Unlimited stacking

[Andrew Brown]

The $64 question is - what are reasonable stacking limits for the different terrain types in AE? Any limits would definitely have to take into consideration the presence of roads and/or railways, of course.

Andrew

[Shark7]

Actually Andrew I'm starting to think that the combat to the over stacking in the jungle hexes is in fact a change that makes the malarial effect exponentially greater as you stack more and more troops into 1 concentrated area. IE the more troops you have in the hex, the faster malaria can spread and the more supplies you eat up in the process.

And AE only shows to model malaria, not dysentery or other tropical diseases.

[JWE]

Hi Andrew; Well, that sure is the question, isn’t it? There’s only 4 possibilities for byte 32, 6k, 30k, 60k, unlimited. So how about a test?

M’kay, let’s do Burma. And tag the hexes at 60k. What this will do is increase Fat and Dis if hex is overstacked; increase supply consumption by 20% for all + more for every 10% over the limit. Not bad if there’s a road or railroad, since supply can move better along that path, but having a railroad in the jungle doesn’t mean the jungle can support more troops, just that more supply has a chance of getting through.

Babes has done a lot of work in giving various units their actual manpower, so a 60k limit would allow for three divisions (or division equivalents) max, per hex. Makes for hard slogging, and long term supply build up, and if ya step off the road, you will become toast, rickey damn tick. Hmm, not too bad.

Not really looking at actual deployment capabilities. Most people play righteous, so just want to further limit the ‘death star’ approach. Think 3 divisions (total) is pretty good. That doesn’t say one can’t have 9, but the supply difficulties would soon nip that tendency in the bud.

Thinking on it, maybe try a 20k blanket with 60k along the roads? Hootz Kazooties! Talk about slowing down the ops tempo, Woof!!

[ed] haven't even begun to think about China. Hate to even begin thinking about China. But I would do the same darn thing in China. Let people put 1,000,000 men in a hex and starve to death. If ya think about it, 60k ain't bad. It equates to maybe 150-300,000 in real terms. And China wasn't Normandy, and China did not have either the US, UK, or GE supply infrastructure. And neither did Japan. So ... I spent some in SE Asia as an officer in an artillery unit (Battery F and Battery H, 319th AFAR) and can tell ya true, the only reason we had shells, beer and clean linen, was our own supply infrastructure. If we depended on the country, I doubt if the US could have supported as many troops as even the French did. So, I take logistics claims with a large grain of salt.

[el cid again]

These fine comments also work for me. In Jungle with trails - you only fight at the trailhead - or at cleared locations - which may be quite small.
Generally - a battalion has an offensive front on the order of 500 yards - a defensive one 1000 yards. In some terrain you might have two or even three lines (very rare - but see the Eastern Front). But usually just one line. So the effective engagement is something like 1 man per foot of linear front. And linear front depends on the hex type and the communications in that hex. If clear terrain - you have 46 x 5280 feet of linear front - over 212 000 - quite a large number. Discussions of unrealistic numbers in jungle hexes might be well addressed if the hexes had lower troop capacities.

ORIGINAL: Big B

Just a few comments -
I think on the whole some 'stacking' limitations would be realistic and desirable also (+1).

The idea of developed hexes (urban hexes) having the highest capacity is a good start, with other terrain having more limitations in descending order. 
I think examples of what may be appropriate can be drawn from a look at known examples from the ETO & Italian Front.

For a few quick examples; Normandy would be about two hexes at this scale. I think the assault beaches on D-Day stretched about 80 miles in frontage - and not urban terrain either.
Also, the Ardennes front (Battle of the Bulge) was also about 80 miles of frontage (non-urban, heavily wooded and very hilly as well) - so another example of a two hex front in this game scale.
In both cases above,  something in the order of 500,000 to 1,000,000 men were able to concentrate and engage (per side).

