How is Defense Strength of Equipment used in combat resolution?

[Cabido]

How exactly is the defense strength value of an equipment used in combat resolutio?
Take, for instance, an equipment with:
Anti Personnel Strength: 33
Anti Armor Strength: 12
Defense Strength: 5

The manual states that shots ACTUALLY fired by Anti-Personnel weapons are assumed to be lethal. So, I supposed the Anti-Personnel Strength will influence the number of shots ACTUALLY fired.
The Anti-Armor strength is used in the chance to kill relation (Anti-Armor/Armor) and I imagine it must also be used to influence number of shots.

Defense Strength of UNITS (not sure how these are calculated) are said to be used in disengagements attacks, RBC, Assault Ratio, i.e. as an integrated value that is confronted to attacker's UNIT attack strength.

Terrain affects Defensive equipment's Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor strengths. So, both attackers and defenders are using their Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor strengths in combat resolution.

What about the Defense Strength of EQUIPMENTS? How does it fit into the equation for combat resolution? Or is it used only to compose UNITS integrated defense strength, for events like RBC and Assault Ration, with no direct use in combat resolution?

[Oberst_Klink]

ORIGINAL: Cabido

How exactly is the defense strength value of an equipment used in combat resolutio?
Take, for instance, an equipment with:
Anti Personnel Strength: 33
Anti Armor Strength: 12
Defense Strength: 5

The manual states that shots ACTUALLY fired by Anti-Personnel weapons are assumed to be lethal. So, I supposed the Anti-Personnel Strength will influence the number of shots ACTUALLY fired.
The Anti-Armor strength is used in the chance to kill relation (Anti-Armor/Armor) and I imagine it must also be used to influence number of shots.

Defense Strength of UNITS (not sure how these are calculated) are said to be used in disengagements attacks, RBC, Assault Ratio, i.e. as an integrated value that is confronted to attacker's UNIT attack strength.

Terrain affects Defensive equipment's Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor strengths. So, both attackers and defenders are using their Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor strengths in combat resolution.

What about the Defense Strength of EQUIPMENTS? How does it fit into the equation for combat resolution? Or is it used only to compose UNITS integrated defense strength, for events like RBC and Assault Ration, with no direct use in combat resolution?

Quick answer and a pointer - one can best see how (most) of the inner works do work (so to speak) is... the toawlog.txt.

Most of your questions you already answered in a previous post where Bob/me tried to shed some light on it.

A unit’s Strengths and Capabilities are based on the equipment assigned, Proficiency, Readiness, and Supply Level. Various assigned equipment strengths are scaled and combined into generic Attack and Defense numbers for quick reference purposes. The quick reference numbers are a reasonably good indicator of a unit’s expected performance, but they only tell part of the story.

Anti-Armor – This is the unit’s strength against enemy armored equipment. Anti- Armor strength is only used against enemy armored equipment.
Anti-Personnel – This is the unit’s strength against enemy non-armored equipment.
Defense – This is the unit’s general ability to defend itself.

Again, weather, proficiency and a heck of more factors play into it.

Klink, Oberst

[Cabido]

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink
Quick answer and a pointer - one can best see how (most) of the inner works do work (so to speak) is... the toawlog.txt.

Most of your questions you already answered in a previous post where Bob/me tried to shed some light on it.

A unit’s Strengths and Capabilities are based on the equipment assigned, Proficiency, Readiness, and Supply Level. Various assigned equipment strengths are scaled and combined into generic Attack and Defense numbers for quick reference purposes. The quick reference numbers are a reasonably good indicator of a unit’s expected performance, but they only tell part of the story.

Anti-Armor – This is the unit’s strength against enemy armored equipment. Anti- Armor strength is only used against enemy armored equipment.
Anti-Personnel – This is the unit’s strength against enemy non-armored equipment.
Defense – This is the unit’s general ability to defend itself.

Again, weather, proficiency and a heck of more factors play into it.

