What do you think of this ?

[miya]

Those 40 kg backpacks could be a solution for the jeep / supply problem, at least temporarly. Currently I'm testing this with a modified "Red Devils" scenario.
During the first days my supply vehicles still getting ambushed, but now the AI sends out about 30 at once. As a result the transport column seldom receives 100 % losses, very often I observe losses less than 10 %.
Later I will write a detailed report.
The idea came to me, looking at my old COTA game.
I'm not sure about the numbers, how many would have been in a airborne division.

[dazkaz15]

Hey this is awesome [&o]

How many what in a Division? Backpacks you mean?
I think every man jumps with a backpack strapped to their leg. All you need to do is throw out the kitchen sink, and fill it with ammo, to be a supply Truck [:D]

I think the weight is wrong though.
The Brit Para's are capable of carrying at least 100kg each. Not so sure about the Yanks though [;)]

Also the armour top need to be about 5mm thick, the rear if its carrying a backpack full of ammo about 300mm thick and the Ronson about 80% [:'(]

[skarp]

that's a good idea. I'd like to see close units sharing ammo as well. Daft having one unit with nothing and an unengaged unit with ample sat right behind. Still supply is at the heart of this operation and having supply problems is part of it.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: skarp

that's a good idea. I'd like to see close units sharing ammo as well. Daft having one unit with nothing and an unengaged unit with ample sat right behind. Still supply is at the heart of this operation and having supply problems is part of it.

Yeah I agree, its good that a unit can be out of supply, but it should be for a realistic reason.

Is it realistic that all the Jeeps got destroyed? Yes

Is it realistic that the Depot would just sit there full of supplies, and not take a Coy off the line to man portage the supplies or requisition vehicles from other units, if there was a valid open route? Definitely not.

Is it realistic that the drives just keep driving past all the other burning supply vehicles, straight through the front line of heavily engaged friendly forces, into the face of an enemy machine gun? I doubt it happened very many times, though I expect it did once or twice.

If I remember right Eisenhower took an entire newly arriving Division, and told them they were the new drivers for the Red Ball Express. I don't think that went down to well with them at the time [:-]

[miya]

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

I think the weight is wrong though.
The Brit Para's are capable of carrying at least 100kg each. Not so sure about the Yanks though [;)]

So the british paras are strong as an ox ?

I think 40 kg are reasonable. Thinking back to my time in the armed forces a sense of shudder comes to me. I had to carry a mortar tube, more than 40 kg, in addition to my own equipment, plus some guy hysterical screaming behind me.
So military exercises were always feared.

While playing I observe one other thing. On the plus side, even after six days the paras
can use one or two tons transport capacity, but the bases lack manpower. The handling value drops to zero, the transports can't be loaded.
So I decided one large backpack for every third man in the depot.

As mentioned earlier I'm tweaking and testing the "Red Devils" scenario.
To simulate supply problems, the bases start with fewer supplies in the depots. Currently they run out of supply on day five. As soon as they establish connection to XXX Corps supplies are flowing again.
Further I worked on AI objectives and german experience and training values.
Still, it was not enough for victory.

[Phoenix100]

How are you tweaking it, Miya? Are you saying you can tweak it so that somehow supplies get carried by man? How do you do that, as I'd love to mess around with it too.

BUT, I keep saying this - it's surely not just the jeep problem. It's how an interdiction is calculated. So - Daz - when you say - should all those jeeps have been shot up? and answer yes, I would have to disagree. I have just watched an entire Bn attack a single depleted German company and the lead element showed a red supply status and duly got a 100% interdiction message. It was absurd. The extent to which interdiction occurs solely due to engagement is at least half the issue. it's happening not when units are really cut off, but just because they're in contact. It's really bloody irritating.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

BUT, I keep saying this - it's surely not just the jeep problem. It's how an interdiction is calculated. So - Daz - when you say - should all those jeeps have been shot up? and answer yes, I would have to disagree. I have just watched an entire Bn attack a single depleted German company and the lead element showed a red supply status and duly got a 100% interdiction message. It was absurd. The extent to which interdiction occurs solely due to engagement is at least half the issue. it's happening not when units are really cut off, but just because they're in contact. It's really bloody irritating.

I wasn't referring to way the Jeeps are shot up on these supply runs in game, when I said "Is it realistic that all the Jeeps got destroyed? Yes."
I was simply saying that in this kind of Operation it was possible to lose a large quantity, and if things went very bad, all of the Jeeps.

Dave has mentioned before that they did in fact lose a lot of the Jeeps they had historically.
So it is indeed possible, but if you look after them by leaving an open, viable supply route, like we have had in a lot of these instances, where they have been lost, or we were able to request the supply for a unit when it is in a position to receive it. It should also be equally possible to preserve most of them intact.

