ORIGINAL: Mogami
Hi, I don't understand this fixation with classifing supply. If the base is not isolated then supply is supply. If the base is isolated then the stuff is not moving so it's not a problem.
Since you can't classify supply before it is used what matters is meeting the conditions to use it. Toboali supply can't build a A6M2 unless it is moved or Toboali is built and has an airgroup and support unit and be in range of it's HQ In other words Toboali has to be considered to be in supply. (no different then a unit in San Francisco getting an airplane or Saigon)
Where do you imagine Zeros are built? I can only think of one place. Japan. And then those Zeros have to ferried or shipped to wherever they'll be used. Doesn't that stand to reason?
In the case of America, the generic nature of supply in the game makes a modicum of sense (and no more) insofar as the majority of all Allied supply will come from America, where the lion's share of war materiel also originates. (Let's forget about the other Allied sources of supply for the moment, just for the sake of this case. I'm already on record many times and many places as saying the Allies have to much ready supply, too.) So, when supply ships out from the west coast it can be "almost reasonably" assumed to be airplanes and tanks and bullets and whatnot--at least this supply stems from a general place where this materiel was "produced." But that's not the case, as far as I can see, with Japan's ingame economy. Someone would need to add up everything in terms of war materiel that Japan regularly produces
outside of the home islands in a "normal" game. Whatever that figure happens to be, it more or less represents a
part of how far the logistics model is off just in that single case--minus whatever local food stuffs the Japanese might be allowed. This is
not figuring in the time and resources that should be required (real-world case) for Japan to ship that "outside of the home islands supply that produces war materiel for game purposes" (in most situations this is what Japan was required to do) first 1) to Japan, then 2) time required within the home islands to
move and convert this raw supply into something useful for purposes of actually
producing various war materiel, then 3) time to produce this war materiel, 4) time to get that ready for shipment from some port back to where this materiel is needed, then 5) timer to be shipped to wherever it's needed. And all of that is a gross abstraction in and of itself because it doesn't begin to take into consideration the generic nature of this supply, whereas in the actual case Japan would have to plan ahead with regard to what it was producing and where it was needed to be shipped. Ahead of time in many cases. If you don't plan ahead in war you generally lose.
Just to be clear on this: we also need to throw in the fuel consumed to ship all this materiel, plus the wear and tear on the ships. And we haven't yet mentioned the ridiculously fast rates at which small ports function in this game.
Now, we still have this fundamental problem with regard to supply in the case of America (the generic nature of it), but a lot of the "details" are ironed out (so to speak) because of the incredible volume of everything America was able to ship. The best example of this during the war would probably be the way Guam (after it was recaptured) was turned into a kind of centrally-located market for the final operations in the Pacific. America didn't just ship an abundance of war materiel to Guam, or even an overabundance of materiel, but rather a
superabundance of materiel, and so that "market" became something greater than a mere market, but rather a
supermarket where, if you needed it, whatever it was, Guam was where to go. (The picture I draw is a sketch, and I draw it with large crayons for the purpose of this argument).
But even so, the ports still operate too fast for the Americans, and I doubt if the game's fuel consumption of shipping is even right (though at least the Americans have to expend it). Probably, file consumption for shipping is quite a bit low for both sides (I'm not an expert in this area, but even without having studied it closely at any given time I came to the conclusion a long time ago, referencing Conway's any number of times for other reasons, that the game seems to have shipping of all kinds running around the board at a discount fuel rate, the error being greater than 50% as near as I can guesstimate, but for all I now even greater than that--maybe someone with better math skills and knowledge of all things naval than I can give a better reading on it). Also, there's that little item of other supply sources existing around the map which the Allies can conveniently avail themselves of just like the Japanese. A small fraction of that might be legitimate, but most of it's bogus in terms of converting this supply into war materiel. A
lot of the captured supply for both sides is bogus in terms of using it for war materiel--I dare say almost all of it should be discounted in that respect.
Overall, I've no idea how far the logistics model is off for this game. By
plenty, for sure. I'd venture to say it's off by half, anyway, just to shoot a round number out there for digestion, and quite possibly more than half when all is said and done. (That doesn't mean that everything would need to run only half as "fast" as it does were the logistics model "fixed." I only mean to offer some gauge to use in comparison with what the respective antagonists in real life faced in terms of supply problems vis-a-vis the relatively smooth sled the game affords.)
The saddest part of this, from my point of view, is that many players simply don't care, perhaps because they don't have an historical bent, maybe because they simply can't understand the histories they have read (we see evidence of this in one thread after another, especially the what-if threads, so for sure that's in play), or it could even be the case they're just a bunch of wishful thinkers when it comes to their games. I don't know. I do know that this acceptance leads to much less upward pressure on Matrix to make at least a few fundamental changes to improve the logistics model, and the logistics model the game does come with leads the uninformed to believe they actually are "simulating" World War II in the Pacific, when, in fact, they are not simulating any portion of the war on the logistics side, which in turn also means that all the combat models are also thrown off.
And this is a crying shame. If ever in the history of wargames did a simulation need to be focused on a strong logistics model, then one which dealt with the PTO in WWII would be it. The war in the Pacific was all about the art and science of logistics. Everything turned on supply, nothing ran without supply. Nothing. Ever.
Which is why I say the game is such a failure. It can't succeed on any level with the logistics model that is currently installed, and in my view the game represents a sort of disservice to the wargaming community insofar as it only teaches bad lessons to those who blithely play from one turn to the next in ignorance of how far all aspects of that play are skewed in all critical respects, most especially with regard to logistics.
One more time: the worst culprit is the logistics model, which serves to drive all the combat models in a warped fashion and at a crazy collective speed.
So, while it might be the popular thing to continue to tell oneself that there's nothing wrong with "supply" in this game, all that actually says is that as a group and in the main the people who play
WitP have no good notion of how complex the nature logistics really is, and how crucial getting that part of the war equation right factored into Allied victory and Japanese defeat in the Pacific. Sure, America produced more of everything and, usually of best quality, but America's chief attribute, and advantage over the Japanese, was its expertise in the field of . . . logistics.
So, let's have a short quiz for purpose of review:
[b]Q.[/b] What was the one most important factor of war in the Pacific?
[b]A.[/b] Logistics.
[b]Q.[/b] What is the game system's weakest model?
[b]A.[/b] Logistics.
[b]Q.[/b] If only one game-system model could be improved, which model would you choose to improve?
[b]A.[/b] ?
