does AA fire on land combat defense?

[modrow]

To put this into context, for comparison the data set for army guns.

To me it looks like Flak has the full parameter set for the land combat routine, in many cases with meaningful values if you believe in tracker. Note that in-game database does not show a number of the parameters unveiled by Tracker, so I think the fact that something is not mentioned there may indicate it is something to be figured out by the player rather than something that the algorithm does not use in a meaningful way.

Just striving for improved understanding, as usual.

Hartwig

[PaxMondo]

I think what Alfred may have been pointing to is that in the data files, there are no secondary values for the AA devices (type 12). So, the primary values are what are used for the primary mission for all devices. In this case AA. For a secondary use, the secondary values are pulled in, but there aren't any. That would mean, they ain't gonna do much.

You can't see these values in tracker, nor in the standard editor. You can view them using the wiptaeload utility which is how most of us modders work with the data.

Now even if the fields were populated, there would still have to be code in the land combat to look at type 12 devices and since none of them have any values, then a good bet is that there isn't any code to support them. Further evidence is that when JWE was doing a lot of tweaks to enhance the engine performance, he didn't look at these devices and he had access to the code.

So, I would say Alfred is completely correct (as usual) and whatever impact AA may have in ground combat it will fall under the Grigsby rule of "Anything is possible, just not very probable". So, I may very well have observed in my 10's of 1000's of turns AA participating in ground combat, but it might not happen to me again in my lifetime.

Finally, do not take offense at Alfred. He is terse in his wording, but only because he is trying to be precise. Those of us who have been here a long time are not offended by his terseness as we value his insights and incredible encyclopedic memory. Like me, but even before me, he was here while the game was still being developed and remembers a lot of those developer discussions quite clearly. He willingly shares those memories with us which is of great help.

Just my 2 cents ...

[Alfred]

modrow,
 
As an accredited lawyer, you would be well aware of the legal principle that there are no superfluous words in a document.  Every single word has a meaning and cannot be thrown away as having no significance.  If you go back and reread my posts you will now notice I associated, where relevant, the word "land" with ""AAA device".  That was a deliberate action on my part.
 
Your Tracker screenshots do not distinguish between "land" and "naval" AAA devices.  That distinction is found in the ingame database.  Once again showing that third party software is not a replacement for the original, source tools provided by the game.  Again, as an accredited lawyer, you would be well aware of the pitfalls associated with relying upon using a photocopy of an original document rather than the original document itself.
 
Naval AAA devices can participate in naval bombardments.  It was precisely because flak ammo could be substantially expended in a bombardment, leaving insufficient ammo to fire at enemy aircraft in subsequent  phases, that setting TF bombardment distance was introduced in an early patch so that flak ammo could be conserved.
 
Before someone else tries to be too "clever", naval bombardment is not land combat.  The naval bombardment algorithms were coded and implemented by the AE dev Naval Team, not the AE dev Land Team.  As that specific naval TF mission does interact with land devices, it is appropriate that these naval AAA devices have a meaningful anti soft/arm value.
 
Alfred

[jdsrae]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

1.  Don't confuse a type AAA device with a type DP device.

2.  The supply metric would be of limited value.

Alfred

The key take away from all this for me is in Alfred’s point #1.
AAA devices are different to DP devices.
Later he notes that land devices are also treated differently to naval devices.
The in game devices can be filtered to see only DP guns plus the nationality, so to see just IJA I filtered out the IJN.

Assuming that the point of highlighting the distinction was that land DP guns can fire in an AT role, for Japan, land based DP gun devices seem to exist in the TOE for so few land combat units that it will not change the outcome of the war.

I’ll post an image shortly with a few more details that I found, but land based DP guns for Japan are mostly in IJN base forces.
Even if the DP guns they hold do what DP guns say they will do on the tin, I am not going to use those units any differently than I do now.

[inqistor]

In editor device can be either Japanese, or Allied (or both), so no difference between IJA, or IJN.

Even better, those Mxxxx guns are described as FRENCH CD GUNS. Maybe part of some forts in Indochina?

[RangerJoe]

In my scenario 2 game, those last three guns are in the static forts at Saigon, Cam Ranh Bay, and Haiphong.

[jdsrae]

Yep same in scenario 1, I just didn’t have those forts in my spreadsheet.
Those fixed DP guns may be able to fire in the AT role, but the bottom line is there aren’t many of them in game.
All the AA devices in IJA AA Regts and IJAAF base forces are AAA guns which I am going to take as being able to fire skywards only.

[PaxMondo]

All of those DP guns are naval. They are mounted as naval gun batteries for coastal defense and can only fire (primary) against naval targets and (secondary) against air attacks. They do not have any direct fire in land combat capability that I am aware of. Think of it as they are mounted facing the wrong way.

[Ian R]

The discussion above should show why, after a little experimentation, I settled for an AFV classification for the M16 MGMC.

[RangerJoe]

Ground combat at Kuantan (51,79)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4856 troops, 41 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 168

Defending force 374 troops, 25 guns, 34 vehicles, Assault Value = 1

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 1

Japanese adjusted assault: 129

Allied adjusted defense: 3

Japanese assault odds: 43 to 1 (fort level 1)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Kuantan !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), morale(-)
experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
102 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 7 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
Guns lost 20 (20 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 32 (32 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 1

Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
56th Infantry Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment

Defending units:
3rd HK&S Light AA Regiment

That is quite a few Japanese casualties for just the support troops defending. [X(]
Wait, maybe the Japanese got run over by the trucks! [X(]

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Ground combat at Kuantan (51,79)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4856 troops, 41 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 168

Defending force 374 troops, 25 guns, 34 vehicles, Assault Value = 1

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 1

Japanese adjusted assault: 129

Allied adjusted defense: 3

Japanese assault odds: 43 to 1 (fort level 1)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Kuantan !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), morale(-)
experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
102 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 7 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
Guns lost 20 (20 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 32 (32 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 1

Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
56th Infantry Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment

Defending units:
3rd HK&S Light AA Regiment

That is quite a few Japanese casualties for just the support troops defending. [X(]
Wait, maybe the Japanese got run over by the trucks! [X(]

Please, don't poke the bear.[;)]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Ground combat at Kuantan (51,79)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4856 troops, 41 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 168

Defending force 374 troops, 25 guns, 34 vehicles, Assault Value = 1

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 1

Japanese adjusted assault: 129

Allied adjusted defense: 3

Japanese assault odds: 43 to 1 (fort level 1)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Kuantan !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), morale(-)
experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
102 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 7 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
Guns lost 20 (20 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 32 (32 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 1

Defeated Allied Units Retreating!

Assaulting units:
56th Infantry Regiment
12th Engineer Regiment

Defending units:
3rd HK&S Light AA Regiment

That is quite a few Japanese casualties for just the support troops defending. [X(]
Wait, maybe the Japanese got run over by the trucks! [X(]

Please, don't poke the bear.[;)]

True. Members of my family shoot them. One step cousin-in=law got one with a pick up truck.