Equipment Transition

[Panama]

Is there a danger of a unit having too much of something using a transition? If there are still replacements of the old type while the new type is phasing in can't things get way out of whack? Tried a search and couldn't find anything on this which really surprised me.

[vahauser]

I haven't experienced any real trouble with this. For the most part, the incorporation of new equipment is slow and incremental.

However, if you want to show a dramatic re-equipment (e.g., when the cadre of SSLAH rails away from the Eastern Front, stops in Germany and gets brand new equipment, then heads to Normandy), then have the old unit withdrawn from the scenario and a new re-equipped unit enter play.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

I haven't experienced any real trouble with this. For the most part, the incorporation of new equipment is slow and incremental.

However, if you want to show a dramatic re-equipment (e.g., when the cadre of SSLAH rails away from the Eastern Front, stops in Germany and gets brand new equipment, then heads to Normandy), then have the old unit withdrawn from the scenario and a new re-equipped unit enter play.

There's that little thing about only so many unit counters which is what made me wonder how well the transition thing actually worked. [:(]

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Panama

There's that little thing about only so many unit counters which is what made me wonder how well the transition thing actually worked. [:(]

There is a genuine risk of units ending up with full complements of both types of equipment. This only gets more serious the more different types you include in the transition (a four-five year scenario might see a unit changing equipment two or three times).

I'd advise limiting the use of this where possible, and balancing the delivery of replacements, so that units will never have significantly more than their true full strength.

[madner]

Wasn't the real problem that the first unit is the one that counts for reconstructing purposes?
So if your Panzer regiment has Pz-35 in 1941, Pz-IIIj in 1942 and Pz-V in 1944 it won't reconstruct unless 1944 there are enough Pz-35.

The problem with new unit counters is that it leads to some easy exploits, as you know you will get a fresh unit no matter what.

Fixing it would require real transition of units by event, but I doubt it is high on the priority list.

[Panama]

Maybe Ralph needs to give us an upper quantity value for our units. As in, no more than X number of infantry squads. I don't think he's doing anything at the moment anyway, right? [:D]

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: madner

Wasn't the real problem that the first unit is the one that counts for reconstructing purposes?
So if your Panzer regiment has Pz-35 in 1941, Pz-IIIj in 1942 and Pz-V in 1944 it won't reconstruct unless 1944 there are enough Pz-35.

The problem with new unit counters is that it leads to some easy exploits, as you know you will get a fresh unit no matter what.

Fixing it would require real transition of units by event, but I doubt it is high on the priority list.

Maybe you could use the event engine. If it had room for ten thousand events. [;)]

[madner]

What I would imagine would need only one event. It would create a new unit with the same prof, supply and readiness and on hand equipment as the old one, but with a different TO&E. The new equipment would gradually tick in. 

[vahauser]

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: vahauser

I haven't experienced any real trouble with this. For the most part, the incorporation of new equipment is slow and incremental.

However, if you want to show a dramatic re-equipment (e.g., when the cadre of SSLAH rails away from the Eastern Front, stops in Germany and gets brand new equipment, then heads to Normandy), then have the old unit withdrawn from the scenario and a new re-equipped unit enter play.

There's that little thing about only so many unit counters which is what made me wonder how well the transition thing actually worked. [:(]

Another way to deal with this is with the lower limit. For example, if you start with Pz-38t in 1941, then have it as 135/1 (if we are talking about a division, where 135 is the division's starting strength). The 1 is pretty much just a placeholder and means that Pz-38t production has stopped and that losses will not be replaced. So, this division will dwindle in Pz-38t strength over time. Then, in 1942, Pz IIIJ production will kick in.

[vahauser]

Here is another solution (but it has the downside that it uses several equipment slots for the same equipment).

Let's say that you want to keep the Pz-38t in production for some units, but not for others.
Create one equipment slot with Pz-38t (a), and create another equipment slot with Pz-38t (b).
Thus, you can cancel production with Pz-38t (a) and keep production running with Pz-38t (b).
That way, the units that you want to replace the Pz-38t would use the Pz-38t (a) slot, and the other units would use the Pz-38t (b) slot.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: madner

Wasn't the real problem that the first unit is the one that counts for reconstructing purposes?

This can be fixed by playing around the equipment files and so on to change the first line equipment type to something generic.

Of course, if your panzer division gets annihilated at the start of the war it's not really all that outrageous for it not to be rebuilt in six weeks. However this gets into the definition of "evaporated", which doesn't normally mean the unit has ceased to exist.

The problem with new unit counters is that it leads to some easy exploits, as you know you will get a fresh unit no matter what.

You can resolve this by having the new unit come in with no assigned equipment and disbanding the original (disbanding by event may use too many events but you can use withdraw army and just notify the player when the event is due. It will then be up to him to disband them).

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

Another way to deal with this is with the lower limit. For example, if you start with Pz-38t in 1941, then have it as 135/1 (if we are talking about a division, where 135 is the division's starting strength). The 1 is pretty much just a placeholder and means that Pz-38t production has stopped and that losses will not be replaced. So, this division will dwindle in Pz-38t strength over time. Then, in 1942, Pz IIIJ production will kick in.

The difficulty here is that it assumes that the original tank is going out of service immediately, and numbers may run down too quickly.

A suggestion which does unfortunately add to the number of units in the scenario: have a unit arrive at a set date which has 0/1000 PzKpfw 38(t) (for example) and very high replacement priority. This will suck up any Pz 38s that go into replacements, preventing them from going to the combat units. The unit will of course sit off map and be set to 1% proficiency, supply, readiness etc. so as to avoid breaking the unit scale. Though these figures will creep up over time.

