Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Panama



It would be nice to treat all transport alike. You have X number of train, ship, aircraft transport. Why not give other transport points? One horse team can carry X amount of weight. It doesn't matter how abstract you make horse teams. It can still only carry so much weight. If you don't have enough horse teams the unit's movement is reduced accordingly. And don't start carrying on about ammo and supplies and mail and all the other things a unit might have. A train carries the same things when it's carrying a unit so I don't see a problem with it.

Well, I suppose now I'm going to have to go and mess with bioed and see if making a tank a transport item will increase a divisions movement by a lot.

You'll cap at the full motorized movement rate once you have one item of mechanized transport for every two weapons that aren't motorized themselves.

As to making tanks transporters, for the Russians, that's not all that strange. They notoriously used the T-34 as an all-purpose mechanized device.

You're taking a part of the system that is admittedly heavily abstracted (and in my view, rightfully so -- I don't want to muck about with whether the Studebaker 12 could or could not tow 152 mm howitzers), and insisting something is 'broke.'

No it's not. You add transport assets until you get the desired movement rate. If your hypothetical division speeds up too much with a truck, make it a porter squad. If you find the thought of a 'porter squad' moving a 152 mm howitzer aesthetically offensive, rename it an 'improvised transportation asset.'

Why have transport part of the unit mix at all? It would seem to me all they do is soak up casualties. If they are going to be abstracted in one aspect, what they can carry, then why in world make them a one off casualty? There is no logic in that. Either abstact the bloody things or don't.

Bottom line, I want my Soviet divisions to suffer mobility penalties early in the campaign since historically they did have a problem with mobility. I can give them a one or a nine. Nothing else. The only way to do it differently is to bastardize the TO&E. This is ahistorical and goes against what I feel is a historical and correct TO&E. But, since you think this is ok then there is not need for you to go on replying.

I would like to have added to the Wish List the ability to assign units a movement allowance independant of what equipment the unit has since the transport abstract is extremely limited in it's flexibility, that's all.

ORIGINAL: Panama


Bottom line, I want my Soviet divisions to suffer mobility penalties early in the campaign since historically they did have a problem with mobility. I can give them a one or a nine. Nothing else. The only way to do it differently is to bastardize the TO&E...

I'd be curious to see what's in these divisions of yours. To have a choice only between one and nine suggests there's only one weapon that requires transport. Else you should be able to scale the transport up or down to obtain whatever rate of movement you want.

Otherwise, I share your reluctance to 'bastardize' the TO&E -- but it's not holy writ. Transport hauls all kinds of things that aren't represented in TOAW -- I can't see how good results could ever be obtained by putting in every truck, wagon, and tractor that the unit had. TOAW understates or overstates the effectiveness of all kinds of weapons -- you have to either modify them yourself or adjust their numbers. For example, the program way overstates the effectiveness of flak and allows it to be used in ground combat by all armies at all times -- just blindly sticking it in as per the TO&E is virtually guaranteed to produce ahistorical results.

Then there are machine guns assigned to field artillery units that aren't normally going to play a role in combat, weapons that were prone to breakdown or for which there was a severe ammunition shortage, weapons that were so misused as to vitiate their effectiveness, etc, etc.

You say you don't want to 'bastardize' the TO&E. However, just blindly duplicating it is highly unlikely to produce satisfactory results. It doesn't mean much if your panzer battalion has the prescribed numbers of each mark of tank, three engineer squads, two motorcycle squads, 94 trucks, etc -- and doesn't behave as it should in combat. What's the point of that?

Finally, and especially in the case of the Russians, units were so far from the prescribed TO&E, often armed with equipment missing key parts or so worn as to be unable to make it a kilometer without breaking down, so often short of trained operators, so often without ammunition, etc that I don't see how one could treat the TO&E as more than a kind of starting point for beginning modifications anyway.

Right now I'm working on Operation Orient -- a semi-hypothetical 'what were the possibilities in the Eastern Med and Near East' scenario. The Germans, British, and Vichy French I can more or less use the advertised TO&E's -- some judicious modifications, but they're still pretty much 'stock,' so to speak. The Russians and the Turks -- well, no TO&E at all for the Turks, and for the Russians it's a starting point but that's about it. The Italians -- very, very confused. The Iraqis? The Iranians? It's almost irrelevant what the Iranians had -- I need things that will go 'poof' if attacked.