A further example could be drawn from the Italian Front - the Gustav Line & Cassino Line.  The battle line across Italy held by the US 5th Army & British 8th Army in the winter of 43-44 is again - exactly two hexes (80 miles) across the Italian peninsula (measured in a straight line) - all very mountainous and constricted terrain. And yet the Germans and Allies deployed numerous divisions in combat in that limited area (I don't remember the exact count off the top of my head - but more than 20 divisions).

The biggest limiting factor in all of the cases above (to my mind) isn't really terrain type per say - but supplying the troops ...the road net available to deploy from and run supply through. This is where the ETO would seem to be much more suited to large deployment compared to most examples one could draw from just about anywhere on our map.

So in summary, I think deploy-able frontage in most cases of 'all land' hexes it would turn out to be quite large - with the biggest limitation being the assumed road network in any given hex.

Just my 2c.

B

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Hi Andrew; Well, that sure is the question, isn’t it? There’s only 4 possibilities for byte 32, 6k, 30k, 60k, unlimited. So how about a test?

M’kay, let’s do Burma. And tag the hexes at 60k. What this will do is increase Fat and Dis if hex is overstacked; increase supply consumption by 20% for all + more for every 10% over the limit. Not bad if there’s a road or railroad, since supply can move better along that path, but having a railroad in the jungle doesn’t mean the jungle can support more troops, just that more supply has a chance of getting through.

Babes has done a lot of work in giving various units their actual manpower, so a 60k limit would allow for three divisions (or division equivalents) max, per hex. Makes for hard slogging, and long term supply build up, and if ya step off the road, you will become toast, rickey damn tick. Hmm, not too bad.

Not really looking at actual deployment capabilities. Most people play righteous, so just want to further limit the ‘death star’ approach. Think 3 divisions (total) is pretty good. That doesn’t say one can’t have 9, but the supply difficulties would soon nip that tendency in the bud.

Thinking on it, maybe try a 20k blanket with 60k along the roads? Hootz Kazooties! Talk about slowing down the ops tempo, Woof!!

[ed] haven't even begun to think about China. Hate to even begin thinking about China. But I would do the same darn thing in China. Let people put 1,000,000 men in a hex and starve to death. If ya think about it, 60k ain't bad. It equates to maybe 150-300,000 in real terms. And China wasn't Normandy, and China did not have either the US, UK, or GE supply infrastructure. And neither did Japan. So ... I spent some in SE Asia as an officer in an artillery unit (Battery F and Battery H, 319th AFAR) and can tell ya true, the only reason we had shells, beer and clean linen, was our own supply infrastructure. If we depended on the country, I doubt if the US could have supported as many troops as even the French did. So, I take logistics claims with a large grain of salt.

Let me make sure I understand this.

Rather than limit the troops, limit the supplies so that stacking more than X number of troops becomes counter productive, even to the point of destroying your own formations? Actually sounds like the best solution to me.

[JWE]

So, I dunno JeffK, you want to try a short scenario with Burma and New Guinea being hex limited? Lots of people want lots of things, but don't have the donger to work it. Can get you a good one, if you want to play with it. pm me.

Ciao John

[Andy Mac]

Atoll stacking causes rand 1 -5 fatigue and rand 1 - 5 disruption per day if overstacked
and supply wastage penalties with are exponential based on level of overstacking.

Whatever you do needs to be tested a lot - I did that Burma scenario a few months back if you need a test bed

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Atoll stacking causes rand 1 -5 fatigue and rand 1 - 5 disruption per day if overstacked
and supply wastage penalties with are exponential based on level of overstacking.

Whatever you do needs to be tested a lot - I did that Burma scenario a few months back if you need a test bed

Is the rand 1 -5 the same regardless of the overstack or is it an exponential effect?

[Andy Mac]

Same not exponential albeit not having enough supply prevents recovery

[Nikademus]

hmmmm...

so one could set stacking limits to a low number in the hexes between India and North Burma so that even with one decent sized unit there would exceed the limit causing the penalty in disruption and fatigue. This could be a good way to simulate the virtual inability to supply overland that way. In Theory.


