Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.
THANK YOU. I knew the mathematic rules from the manual, but couldn't really put it into words. This tells the story. Something needs to change so that friendly hexes in clear weather would give you about a .00001% chance of sinking per hex, only if the captain of the ship was drunk. Even then, he'd probably wing it.
I agree.......some will say "U-Boats", but a) there were no U-Boat sinkings in the Med at all after 1943, and b) I cannot find a single instance of a U-Boat torpedoing a troop ship after 1942; maybe someone can find that.
As you say, Troop ships were very heavily escorted, much more so than the typical cargo carrier
Btw as manual says not all ships that are marked lost are sunk it also represent ships damaged or ships that needs to be repaired. Game also gives a lot more new transports and cargo ships each week than Britain and USA were able to produce per week on average.
USA and Britain were only able to produce 10-15 transports and cargo ships per week on average and half of ships produced went to pacific leaving only 5-7 new transport and cargo ships arriving at European theatre per week. But game gives you 34 new transport and cargo ships each week.
Am fairly sure that USA never produced those numbers of new transports and cargo ships per month what game gives allied eatch month and same time there were very big operation going in pasific that needed thousands of ships.
Btw as manual says not all ships that are marked lost are sunk it also represent ships damaged or ships that needs to be repaired. Game also gives a lot more new transports and cargo ships each week than Britain and USA were able to produce per week on average.
USA and Britain were only able to produce 10-15 transports and cargo ships per week on average and half of ships produced went to pacific leaving only 5-7 new transport and cargo ships arriving at European theatre per week. But game gives you 34 new transport and cargo ships each week.
Am fairly sure that USA never produced those numbers of new transports and cargo ships per month what game gives allied eatch month and same time there were very big operation going in pasific that needed thousands of ships.
It's a good point that the ships in the game may be an abstraction; I think the issue isn't so much shipping losses, as troop losses on sunk ships. That just didn't happen, not to the extent it does in the game.
I have had an opponent lose most of an armored division. That's ridiculous. I did nothing; it was off Africa.
The ships are an abstraction as it takes many ship points in the game to equal one ship. I think it's fair to say that the troop losses caused by ship losses is greater than it should be, even if the actual ship point losses are ok. That's because a lot of the losses are damage to ships that might not cause losses to material. I'll talk with Gary about tweaking down the losses to the manpower and material when ships are "lost".
All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
The ships are an abstraction as it takes many ship points in the game to equal one ship. I think it's fair to say that the troop losses caused by ship losses is greater than it should be, even if the actual ship point losses are ok. That's because a lot of the losses are damage to ships that might not cause losses to material. I'll talk with Gary about tweaking down the losses to the manpower and material when ships are "lost".
I am of the view that uncntested hex losses should be lower, contested and enemy higher (maybe as 1.08 but maybe higher still), and losses to the unit carried need looking at. However if the chance of loss is changed, I think the latter is much less imortant. Sailing through enemy hexe ought to be seriously dangerous! (Otherwise Allies will invade France from Tunisia all the time!)
I agree...I think that transport losses should be nil for non-enemy interdicted waters. I know there are a couple examples of ships being sunk but they pale in comparison to the vast amount of ship movement that didn't get sunk. This game uses percentages/probability. The real percentage would be pretty small.
For contested zones, the value should also be smaller. Here the allies are making some attempt to protect the shipping. Since the value is a single generic number, you will end up with silly situations like swordfish protecting transports from He177 bombers...however, since a bomber/U-boat/other may get through, there is some danger. I want to think of it as extra escorts (DD's) maybe even a CL to help the tranports get through a known area for enemy activity.
Heavily contested zones. This is the cheese you want to stop. You don't want the allies to just willy nilly invade areas.. Heavily contested shuts down transports in the logistics phase but you can still move them on the map with units. The numbers as is are probably okay. Maybe put a multiplier in if the allies have no presence either (double it if the enemy has 3 more interdiction, triple it if 4 more etc...) You know you will take damage if you try to sail in the teeth of concerted enemy attack, and you don't bring anything to help out.
“My logisticians are a humorless lot … they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” – Alexander the Great
The ships are an abstraction as it takes many ship points in the game to equal one ship. I think it's fair to say that the troop losses caused by ship losses is greater than it should be, even if the actual ship point losses are ok. That's because a lot of the losses are damage to ships that might not cause losses to material. I'll talk with Gary about tweaking down the losses to the manpower and material when ships are "lost".
yeah I think the best way to deal with it is have planes on auto patrol all the way down the coast
"We are going to attack all night, and attack tomorrow morning..... If we are not victorious, let no one come back alive!" -- Patton
WITE-Beta
WITW-Alpha
The Logistics Phase is like Black Magic and Voodoo all rolled into one.
