ORIGINAL: Mox
As for FoW problem - it depends on player - its up to you if you use such log to "see through" the FoW or not - you can always load the scenario as the other side of conflict and know all the units, placements, reinformcements.
Well, if you do that midgame, you get an idea of general movements and maybe some info about the enemy's (main) point(s) of attack/thrust, but you can only guess (like : "oh the spotted units may be elements either of a regiment or even an entire division, joining the fray from the East") until you actually play that side (where you then see the list of reinforcements). I did that 1 or 2 times when I started to play the original HTTR, to learn about the enemy's priorities (which I could gather from AI troop placements, but also (and not covered by the FOW) from my side's objectives (secure, hold, defend objectives, etc.). But I also figured that it killed the fun, as you're not exposed as much to certain (simulated) real life factors anymore, namely factors like a certain level of uncertainty regarding the enemy's goals, regarding (M)POA ([main] point of attack) and regarding force composition and enemy intentions during the next 12-24 hours (will he bunker down, or is he going to race to his next objective?) within a given front sector.
In real life, captured enemy soldiers will reveal some of the fog of war, means you interrogate them, where some may comply and give info about units or mission involved, but where others will just state their ranks and tag numbers. Looking at enemy soldiers' uniforms also gave info (for example the signature ribbons on a SS coatee's left lower sleeve, with say "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" embroidered on the ribbon) about the unit ID, as well as the unit insignias on German helmets (unit insignia of say elite units like the "Brandenburger" or of a given Panzer Division), or the shoulder badges (eg. "Screaming Eagle", or US 1st Infantry Division - "Big Red One") on US uniforms. The huge three-digit tactical numbers on the turrets of German Tanks (especially those of schw. Pz.Abt = heavy tank battalions) could even be seen/recognized by/from Allied aircraft, serving as fighter-bombers or obs planes, so that - if friendly analysts/intel associated particular tactical numbers with particular units - inferences could be drawn regarding a tank's or vessel's origin/assignment, for example.
All these details then helped to piece together the bigger picture, giving high echelon commanders (say on Army or Corps level) to "guesstimate" how many enemy units would be involved in a given operation, and how large the enemy force would be. But all this took time, had potential for underestimations and errors, and - most notably - took days, often.
Normally one should parse such log after the end of scenario, not during it. But even if you do that in the middle of it, it will not make a big difference if you discover what division or regiment is fighting you
Actually, real life AA reports are not that detailed, nor are they accurate, and this is valid even nowadays. I remember obtaining a US import magazine here in Germany (maybe a month after the war in Iraq in 1991 had ended), something like a special issue of the "Time" mag or the "People" mag covering some of the "most notable" (and described by the magazine as heroic) events during the operation. A small part covered the Navy's and the US Air Force's aerial warfare effort:
Early Air Force sources were quoted, estimating that the bombings (that includes all types, B-52 level bombings and bombings conducted by USAF and Navy with F-14, F-15E, F-16 and F-117) had hit, damaged or destroyed 70-80% of the strategic targets. The high-tech portion of the engagements (especially carrier-borne ops, missile destroyer ops and F-117 operations), with all the famous footage (like blowing up the Iraqi Ministry of Defense building by lobbing a laser-guided glide bomb into the air condition's exhaust shaft on the [flat] roof top, or like blowing up Aircraft and HQ surface bunkers), led the press (and the people) and even some in the Pentagon to think, that this new type of warfare would deliver outstanding results, even when employing less accurate B-52 carpet bombings, due to employing the newest tech for targeting. In fact, quite contrary to initial belief (or PR),
only the F-117 wing, accounting for the destruction of 40% of the strategic targets, hit with an accuracy of 80%, whereas quite some of the B-52 bombings had an accuracy as low as 20% and other bombers (I listed above) had hit with accuracy levels ranging in between (say 20-70%). US Navy jets didn't even get close to the Baghdad perimeter, because they had to avoid SAM and AAA sites, so the Navy looked on with envy at the USAF's new stealth toys.