[golden delicious]

Slightly wilder idea;

You could have a series of equipment files for the scenario, and players would switch between them at fixed turns. This would instantly transition all equipment of one type to another type, and replacements would continue as usual.

This has some obvious drawbacks- but it's probably the most seamless solution, encouraging players not to throw their tanks away in early engagements. It also has the benefit of consuming zero unit slots and zero events. If you want to increase the replacement rate (likely for later war models) you can add additional copies of the same equipment type for newer units. This also allows some units to receive the new equipment earlier than others.

[sPzAbt653]

And for another version, you can have two units (one early version, one late version), and two events (a theater option to refit/upgrade the early unit, and when that theater option is chosen it disbands the early unit and the late version arrives). The late version can arrive with all sorts of equipment options, relying partially on the previous disbanded version to fill out (not exact but good enough, I think).
 
As the Golden Apple said, you can usually play with the assigned equipment numbers to get your first line as something that will remain constant, if that is what is needed.

[Curtis Lemay]

I think this comes down to just what a replacement tank consists of. Is it just the tank? Or is it the tank and the tank crew?

My assumption is that it is the latter. If you lose a tank in combat, you tend to lose the crew, too. So the replacement must contain a crew. It's just like squad replacements: are they just the rifles, MGs, grenades, belt buckles, and canteens? Or are their ten dudes in there as well? Well, that's easy - of course the squad replacement contains ten men. Then shouldn't other equipment replacements include crews as well?

Now, sure, there are situations where truely obsolete equipment is set aside and the crews move to new equipment. But the more common replacement situation is due to combat losses. In that case, you need a crew too.

So: If the tanks contain crews, then it doesn't make much difference if they are tossed into the fray in an overstocked unit instead of in a new unit that wasn't in the historical OOB. If the force had not been taking historical tank losses, then the excess replacements would have been formed into new units. Well, TOAW can't handle that, so overstocked units are about as good of a substitute.

I think campaign-length scenarios will actually work better if units are allowed to overstock.

[ColinWright]

The effective way to solve this problem -- as discussed before -- is to have a designer-set upper limit on how many weapons a unit can have.

So you have your Pz Battalion with an upper limit of 56 weapons. It starts with 56/56 Pz-IIIH and 0/56 Panthers. Panthers will start appearing in the pool, and the PZ III's will dry up, but the unit can only acquire Panthers as it loses Pz III's, and it can never put more than 56 tanks into action.

Adding more equipment types would muddy the waters slightly, but the general mechanism would still work.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Now, sure, there are situations where truely obsolete equipment is set aside and the crews move to new equipment. But the more common replacement situation is due to combat losses. In that case, you need a crew too.

I'd say it depends very heavily on the situation. The Russians certainly lost tanks and crews at such a rate that they can hardly have retired many tanks. But the Germans finished 1940 with a great many tanks which didn't show up in their OOB for Barbarossa- they were moved off for training, refit, or sale to allies. In armies which fail to take massive losses, tank crews are often given new vehicles.

So: If the tanks contain crews, then it doesn't make much difference if they are tossed into the fray in an overstocked unit instead of in a new unit that wasn't in the historical OOB.

The difficulty is that the overstocked unit would never exist in the real world. The tank division simply wouldn't have the support organisations to put up 400 tanks instead of 300. What's more you'll have created a monster. Suddenly the other guy has to make his screens a little bit tougher- the risk of RBCs just got worse.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

So you have your Pz Battalion with an upper limit of 56 weapons. It starts with 56/56 Pz-IIIH and 0/56 Panthers. Panthers will start appearing in the pool, and the PZ III's will dry up, but the unit can only acquire Panthers as it loses Pz III's, and it can never put more than 56 tanks into action.

Again, despite involving a change to the engine, this isn't a perfect outcome. The careful player who still has plenty of IIIs in his replacements will still be fielding mostly IIIs in twenty turns time.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

So you have your Pz Battalion with an upper limit of 56 weapons. It starts with 56/56 Pz-IIIH and 0/56 Panthers. Panthers will start appearing in the pool, and the PZ III's will dry up, but the unit can only acquire Panthers as it loses Pz III's, and it can never put more than 56 tanks into action.

Again, despite involving a change to the engine, this isn't a perfect outcome. The careful player who still has plenty of IIIs in his replacements will still be fielding mostly IIIs in twenty turns time.

Well...this strikes me as a somewhat academic risk. If a player's not fighting very hard, either something's wrong with him, something's wrong with his opponent, or something's wrong with the scenario. I'd guess this would be one of those distortions that would show up when one side has obviously won but play is being continued anyway.

It would, in any case, make for a vast improvement over the current situation. As it is, a unit can easily wind up at 150% of TO&E and theoretically at 200%. How often did that happen in reality?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

I'd say it depends very heavily on the situation. The Russians certainly lost tanks and crews at such a rate that they can hardly have retired many tanks. But the Germans finished 1940 with a great many tanks which didn't show up in their OOB for Barbarossa- they were moved off for training, refit, or sale to allies. In armies which fail to take massive losses, tank crews are often given new vehicles.

But for the rest of the war that wouldn't be much of an issue.

The difficulty is that the overstocked unit would never exist in the real world. The tank division simply wouldn't have the support organisations to put up 400 tanks instead of 300. What's more you'll have created a monster. Suddenly the other guy has to make his screens a little bit tougher- the risk of RBCs just got worse.

In the real world (and maybe even in the TOAW world someday), you'd have a production system that would create more Tank units than were made historically. And, personally, I think the risk of RBCs ought to be worse. Although I don't think that should be much of an issue if the empty slots are very widely distributed.

But perhaps it could be addressed via a TO that would give the player with extra tanks a suite of emply tank units that could be filled with the excess. I haven't tried it, but in theory...