I'm usually wary about stacking limit talk. The same hex system is just too clumsy to represent flanking maneuvers that go with traditional stack limit single owner hex systems like WitE. Then again.....i hate Telephone Pole tactics so perhaps it is the lesser of two evils. Could make for some good experimentation.

[Andy Mac]

All I can use is my own experience in Burma and I cannot supply a telephone pole witht he current system so a change would double up the impact without the ability to build up infrastructurte to offset it.

Need to be carefull with this as we dont have the ability to invest in infrastructure to improve the supply load of terrain.

e.g. IRL when Slim counterattacked in 45 he was able to supply best part of 5 - 6 Divs plus support units and 2 Armoured Bdes from Assam to North Burma so it was possible (albeit difficult) a static map makes me very wary of setting a limit low enough that it will kill the ability to attack

In my current game with PZB I have not had more than 70,000 men in any one hex even on the plains - if you implement this system you may need to disable the current supply limitation fix we have in Burma/Australia. (which would replace a dynamic fix where investing in bases improves a supply net with a static one thats uncghangable because we cannot change the map in game)

Not saying cannot work just saying we need to be carefull and test it a LOT

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

All I can use is my own experience in Burma and I cannot supply a telephone pole witht he current system so a change would double up the impact without the ability to build up infrastructurte to offset it.

Need to be carefull with this as we dont have the ability to invest in infrastructure to improve the supply load of terrain.

e.g. IRL when Slim counterattacked in 45 he was able to supply best part of 5 - 6 Divs plus support units and 2 Armoured Bdes from Assam to North Burma so it was possible (albeit difficult) a static map makes me very wary of setting a limit low enough that it will kill the ability to attack

In my current game with PZB I have not had more than 70,000 men in any one hex even on the plains - if you implement this system you may need to disable the current supply limitation fix we have in Burma/Australia. (which would replace a dynamic fix where investing in bases improves a supply net with a static one thats uncghangable because we cannot change the map in game)

Not saying cannot work just saying we need to be carefull and test it a LOT

This is the crux of my concern when I mentioned "breaking the system". I think we need more time with the new patch before we undertake another major overhaul of the system. If you make multiple changes without evaluating each one separately, you will not know the roots of the end result.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

All I can use is my own experience in Burma and I cannot supply a telephone pole witht he current system so a change would double up the impact without the ability to build up infrastructurte to offset it.

Need to be carefull with this as we dont have the ability to invest in infrastructure to improve the supply load of terrain.

e.g. IRL when Slim counterattacked in 45 he was able to supply best part of 5 - 6 Divs plus support units and 2 Armoured Bdes from Assam to North Burma so it was possible (albeit difficult) a static map makes me very wary of setting a limit low enough that it will kill the ability to attack

In my current game with PZB I have not had more than 70,000 men in any one hex even on the plains - if you implement this system you may need to disable the current supply limitation fix we have in Burma/Australia. (which would replace a dynamic fix where investing in bases improves a supply net with a static one thats uncghangable because we cannot change the map in game)

Not saying cannot work just saying we need to be carefull and test it a LOT

Yes this needs lots of testing.

It is possible, it turns out (and with thanks to Michael again), to make use of spare map data fields to allow a separate stacking limit value to be applied per hex, and make use of the same code currently used for small islands. So there is not much code work, but a lot of map data work, to get a test up and running (also, by using a modified map data file, we can ensure that stock AE games are not affected). I can do the map data work fairly easily and quickly, so I will have a go at it.

As to values, how about (plucking figures out of the air) using a base of 20,000 for bad terrain (jungle, mountain, swamp) going up to 100,000 for good terrain, maybe 200,000 for urban, then adding extra capacity for railways (+200%/+500%), roads (+100%/+200%) and river (+50%/+100%/+150%). So jungle with secondary road would be 40,000. Jungle with railway and small river would be 50,000 and so on. Major urban hexes would be basically unlimited.

Thoughts?