Klink, Oberst

Thanks Oberst. I can understand how the general unit defense strength may work as a tip for overall defense performance, as an integration of various factors that favours the defending force, like terrain, weather etc, but I don't really get the meaning of the single equipment defense strength. how is it used in combat resolution when considering individual equipments firing against each other? When talking about individual equipements strengths, things like proficiency, weather, terrain etc don't play a role; they are intrinsic values. I can see what anti-personnel and anti-armor mean for a piece of equipment, but I can't get what defense strength means in that context. Suppose,when designing an equipment database, how would one know how this equipment factor influences combat resolution?[&:]

[Oberst_Klink]

I will address some aspects of the .EQP, various design philosophies in my Tutorial '42 - Editor as well; be patient... I still got 2 x 5km hikes ahead of me, 1./2.Bundesliga (watching of course) matches and a few beers ahead of me. It will be addressed and I am sure Bob will give you some input as well.

Klink, Oberst

[Cabido]

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

I will address some aspects of the .EQP, various design philosophies in my Tutorial '42 - Editor as well; be patient... I still got 2 x 5km hikes ahead of me, 1./2.Bundesliga (watching of course) matches and a few beers ahead of me. It will be addressed and I am sure Bob will give you some input as well.

Klink, Oberst

Vielen Dank, Oberst!

[Martin_Goliath]

As Klaus mentioned, the inner workings can be figured out from the toawlog file. A couple of years ago I did some serious digging around with TOAW III (hundreds of hours of dissecting toawlog files, I kid you not!). I Think I posted a PDF with my findings at GameSquad, but a simplified description of anti-personnel combat is as follows:

As you correctly stated, a shot against an individual soft target (for example a rifle squad) is considered lethal (although agile defenders have a chance to evade each shot; 20% I think the chance is). Consequently, no equipment strengths are at play here. However, before starting to shoot at individual targets, the game determines how many of them that will come under fire. This is the attrition of the combat. For example, if the attrition of the defender is 7% and the defender consists of 1000 rifle squads, 70 of these will come under fire.

The attrition percentage is determined using the equipment strengths. Thus, the attrition of the defender is determined using the anti-personnel strength of the attacker, and the defence strength of the defender. Similarly, the attrition of the attacker is determined using the anti-personnel strength of the defender, and the defence strength of the attacker. These strengths are calculated by summing the individual equipment strengths, factoring in any terrain bonuses relevant for each type of equipment. For example, the anti-personnel strength of the attacker would be:
AP_attacker = sum over all equipment types k: (AP-value of equipment k) * (number of equipment k in the attacking units) * (terrain bonus of equipment k)
and similarly for the other strengths.
The strengths are modified for night proficiency. They are also modified by multiplying with the relevant shock, handicap and morale, where the morale is where proficiency, readiness and supply enters into the calculation.

The attrition of the defender is now calculated as:
Attrition_defender = Square_root(100 * AP_attacker / D_defender)
and similarly for the attacker:
Attrition_attacker = Square_root(100 * AP_defender / D_attacker)

The attrition values are modified by multiplying them with (10/Attrition_divider). In other words, the attrition divider (which is scenario-specific) can be used to scale the lethalness of all combats in the scenario.


Finally, there is a randomness of about +-25% in the specific attrition used in determining how many individual targets that come under fire. For example, if the attrition of the defender is calculated to be 20%, the specific attrition can be anything between 15% and 25%.

[Oberst_Klink]

Tack, försvarsminister! I will refer to your post in my Tutorial '42 - Editor post, if I may have your permission? The next step is to explain those pesky AP values for certain squads... I am sure you recall my way of thinking. A Light Rfl.Sqd has an AP=19, a Rfl.Sqd an AP=25; and we know why. Because the Rfl.Sqd has 1 x LMG which counts as AP=6 hehehe.

Klink, Oberst

[Cabido]

ORIGINAL: MarGol

As Klaus mentioned, the inner workings can be figured out from the toawlog file. A couple of years ago I did some serious digging around with TOAW III (hundreds of hours of dissecting toawlog files, I kid you not!). I Think I posted a PDF with my findings at GameSquad, but a simplified description of anti-personnel combat is as follows:

As you correctly stated, a shot against an individual soft target (for example a rifle squad) is considered lethal (although agile defenders have a chance to evade each shot; 20% I think the chance is). Consequently, no equipment strengths are at play here. However, before starting to shoot at individual targets, the game determines how many of them that will come under fire. This is the attrition of the combat. For example, if the attrition of the defender is 7% and the defender consists of 1000 rifle squads, 70 of these will come under fire.

