questions about future development, sure as hell the developer himself is nowhere to be seen or heard, but we have Curtis in some inofficial official position telling us that this can and this can't be done. Why do we even bother. I've seen very bad project and business management in my life, and this is not good.

[desert]

Thinking more seriously about the ship/fire support thing, another consideration that would have to be taken into account is that ships that under the current system, ships that provide fire support from hexes adjacent to the target are prone to sudden evaporation.

One way or another, either that would need to be dealt with (it already may be dealt with by the impending change in bombardment rules), or the range would need to be extended to a minimum of two hexes.

Anyway, we have nowhere to go but up. Right now, ships can do grossly ahistorical things.

 
Curtis said somewhere that naval and artillery units (the latter if they are made up of 50% or more ranged equipment) will bombard adjacent hexes instead of "assaulting" them in 3.4.
 
I think.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: desert

Thinking more seriously about the ship/fire support thing, another consideration that would have to be taken into account is that ships that under the current system, ships that provide fire support from hexes adjacent to the target are prone to sudden evaporation.

One way or another, either that would need to be dealt with (it already may be dealt with by the impending change in bombardment rules), or the range would need to be extended to a minimum of two hexes.

Anyway, we have nowhere to go but up. Right now, ships can do grossly ahistorical things.

Curtis said somewhere that naval and artillery units (the latter if they are made up of 50% or more ranged equipment) will bombard adjacent hexes instead of "assaulting" them in 3.4.

I think.

He did. However, one would want to make sure that dealt with the problem of evaporating ships before cutting their range.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

This is the problem with having you exert such an influence over the development of TOAW. You're simply impervious to either rational argument or fact.

I'm impervious to your crackbrained concept of rational argument and fact. And that's a good thing.

It's been suggested to you that foot movement rates aren't particularly impacted by 'readiness'

And the person who did so was hilariously wrong.

-- and yet you charge right ahead with a change that would cause them to be impacted by readiness.

Actually, what I'm doing is greatly reducing the the impact of fuel levels on foot movement.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It doesn't really matter much what the reasons are. The fact of the matter is that it generally didn't happen -- for whatever reason.

Therefore, it shouldn't be allowed to happen in TOAW. Whatever the constraints were that prevented it, all us computer generals shouldn't effectively be permitted to override them by fiat.

Let's see ... the Germans never captured Moscow, therefore, it should be impossible in TOAW, etc. etc.

Let's run down some more reasons:

1. By the time the ground forces get well inland, there are lots of ground artillery that better cooperate with the ground forces. Adding naval elements might actually be counter productive. That's already modeled in TOAW via cooperation levels (or will be once 3.4 is out with the fix for that). So properly modeled naval formations won't cooperate well with ground forces and their use will tail off once ground artillery becomes generally available.

2. Battleships aren't designed for prolonged shore support. They're designed for short, sharp, ship-to-ship engagements. Their barrels have to have the linings replaced after about 300 rounds or so. That's modeled in TOAW with the Withdrawal Event.

3. (My personal favorite) Just because you can't find a case of it, doesn't mean it never occurred or couldn't have occurred. We seem to have already had a counter example.

Unless you can actually prove that battleships were physically incapable of supporting beyond 5km, I'm sure there is no risk this will ever be implemented. I'm not going to waste another word on it.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Not to mention the fact that the sea has a tendancy to move in several directions at once making the shells land in a not so precise fashion. I've never had the opportunity to take part in a live fire exercise from a ship so I'm about as far from knowing anything about it as you can get. But if the ships were at anchor in a harbor...

Yet the USS Washington sank a Jap battleship that was over the horizon from it. That's how BB vs. BB action would normally take place.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: desert

Thinking more seriously about the ship/fire support thing, another consideration that would have to be taken into account is that ships that under the current system, ships that provide fire support from hexes adjacent to the target are prone to sudden evaporation.

One way or another, either that would need to be dealt with (it already may be dealt with by the impending change in bombardment rules), or the range would need to be extended to a minimum of two hexes.

Anyway, we have nowhere to go but up. Right now, ships can do grossly ahistorical things.

Curtis said somewhere that naval and artillery units (the latter if they are made up of 50% or more ranged equipment) will bombard adjacent hexes instead of "assaulting" them in 3.4.

I think.

Correct.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

The problem here is two-fold.

First, merely that the design 'works' does not demonstrate that the data it rests on is valid. See 'Battle of the Bulge' again. Some real howlers in that OOB -- but the design does 'work.' It delivers historical results.