In reality, later surveys/evaluations revealed that with the aerial assault phase - except for such punctual and uber-accurate strikes - the overal accuracy on "hard" immobile targets was relatively low, as even quite some of the much vaunted cruise missiles either missed or got misrouted, due to technical deficiencies (in what I'd call "military early computer age"). The (then) vaunted accuracy of the (B-52s and other a/c) bombings turned out to be as low as 20% on quite some occasions, causing tens of thousands of civilian casualties, partially because the Iraqi regime had moved civilians to military installations, partially because the targets were built next to civilian quarters (on purpose).
The aerial warfare against tanks, APCs and artillery units delivered way better results, despite the fact that Apache and Kiowa choppers had to be grounded repeatedly, because the crews and the choppers' moving parts could not cope with the dust in the desert. But even A-10 planes kept themselves busy later on (after the initial onslaught in Kuwait) by striking at the enemy car and transport columns fleeing from Kuwait, due to a general lack of armoured targets, because they were either destroyed, abandoned, or pulled out of the Kuwait theater. This resulted in some US air units not encountering any Iraqi tank (on Iraqi soil) for days, if not weeks. USCENTCOM claimed 1708 Iraqi tanks destroyed (by US land forces) or abandoned in the Kuwait theater, but only 451 destroyed by air.
Only 10-15 percent of the Iraqi tank/artillery force in Kuwait was destroyed by Allied bombing/strafing, which was partially caused by the rough conditions that were and still are present in desert environments: more attack helicopter sorties could have been ordered, if the helicopters would have had less problems with the dust, most likely.
ORIGINAL:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -intro.htm
"
On 21 February 1991 the Pentagon reported that bombing had destroyed 1,400 of Iraq's estimated 4,280 tanks, 1,200 of its 3,110 artillery pieces and 800 of its 2,870 armored personnel carriers. On 23 February 1991 Brigadier General Richard Neal, a US Marines spokesman, said that 1,685 tanks had been destroyed, plus 925 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and 1,485 artillery pieces. According to other published figures, at that time the allies had destroyed 37% of Iraq's tanks, 41% of artillery pieces and 30% of the enemy's armored personnel carriers. With an average of 100 tanks and 100 artillery pieces being wiped out during each day of the air campaign, almost 2,000 tanks may have been destroyed, leaving just over half left. With artillery, the success may have been greater: 1,800 destroyed, leaving just 1,300, or 42%. APCs, a lesser military threat, may have been reduced to about 1,500, or just over 50%. However, the Central Intelligence Agency reportedly estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of Iraq's tanks and artillery in Kuwait had been destroyed by allied bombing as of 20 February 1991, far below the Pentagon's 35 percent figure.
By one estimate published in 1993 [The Gulf War Foreign Policy No. 90], the Allied air campaign destroyed about than 1,600 Iraqi tanks, 900 armored personnel carriers, and 1,400 artillery pieces. According to this estimate, another 2,162 Iraqi tanks were destroyed in the ground war.
In August 1993 the US House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services released a report which noted that American intelligence had assessed that 388 tanks had been destroyed in a particular zone in Kuwait. However, analysis of photographs taken by a U-2 plane of this area immediately after the cessation of the war showed that, in fact, the air campaign had only destroyed from 166 to 215 Iraqi tanks in this one zone. The mistake made by American intelligence was caused by the absence of a definite system of assessing damage caused to the enemy, and intelligence agencies changed methods of assessing the destroyed Iraqi hardware several times during the war.
