BabesLite

[ny59giants]

John - Can you post what the new Australian OOB will look like?? Any changes to the Nz OOB pending??

[John 3rd]

John

WITH YOUR PERMISSION, I plan to use this scenario as the basis of my RA Spring 1942 Start Mod. Think it will start on March 1, 1942 and we'll see what happens....

John

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
John
WITH YOUR PERMISSION, ....

Hail yes.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants
John - Can you post what the new Australian OOB will look like?? Any changes to the Nz OOB pending??

Just going to add a skoosh of graininess to NZ, like for Oz, nothing major. Here's a snapshot of the Oz game OOB. As you can see, most everything is in its usual place and the only thing really done was break apart the LH cav and motor divs/bdes into component units. We tried to fit them into empty slots in the same slot range as the CMF Inf Bdes that were in the same Command region. That way, appropriate units will show up within any particular range of slots that the AI is looking for.

Few things added into otherwise empty slots: 1st and 2nd "armoured" Training Brigades at Puckapunyal, with jack-all for TOEs. When tanks historically arrive, these withdraw (disband) and .. poof .. are replaced by the now, relatively, populated armoured units.

Couple other unusual features are reflected in the otherwise unused slots. C Sqdn and portion of HQ Sqdn of 17th LH MG expanded to form 4th Arm Regt 6/41 which was, in turn, reorganized as 104th LH Motor 3/42 which was, in turn, redesignated 14th Armoured Regt 7/42. As was the case with the AIF Arm Regts, the 4th Arm existed only on paper, with troops using and training on personal automobiles and trucks. So it ain't there. Instead 104th Motor arrives in March 42 for its dance with redesignation destiny into 14th Armour.

19th LH, linked with 17th LH for continuity of honors and disbanded 1929. Reconstituted as 19th LH (A/C), 1 Sept, 1933; redesignated 1st A/C Regt 1934 (AAO 81/1934). Reorganized and redesignated as 101st Motor Regt 14 March, 1942 (ALHQ AO8/1942), disbanded 10 Aug, 1944, is in there too, with a path to 101st Motor.

Quite a few other LH Regts will withdraw (disband) and reappear as 12, 13, 14 Arm, and 1, and 2 Tank, which are buried in the 6070 - 6170 range of slots. Those armor units that were populated with M3s (Stuarts/Grants/Lees) will get them. Those who got Matilda IIs, will get those.

20th LH Motor will convert to 20th Pioneer Bn,, when it did, and the 10th LH will retain a portion of its horses for patrolling Western Australia.

Rambled on long enough so I'll have to show the OOB on the next post.

Ciao. JWE

[Symon]

And here it is.

Will fill up those empty slots with some fun stuff, like Landing Craft Units that use Aus Amph Eng squad devices with Shore Party capability. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind, for the AI, but useful for a human player without distorting the AI compatibility premise.

[Symon]

In the last years, before he died, Desmond (DivePac) and I have communicated privately, a lot. I sent him my cap from my llast Sydney-Hobart. In return, he sent me a NZ Army cap (Ngati Tumatauenga) that his son wore on the beach of Lunga, watching the sun rise over Ironbottom Sound and illuminating Savo Island. He told me the cap is meant to be worn, so it has been a fixture in boat races that I have done, since.

Anything I do for NZ or Oz, has a very special place in my heart, and I will try my best to make it as righteous as possible.

God Bless, Des, and All who sail with you. John

[Symon]

More OOB things.
Right now, there’s Australia Command. It’s a Perm Restr Command HQ.
1st Aus Army is a Perm Restr Army HQ reporting to Aus Command.
2nd Aus Army is a Perm Restr Army HQ reporting to Aus Command.
I Aus Corps is a Free Corps HQ reporting to Aus Command.
Eastern Command is a Free Corps HQ reporting to Aus Command.
… renames to II Corps
Western Command is a Perm Restr Corps HQ reporting to Aus Command
… renames to III Corps
7 Mil Distr is a Perm Restr Corps HQ reporting to Aus Command
… renames to Northern Territory

The original 1st Aus Army was a vague and formless militia cover organization with an indeterminate existence. I Corps returned to Oz 3/15/42. Big reorg in April, with I Corps, Southern Command and 1st Army HQ elements put in a shake-and-bake bag. 1st Army becomes “officially” operational 4/6/42 and HQ opens at Toowomba 4/15/42. Other HQ elements take on identity and style of I Corps and New Guinea Force 4/15/42. The actual distinction between the two was blurred, to say the least. I Corps and NGF made officially and operationally distinct 9/3/43. HQ NGF becomes HQ 1st Army at Lae 10/2/44.