After all, what matters are units that behave as historically as possible on the battlefield. If you can get there with an authentic-looking TO&E, great -- but don't confuse the means with the end. It would not be accurate to create an 'Iranian infantry regiment' with all its assigned equipment if that regiment was able to hold a British infantry battalion off for an entire half-week turn.

ORIGINAL: Panama
Bottom line, I want my Soviet divisions to suffer mobility penalties early in the campaign since historically they did have a problem with mobility. I can give them a one or a nine. Nothing else. The only way to do it differently is to bastardize the TO&E...

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I'd be curious to see what's in these divisions of yours. To have a choice only between one and nine suggests there's only one weapon that requires transport. Else you should be able to scale the transport up or down to obtain whatever rate of movement you want.

Typical Soviet TO&E. Had to pick one Shtat and stick with it since they had so many and the game is restricted in the number of units available.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Transport hauls all kinds of things that aren't represented in TOAW

Dear Lord, if I hear that one more time I'm going to scream. Try NOT stating the obvious.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
-- I can't see how good results could ever be obtained by putting in every truck, wagon, and tractor that the unit had. TOAW understates or overstates the effectiveness of all kinds of weapons -- you have to either modify them yourself or adjust their numbers. For example, the program way overstates the effectiveness of flak and allows it to be used in ground combat by all armies at all times -- just blindly sticking it in as per the TO&E is virtually guaranteed to produce ahistorical results.

It's gotten to the point where I don't care if I can put in the number of trucks or little red wagons the unit actually had. I'd just be happy to be able to get a number between one or nine without throwing in equipment that didn't even exist. That's why this whole truck/transportation thing got started. One or nine. Kind of stupid that's all you can get.

RE: Flak. Used in every way conceivable by all armies. Okay, maybe not as a way to dig holes or pound in tent stakes. Another thing about the 'over' effectiveness of flak. A player gets back the number of aircraft 'shot down' equal to the unit's proficiency rating. So the number of aircraft shot down are not really shot down. Some are damaged and under repair. They go to the restock shelf. "In the case of Air and Naval equipment, the fraction of damaged equipment going to the Replacement Pool is proportional to the owning unit’s Proficiency." If an air unit has a proficiency of 80, 20% is actually lost while 80% returns.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Then there are machine guns assigned to field artillery units that aren't normally going to play a role in combat, weapons that were prone to breakdown or for which there was a severe ammunition shortage, weapons that were so misused as to vitiate their effectiveness, etc, etc.

Breakdown is covered by movement although it's not precise enough since some equipment was more prone to breakdown than others. Ammo is covered by supply, once again not well enough.

Also, I'd like to point out that 'normal' and 'combat' are mutually exclusive. If an artillery unit had machine guns it wasn't so they would like nice on parade day. Experience was the more likely reason and would most probably play a part in defence.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
You say you don't want to 'bastardize' the TO&E. However, just blindly duplicating it is highly unlikely to produce satisfactory results. It doesn't mean much if your panzer battalion has the prescribed numbers of each mark of tank, three engineer squads, two motorcycle squads, 94 trucks, etc -- and doesn't behave as it should in combat. What's the point of that?

Followed TO&Es. Never had that problem. Things seem to work fine.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Finally, and especially in the case of the Russians, units were so far from the prescribed TO&E, often armed with equipment missing key parts or so worn as to be unable to make it a kilometer without breaking down, so often short of trained operators, so often without ammunition, etc that I don't see how one could treat the TO&E as more than a kind of starting point for beginning modifications anyway.

Ah, yes. Short of equipment. Short of, go on, you can say it. I know you can. [:D]

Transport.

I knew you could say it. [;)]

Lack of or a shortage of this item tends to reduce a units mobility. One or nine. That's all you get, one or nine. Well, maybe ten sometimes. Isn't abstraction wonderful?