By most published estimates, in 1990 Iraq had a total of about 5,500 tanks, of which apparently as many as 4,200 were deployed in the Kuwait theather of operations. Accepting the highest USCENTCOM claim of 3,700 tanks destroyed during DESERT STORM, post-war Iraqi armor holdings should amount to about 1,800 tanks. The lowest reported number of tanks destroyed was about 3,000. And based on the reported vagaries of damage assessement by various intelligence agencies, the lowest estimate of tanks destroyed might be about half the highest claimed number, or about 1,800. According to one estimate, using spare parts and equipment salvaged after the war, Iraq managed to return to service most of the 2,500 tanks that survived Desert Storm.
The UN and Kuwait say Iraq has not returned extensive Kuwaiti military equipment, including 245 Russian-made fighting vehicles, 90 M113 armored personnel carriers, and 3,750 Tow and anti-tank missiles.
Although Iraq does have an indigenous tank repair capability, presumably almost all of the tanks claimed by USCENTCOM were either abandoned in Kuwaiti territory, or were damaged beyond repair."
That said, errr quoted [;)], it is obvious, that it is quite difficult to evaluate your own force's effectiveness and its kills or kill ratio.
In WWII this was even more difficult, as there was no satellite imagery and because aerial recon/photography was still in its infancy.
On top of that, in the ETO, all parties tried to salvage precious equipment. Due to the German tank production being the slowest, and due to the partially complicated or cumbersome prodcution processes, which involved quite some manual labor (eg. all exterior + many interior parts and internal and external equipment mounts were not casted, thus not part of the carriage, but usually welded), the Germans had to develop procedures and vehicles to retrieve their damaged or knocked out tanks, because the armament industry output was comparatively low. While other nations did that too, to some extent, they could rely on mass production and high output numbers, so the Germans actually had to master retrieval and repair of their armour, where most sources indicate that they managed to salvage and repair 7 out of 10 tanks, few sources even claim 9 out of 10.
That policy made it difficult for Allied Intelligence branches to estimate/evaluate German tank losses. Quite often, reports detailing German tank losses were extremely off, purely because the Germans had sent in tank retrievers or regular tanks to tow the damaged vehicles to repair shops or even repair them in the field, within 5 to 12 hours. Workshop platoons (or Coys) often fixed engines (which often involved lifting them with the tank retriever's crane) and applied make-shift solutions or repairs in the field, sometimes even under fire or within range of enemy guns.
So, Allied damage/kill reports were often way off, resulting in Allied units stumbling over the very same (allegedly knocked out) tanks 12-48 hours later, on quite some occasions.
With the US aerial campaign to bomb German refineries/fuel production facilities in early 1944, the "USAAF bombing survey" revealed that the Germans were skilled and quick when it came to repairing the damage. For months, they managed to get some plants' back to 90%, then, when the US had figured the level of restoration and after they had ordered subsequent raids, to 70% and 50% operating state. The Germans then started to build underground facilities or they built them partially into rocky ground/hills covered with woods, with just smoke stacks sticking out to tree level. While the US campaign against Germany's fuel production capabilties put a serious strain on the German war machine, and while the Germans had suffered of lack of fuel in 1941 already (locally, where lack of fuel stopped an entire Corps dead in its tracks in Russia, in summer 1941), the Allies overrated the effectiveness of their raids and underestimated German capabilities to restore production capacity in Germany (this goes for armament production too, to quite some extent, since Germany's armamanent production peaked around mid 1944, despite the US bombing campaign that also targeted armament facilities) or on-site in Rumania.
While vital parts of Germany's air force were grounded (due to lack of aviation fuel, partially due to the Luftwaffe High Command holding back the fuel reserves - with some reserves being dedicated to the fighter planes defending German production facilities and cities, in an attempt to lower civilian casualty rates) during vital phases in 1943 and 1944, Germany's ground troops still had some fuel. In late 1943/early 1944, the German Army basically distributed fuel to the most important sectors, at which some units/frontlines in other sectors became immobile for days or even weeks. Prior to the Ardennes offensive, most of the East Front units either had to hand over their fuel, or they didn't receive new fuel, in order to collect "enough" fuel to mount the offensive, immobilizing most of the motorized units on the Eastern Front. Still, this deadly drop of fuel production only occured after Germany had lost the Rumanian oil fields.
