Major Mess's Mod - A simulation

[Major_Mess]

I’m here to introduce the MMMod v1.0 for SPWaW

I want to state this right off the bat ….. this is just an little project of mine to occupy my time and amuse me, and since I would be doing it for myself... I'd only have myself to please and to blame. Once that decision was made, I gave myself the freedom to make things more as I would like to see them.
By this I mean would try to make the game behave in a more realistic way in as a reasonable fashion as I could, if I could.
While I was at it, I might as well make a few other changes and adjustments that I would like to see in this game. So this Mod is going to have a bunch of different things thrown in to it. I realize that some of it might not work out, but maybe some of this might be seen to have some value.
What I have done is oversee the whole damn thing using one set of eyes, with a plan in place to bring the infantry part at least together in one coordinated effort, to achieve gestalt.
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention: I borrowed an awful lot of really good ideas and info from Major Destruction for this Mod.

Annnnd, with these stupid Covids I’ve had the time to kinda polish this up for others to enjoy, or not. YMMV.


This is what prompted my Mod:
While recuperating from some medical drama a year or so ago, I came across this Operational-Requrements-For-An-Infantry-Hand-Weapon.pdf document on the internet somewhere. Originally published in 1952 as a US Classified Document, released to the public I-don’t-know-when. What an very interesting read it was. For our purposes, it highlights certain misconceptions on how small arms warfare was actually conducted during WW2 / Korean War.
A few shocking highlights that I latched on to:

1. The ranges at which the rifle is used most frequently in battle and the ranges within the greater fraction of man targets can be seen on the battlefield do not exceed 300 Yds (6 hexes).
2. Within these important battle ranges, the marksmanship of even Expert riflemen is satisfactory in meeting actual battle requirements only up to 100 yds: beyond 100 yds, marksmanship declines sharply, reaching a low order at 300 yds. – Page 9

The British examined Officers and NCO’s who had experience in the ETO, and ORO (Operations Research Office – Johns Hopkins) examined men with experience in Korea. The agreement of the two independent studies is striking. For attack and defense in European terrain actions, it was found that about 80% of effective rifle and LMG fire takes place at less than 200 yds (4 hexes), according to the estimates made by the men interviewed. About 90% of the LMG fire was at less than 300 yds. – Page 9

Here’s more - Jane's Infantry Weapons for 1975 contains a couple of graphs showing the expected range of rifle and MG engagements, although the source is not given apart from a vague reference to "US statisticians" (which I believe refers to the Paper above - MM).
About 30% of engagements take place at 100 metres or less
About 72% of engagements take place at 200 metres or less
About 88% of engagements take place at 300 metres or less
About 97% of engagements take place at 400 metres or less

For further reading on the subject I found, Effectiveness study of the infantry rifle.pdf which appears to go over the same ground, material that is more current: Taking back the Inf half-K.pdf, which pretty well agrees with the above docs. Copies of these two papers available upon request.

I’m sure there has been other studies done by various countries after the war, I haven’t found them yet. There is a mythical Wehrmacht study everyone on the internet refers to, but I haven’t sourced out an English copy of that either, and I’m NOT going to the Axis History Forums to find it.

To sum up the above, and to provide the reasoning and guidance behind this mod:
“From these studies it was determined that regardless of theatre of operations virtually all rifle fire occurred at less than 500 meters (yards). Probability of a hit at of ranges 300 meters (yards) or more dropped to 'negligible'. 80% of all effective rifle and LMG fire occurred at 200 meters (yards) or less.
Major factors cited were terrain, camouflage and target exposure. Regardless of how much training we give personnel, these factors will not be changed!

Secondly is the very real situation of reduced accuracy in combat. Personnel under the stress of combat are not able to maintain the levels of marksmanship shown in a training environment.
Most personnel were unable to engage targets past 100 meters effectively.

Combat accuracy has nothing to do with ability on the range."

Sooooo,
Based on a re-vamped interpretation of small arms effectiveness applied throughout all OOB's (backed up by some impressive studies that prompted this whole exercise in the first place), the hope is to provide a more "realistic" combat model.
Another major wrinkle added:
Movement rates have been adjusted to keep trucks and whatnot on the roads where they belong, a further bonus is that mechanized Units aren't smashing into buildings anymore!!!. In a serendipitous consequence of the adjustments, hedges, walls, and most importantly bocage have somehow been given higher movement penalties for tracked vehicles. That one's a mystery but I'll take it!
On the other side of the coin, Cavalry now begin to shine, the difficult terrain that slows down the trucks and tracks being no problem for them. Same applies for pack animals and the horse drawn wagons.