RE: Flak. Used in every way conceivable by all armies. Okay, maybe not as a way to dig holes or pound in tent stakes. Another thing about the 'over' effectiveness of flak. A player gets back the number of aircraft 'shot down' equal to the unit's proficiency rating. So the number of aircraft shot down are not really shot down. Some are damaged and under repair. They go to the restock shelf. "In the case of Air and Naval equipment, the fraction of damaged equipment going to the Replacement Pool is proportional to the owning unit’s Proficiency." If an air unit has a proficiency of 80, 20% is actually lost while 80% returns.

Well, it says the fraction is proportional to the proficiency, not that it is the proficiency. Otherwise, 100% proficiency planes would be invincible.

ORIGINAL: desert

RE: Flak. Used in every way conceivable by all armies. Okay, maybe not as a way to dig holes or pound in tent stakes. Another thing about the 'over' effectiveness of flak. A player gets back the number of aircraft 'shot down' equal to the unit's proficiency rating. So the number of aircraft shot down are not really shot down. Some are damaged and under repair. They go to the restock shelf. "In the case of Air and Naval equipment, the fraction of damaged equipment going to the Replacement Pool is proportional to the owning unit’s Proficiency." If an air unit has a proficiency of 80, 20% is actually lost while 80% returns.

Well, it says the fraction is proportional to the proficiency, not that it is the proficiency. Otherwise, 100% proficiency planes would be invincible.

Aye, missed that part. [;)]

ORIGINAL: desert

RE: Flak. Used in every way conceivable by all armies. Okay, maybe not as a way to dig holes or pound in tent stakes. Another thing about the 'over' effectiveness of flak. A player gets back the number of aircraft 'shot down' equal to the unit's proficiency rating. So the number of aircraft shot down are not really shot down. Some are damaged and under repair. They go to the restock shelf. "In the case of Air and Naval equipment, the fraction of damaged equipment going to the Replacement Pool is proportional to the owning unit’s Proficiency." If an air unit has a proficiency of 80, 20% is actually lost while 80% returns.

Well, it says the fraction is proportional to the proficiency, not that it is the proficiency. Otherwise, 100% proficiency planes would be invincible.

It seems like a strange mechanism. I'm sure Japanese fighter aircraft units for the first year of the war should have very high proficiency. Why they should therefore recover more of their losses escapes me.

ORIGINAL: Panama


RE: Flak. Used in every way conceivable by all armies. Okay, maybe not as a way to dig holes or pound in tent stakes.

Missed this. It's a factually untrue statement. The Germans cheerfully used their flak in all kinds of ways; it was rare for the British to employ their flak in this way prior to 1944. Russian flak generally doesn't figure prominently in accounts of small-unit actions.

Equally importantly, OPART fails to reflect something: although a weapon will always fight when a unit fights, it's damned hard for an artillery piece to be both employed in a fashion that will permit effective fire support and allow it to be used as an AT gun. Similarly with AA. You want to keep those supplies moving up protected, you can't deploy your AA guns in the front lines.

Except in TOAW. An AA gun can simultaneously protect a road junction seven km in the rear and provide fire support for that attack going in on Hill 106. No problem.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


Except in TOAW. An AA gun can simultaneously protect a road junction seven km in the rear and provide fire support for that attack going in on Hill 106. No problem.

TOAW is not RTS...

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


Missed this. It's a factually untrue statement. The Germans cheerfully used their flak in all kinds of ways; it was rare for the British to employ their flak in this way prior to 1944. Russian flak generally doesn't figure prominently in accounts of small-unit actions.

Equally importantly, OPART fails to reflect something: although a weapon will always fight when a unit fights, it's damned hard for an artillery piece to be both employed in a fashion that will permit effective fire support and allow it to be used as an AT gun. Similarly with AA. You want to keep those supplies moving up protected, you can't deploy your AA guns in the front lines.

Except in TOAW. An AA gun can simultaneously protect a road junction seven km in the rear and provide fire support for that attack going in on Hill 106. No problem.

Soviets used divisional artillery in direct fire roles until later in 1944. This means against whatever was attacking them or whatever they were attacking. Divisional AA guns were not at the road junctions. They were with combat units of the division.

ORIGINAL: Karri


TOAW is not RTS...

Really?

ORIGINAL: Fungwu

I don't understand why it is unrealistic or unreasonable to have the soviet player withdraw his planes anyway, why not let them fight the war however they please?