So, how to model this in game? And what makes it hard is the carriage/transport/movement rules for restricted units/HQs/combinations and bears, oh my !! And do it without disturbing HQ slot locations and rotations for the AI, and do it so as to maintain the historical deployability (and un-deployability) of the various CMF units without providing a ‘cheat’ mechanism. Woof !!

So, tagged every unit as Static, Temp, or Perm (or free, as with the AIF), as required and historically pertinent. Then made an ‘opening day’ NG Force HQ (a free HQ) that some units are assigned to and that others can pay ‘cheap’ PPs to join. I Corps (a free HQ) shows up in April, and that’s another ‘cheap’ HQ that “deployable” units can join. The only difference from history, is institutionalizing an ad hoc New Guinea command structure for the first few months of the war.

For the rest of Oz, you got hard units in hard HQs, hard units in soft HQs, soft units in hard HQs, and soft units in soft HQs. Needless to say, there’s also free units in free HQs. PPs are necessary, because the CMF units had to vote to go AIF and deploy. Some did, many didn’t. But the cost, for those that historically did, is the “cheap” cost. This is intentional, specifically for the Australians, and does not represent any validation of the cheat of buying out the Kwantung Army using some stinking Air Brigade HQ.

Tried it with multiple iterations. Seems to work friendly; like a Panda with a bundle of eucalyptus.
Ciao. JWE

[Lecivius]

"ke a Panda with a bundle of eucalyptus"

One of the 10 commandments of AE...Thou Shalt Not Argue With Symon.

But perhaps you are refering to koala bears? Since they love eucalypt leaves? In any event I appreciate what you are doing.

[oldman45]

John, I do believe that you will succeed in making some righteous changes.

Anything I do for NZ or Oz, has a very special place in my heart, and I will try my best to make it as righteous as possible.

God Bless, Des, and All who sail with you.

Amen!

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius
"ke a Panda with a bundle of eucalyptus"

One of the 10 commandments of AE...Thou Shalt Not Argue With Symon.

But perhaps you are refering to koala bears? Since they love eucalypt leaves? In any event I appreciate what you are doing.

My kung-fu is strong; my kung-fu is powerful. I studied with the Great Master Chi Kin Fat. My kung-fu and feng-shui lets me teach my Pandas to order properly at Outback Steakhouse - bloomin' onions, Alice Springs quesedillas, baby backs on the barbie, and down unda' chocco thunda'. When they party down with their furry Koala friends, they are polite and munch on eucalyptus, which makes their poop smell much nicer than all that bamboo stuff. [8D]

Ciao. JWE

[ny59giants]

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: oldman45
..God Bless, Des, and All who sail with you.

Amen!

Amen ... Des trust you are blowing off a cold frothy.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Symon

Ok. Aus armoured units are gone for opening day; all of them. There was 8 operational Vickers and 10 operational Stuarts at Puckapunyal on 6 Dec, 1941, and because the 1st Armoured Division was an AIF unit, they got whatever there was, so CMF units with fancy names got bupkiss and existed only on paper. The tanks were training vehicles.

The omniscient internet says the constituent units were organized with universal carriers and improvised armoured vehicles, but this is not so, in a general sense. There weren’t enough carriers in Australia at that period in time, to do that, especially since carrier heavy units, such as the AIF DivCav regiments and the CMF A/C units (to say nothing about the nascent conversions of LH Cav to Motor configs with its requirements). 880 authorized and required, and 215 available do not leave much for so-called armoured regiment, whether AIF or CMF.

They got some carriers, to train up on tracked vehicles, and some civilian trucks to do tactical stuff. All this stuff went from Rgt to Rgt to Rgt, with no Rgt “owning” anything. How do we know this? Well the first installments of US M3 Stuarts/Grants didn’t arrive till 4/42 and it took 6 months (till 10-11/42) for the units to fully recruit and train up into a marginally useful formation. This is from the unit histories of every single Armoured Regt, as well as the official history of the RAAC. Badda bing !! Woof !!

Having effective Aus armoured units in the first year of the war is a fever dream. So you don’t get them. They show up at Puckapunyal, in April/May with perhaps 30% of authorized strength and perhaps 10% of experience, although they will be fully prepped for Puckapunyal and can train up (as they did) if one is willing to let them do so.