In concert with a drastic - but necessary - adjustment in preferences, I think you will discover the SPWaW as the turn based tactical simulation it should always have been.



Addendum -
While building the OOB's I tested them on scenarios that I’m familiar with, and they played out fine other than having to add turns. For PBEM, it rolls as is.
Anyways, long story short ...... it plays much more like the LC settings IMHO.


Bundled in this Mod:
New set of OOB’s, and a spreadsheet with all Units & Weapons in the MMMod V1.0
A few encyclopedia entries - ENC folder
Lbm file for new unit (FJ mortar team) - PIC folder
New terrain.txt showing updated values - Root folder, overwrite original
An easier to read movement penalty chart for your reference - for your desk
Folder with PowerShell script to adjust movement penalty rates – Many Thanks to Matrix member Red_L.E.D. for this awesome tool!!
Folder with before/after spreadsheets on all infantry weapons
Folder with Infantry Calculator for scen designers
A document on why you should adjust the spotting in Preferences.



A quick look at MMMod V1.0

This can be only a broad overview of what I have done here. There’s just too much to list, I tried to keep all my notes, but ….

Sustained, or Practical RoF as applied in this Mod.
Trying to rate a weapons effectiveness on the battlefield using Cyclical RoF is for chumps. What is most important (and funny enough, the hardest info to source out) is a weapons "effective" RoF. It's also been referred to as "sustained", or "practical" RoF, along with a bunch of other acronyms.

"In contrast to the cyclic rate, the sustained rate is the actual rate at which the weapon would typically be fired in combat. Sustained rate considers several factors, time spent reloading, aiming, changing barrels if necessary, and allowing for some cooling."

Aimed, accurate fire in a hostile environment is what this rating is about. Not shooting the weapon as if you're celebrating at a Hezzbollah wedding party.




Every Infantry Unit has been reviewed. As have All infantry weapons / mortars up to 82mm / AA up to 20mm (some 25mm) / MG’s on vehicles have all been reviewed and adjusted to their peers as necessary.

My Methodology - With each group of small arms, I would first catalogue all the weapons, then compare their assigned data between 8.403 / H2H / Enhanced to get an idea as to how they had being modeled. Researching each weapons capabilities, grouping the “cousins”, and then adjusting the outliers, a ranking for the weapon system was put in place that fit within the parameters allowed in the game.
Weapon Ranges and capabilities adjusted using the most conservative data. (Note – as much as possible, I would take the tested weapon data from a rival/hostile nation. Soviet testing of American kit. UK analysis of German equipment. etc etc.).
All Infantry weapon HE Kill ratings are based on the “sustainable RoF” for each weapon, this # then figured in the context of the current Enhanced game rating schema.
Movement penalties for most of the terrain tiles have been adjusted to limit movement through difficult terrain for the mechanized Units. For this breakthrough we can thank Matrix member Red_L.E.D. for his awesome contribution of a simple, handy tool.
You need Recon now, lots of Recon. If you want to move heavy Weapons around the map, you will now need transport. And if you want to transport anything off-road, you better buy half-tracks. Or Horses.

Infantry:
A new, simplified pricing system applied. (Does Not change cost in majority of units)
To reflect the importance of the _0 Units, +10 to Platoon Ldr (Class 7) / +30 to Company HQ.
Recon, SF and Snipers speed reduced to 10.
Conscripts and 2nd line Inf speed reduced to 8.
Explosives / Satchel Charges - 4 max total per 10 man team. - subtract 1 from spd
FlameThrowers - subtract 1 from spd
Units with .30cal M1919A6 - subtract 1 from spd
Engineers have lost their heavy weapons. Only a few USA Units keep their BAR’s.
Squad mortars removed, except for Japanese GL’s
81mm Mortars - spd 2
AAMG - spd 2
Hvy AAMG - spd 1
MMG - spd 6 - except for SG43 = spd 7
HMG - spd 4 | Water Cooled - spd 2 | Ma Deuce / Dushka - spd 2
Molotovs / Gas / Petrol / Incendiary Bombs - Added 1 to HE loadout
Sniper Rifles - Rng 56 / Acc 44 | 6.5mm Sniper rifle - Rng 52 / Acc 40
Misc. Small Arms - renamed Crew Weapons, now with Rng 8 | Acc 4
A few HE rounds now included for most rockets (and PIATS), you will get a big explosion but few casualties with HE.