Looking at something like this I wonder if people think it is a RTS game. If any Soviet air marshall were to refuse to fly his air divisions he would not live out the day. "Fight the war however they please?" That is RTS thinking so might just as well make it one. Let's throw history out the door and do whatever we please. Historicallly the Soviets had to put up as many sorties as was humanly possible but hey, it's not a simulation it's a game so screw that.

Now where did they put that WIN button?

Really. If a turn represents a week, an AA gun CAN be giving fire support as well as do anything else.

Looking at something like this I wonder if people think it is a RTS game. If any Soviet air marshall were to refuse to fly his air divisions he would not live out the day. "Fight the war however they please?" That is RTS thinking so might just as well make it one. Let's throw history out the door and do whatever we please. Historicallly the Soviets had to put up as many sorties as was humanly possible but hey, it's not a simulation it's a game so screw that.

 
Pretend you're Stalin then.

ORIGINAL: desert

Looking at something like this I wonder if people think it is a RTS game. If any Soviet air marshall were to refuse to fly his air divisions he would not live out the day. "Fight the war however they please?" That is RTS thinking so might just as well make it one. Let's throw history out the door and do whatever we please. Historicallly the Soviets had to put up as many sorties as was humanly possible but hey, it's not a simulation it's a game so screw that.

Pretend you're Stalin then.

And pretend everyone has to agree or else? [:D]

ORIGINAL: Karri

Really. If a turn represents a week, an AA gun CAN be giving fire support as well as do anything else.

At the time an engagement occurs, an AA gun (or any other piece of equipment) can only be doing one thing at a time. If it's providing direct fire support, it's not securing the route the reinforcements are moving up on.

Now, sure it can go back and guard that road after the attack's over. But that's not really going to help much.

The same problem arises with artillery -- although TOAW jumps the other way with that. Artillery pieces actually often make perfectly serviceable AT guns. However, artillery deployed to provide massed, coordinated indirect fire support isn't really in a position to function as direct fire AT weapons.

So in TOAW, artillery has no AT value. Else it would be able to routinely do both jobs at once. With flak, the system does the opposite. Flak can indeed do both jobs at once -- in TOAW.

Equally to the point, and notwithstanding assertions to the contrary, most armies most places did not routinely use their AA guns as direct fire weapons.

Both these points can be supported with a well-documented historical example. Look up all the AA guns in and around Tobruk in June 1942. Now look up an account of Tobruk's fall. See how much of a role they played in the fighting.

Not much. Maybe a couple of batteries fired at the triumphantly advancing panzers after the issue had already been decided. First, it just wasn't British Army doctrine to employ AA guns in this role. Secondly, the AA guns were deployed to keep the Luftwaffe from blowing hell out of the port itself. They couldn't and didn't simultaneously help to fend off the Afrika Korps.

ORIGINAL: Panama



Soviets used divisional artillery in direct fire roles until later in 1944. This means against whatever was attacking them or whatever they were attacking. Divisional AA guns were not at the road junctions. They were with combat units of the division.

I don't think these are mutually exclusive. If we're talking -- say -- divisions at 10 km/hex, then the AA can perfectly well be 'with the combat unit' and three km back from the front doing what they can to keep that river crossing open.

When they're there, they can't do much about that attack that just came in against Hill 206. If they're dug in on Hill 206, they can't do much to keep the river crossing open.

...except in TOAW, of course.

And this leads me to what I think is the essential point. Barring some major developments in the system, weapons and personnel have to be assumed to be performing their primary function. Signallers are normally signalling -- not helping to hold Hill 206. They may have occasionally, but normally, they signal. Hence one does not represent them as light rifle squads, but indirectly, in the unit and formation proficiency.

Similarly with artillery, and similarly with AA guns. If the AA guns' primary mission was to provide AA cover, that's what they should do. It's probably what most of them were doing most of the time. Now, the way AA is handled in TOAW is a joke, but that's another subject...

You're right of course. But given the scale and limitations of the game I don't know how you would sort it out.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Karri

Really. If a turn represents a week, an AA gun CAN be giving fire support as well as do anything else.