I’m loving this. Ciao. JWE

Loving it? [&:] Oh my, with all the swapping of batallions between brigades, brigades between divisions, name changes, "amalgamations" etc. pp. - working on the Aussie OOB and TO&E is a PITA... [;)]

Am using a brigade-based Oz OOB in my personal mod (except AIF which can recombine into divisions) and also reworked restrictions / deployabilities.

I'm sure your stuff will be more accurate - beg permission to borrow your data [&o]

Btw, found this interesting site on Aussie and NZ Armor: http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/armourframe.htm

[Symon]

Use anything you want, LST. Here's a list of new bases that don't show up on stock maps. A lot show up on the Ext Map, but there's some additions to this as well.

The top group are bases that only work with the Ext Map, nothing much new here. The bottom group are bases that work on both Stock and Ext Maps. We'll be adding all of these to all scenarios (A, B, and C). Most of the 'new' new stuff is Australian, although there's some stuff in US, Java, Malaya, Solomons and New Guinea as well.

[Symon]

Australian Artillery:

After War I the base artillery structure was a battery of 4 x (tubes). From 1921 till 1940 the typical field brigade (later called field regiment) was 2 batteries of 18pdr guns (although a few had three) and a battery of 4.5” howitzers. The CMF was expanding at the same time as organizational changes were made based on the British model of 2 x 12 gun batteries per artillery “regiment”. The evolution from 12 (2 x 4 18pdr and 1 x 4 4.5”) or 16 (3 x 4 18 pdr and 1 x 4 4.5”) brigades, to a 24 gun (2 x 12 25pdr) regimental system was bumpy, to say the least.

The first step was to organize an additional battery in those units that only had 3. The next step was to make all the batteries the same. This is the really problematic period.

Some units retained the separate (18pdr and 4.5” howitzer) battery organization for a while, some units went to the 3 x troop battery, and fleshed out their batteries into “mixed” troops, each of 18pdrs and 4.5” howitzers. Some units stayed with the 3 battery organization, but with each battery deploying 6 x 18pdrs. And then some went to the “official” organization of 2 x batteries of 12 guns each (18pdrs, because of the limited availability of 25 pdrs). The majority of CMF field regiments remained with an 18 gun establishment (3 x batteries of 6 x tubes) throughout their existence. These were 18pdrs, for the most part, but some got 25pdrs.

Those units that opted for AIF status were reorganized to AIF standards (2 x batteries of 3 x troops of 4 x tubes), but their specific weapons were indeterminate. They could range through 18pdrs, 25 pdrs, 25pd shorts, 18pd mountain types, woof !!

So Aussie arty, in-game, really has to be done in an abstract way. We tried to find the silver thread that flows through the evolutions. Our solutions are arbitrary, but logical.

There were 18 (or so) CMF Fld Rgts and 13 (or so) AIF Fld Rgts, organized (accounting for some merging and designation/redesignation between Med Rgts. There are 31 Australian Brigades, in-game, each of which has an aliquot of artillery based on national, notional, scales. That means they gather to themselves what tubes there are. There are some fld rgts that were designated “corps” or “army” units, and they will be represented.

Ciao. JWE

[Symon]

We get the extra slots by unifying CD, AA, and BF units for the major Aus bases. Before, there were CD and AA guns in every LCU. Now, CD and AA guns, and fortress engineers, are in the "Base" defenses. The BF units are now naked, but for specific support elements. This frees up slots to add "mobile" LAA, HAA, and RAA units in appropriate locations. And it makes deployable BF units more interesting. Doesn't impact the AI because "parts is parts" (slots is slots). Eat Mor Chiken !! Ciao. John

[Symon]

Ok. Think Australia is sorted out (kinda, sorta). HQ structure is actually the April ’42 structure. It was hard to shoehorn North, East, South, West, and 7th Mil District into just 4, and the command responsibilities changed a bit, so I made 1st Army for Queensland and northern NSW (old North and a part of East), 2nd Army for the rest of NSW, Victoria and South Aus (old South and rest of East), Western Command for West Aus (same, same), and North Territory for (wait for it …) Northern Territory (old 7th Mil District).

Slot savings and use of an otherwise unused slot let me add New Guinea Force and bring Aus I Corps and Aus II Corps into play under NGF. NGF and I and II Corps are unrestricted. All other HQs are PermRestr. But I, II, and NGF are within the main command flow, so swapping a unit’s HQ will be (intentionally) cheap.