I said that mainly to emphasise my next point that its ridiculous to have a full supply base that's not dishing out supplies, because its lost its vehicles.
It should be possible to allocate a Coy to man-pack them, and I also think that units that are not suppressed within say 300m of a base automatically draw supply from it.

All that's probably beyond the scope of the current game engine though.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: phoenix


BUT, I keep saying this - it's surely not just the jeep problem. It's how an interdiction is calculated. So - Daz - when you say - should all those jeeps have been shot up? and answer yes, I would have to disagree. I have just watched an entire Bn attack a single depleted German company and the lead element showed a red supply status and duly got a 100% interdiction message. It was absurd. The extent to which interdiction occurs solely due to engagement is at least half the issue. it's happening not when units are really cut off, but just because they're in contact. It's really bloody irritating.

Interdiction has to consider the time "vehicles" are in the line of sight of opposing forces, the number of weapons those forces have available to fire on those "vehicles" in the LOS, the time in the target zone for those weapons, and the robustness of the "vehicles" that are being fired upon.

In the US Army, tactical vehicles (wheeled vehicles which provide support services such as transport, and supply support) are considered "soft targets" when being allocated to combat formations unless they are "up armored" to withstand attacks.

"Up Armoring" is focused on protecting the crew from being harmed by fire, and was not that common during World War II.

In addition "up armoring" puts stress on the vehicle's drive train and suspension if the vehicle is loaded to full capacity, so what you gain by protecting the crew, you lose in transport capacity and the ability of the vehicle to complete it's mission without a mechanical failure.

"Soft targets" are those considered in jeopardy due to hand held direct fire weapons, down to individual rifles and pistols, because without armor, the crew, and critical mobility components (engine [which includes fuel takes and lines], transmission, and suspension [which includes tires] can be destroyed by well placed anti-personnel fire, either by a "K-kill" (personnel incapacitaty or death) or M-kill (mobility kill).

Crew vulnerability in an open compartment is a given except when the engine takes the "hit" in the crew's behalf -- which either way results in a "kill" for the vehicle system's capability.

The calculation for determining whether a "soft target" is "killed" includes the distance it is in line of sight of a firing unit, the range of the weapons available inside that line of sight, the rate of fire for those weapons, and the time it takes for a vehicle to cover the distance it is in the line of sight.

The "kill" calculations become truncated during night time operations (due to a shorter line of sight distances), but in all the vulnerability of the target to a single shot remains the same. It's just at night there are fewer opportunities to take accurate "shots" because of the limited sight distance.

Absent limiting an enemy's capability to put bullets on supply delivery targets, it doesn't really matter how many more assets one throws at a mission if the line of sight over the route for the mission, the number of units firing, and the time in the firing units' target zones can't be reduced.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks Jim. But that's not the point. The point is whether (a) the engine actually does any of those calculations you mention (are you saying it does, that you know that's how it works?), (b)if it does, whether it does those calculations well.

In this case - and it's not long since Daz posted a prime example complete with pictures - I think it doesn't, though I haven't a clue what actual calculations it performs, what level of abstraction is involved.

But I'm not sure what you're really saying, Jim - are you saying the game works fine in this respect? Are you saying the supply issue is really only a question of bad commanders, not down to the supply department at all? [;)]

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Thanks Jim. But that's not the point. The point is whether (a) the engine actually does any of those calculations you mention (are you saying it does, that you know that's how it works?), (b)if it does, whether it does those calculations well.

In this case - and it's not long since Daz posted a prime example complete with pictures - I think it doesn't, though I haven't a clue what actual calculations it performs, what level of abstraction is involved.

But I'm not sure what you're really saying, Jim - are you saying the game works fine in this respect? Are you saying the supply issue is really only a question of bad commanders, not down to the supply department at all? [;)]

Since both software suites are either national security sensitive (for the US Army) or competition sensitive (for Command Ops), and thus not open source, I can't know whether the engine uses the same algorithms that modeled force allocation impacts on unit and force combat effectiveness when I was working for the US Army.

But I do know the Estabs gather data similar to that used by the US Army to support those algorithms.

The differences between the software suites most likely are in the Probability of Kill calculations, with the Command Ops engine most likely estimating (my guess is over estimating) the "hardness" of a target vehicle to various forms of direct and indirect fire effects while the Army has structured test and evaluation data, and actual combat damage reports data to refine that "hardness" calculation.

The "point" is that probability of hit from any single weapon capable of causing damage increases with the length of time a target is in a fire zone defined as an enemy unit's LOS and weapon range(s). It gets multiplied by the number of times that same target enters that target zone.

And, from that standpoint and the anecdotal images posted here, the engine's calculations appear to approach a reasonable level of accuracy regarding potential damage to supply assets, particularly in daytime operations where I see avoidance routes still in the LOS and fire range of opposing forces.