At the time an engagement occurs, an AA gun (or any other piece of equipment) can only be doing one thing at a time. If it's providing direct fire support, it's not securing the route the reinforcements are moving up on.

Now, sure it can go back and guard that road after the attack's over. But that's not really going to help much.

I'm like Karri. I don't see the issue. Amost every piece of equipment in the game has an AA value and an AP value. Not just flak. They're employed in different phases of the combat round. What prevents anything from firing at the ground units at one point, and firing at the bombers the next?

So in TOAW, artillery has no AT value.

Not true in defense. Directly attacked artillery applies 1/4 of its AP value to AT. And what could be the issue with that? If it's being directly attacked, it's obviously not bombarding anything.

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

And this leads me to what I think is the essential point. Barring some major developments in the system, weapons and personnel have to be assumed to be performing their primary function. Signallers are normally signalling -- not helping to hold Hill 206. They may have occasionally, but normally, they signal. Hence one does not represent them as light rifle squads, but indirectly, in the unit and formation proficiency.

As you know, I think this is too simplistic a solution. For most situations, the rear-area stuff needs to be physically modeled in some way. That's because, in the real world, there's a big difference between decimating the frontline combat elements of a division, and destroying the entire division.

It would be nice, though, if TOAW assisted the designers in this. I'm not sure just how, but perhaps if you could designate equipment as "rear-area", and this designation came with a suite of effects, and frontline equipment performance depended upon the existance of said rear-area stuff, etc. ... A can of worms, I'm sure, but that's what I'm thinking about.

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



I'm like Karri. I don't see the issue. Amost every piece of equipment in the game has an AA value and an AP value. Not just flak. They're employed in different phases of the combat round. What prevents anything from firing at the ground units at one point, and firing at the bombers the next?

Because where the bombers are, and where the ground units are, aren't necessarily the same place -- nor would the ideal deployment for engaging ground targets necessarily be the ideal deployment for engaging bombers.

I already cited the fall of Tobruk in 1942, where there was plenty of Allied Flak -- just not where the ground combat was.

Let's look at Sedan. On May 14, the French were mounting various attacks from what would be the next hex at most scales, while the Germans were attacking out of that hex to expand their bridgehead. At the same time, an immense concentration of German flak was protecting the bridges themselves against furious Allied air attacks, allowing reinforcements to move into 'the hex' and win the ground battle.

Those flak guns didn't engage the counterattacking French units. They guarded the bridge. Had they been used to engage the counterattacking French units, they couldn't have protected the bridge.

I think you'll find that over and over, a weapon can only do one thing at a time. Since attackers have a nasty habit of doing several things all at the same time, more often than not, the weapon can only be utilized against one of the incoming forms of attack.

Now, in an ideal world, one could have a designer-modified value that would allow a weapon to be used in a secondary role -- artillery as AT, AA as ground support -- if the force in question in fact usually displayed such flexibility and if the weapon system wasn't performing its primary role. Your 25 Pounder Regiment can be used as AT -- if it's not providing indirect fire support that turn.

However, TOAW isn't even close to that level of sophistication. So pending that, weapons -- and men -- should be assumed to be performing their primary role.

As a general rule, of course. What should NOT be a general rule -- but is, in TOAW -- is that the flak is always there to help out the ground assault as well as fend off attacking aircraft. That just isn't what happened. It was always doing one or the other -- but only one.

In Seelowe, the British have various 40 mm AA batteries. Given British doctrine at the time, and given German air superiority, the reasonable assumption is that those AA guns would have spent most of their time trying to fend off the Luftwaffe. It would have been rare for them to help support an attack, and it also would have been unusual for them to be pressed into service as AT guns.

So given OPART's limitations, I felt -- and still feel -- the most appropriate way to handle them was to give them zero AP and AT strength.

They can only be used as AA guns. That's what they mostly would have done. That may not be a perfect reflection of what would have happened, but it's a damned sight closer than letting them routinely do precisely what they rarely did in 1940 -- support ground attacks and beat back panzers. To treat them otherwise is to give the British a weapon they would not in fact have had.

I guess if you broke a scenario down to one hour turns or less you could do that. Would make all scenarios extrememly long. Or you could throw out Opart and make Tacart. [;)]