A Guide to Land Combat ?

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Loka is spot on.

Fatigue and disruption are not reported in combat reports. You need to monitor your own and consider the state of your opponent's.

IN the LCU interface, not the individual LCU interface, but the list of all LCUs in a hex, in the upper right corner is clickable text that toggles "show hard" and "show soft".

Click this text and you get a listing of stats often overlooked if you only use the default view of the interface.

This list provides many useful stats including fatigue and disruption.

It's also good to remember that the combat report itself is extremely misleading, especially for us old board gamers who automatically read combat odds as determining the outcome.

This is not the case in WITPAE. The combat odds are only calculated AFTER all damage has been incurred from units firing on units and is ONLY used to determine if fort levels are reduced and/or if a retreat is forced.

Firepower is everything in land combat.

Combat odds mean very little.

One (really minor) exception.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at 85,44 (near Nanyang)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 70267 troops, 996 guns, 2044 vehicles, Assault Value = 2225

Defending force 35456 troops, 78 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 874

Japanese adjusted assault: 528

Allied adjusted defense: 880

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), disruption(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3590 casualties reported
Squads: 104 destroyed, 123 disabled
Non Combat: 43 destroyed, 50 disabled
Engineers: 27 destroyed, 19 disabled
Guns lost 34 (22 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 152 (38 destroyed, 114 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1729 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 132 disabled
Non Combat: 39 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled

Does not change anything about the validity of your post though. Totally agree.

OK you got me. What I should have typed was the combat reports don't give you quantified levels of disruption. [:D]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

Same here. Cut my wargaming teeth on Panzer Blitz in the early 70's.

I came to this game engine with Uncommon Valor and spent my first 5-6 years railing against the "misleading' combat reports.

Finally I learned to accept that it is what it is....the greatest wargame ever made, in spite of the many minor flaws.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

Same here. Cut my wargaming teeth on Panzer Blitz in the early 70's.

I came to this game engine with Uncommon Valor and spent my first 5-6 years railing against the "misleading' combat reports.

Finally I learned to accept that it is what it is....the greatest wargame ever made, in spite of the many minor flaws.

What do you mean? I like freckles, they are not minor flaws or any other type of flaw. They are to be cherished. The only flaw I can find with this game is I don't always win. There has to be something wrong with the game.

By the way, I filed my nails on Fire in the East.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

Same here. Cut my wargaming teeth on Panzer Blitz in the early 70's.

I came to this game engine with Uncommon Valor and spent my first 5-6 years railing against the "misleading' combat reports.

Finally I learned to accept that it is what it is....the greatest wargame ever made, in spite of the many minor flaws.

What do you mean? I like freckles, they are not minor flaws or any other type of flaw. They are to be cherished. The only flaw I can find with this game is I don't always win. There has to be something wrong with the game.

By the way, I filed my nails on Fire in the East.

Been there, done that.

I have all but one of the Europa series games.

I am a serious megagame grognard, having played and/or owned every notable megaboard game with the exception of SPIs Campaign for North Africa, which was recently highlighted in another thread.

My affinity for megagames is likely what drew me to WITP to begin with.

[dave sindel]

I started with "Gettysburg" in the mid-60's, and then all the other classics like Waterloo, Afrika Korps, Battle of The Bulge, Midway, etc. At one point I had dozens of Avalon Hill games, but sold them all on eBay several years ago.

[m10bob]

Land combat?....Never attack with less than a 3 to 1 advantage....Interdict enemy supply when possible with paratroopers or planes by blocking roads in his rear or bombing his points of supply and airfields.
(Even your hungry paratroopers still block lines of supply).

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Land combat?....Never attack with less than a 3 to 1 advantage....Interdict enemy supply when possible with paratroopers or planes by blocking roads in his rear or bombing his points of supply and airfields.
(Even your hungry paratroopers still block lines of supply).

I break this rule of yours often [;)].

[geofflambert]

My brother had that North Africa game. IIRC he mounted the map on a sheet of galvanized steel, hung it on his wall and mounted the pieces on magnets.

I believe the stacking rules were enforced by either the pieces falling off the map or sliding into the Qattara Depression. [:D]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

My brother had that North Africa game. IIRC he mounted the map on a sheet of galvanized steel, hung it on his wall and mounted the pieces on magnets.

I believe the stacking rules were enforced by either the pieces falling off the map or sliding into the Qattara Depression. [:D]

Love it. I too tried the vertical map with magnets approach and experienced all the difficulties of implementation.

I once changed residences in the middle of a game of Avalon Hill's The Longest Day against my brother.

I copied the initial deployment maps, whited out the initial deployments, used the maps to record the location of every unit, packaged the game, changed residences, set the game up again from where we left off and finished the game.

Nothing says dedication to gaming like that!

[ScottyG]

placed post in wrong thread, plz feel free to delete this post.