I just stopped caring about the VPs - since the new release 1.00.11b you get less VP for cities, and the Axis AI is staring to do a better job garrisoning cities with strong German units, which means, in 43 you have to attack them with "OTHERS" to reduce and capture places like Salerno, Naples, Taranto and even now Messina. I like that the AI is not rolling over so much. I guess I could invest these cities and plug them with Navel HQs, etc.... but I needed the ports stat and can't waste too much time before bad weather.
Then when I start moving Brit Corps back to England in early 44 I lose transports all over the place even though I got the Axis pushed up in the Gothic line north of Livorno. I ship em out thru Naples (total hex control), but take 10-17 "OTHER" VP losses (a bit excessive in my book). I don't understand the VP system in terms of how it good metric for success. I just want to get to Berlin as fast as possible. I figure if I can take Berlin with any sort of positive score that is fine. I can understand preservation of forces, but the current system makes you not want to attack at all unless you got great odds, which doesn't make for many break thru/exploits in Norther Europe where you have to move before 6 months of bad weather stall you. Plus, just when you think you got great odds it turns out you don't for a myriad of factors (failed checks, defensive reserves, etc.) So it it is just "oh well" when you try to do the right thing and still lose 15-20 VPs for losses.
I just stopped caring about the VPs - since the new release 1.00.11b you get less VP for cities, and the Axis AI is staring to do a better job garrisoning cities with strong German units, which means, in 43 you have to attack them with "OTHERS" to reduce and capture places like Salerno, Naples, Taranto and even now Messina. I like that the AI is not rolling over so much. I guess I could invest these cities and plug them with Navel HQs, etc.... but I needed the ports stat and can't waste too much time before bad weather.
Then when I start moving Brit Corps back to England in early 44 I lose transports all over the place even though I got the Axis pushed up in the Gothic line north of Livorno. I ship em out thru Naples (total hex control), but take 10-17 "OTHER" VP losses (a bit excessive in my book). I don't understand the VP system in terms of how it good metric for success. I just want to get to Berlin as fast as possible. I figure if I can take Berlin with any sort of positive score that is fine. I can understand preservation of forces, but the current system makes you not want to attack at all unless you got great odds, which doesn't make for many break thru/exploits in Norther Europe where you have to move before 6 months of bad weather stall you. Plus, just when you think you got great odds it turns out you don't for a myriad of factors (failed checks, defensive reserves, etc.) So it it is just "oh well" when you try to do the right thing and still lose 15-20 VPs for losses.
This is exactly right. For the Allied player it is Berlin or bust in the current VP system. And Berlin is highly unlikely when the player can pull anything from the East at will.
This is exactly right. For the Allied player it is Berlin or bust in the current VP system. And Berlin is highly unlikely when the player can pull anything from the East at will.
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+1 I concur whole heartedly. Or you could instill some penalty for withdrawing units from the east. If it cost a vp to take units out of the east front box that would make you think twice about pulling units to the west
ORIGINAL: mickrocks
Then when I start moving Brit Corps back to England in early 44 I lose transports all over the place even though I got the Axis pushed up in the Gothic line north of Livorno. I ship em out thru Naples (total hex control), but take 10-17 "OTHER" VP losses (a bit excessive in my book). I don't understand the VP system in terms of how it good metric for success.
This is why you need to put plane squadrons doing naval only missions if you dont even those hexes that dont have axis interdiction turn to contested hexes. Where axis line is going do not matter in this.
After I put proper planes in naval missions and avoided hexes that are contested I havent lost a transport.
In my case, I had the bulk of the coastal AF in southern Sardinia I figure that was a good centralized location where I could have my air groups and keep them close to the air hq. So, I need to leave a force in Africa and Sicily too? A lot of attention to detail for something that is pretty abstract (naval movement transport losses).
It would be nice if you got a report instead of just hearing that transport 9 was sunk , something detailing exactly what happen showing attracting and defending forces and losses. I always wondered why I would take no so many OTHER VP losses when I wsnt attacking. There is nothing to connect the fact that transport 9 cost me 8 VP. It wasn't until I started reading this thread that it finally dawned on me. Once again....oh well!
Yup lot of micromanagement for an abstract feature. In my game I had numbers everywhere except one bit and guess were my transports auto went through. Got to the stage were you have to manually move them
Smirfy, they have ready said they are looking at transport losses. Enemy spaces aren't the only place they get a chance to kill you. Any very long move will kill them occasionally. I lose one every now and then but not my major source of lost points. Took my eye off V weapons while I invaded France and lost 13 points in a turn. Will take a couple of turns to beat that in to shape! And exclusively my fault
