Urgent Help on Ship Withdrawal

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
To be 100% historical we ought to prevent withdrawals from Aden until the Med opens. But we are already moving the other way to allow more withdrawals from on-map ports. So let's just say that withdrawals from Aden happen by movement down the coast of Africa to Capetown and forget I ever mentioned it.

To be sure. But withdrawal is an abstraction. All that is required is that a Ship be removed from game-play. No matter where that Ship is, you can consider her as having received "Orders". So when withdrawal time comes around, you can put any Ship into any "withdraw port", and remove her from game-play. Her actual, physical, historical, course home is, therefore, irrelevant.

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


To be 100% historical we ought to prevent withdrawals from Aden until the Med opens. But we are already moving the other way to allow more withdrawals from on-map ports. So let's just say that withdrawals from Aden happen by movement down the coast of Africa to Capetown and forget I ever mentioned it.

I would vote to keep Aden and Abadan OUT of the withdrawl group until the Med opens.

Overall, I totally agree with Don's original thinking on this. Please do not loosen this. Perhaps a vote in the main forum section or another 'preference option'? For the latter 'game options, preferences, realism options", yes, it looks like many of us would like a serious expansion to include a number of items that have been discussed in the forums...

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

In AE it's that specific vessel. Basically you have orders from above your level - read 'em & weep!

But I'm playing God in this game, who outranks me??

Macarthur??

I dont mind the specific Combat vessel withdrawals, though if the Brits want a Fiji Class Cruiser do they care which one, but specific Transports is going a bit far, if they want a 10,000 ton AK, any 10,000 ton AK should do.

We are getting into a case of letting ahistorical actions mix with defined historical actions for one side only.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

ORIGINAL: witpqs

In AE it's that specific vessel. Basically you have orders from above your level - read 'em & weep!

But I'm playing God in this game, who outranks me??

Macarthur??

I dont mind the specific Combat vessel withdrawals, though if the Brits want a Fiji Class Cruiser do they care which one, but specific Transports is going a bit far, if they want a 10,000 ton AK, any 10,000 ton AK should do.

We are getting into a case of letting ahistorical actions mix with defined historical actions for one side only.

Actually what we are doing is avoiding any emulation of force balance between oceans. Even if we accept the historical losses and remaining units in the Atlantic we can not properly anticipate losses and remaining forces in the pacific. We were forced into one of two decisions:

1. Create a month by month list of available ships in the Atlantic, calculate the current list of available ships in the Pacific, and make a wild-ass guess at force balancing. We can't just require that the Atlantic be kept at it's historical levels as maintaing "n" ships of a given type in the Atlantic might require that every single hull of that type be pulled from the Pacific. In reality, if losses were more or less severe in one theatre, ship movements would be different. No way to figure that one.

2. Accept the historical movements. That ignores losses in the Pacific, which is bad, but does emulate the approximate times that ships were required in the Atlantic. Not perfect, but reasonable. In addition, it could be done in less than a century and is less opinion-prone on the forum.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
To be 100% historical we ought to prevent withdrawals from Aden until the Med opens. But we are already moving the other way to allow more withdrawals from on-map ports. So let's just say that withdrawals from Aden happen by movement down the coast of Africa to Capetown and forget I ever mentioned it.

To be sure. But withdrawal is an abstraction. All that is required is that a Ship be removed from game-play. No matter where that Ship is, you can consider her as having received "Orders". So when withdrawal time comes around, you can put any Ship into any "withdraw port", and remove her from game-play. Her actual, physical, historical, course home is, therefore, irrelevant.

Not to be contentious here, but if that is the case, why not just let the ship withdraw while at sea? As long as it is not under threat, allow the "withdraw" button to be clicked: *Poof* the ship disappears.

I think that in terms of coherence the two best options would be: (1) require the ship to make it _all the way_ to one of the off map bases that it would need to get to in order to report for duty in the Atlantic (UK, E Can, Cape, Pan, or after 43 Aden); or (2) do not require it to be anywhere except "not under threat."

Since there are deadline dates, and political point consequences for missed deadlines, the most realistic option would be Number (1): Instead of "Withdraw ship by July 17th, 1942" it would become "Withdraw ship to Capetown by July 17th 1942."