All units, except for the AIF, and those deployed to PM historically early, are assigned to restricted HQs. That means they must buy out to leave Oz. But the cost is only around 100 bucks per brigade, rather than 410. Still takes PPs, though, and I know these are limited, but so was Australia’s ability to deploy troops outside Oz. And no, there is no compensating addition of PPs. They are what they are, and one will need to spend a few more bucks to get a bit more bang. This should help slow down the Allied juggernaut a bit.

Thought about PermRestr some of the CMF units, but decided against it. Oz was swapping Bdes and Bns all over the place, and there was no way to determine if one specific LCU would, or would not, vote to go AIF, so they all have the capability (by paying PPs to go deployable). One can “technically” activate the entire Aus military machine, but the cost will be prohibitive. Not to mention that many of the ‘opening day’ units will disband (withdraw). Some will return as tank/armour units, others will simply go to the pool in support of the jungle reorganization.

It’s playable against the AI, and is playable by regular gamers. But, even though not absolutely, strictly, and specifically historical, it should give Oz lovers a skoosh more of a feel of what was necessary to actually implement their successful New Guinea campaign. Needless to say, the AI has imperatives of its own, so these limitations are only for the Allied player.

They’re not all that bad, just require some thought. Hope you all like. We do. Ciao. JWE

[Symon]

Couple more new things. The units of the NZ Mounted Rifles Bdes were reformed into Light Armoured Vehicle Regts starting in about Nov 1941. They had much the same internal structure as before, but were now organized with 2 mounted troops and 2 recce troops (with scout cars) per squadron and some with a Lt tank troop under HQ squadron. When the Territorial Force reorganized into 1st, 4th and 5th divisions, in ‘41/’42, most all of these MR Regts were on the books as LAFV Regts. As in the case of some Aus LH Regts, certain of these were drained of personnel to reinforce tank units for 2nd Div in Europe and form a tank squadron for 3rd Div in the Pacific.

1st Army Tank Bde was a training organization for 2nd NZEF in Europe that was disbanded in March ’42, and is not in this scenario. 3rd Armoured Sqdn was the 3rd Div Tank Sqdn with Valentines, the only known NZ armoured unit to deploy in the Pacific Theater. So no NZ Armoured Brigades running hither and yon stomping on the IJA.

Because the reorganization of units involved renaming, and the renaming was part and parcel of the formation of the NZ Armoured Corps on Jan 1, 1942, I arbitrarily chose to define the opening day TO&Es of the mounted rifle units in their LAFV configurations (saves TO&E upgrade slots).

By April ’43, Territorial Force was cut in half. By July ’43, it was cut in half again. By Nov ’43, Territorial Force was substantially demobilized and disbanded altogether by April ’44.

Disbandment will be (as for the Australians) the best date that can be found for individual units. Others will be abstracted from primary source material.

Also added 4 new bases for NZ that will be used for both stock and Ext Map versions. New Plymouth, Tauranga, Napier, and Wanganui.

Ciao. JWE

[oldman45]

John, somehow I lost the link to your website, could you post that again?

Thanks

[Alfred]

Symon,
 
Just wondering ....
 
The extended map added a few additional bases but not that many so I wasn't really concerned about this issue.  However with the greater number of additional bases you are providing as part of the reorganisation of the Australian and New Zealand forces, together with altering their TOEs, this issue is just starting to appear on my antennae.
 
Is there a significant impact on VP harvesting and consequently on the game's victory conditions (in particular auto victory) which favour one side over the other?
 
It is not just the SPS of the new bases which comes into play but more significantly the VP modifier which is applied at different rates.
 
With a VP being awarded for every 3 Allied devices destroyed, do the revised TOEs significantly increase the number of Australian/New Zealand devices deployed and consequently the potential for greater harvesting of VPs?
 
I suspect the answer is that there is very little impact overall on harvesting VPs but it is the sort of issue which can be easily overlooked when one is focussed on achieving a more accurate and "grainy" structure.
 
Alfred

[Symon]

Hi Alfred.

New stuff only adds 16 bases that aren’t already on the extended map. They are worth 2 points each. I reduced a few of the bases that are worth 10 points to 8, and dropped a few more from 5 to 3. Should work out the same as with the current Ext Map.

Total number of devices for everybody are down a bit (5 to 8%). But it holds for everybody, Allies and Japanese alike, so the relative rates stay the same. There should be no potential for a harvest bonanza. TO&Es are very much as in BigBabes.

@oldman45 it’s https://sites.google.com/site/dababeswitpae/ but no hurry, still need to do Philippines and Brits.

Ciao. JWE