Ways to mitigate a supply column's time in the fire zone is to reduce the fire zone's size (by moving opposing forces further back or only taking supply during night time LOS ranges), suppressing the opponent forces so they are less likely to seek out targets of opportunity (in particular shortly before and during the standard 0600 and 1800 scheduled supply operation cycles), some economy of force or combat discipline tactics that don't cause a friendly force to become so depleted of ammunition that only an emergency supply run can save it from destruction, and, if there's enough friendly firepower available, targeting presumed enemy supply route choke points with harassing fire prior to the enemy's 0600 and 1800 scheduled supply runs.

[Phoenix100]

So you agree the avoidance routes are no good, anyway....

The examples mentioned (anecdotally, because this is a forum and everything here is an anecdote, in this sense - we aren't going to be there to see for ourselves, because it's a game - though many saves have been sent, by Daz in particular)have included surrounded and outnumbered single enemy units under suppressive fire managing to 'interdict' supply into the units surrounding them, without there being any enemy LOS at all onto the supply chain (except right there at the front). I think that's a no brainer, myself....

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

So you agree the avoidance routes are no good, anyway....

The examples mentioned (anecdotally, because this is a forum and everything here is an anecdote, in this sense - we aren't going to be there to see for ourselves, because it's a game - though many saves have been sent, by Daz in particular)have included surrounded and outnumbered single enemy units under suppressive fire managing to 'interdict' supply into the units surrounding them, without there being any enemy LOS at all onto the supply chain (except right there at the front). I think that's a no brainer, myself....

No, I didn't say that avoidance routes "are no good" at any point.

Avoidance routes go around "known" enemy emplacements, and become problematic when there is a potential an enemy unit has infiltrated behind friendly lines and set up a fire position in a site out of the LOS of friendly units until a supply column bumps into it.

I identified the images as "anecdotal" because they are not game saves that can be analyzed for all the dynamics controlled by the combat engine, or replayed from the point of save to determine if the "error" they are supposed to help correct is repeatable and occurs consistently.

Most of those anecdotal images show a LOS for enemy direct fire (or indirect fire control) units that extends for a significant distance behind FLOT, and reflects enemy units that possess weapons which can hit a supply "asset" within that LOS zone.

If the enemy can "see" a target, and has a weapon with enough range, it has the potential to "hit" that target.

The 100-percent loss messages sent back to headquarters don't indicate where the supply delivery was interdicted, when it was interdicted, other than sometime between the time it was dispatched and the time the message arrives, or how frequently it was interdicted along its route.

The 100-percent loss messages also does not indicate whether it was a single shot, or cumulative damage that caused the kill.

Without knowing how damage is calculated by the engine, it just might be like real war, where the first hit(s) didn't do anything critical to the platform(s), the second hit(s) did some damage, the third hit(s) did a little more damage, and the fourth hit(s) killed the target.

Messages that a smaller percentage of the supplies got delivered than those demanded and Estab data for weapons and targets that could be used to model it tend to indicate that damage assessment is cumulative based on the combat physics of time in a firing unit(s) LOS, rate of fire and range for that unit(s) weapons, and the likelihood (probability) or calculated amount of damage an individual rounds from firing weapons can do to a modeled platform.

Those are the combat dynamics used to model force effectiveness in the US Army. I have no indication so far that Command Ops engine, other than the target computer system for the software, differs in any way than what was modeled in those simulations, except to the level of granularity that is used to define the system design for Army models compared to the data collected in the Estabs.

[Phoenix100]

Mmm. But some of those images and examples might be as you say, Jim, but some show clear lines of supply, at night, no enemy los to any part of the avoidance route (as checked by a surrender), so the only interdiction possibility is that a surrounded, outnumbered, suppressed enemy unit repeatedly manages to interdict 100% supply to one or more of the units engaging it. And saves have been sent of that, though there's no use sending saves to you, I guess, since you can't debug it etc. So you'll just have to take the anecdotes at face value, I guess.

We're trying to determine (or ask Dave to determine, when he can) if the engine does the calculations correctly. if an example exists with the conditions I've written above then there's something wrong with the supply interdiction calculation, right?

[miya]

How are you tweaking it, Miya? Are you saying you can tweak it so that somehow supplies get carried by man? How do you do that, as I'd love to mess around with it too.

phoenix, I still owe you an answer. Look at my first post. Using the Estab Editor to creat the 40 kg manpack. This gives the airborne bases several dozens more transports, but the transport capacitiy stays limited. That way I hope to keep the Paras in supply for a longer time.
Further I changed the moral, experience and training values. I even made experiments with the AI objectives.
In the meantime after playing a few more tests it is becoming more and more frustating. There is nearly no way to avoid interdiction.
So I have to say too, a look into the calculation of the supply route is required.