What manpower to represent in units and how to hamper logistics

[Chief Rudiger]

I've been looking at reusing the Narvik Map from COTA to explore the fatigue and supply models better but in researching the Norwegian OOB I came across the following excellent site, which prompts some design questions about estabs:

http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge/ ... ition.html

The table gives values for combat and non combat personnel at Company to Brigade level, which I found quite informative considering this game, and most other works, tend to concentrate detail on the "teeth" rather than the "tail". Bearing in mind that these values are from a pre war source and probably don’t represent the hastily mobilised 1940 Narvik unit what's got me is which units to include in the Company, Bn/Div Hqs estabs and which in the Bde/Div Bases, if at all. For example, was a motorised field hospital actually raised, in the North, in the confusion? Should the Bde Pioneer Coy, if it were raised, which seems likely, be a discrete unit? Yes? Should the other Medical detachments? No. Should Medical units even be included in the Bde Base unit? Again no. But the Communication and MT Company should?

Alternatively, Developers/Modders have you worked from a rule of thumb whereby the base strength is a factor of the Bde's bayonet strength? What about number of trucks/wagons/man packs?

Separately, in my limited Narvik scenario I hope to better represent the horrors experienced by even the acclimatised Norwegian troops in trying to operate against the thick snow and tough German defence. What I imagine to be a better fatigue and weather model in BFTB vs. COTA should, I hope, make this more realistic.

In particular, to exacerbate the supply situation, if Bn each had a Base company, with only man packs, this would really hamper the delivery of supplies to the troops. The Bde Base might have wagons or Lorries to deliver to the Bn Base in bulk but from there onwards there would be a bottleneck in the flow down to the Bn's fighting companies. Limited man pack numbers, small quantities and slow deliveries would make the player really use the Min/Max resupply options. As a result, the companies might therefore be tied to limited objectives, such as clearing the enemy from observation of the nearest village, where the Bn Base would then be brought up to and to where reserve companies could return to regain supplies and fatigue really quickly.

[Chief Rudiger]

Oh yeah, and if anyone knows of similar data available for the Gebirgsjager please let me know, i'm finding nothing vry detailed online.

[Chief Rudiger]

Found the below website linked from the Bayonet Strength website and just thought i'd share. Even for those who prefer NATO symbols to pictorial graphics, this is a bit too far!

http://niehorster.orbat.com/011_germany ... geb_3.html

[Chief Rudiger]

From the above it seems like the GJ Bn is pretty much identical to a regular Infantry Bn of the early period, so i've used the information available from Bayonet Strength, for now. The following link is for the download of a small hypothetical Narvik scenario where a two Bn Norwegian Bde have objectives clear the heights overlooking the main road from the North to Narvik. A German Mtn Bn defends the pass.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WT4LVM70

Each Bn has a Bn base, on a man pack basis, and the Nor Bde has some horse drawn carts. Playing mainly as the Norwegians i have found that any attack quickly fatigues your men to the point of uselessness making keeping a reserve company essential for consolidating or exploiting success. Troops can recover from fatigue if left in the open, but only very slowly, whereas those that are withdrawn to the villages in the North recover much faster. The Germans, on the other hand, do not have sufficient troops to hold all objectives and keep back a reserve.

Like me you may find having to abandon attacks for a day or two, leaving a company on the ground won and hoping the AI doesn't manage to dislodge them before you return to the attack. Also, you may experience the same difficulty in withdrawing fatigued units, even with rest set at "none", as they seem to be bloody minded and rest before getting to shelter. Not unlike instances i've read about, but i doubt representative of the whole. What can be done about it, other than to not fatigue your troops excessively, i do not know.

I think i will continue to play about with the Bn Base as they still seems to have sufficient capacity to man haul everybodys supplies forward, all the time, which i want to prevent. Maybe fewer "man pack" vehicles or changing the weights/min order quantities of ammo/basic supplies.

[Chief Rudiger]

@ Arjuna et al

I think i have observed a Bde Base supplying a Inf Coy directly, rather than through the Bn Base, which is listed as that Coy's base in the appropriate tab. Is this possible or am i misinterpreting what i've seen. Sadly, I have not been able to replicate this, but it interested me.

At all times the drawing units listed the correct base while that intermediate Bn bases did not always lists supply convoys as dispatched ot returning when their respective Coy's recieve their supplies. When this happened i found returning convoys from the Bde base but did not think these were returning from the Bn bases.

Is this the AI deciding that it is easier to directly supply the Coy from the Bde Base rather than hump supplies one way, handle them, and hump them half way back the same way? The Bde Base is equiped with stock 0.5t wagons capable of carrying 10 times the weight of the custom made "Man Handled Supplies". Both "vehicles" as listed as type = "truck" and have effectively identical movement stats, so it would make sense to cut out the middle man in this situation.

Could you clarify, even with the stock Regt/Div/Corp base structure, that supplys are only push-pulled directly between tiers and no skipping-the-middle-man can happen? The reason i ask is that i want to really hammer units with supply problems if they are positionned far from their base and don't want the AI 'cheating' by routing truck loads of goodies right up to the front line.