So your assumption that the data contained in a wargame that delivers historical results is necessarily reliable is absolute tripe.

No. It's completely valid. As I said, there can be a long list of metrics to determine if it works - covering every single aspect of the topic. To the extent that it operates correctly for each metric, the factors in the game that resulted in that metric are correct.

This is in contrast to a book, where there is no standard whatsoever, and it doesn't have to achieve anything. All else being equal, a working wargame is more legitimate than any book.

[Telumar]

Just a few questions as the patch and the beta team's approach to "feasibility" has been mentioned..there are imho some simple, easy to code things that i'd like to see implemented which can be beneficial to scenario design and dynamics...

Will the following items be incooperated?:

- Movement bias editable by event
- Force proficiency editable by event*
- other force characteristics also editable by event (night combat, electronic support, force communication etc)*
- mechanical attrition (works like pestilence but only affects vehicles)

* this could be of use in campaign games (FitE, Campaign for South Vietnam, CFNA etc)

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

The problem here is two-fold.

First, merely that the design 'works' does not demonstrate that the data it rests on is valid. See 'Battle of the Bulge' again. Some real howlers in that OOB -- but the design does 'work.' It delivers historical results.

So your assumption that the data contained in a wargame that delivers historical results is necessarily reliable is absolute tripe.

No. It's completely valid. As I said, there can be a long list of metrics to determine if it works - covering every single aspect of the topic. To the extent that it operates correctly for each metric, the factors in the game that resulted in that metric are correct.

This is in contrast to a book, where there is no standard whatsoever, and it doesn't have to achieve anything. All else being equal, a working wargame is more legitimate than any book.

Lessee...I give a few examples of wargames that manage to achieve historical results by completely altering historical reality.

You insist that if a wargame produces historical results, it must accurately reflect historical reality. Never mind any examples to the contrary.

You might as well assert the world is flat. It's actually a more defensible proposition.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It doesn't really matter much what the reasons are. The fact of the matter is that it generally didn't happen -- for whatever reason.

Therefore, it shouldn't be allowed to happen in TOAW. Whatever the constraints were that prevented it, all us computer generals shouldn't effectively be permitted to override them by fiat.

Let's see ... the Germans never captured Moscow, therefore, it should be impossible in TOAW, etc. etc.

Let's run down some more reasons:

1. By the time the ground forces get well inland, there are lots of ground artillery that better cooperate with the ground forces. Adding naval elements might actually be counter productive. That's already modeled in TOAW via cooperation levels (or will be once 3.4 is out with the fix for that). So properly modeled naval formations won't cooperate well with ground forces and their use will tail off once ground artillery becomes generally available.

But they can often -- and did -- provide fire support along the shore when needed. Even when lots of shore-based artillery was available as well. See the Axis counterattack at Anzio and the Commonwealth drive on Beirut.

As usual, you come up with a paradigm without referring to historical reality -- and with the usual results. 'Naval formations won't cooperate well with ground forces and their use will tail off once ground artillery becomes generally available' -- well, that's not what actually happened. Even if this change works as advertised, it will make matters worse, not better.

2. Battleships aren't designed for prolonged shore support. They're designed for short, sharp, ship-to-ship engagements. Their barrels have to have the linings replaced after about 300 rounds or so. That's modeled in TOAW with the Withdrawal Event.

Give me a break. It's a good solution to fix when the ships appear and fix when they withdraw? They were still there -- and given a good and deserving target, they would reappear. You can't model that by event unless you're going to script the whole scenario -- and then you are indeed better off with a book.

3. (My personal favorite) Just because you can't find a case of it, doesn't mean it never occurred or couldn't have occurred. We seem to have already had a counter example.

Unless you can actually prove that battleships were physically incapable of supporting beyond 5km, I'm sure there is no risk this will ever be implemented. I'm not going to waste another word on it.

[/quote]



There probably were excellent reasons why warships usually couldn't supply effective fire support deep inland. Aside from the one you mention, I doubt if most navies routinely practiced fire control with land forces that were inland out of sight. They wouldn't even normally have maps.

However, whatever the reasons were is really secondary. A general is not God, and he cannot override the limitations of his force simply by fiat. If, historically, warships usually did not provide fire support deep inland even in situations where it obviously would have been extremely helpful, then it shouldn't be possible in TOAW.

But never mind that. We are doomed to having warships in all scenarios capable of doing precisely what warships rarely did.

That's great. It's nice having an intellect of the caliber of yours in charge of things.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

This is the problem with having you exert such an influence over the development of TOAW. You're simply impervious to either rational argument or fact.

