Naval Support - too abstracted?

[Yaab]

Naval Support squads help with loading/unloading of individual ships, among other things. As far as understand, this is achieved by operating additional lighters. Yet Naval Support is a squad and has no cargo cost - it is just people manning the lighters. This means that everytime i.e Naval HQ arrives in an undeveloped port it uses local, abstracted lighters, which in real life were not there and had to be shipped from USA. Is that correct?

Also, shouldn't the lighters be actually in the naval HQ TOE? I know they wouldn't be destroyed other than by bombing the HQs, but they at least should be there to eat supply and take cargo space in ships holds when moving the HQs between bases. Just a thought.

[BBfanboy]

Maybe not commercial lighters, but every port would have boats that could shuttle from ship to shore, and maybe a couple of flat barges to take heavy stuff. After all, the people living at the port had to unload visiting ships for their own purposes.

The port size unloading limitations should handle the difference in size/number of lighters/barges/boats available.

Naval HQ support for cargo handling and repairs is more nebulous, but I imagine it as "authority to hire locals to do the work" - i.e. they have money to work with.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

... shouldn't the lighters be actually in the naval HQ TOE? ...

No.

Alfred

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

... Yet Naval Support is a squad and has no cargo cost - it is just people manning the lighters...

Who said that. Certainly not a dev. The statement is incorrect.

Alfred

[Yaab]

I meant it is a squad device, just people, thus squad men cannot be lighters.

If you look at AA units they have 0 men in unit screen, just AA guns, but I understand they are actually guns and crews, sort like AFV, mot support and armored cars.

With Naval Support it is the other way around, and realism is somewhat broken. I guess it is because they have to function both as squads (ship repair) and items (lighters). I guess you could bump their load cost from i.e .15 to 100 to represent a lighter and naval support men.

[BBfanboy]

I understand the Nav Support people in BFs and Port Service units to be more like stevedores - physically moving the cargo onto or from the lighters/boats which are available at the port. IOW port capacity includes lighter capacity.

As for AA units, the men are there under "support" because they are not considered "combat" type squads i.e. they do not engage in Shock attacks nor Deliberate attacks nor pursuit.

[rustysi]

to be more like stevedores

Yup, to me its just people standing around and unloading/loading things when they pull up to ship/shore/dock. No lighters/boats/barges or any equipment. Watch the films of the Marines unloading LST's on shorelines. Lotsa hands doing work.

[Dili]

You can increase the load cost of naval support.

[Leandros]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Naval Support squads help with loading/unloading of individual ships, among other things. As far as understand, this is achieved by operating additional lighters. Yet Naval Support is a squad and has no cargo cost - it is just people manning the lighters. This means that everytime i.e Naval HQ arrives in an undeveloped port it uses local, abstracted lighters, which in real life were not there and had to be shipped from USA. Is that correct?

Also, shouldn't the lighters be actually in the naval HQ TOE? I know they wouldn't be destroyed other than by bombing the HQs, but they at least should be there to eat supply and take cargo space in ships holds when moving the HQs between bases. Just a thought.

I understand the question. While this concerns "peaceful" loading/unloading I'd say the problem with amphibious
loading/operations in the early part of the game is more skewed. Amphibious landings can be made by regular
transports (no LC's, etc.) with very good results. I suppose that means the landing forces are using the "lifeboats"
of the transports. While that is possible it should usually be very costly for an attacker landing on a defended
beach (is this built it with higher loss figure?). Just my opinion.

But, to follow the spirit of what you are remarking on, I like to think that some adjustments have been made "in
the game", so to speak. For example, engineers have constructed some rafts carried aboard (for vehicles) or
scrounged some larger-than-life lifeboats that still can be carried by the davits, without making too much fuss
about it.

Fred

[Alpha77]

Imho, naval support are not "only men carrying stuff"...there must be at least some specialits among them with knowledge how to store different cargo as well eg. safety measures for ammo and fuel...the carrying types would be more the locally hired workers. Ofc. if you just landed at some lonely place without workers everyone needs to carry stuff even the combat soldiers or air men etc.

From Wiki this pic which calls the workers "dockers"

[Leandros]

I feel the game is suitably abstract. There can be too many details to be handled by the player. I am looking
for the right word - the way the play "averages" takes care of a lot. Just my opinion.

Fred

[paradigmblue]

ORIGINAL: Yaab
realism is somewhat broken.

Realism is broken in the game a hundred different ways. I'm not sure why Nav Support sticks out to you as being particularly egregious.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: paradigmblue

ORIGINAL: Yaab
realism is somewhat broken.

Realism is broken in the game a hundred different ways. I'm not sure why Nav Support sticks out to you as being particularly egregious.

"Ah, Hoshi-san. Prease to hand me up, ah, tree hunred box ah rices. Zero need fruel."

[Yaab]

This is Don Bowen on Naval Support, post no 29

tm.asp?m=2116378&mpage=1&key=undocked%2Cunload&#2117244

"5. You can extend port cargo handling capabilities by getting some Naval Support to the port. This does NOT increase dock space but it increases both docked (simulating stevedores) and undocked (simulating lighters) cargo handling."