[Arjuna]

Chief,

Alas for your model, the AI does have smarts in it to directly supply a force from a higher level base. During the ResupplyDetermination() all units determine their supplying base. There is a strong bias towards using their organic base but this can be overridden - usually where there is a major separation i9n distance and its closer to use a higher level base ( as in your example ).

[Chief Rudiger]

If i set the .5t wagons to have 0/0 normal/max cross country speeds in the vehicles performance tab will this restrict the unshown supply columns movements to roads and tracks or, as Simovitch pointed out in this thread (tm.asp?m=2502871 that some vehicle data fields are not activated) is it just the Force's Speed Normal/Max speeds that are considered and the vehicle performance data ignored?

What i'd like is to make the Bde convoys road bound or capable of very limitted cross country performance, so that they are uncapable of reaching forward units. I would then like to have the Bn supply "vehicles" the opposite. This would prevent the Bde supplying forward units in most situations.

[Arjuna]

No that won't work without special coding. Moreover it's not that realistic. There were numerous occassions where units got supplied direct from division. In the German Pz Divs for instance most tank units were supplied direct from Division base. We've sort of fudged that at the moment to keep the model consistent and to provide some flexibility by providing them with three Regt bases.

[Chief Rudiger]

So is the vehicles road/cross country performance field data actually implemented ingame or is it just there for future use? Is it the Force's Normal/Max speed that is used instead, and is this just modified by slope and other terrain effects?

[Arjuna]

IIRC the vehicle speeds act as a limiter on the unit speeds. In other words maxSpeed = min( vehicleMaxSpeed, unitMaxSpeed ). Does that make sense?

[Chief Rudiger]

Yeah, makes sense. Thank for the clarification. The Lebanon map i'm maping is quite mountainous and there are several island of vehicle inaccessible terrain, which, unless breached by tracks, seem to force the supply scenario i'm looking for (yes, perhaps mistakenly). Any units on these hilly "island" are starved of supply so will have to be rotated to supplyable areas to restock. The map is criss-crossed by tracks, to symbolise mountain paths, which'll have reduced vehicle movement rates, so hopefully no location should be entirely inaccessible, unless the track juntions are occupied/dominated by the enemy that is! Am i right in thinking that a slope with angle >30 degrees, although passable, will just take vehicles ages? Does the gradient value in the vehicle estab actually get factorred in?

I've been reading a few of the COTA threads dealing with supply, as below. Are all these rules still valid/unchanged for BFTB, in particular the firepower influence of bombardment units? Also, from the final post, is "TT3482 - UI - Enemy Supplu Line Status" and Franklin Nimitz subsequent suggestion that shot up convoys be shown on the map still on the to-do list? This would be brilliant in my Lebanon scenario, as you would see stacks of "vehicles" shot up on roads such as the "mad mile" into Jezzine, and at corners until supplys started to be routed over the hills on pack animals.

tm.asp?m=1301595&mpage=1&key=Supply%2CCOlumn&#1302390

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Filippo,

Welcome. I'm glad you are enjoying COTA.

The straight lines you see from Base to drawing units is purely abstract. The actual supply line follows a supply route that is generated when the supply column is despatched. This is like a normal avoidance route but with a uses a very high caution factor and so gives any known enemy concentrations and their firepower influence a wide berth. They will try to stick to raods but are not restricted to them. We don't display this path, because of the processor load. Instead we use the straight line and colour it to indicate the status - ie open, threatened or cut.

To cut off enemy supply lines you need to surround the enemy such that there is either a friendly unit or its strong firepower influence blocking all possible routes in. Alternatively overrun its base.

Each drawing unit develops its own supply route to the base, so it is quite possible that one company of a battalions four or five could be out of supply while the rest of the battalion is in supply.

tm.asp?m=1738731&mpage=1&key=Supply%2CCOlumn&#1738858

Interdiction Markers

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

RedDevil,

Good point. However, my first reaction is that it's going to be difficult to do because of the way we abstract the supply delivery through an event rather than by moving a supply column on the map as a unit. We did this to alleviate the processor load.

When the supply transport event executes to deliver the supplies it checks the route to see what firepower influence is along it. It then uses this to determine any casualties and losses to the supply column. The trouble is the firepower influence maps are an amalgam of the firepower from all enemy units. These are calced each minute when each unit processes its next event. Effectively adding their firepower to wherever they can see ( attenuated by terrain and range ).

We do not store which units contributed to the firepower influence at a given location. So it's not possible to attribute it to any individual unit or to a group of them for that matter.

However, what I do take from what you say is that you would like some indication that you are cutting the enemy's supplies in a given area or to a given unit. The latter is probably more easily done as we could use the Unit Info Boxes on enemy intel reports to indicate supply lime status just as we do now for friendly units. I'm concerned that we do not give away too much info here though.

I'll ponder a bit more. Suggestions welcomed.

TT3482 - UI - Enemy Supplu Line Status - Options to provide feedback eg Unit Info Box