True Foot Infantry

[Lobster]

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to give static equipment organic transport by making it slow motorized and uncheck the static flag. Then eliminate the supply train in the TOE. That will make foot units truely foot units. Because that supply train increases the movement allowance of the foot infantry beyond what it should be. I know, some artillery is horse drawn. But how do you split horse drawn and motorized artillery? You can't do it in any logical fashion so just make it all slow motorized. That way the game engine won't look at the supply train and go, 'Oh look, trucks. Let's give that unit more movement points!". Then put the supply train if the HQ unit instead of in the combat units.

[cathar1244]

Sort of boils down to assigning "movement factors".

A different issue, but of the same flavor, involves assignment of armed transport equipment (halftrack etc).

I think it was you who pointed out each piece of transport equipment can carry two pieces of transportable equipment.

But what if one wants all of the AA firepower included in a unit. Should a designer used unarmed transport in a quantity to "produce" a desired movement speed for the unit, and include the desired number of heavy machine guns to match what would have been mounted on the halftracks ?

Dunno. There are work arounds for these questions, but they have their own baggage.

[Lobster]

Sort of boils down to assigning "movement factors".

A different issue, but of the same flavor, involves assignment of armed transport equipment (halftrack etc).

I think it was you who pointed out each piece of transport equipment can carry two pieces of transportable equipment.

But what if one wants all of the AA firepower included in a unit. Should a designer used unarmed transport in a quantity to "produce" a desired movement speed for the unit, and include the desired number of heavy machine guns to match what would have been mounted on the halftracks ?

Dunno. There are work arounds for these questions, but they have their own baggage.

Actually one transport can tow any number of static equipment. Armed transport or not. And armed transport combat values already include any mounted MGs. I suppose you could have the transport and the MGs separate to model MGs that can be used dismounted. You still have the halftrack conundrum. In combat one halftrack equipment is one halftrack but it's any number of halftracks when its transportation ability is taken into account.
What might be nice regarding transport is a unit's movement dependant on the icon. An infantry icon moves as fast as the slowest equipment. A motorized icon moves as fast as the slowest transport or equipment. Still problems with that.

[cathar1244]

This crossed my mind the other day.

Perhaps part of the issue is the names given the equipment. "Truck", in the game, actually represents a nonspecific quantity of "motor transport assets". Ditto with porters, horse drawn wagons etc.

The fuzziness of this is not altogether harmless. IIRC, equipment counts can bring about combat penalties if there is too much gear in one hex, yet, "a truck is not a single truck". Okay for scenarios with battalion sized units, less so for scenarios in which the units are corps of the Second World War or later.

[golden delicious]

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to give static equipment organic transport by making it slow motorized and uncheck the static flag. Then eliminate the supply train in the TOE. That will make foot units truely foot units. Because that supply train increases the movement allowance of the foot infantry beyond what it should be.

You could just adjust the number of trucks down until the movement rate is right.

[cathar1244]

You could just adjust the number of trucks down until the movement rate is right.

The question then is what is "right".

I note that even the famous designers of old paper wargames had widely varying views about movement rates. Take War in Europe. Soviet rifle divisions moved with "4", German infantry divisions with "5", and US and UK infantry divisions with "10".

Meanwhile, another SPI game of similar unit scale, "Breakout and Pursuit", show both the German and the US divisions with "5" while UK infantry divisions are "16" !

Yow. I guess scenario designers could use a measure like the German Motorisierungsgrad to get an idea of relative mobility and then apply that to a base rate that works for the scenario.

[golden delicious]

Meanwhile, another SPI game of similar unit scale, "Breakout and Pursuit", show both the German and the US divisions with "5" while UK infantry divisions are "16" !

Yow. I guess scenario designers could use a measure like the German Motorisierungsgrad to get an idea of relative mobility and then apply that to a base rate that works for the scenario.

Well, what speed is the unit going to move in the real world? The speed of the foot soldier? The speed of a motor vehicle?

Create a unit with 1 rifle squad and another with 1 truck. Those are your baselines. Adjust everything else based on those.

[Lobster]

An infantry unit moves as fast as it's slowest combat component. That would be the foot soldier. But if you throw in cavalry, motorcycles, jeeps, trucks, halftracks and the movement exceeds that of the foot soldier. If you look at other games and they don't even have trucks in the TOE.

[cathar1244]

Meanwhile, another SPI game of similar unit scale, "Breakout and Pursuit", show both the German and the US divisions with "5" while UK infantry divisions are "16" !

Yow. I guess scenario designers could use a measure like the German Motorisierungsgrad to get an idea of relative mobility and then apply that to a base rate that works for the scenario.

Well, what speed is the unit going to move in the real world? The speed of the foot soldier? The speed of a motor vehicle?

Create a unit with 1 rifle squad and another with 1 truck. Those are your baselines. Adjust everything else based on those.

The people at SPI were aware of "influences" like the truck companies used by armies in the war to selectively motorize units as needed. I suspect that may have influenced their reckoning of movement factors for units of western armies. Unfortunately, we can't model that very well in TOAW unless one wants to add additional trucks to units, and that is not an accurate representation.

For scenario designers, information on advance rates for given campaigns might be a start.

[cathar1244]

An infantry unit moves as fast as it's slowest combat component. That would be the foot soldier. But if you throw in cavalry, motorcycles, jeeps, trucks, halftracks and the movement exceeds that of the foot soldier. If you look at other games and they don't even have trucks in the TOE.

Agree. In NW Europe, a US division could use it's trucks to motorize one of its regiments. I would have to review historical advance rates but would guess they were more than four kilometers per hour, on average.

[golden delicious]

An infantry unit moves as fast as it's slowest combat component. That would be the foot soldier. But if you throw in cavalry, motorcycles, jeeps, trucks, halftracks and the movement exceeds that of the foot soldier. If you look at other games and they don't even have trucks in the TOE.

Yes. So in TOAW you omit any transport that makes the unit too fast. What's the problem? "Trucks" and "Horse Teams" are utilities which help the designer achieve the desired movement rate for the unit.

[Lobster]

What's the problem?

THE PROBLEM
18.11.3. Transport Asset Sharing
Don’t ignore the “boring” equipment assigned to
units. Excess Trucks and Horse Teams may not have
158 The Operational Art of War IV
an effect on a unit’s Movement capability, but they
can have a very strong effect on Supply Distribution.
U.S. forces, in particular, are well-known for their
practice of temporarily stripping Transport assets
from units that don’t need them and forming adhoc
“Redball Express” units to aid in rapid resupply.
This is modeled in the game as “Transport Asset
Sharing”. On the other hand, remember that some
Forces (particularly “third world” countries) should
be chronically understrength in Transport assets.