Andrew

PS: I would definitely leave in the base supply limits as well (which can be modified if thought necessary)

[vettim89]

Well from just the GC experience:

By late October /Early November there were nearly 50k men from both sides in the Lunga "hex". So 20k seems a bit stringent

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Well from just the GC experience:

By late October /Early November there were nearly 50k men from both sides in the Lunga "hex". So 20k seems a bit stringent

Good point. Numbers will need to be higher.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

All I can use is my own experience in Burma and I cannot supply a telephone pole witht he current system so a change would double up the impact without the ability to build up infrastructurte to offset it.

Need to be carefull with this as we dont have the ability to invest in infrastructure to improve the supply load of terrain.

e.g. IRL when Slim counterattacked in 45 he was able to supply best part of 5 - 6 Divs plus support units and 2 Armoured Bdes from Assam to North Burma so it was possible (albeit difficult) a static map makes me very wary of setting a limit low enough that it will kill the ability to attack

In my current game with PZB I have not had more than 70,000 men in any one hex even on the plains - if you implement this system you may need to disable the current supply limitation fix we have in Burma/Australia. (which would replace a dynamic fix where investing in bases improves a supply net with a static one thats uncghangable because we cannot change the map in game)

Not saying cannot work just saying we need to be carefull and test it a LOT

I fully agree. There are enormous potential unintended consequences.

The real-life battles to defend China frequently involved the Chinese outnumbering the Japanese by a factor of three or five in order to thwart an offensive. With a hard cap, based on total numbers of soldiers, it might be possible for the Japanese to assemble an irresistible "Land Death Star".

From reading the AARs, China is difficult to defend already. Stacking limits might make it impossible, without making other changes to the game to restore each side's historical capabilities.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
I fully agree. There are enormous potential unintended consequences.

The real-life battles to defend China frequently involved the Chinese outnumbering the Japanese by a factor of three or five in order to thwart an offensive. With a hard cap, based on total numbers of soldiers, it might be possible for the Japanese to assemble an irresistible "Land Death Star".

From reading the AARs, China is difficult to defend already. Stacking limits might make it impossible, without making other changes to the game to restore each side's historical capabilities.

Yes I thought of that as well. Balancing something like this will be difficult (maybe impossible?).

Andrew

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Well from just the GC experience:

By late October /Early November there were nearly 50k men from both sides in the Lunga "hex". So 20k seems a bit stringent

Good point. Numbers will need to be higher.

John pointed out that the support troop numbers for both sides are artificially low, and therefore the "real" number of troops is multiplied by some factor. So, that would dampen the magnitude of upwards adjustment.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Well from just the GC experience:

By late October /Early November there were nearly 50k men from both sides in the Lunga "hex". So 20k seems a bit stringent

Good point. Numbers will need to be higher.

John pointed out that the support troop numbers for both sides are artificially low, and therefore the "real" number of troops is multiplied by some factor. So, that would dampen the magnitude of upwards adjustment.

It would also not stop these numbers being used, just that you would have to commit a lot of logistics to keep them going.

Given the realisation that there is a multiplier to cover the REMF this is OK. Afterall, how well supplied were the japanes troops on GC.

[treespider]

Been away for a bit longer than expected and cannot stay long...

I would hesitate putting a hard cap on stacking. The tools are already in place to deal with telephones.

As has been astutely pointed out the issue is not how many men could physically be present in a given area...the issue is - is the infrastructure in place to support the number of men at the given place.


Part of the solution to the problem is already in place...supply caps. Also in place is the ability to increase the supply CAP with the presence of a base. As the base expands so does the supply cap.

So if I were GOD I would extend the supply CAP to ALL hexes based on terrain type....with the presence of a base giving a given hex the ability to expand the supply thruput of the hex as the base expands. The CAP would not only be an indicator of how much supply a base could receive but also of how much it could send. As an added modifier I would modify the send/receive capacity based upon the amount of Support present in a hex.

So if one wanted to sim the Ledo Road you have a chain of dot bases that as they were expanded would expand the supply capacity of their hex and would also increase the potential thruput of the chain of hexes.

Hexes without a base would have a fixed supply capacity...hexes with bases the supply capacity could be increased as the base was expanded.