What good are additional stevedores (present Naval Support squads) when a ship they want to unload is undocked? Surely they do not wade to the ship and pick up the wares while trying not to get drowned. Obviously, they need some lighters (barge, raft, canoe etc.). My point is, that in the game you neither move those lighters from Continetal USA nor create them via supply at the destination, nor have them in Naval HQ TOE. The magically appear at the destination possibly simulating local production even if no humans are alive on those islands. Do Naval Support squads manufacture them locally? Was this so in RL?

Basically, Dili is right - up the load cost of Naval Support squads to simulate the presence of a lighter in each squad, following the augmented cost of cavalry squads simulating the presence of horses in those squads.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Yaab


This is Don Bowen on Naval Support, post no 29

tm.asp?m=2116378&mpage=1&key=undocked%2Cunload?

"5. You can extend port cargo handling capabilities by getting some Naval Support to the port. This does NOT increase dock space but it increases both docked (simulating stevedores) and undocked (simulating lighters) cargo handling."

What good are additional stevedores (present Naval Support squads) when a ship they want to unload is undocked? Surely they do not wade to the ship and pick up the wares while trying not to get drowned. Obviously, they need some lighters (barge, raft, canoe etc.). My point is, that in the game you neither move those lighters from Continetal USA nor create them via supply at the destination, nor have them in Naval HQ TOE. The magically appear at the destination possibly simulating local production even if no humans are alive on those islands. Do Naval Support squads manufacture them locally? Was this so in RL?

Basically, Dili is right - up the load cost of Naval Support squads to simulate the presence of a lighter in each squad, following the augmented cost of cavalry squads simulating the presence of horses in those squads.

No. I do not think Don is saying the Naval Support squads bring lighters with them, I think he is saying they use the lighters available at the port. All the support squads are doing is using them when ships are undocked.

I think the "simulating lighters" part of the quote means an undocked ship is unloaded by means of lighters, which is simulated in the code for unloading undocked ships. After all, undocked ships unload (using "simulated lighters") at ports that DO NOT have naval support squads. The NS squads' role is to speed up the loading and unloading of lighters already in port.

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

I meant it is a squad device, just people, thus squad men cannot be lighters.

If you look at AA units they have 0 men in unit screen, just AA guns, but I understand they are actually guns and crews, sort like AFV, mot support and armored cars.

With Naval Support it is the other way around, and realism is somewhat broken. I guess it is because they have to function both as squads (ship repair) and items (lighters). I guess you could bump their load cost from i.e .15 to 100 to represent a lighter and naval support men.

When they couldn't find lighters, they built them locally. I ran across multiple examples of small boat yards springing up in remote locations when I was trawling the AWM archives (www.awm.gov.au) a while back.

[Yaab]

BBfanboy&Reg, great info. Many thanks!

[Leandros]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy


No. I do not think Don is saying the Naval Support squads bring lighters with them, I think he is saying they use the lighters available at the port. All the support squads are doing is using them when ships are undocked.

I think the "simulating lighters" part of the quote means an undocked ship is unloaded by means of lighters, which is simulated in the code for unloading undocked ships. After all, undocked ships unload (using "simulated lighters") at ports that DO NOT have naval support squads. The NS squads' role is to speed up the loading and unloading of lighters already in port.

One could put it a little differently: As I see it (maybe the devs, too) the NS squads are, among other things, a
sort of engineer units and there are many "things" engineering units can do to execute their mission. Unloading
stores or people is one thing, that could be done by the ship's boats, if slow. Vehicles, not to speak of tanks
or guns, are different, not even many barges or local small-boats could do that. What would an engineer unit do?
Make rafts!

An actual example: The Japanese advance down the west side of Malaya was for a large part made possible by
"acquiring" local boats. Some were even brought over from the eastern side.

Fred

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: Dili

You can increase the load cost of naval support.

Dili, I thought your idea was sound, but I don't think so anymore.

If you up the cost of Naval Support squads to reflect the presence of both men and lighters, you run into a stacking issue. If you put i.e an HQ with 120 such augmented naval support squads on an atoll, you will quickly overstack the place. In RL, the lighters would be stored off-shore (anchored?),and not on the land. In the game, the squad, with its augmented load cost, is on LAND all the time.

So your idea would not work.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

ORIGINAL: Dili

You can increase the load cost of naval support.

Dili, I thought your idea was sound, but I don't think so anymore.

If you up the cost of Naval Support squads to reflect the presence of both men and lighters, you run into a stacking issue. If you put i.e an HQ with 120 such augmented naval support squads on an atoll, you will quickly overstack the place. In RL, the lighters would be stored off-shore (anchored?),and not on the land. In the game, the squad, with its augmented load cost, is on LAND all the time.

So your idea would not work.

Not that it is germane to the lighter issue per se, but the stacking limits on atolls are apparently to reflect the RL issue of lack of adequate water supply, not space to put things. Some atolls have a lot of islands that can amount to a lot of space.