Weapons that opposing Nations used to “borrow” are now in the OOB’s for scenario designers, no list for all of those, sorry.
New Units – FJ Mortar (R.Spain) / Generic Sentries & Support Teams (Norway)

Aircraft:
A whole bunch of them were given CAS tags so they could continue the battle in spite of getting shot at.
All weapons adjusted to size 0, there was a bunch that needed changing
All class-44 Aircraft given Stab 10 as per programmers instructions

Boats:
All PT / Armored / Patrol Boats et al get a FC of 3 – Rng 4 to achieve some consistency, and they all get a carry capacity of some sort.

Vehicles:
All trucks reduced in size by 1
Universal Carriers / Jeeps / Kubelwagons - now Size 1
Universal / Lloyd Carrier – Smoke discharger removed from all, carry now 105 (except the early ones hauling the 2pdr. They're carry 104)
All AAMG loadouts reduced by half.
A few had their speed reduced, the DUKW comes to mind.

Plus a bunch of items that I've forgotten!!!!


All of this can be accessed right HERE!!.

Have fun!!!

cheers
Major Mess

[Kuokkanen]

What a text wall! Regarding the combat ranges, what you quoted are the very reasons for introduction of the assault rifle. Otherwise Steel Panthers series has always had the suppression, but maybe it could have more of an effect for weapon accuracy? Unit without suppression could open fire like in the shooting range, then gets shot back, suppression builds up, and accuracy & effective range are reduced accordingly.

About tanks going through the wall, original Steel Panthers game has videos about tanks doing just that! Infantry squad hiding in the barn? Drive through!

[edit]
I just looked up an article about muskets on Wikipedia

Muskets of the 16th–19th centuries were accurate enough to hit a target of 20x20 inches at a distance of 100 meters. The maximum range of the bullet was 1100 meters.

Assuming that is about muskets in general, the best ones may have had greater accuracy than that. Maybe not up to the par of assault rifles, but closer to the sub-machine guns. Of course musket could be as heavy as BAR.

[sami heimola]

Wow thanks Major Mess about new mod[:'(][:D] I will try this ASAP later today...

[Major_Mess]

MMMod V1.1

Hopefully a final update. I’d like to believe that this project is now complete.
V1 cleaned up a lot of – I don’t want to call them errors – but let’s say data that didn’t fit with the philosophy I was following. With all this time from the Covids, its allowed me to research the categories for a greater understanding of the capabilities of the various units. With much of the OOB’s tidied up from the first version it made it easier to source out any numbers that didn’t jive.

Things like heavy trucks with speeds greater than light vehicles. Or a tank that thought it could float. Just little details that came to light as I walked through the OOB’s.

There has also been a few major (ha ha) changes that I believe can now complete my vision that I can highlight.

- I went through and cancelled, or reduced the carry capacity of a decent percentage of AC’s and light tanks. From all those Italian mini-tanks now have a carry of 0, to
Stuart tanks that are now reduced from a carry of 6 to 4.
- All mortars have their RoF reduced by 1.
- Made some sense of the Naval Bombardments. Sm Naval Guns now Rof 6 / Med 4 / Lg 2. Medium Naval used to be RoF 15. ???? 8”+ guns firing quicker than an Oerlikon?
- The big one. Vehicle speeds. I have been very happy with the modified mech.exe that increased the movement penalties ……….but. There was still a vast amount of vehicles that
can zoom around the map that just feels (I know, I know) too fast. Motorcycles OK I guess, but the rest, Nahhhhh. My premise for this adjustment was: Roads in
Europe were crap in WW2. The theoretical speed of a vehicle had no real bearing on how fast it could actually go. You could only go so fast with the infrastructure provided.
So with that in mind I set up a chart on reducing the speeds of all vehicles that were over the speed of 32. You can find that chart at the Depot

- One exception to the above. All T34 series tanks had their speed reduced by 2, after the above adjustments were made. T34’s had an undeserved reputation of a speedy tank. So I figured a 2 point reduction should cover that. It still keeps them quicker than their opponents, but not by such a huge margin.


What I have tried to create is a version of SPWaW that is more of a simulation, as opposed to just a game. I dunno if I have succeeded. At the end of the day it doesn't matter, I had fun doing it.

You can get the files HERE!!!

cheers
MM