I'm impervious to your crackbrained concept of rational argument and fact. And that's a good thing.

It's been suggested to you that foot movement rates aren't particularly impacted by 'readiness'

And the person who did so was hilariously wrong.

Usual story. I state a point of view, and produce evidence to support it. You produce no evidence whatsoever -- and are certain that you are right.

I would say you're 'hilariously wrong' -- but it's actually more a matter of you being depressingly obstinate and stupid.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Panama

Not to mention the fact that the sea has a tendancy to move in several directions at once making the shells land in a not so precise fashion. I've never had the opportunity to take part in a live fire exercise from a ship so I'm about as far from knowing anything about it as you can get. But if the ships were at anchor in a harbor...

Yet the USS Washington sank a Jap battleship that was over the horizon from it. That's how BB vs. BB action would normally take place.

Sure -- action at sea. That's why I'm averse to simply reducing the range of ships. I'd rather not further ruin the accuracy of TOAW's naval model (which is pretty shaky to begin with). Not to mention, I'm sure warships bombarded targets near the shore from whatever distance from the target they found convenient. I wouldn't be surprised if the West Virginia chose to conduct its bombardment of the beaches at whatever from 20 km out at sea.

However -- for whatever reason -- warships rarely seem to have bombarded targets deep inland, and if they did, I'm not aware of it ever having had a decisive effect.

Therefore -- although I'm confident you won't be able to wrap your head around the concept -- one shouldn't be able to do it in TOAW. It's not historically valid to have an Operation Exporter where the Commonwealth blasts its way up to Beirut simply by shelling the hell out of any Vichy troops within 20 km of the coast. That's not what happened. The Allies weren't able to drive the German defenders 30 km inland across the front at Normandy. Etc. More like 5 km. Hence my proposal.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

Just a few questions as the patch and the beta team's approach to "feasibility" has been mentioned..there are imho some simple, easy to code things that i'd like to see implemented which can be beneficial to scenario design and dynamics...

Will the following items be incooperated?:

- Movement bias editable by event
- Force proficiency editable by event*
- other force characteristics also editable by event (night combat, electronic support, force communication etc)*
- mechanical attrition (works like pestilence but only affects vehicles)

* this could be of use in campaign games (FitE, Campaign for South Vietnam, CFNA etc)

All good ideas, in my opinion. It'd be best if the mechanical attrition could be set by type -- i.e., a rating for the weapon itself -- of course, I tend to use the Bioeditor as a matter of routine. Shermans versus Panthers. The Stuarts are going to hold up a lot better than the British cruisers. Etc.

Then too, applying this as a matter of the weapons rating creates some versatility. Although I haven't got a situation in mind at the moment, somebody might find himself wanting to apply this to the rifle squads as well in some scenario.

[ColinWright]

The fact of the matter -- which Curtis will never bother himself with -- is that ships commonly provided really heavy fire support in two situations.

First, in support of a pre-arranged attack along the coast. This was usually a beach landing, but could also be an attack such as those the Commonwealth troops mounted as they drove along the coast road towards Beirut.

Second, in response to a counterattack as the attacking units drew close to the sea. Sicily, Salerno, Anzio. One outstanding fact about these attacks is that the ships did not usually provide fire support when the attacks were deep inland.

If one seeks to simulate this in TOAW, it boils down to saying ships only support operations within 5 km of the sea -- or the coastal hex, if one wants the rule to be simple and easy to apply. The 5 km figure could use some research and refinement, but it's something like that.

Curtis' point about battleships' barrels may or may not be accurate -- the USN was certainly prodigal with its fire support in support of beach landings, so considering the source, I'd be inclined to check the claim.

However, even if it is accurate, the way to deal with that is certainly not by event. Rather, it would be by not allowing warships to automatically regain full supply while at sea. If your 100% supply battleship was going to dwindle in power if you just bang away with it every turn, then one will be less prodigal in using it.

...but one would still have no reason not to use to support inland operations as opposed to operations along the coast. So even if it exists, addressing this problem would be a separate issue, and not directly connected with the phenomenon of ships restricting their fire support to the coast.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
An encyclopedia, unlike a wargame, doesn't have to work to be successful. It just has to sound good.

A scenario that works isn't necessarily right.

If the bridge didn't fall down, and carried its traffic for decades, it's worth studying it.

Excellent example. If you were going to design a better bridge, you had better study engineering- not just copy the last bridge that was built.

A wargame is an engineering project

Really? I mean.... really?