Also, on the Eastern front, the Germans had quite some difficulties to recon Russian movements, due to a general lack of recon planes and lack of a proper policy. They then had to send fast and mobile recon bns, which were unable to reveal movements way behind enemy lines (eg. improper recon prior to the Russian pincer operation around Stalingrad). Most long range recon planes (the less than ideal deployment of the FW 200) were employed over the Atlantic Ocean, as scouts for German submarines and maritime part-time bomber.
That said, I think it's more realistic if there are no uber-accurate logs and statistics, as such evaluations were (and partially still are) quite difficult, and because the body count on the ground, after enemy forces had been driven off, would not reveal the whole truth. That was quite obvious during and after the Battle of the Bulge, where the US High Command assessed a way higher efficiency of Allied tactical bombings than was actually achieved. Allied fighter bombers and tactical bombers were credited with killing a certain amount of German Armor, where the actual body count and inspection of the German tanks on the ground revealed that quite some of them had been abondoned and subsequently destroyed by their crews due to lack of fuel, or damaged/destroyed by Allied ground units. Hugh M. Cole addressed this problem in the official Army history partially, but still worked with wrong figures here and there, as quite some German sources were either lost/incomplete or not found, at the time.
What I asked for is already done in the engine and doesn't need any interface changes. Each time the game engine applies casaulty to any unit it should simply dump one line to text file
Well, my guess is, that you put an unnecessary burden on the CPU and that you slow down things with a rather low priority and less realistic feature.
There are many other features I would like to see first, where I'd even accept some level of performance loss (I'd suspect to come up with some of the features), like....
[*]a proper car pool calculation/management (for motorized units), where transport contingents are not abstracted anymore, but temporarily rendered as independent units, in order to give the player's (or AI's) units the possibility to strike through an enemy mot Inf unit's car pool that had been left undefended behind the lines, but also the possibility to use some types for infantry support (eg. Bren carriers, Jeeps with .50 cal MGs, armed Halftracks, etc.), for example,
[*]visible supply units/cars, where you can opt for striking at the enemy's supply chain, say in a scenario where a beleagured town is able to get supplies via a frozen lake (like in Leningrad), and where the enemy AI does everything to protect these supplies,
(I start to think that the engine's supply system keeps sending supply trucks even when supply routes are cut indefinitely, which results in precious supplies getting lost, probably along with some amount of transport capacity, sometimes even up to 50% or 70%. If that's true, this wouldn't just be a methodical error, it would also be a historical inaccuracy, as unarmored supply transport columns were not sent through enemy lines in order to resupply encircled troops.
If the message ("blahblah unit lost 50% of its supplies") just means, that the other 50% just didn't make it to the almost fully encircled unit, and that the rest is just being sent back to the depot, then I still wonder what's going to happen to the supply truck pool, as that will probably still loose some transport capacity, which again, would not have happened. I do wonder how the HTTR expansion plays out, as there will be a chance that the British paras are getting encircled in Arnheim, completely. In reality, at least the British paras in Osterbeek received some resupplies by air, and these weren't just berets like in the movie "A Bridge too far".)
[*]resupply (by air) for encircled troops,
[*]a dedicated reserve pool class (say on Army or Corps level) and flexible Kampfgruppen management, where the AI can 1) draw units and where 2) the AI also has the (historically accurate) possibility to assemble all new units ranging from the size of a
Coy to the size of an entire
Corps (theoretically, most Kampfgruppen matched the size of a regular Battalion or an under-strength battalion),
[*]and an inverted "ignore friendly fire" option that actually does not care for friendly fire (bombardments) by default, and only avoids friendly fire if the option is
checked. It's pretty cumbersome having to check that option each time you issue a bombardment order.