The attrition percentage is determined using the equipment strengths. Thus, the attrition of the defender is determined using the anti-personnel strength of the attacker, and the defence strength of the defender. Similarly, the attrition of the attacker is determined using the anti-personnel strength of the defender, and the defence strength of the attacker. These strengths are calculated by summing the individual equipment strengths, factoring in any terrain bonuses relevant for each type of equipment. For example, the anti-personnel strength of the attacker would be:
AP_attacker = sum over all equipment types k: (AP-value of equipment k) * (number of equipment k in the attacking units) * (terrain bonus of equipment k)
and similarly for the other strengths.
The strengths are modified for night proficiency. They are also modified by multiplying with the relevant shock, handicap and morale, where the morale is where proficiency, readiness and supply enters into the calculation.

The attrition of the defender is now calculated as:
Attrition_defender = Square_root(AP_attacker / D_defender)
and similarly for the attacker:
Attrition_attacker = Square_root(AP_defender / D_attacker)

The attrition values are modified by multiplying them with (10/Attrition_divider). In other words, the attrition divider (which is scenario-specific) can be used to scale the lethalness of all combats in the scenario.


Finally, there is a randomness of about +-25% in the specific attrition used in determining how many individual targets that come under fire. For example, if the attrition of the defender is calculated to be 20%, the specific attrition can be anything between 15% and 25%.

Spot on! This is exactly what I needed. If I understand correctly, the relation between the summed AP strengths of all of the unit's equipments modified by terrain, morale, shock etc and the summed defense strengths of the opposing unit will set the proportion of this last that will come under fire. This is calculated for both attacker and defender and then firing takes place.

I suppose that the same would be true in relation to armor, but with the check for hit and penetration afterwards. Is that so?

Just one little doubt: the manual info is consistent with what you are saying, since it states that terrain modifiers affect anti-personnel and anti-armor strength, yet when toggling through the possible values displayed on the counters, there is the option to display "Defending Terrain Check – Defense strength modified by terrain", which doesn't seem to be consistent with the multipliers for anti-personnel and anti-armor in the manual. Shouldn't they be changing the Attack value displayed on the counter?

[Martin_Goliath]

ORIGINAL: Cabido

Spot on! This is exactly what I needed. If I understand correctly, the relation between the summed AP strengths of all of the unit's equipments modified by terrain, morale, shock etc and the summed defense strengths of the opposing unit will set the proportion of this last that will come under fire. This is calculated for both attacker and defender and then firing takes place.
I suppose that the same would be true in relation to armor, but with the check for hit and penetration afterwards. Is that so?

Yes, that's how I have understood it.

Just one little doubt: the manual info is consistent with what you are saying, since it states that terrain modifiers affect anti-personnel and anti-armor strength, yet when toggling through the possible values displayed on the counters, there is the option to display "Defending Terrain Check – Defense strength modified by terrain", which doesn't seem to be consistent with the multipliers for anti-personnel and anti-armor in the manual. Shouldn't they be changing the Attack value displayed on the counter?

I am not entirely sure (it was a while ago I did this), but my understanding is that bonuses of the defender apply to all strength values of the defender (AP, AT and D). In the same way, attack bonuses of the attacker apply to all strength values of the attacker. Note that some attack "bonuses" are less than 1, and thus act as penalties. The 0.7 factor when attacking from a river hex is an example.

Also note that deployment (the defender being in (D)efending, (E)ntrenched or (F)ortified) is also weighed into the terrain factor.

The values on the counter does not take into account terrain or deployment. However, they do seem to take into account supply, readiness and the actual number of equipment in the unit compared to the authorized (maximum) number of Equipment of the unit.

PS Note that I corrected an error in the formulas for attrition given in post #6: there should be a factor 100 inside the square root. The final result is to be interpreted as a percentage.

[Martin_Goliath]

ORIGINAL: MarGol
The values on the counter does not take into account terrain or deployment. However, they do seem to take into account supply, readiness and the actual number of equipment in the unit compared to the authorized (maximum) number of equipment of the unit.

Edit: the actual-to-authorized does not come into play in the numbers on the counters, but I think it does affect the colour dot on the counter: assuming good supply and readiness, a unit consisting of 10 out of 10 rifle squads will be green, while a unit with 10 out of 1000 squads will be yellow or worse. The numbers on the counters would be the same though.

[Cabido]

Thanks for the very useful explanations.

[demyansk]

Glad I don't get into this minutia. Wow!! It's like algebra, calculus, and geometry all in one.