Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: phoenix

It's not that simple, Jim - that we should just treat everything as a part of wonderfully modelled reality. If that's the default approach then we'll never be able to tease out what is intentional and what is a bug. This supply problem has been mentioned many times before, I think, by myself included. Can you also send me a save Skarp (peter.winship@skynet.be)? Be interested to see if it's the same prob as I've had. You shouldn't be having to wait until 6 and 1800 anyway, if emergency resupply is requested.

Did you check what transport was available, however - how many trucks the base has left? It's a common problem in this scenario, I've found, that all your trucks get attrited until you've none left to send forward, even though you have stockpiles. Check the E&S tab for the base.

If “it’s not that simple” then why do you ask in the second paragraph whether there were enough “trucks” (actually Jeeps which can haul 363 KG of supplies each) available to meet demands?

I spent 27 years working US Army logistics, so I think I know a bit about “supply problems.”

The last part of my career (6+ years) was spent heading the logistics program developing support concepts for eight new combat vehicle designs (tank, infantry carrier, cannon, mortar, command and control, scout, medical treatment, and medical evacuation) to support the Army’s new airmobile / quick deployable combat brigade.

Part of that work was to use what I garnered from developing the logistics support requirements for the vehicles to support the simulation of realistic logistics impacts in the battlefield for integration into the Army’s standard combat simulations.

Prior to that, I lead the program for developing the software necessary to monitor vehicle and combat unit health, and use that monitoring to define predictive demand modules to break away from the “standard” AM / PM supply support cycles the Army had used since at least the first World War (before that it was once a day).

The dynamics I mentioned happened to be those that are used in current planning for defining requirements and addressing demands during supply cycles (whether planned or emergency).

When I don’t see the information from the ESTABS and the Scenario foundation discussed as part of the “supply issues” (like, do you have enough transport to meet demands?, do you have enough handling assets to load and unload the transported supplies?, do you have enough ship time to respond to those demands?, do you have enough supplies to handle demands?) I smell a problem with planning before I smell a problem with software that is supposed to calculate all of those parameters.

The simple fact is when you command a unit to fire bullets faster than the bullets can be replenished, the unit suffers from a lack of supply.

I think phoenix just used a bad choice of word there Jim.
What he probably was meaning is "its not that complex".

You need to remember that the core engine of this game is about 5 year old now.
When it was developed, they had to abstract a lot of things that would have happened in real life, and simplify them just to make the game run at a reasonable speed.
Even with todays supper computers, and years of coding I doubt if a simulation could be made that would reflect accurately all you know about logistics Jim, or all I know about Artillery, and that's not just because of the technical side but because of the human element that also goes into the decision making, which is then fed into the performance, of the war making machine, and that's not even taking into account the "Murthy's Law" side of things.

You don't need to go into the ESTABS or the E&S tab to see that he had plenty of capacity to transport supplies, for an airborne Regiment.

In the Depot tab in his screen dump, under the "Capacity" sub heading you can see "Payload" and a blue bar.
This represents the capacity in tons (not trucks) he can move in supplies to his men. The blue bar will empty as that capacity is used up. This does not mean that they have necessarily been destroyed, some might just be out delivering.

"Handling" represents the number of men available at the depot to load the supplies, which determines how long from receiving the request for supplies, until the convoy can be loaded then dispatched.

You can see what is out delivering by looking at "Transport Columns" sub heading. This lists the assets that are currently out delivering supplies.

The reason I could tell that something was wrong with his depot is, there where far to many routine supply requests.
The routine requests only go out a few times a day taking basics with the ammo, and fuel.
The scenario was only 2 days in, and there are only 18 units drawing supply from that depot, so 214 suspended routine supply requests is a ridiculous number.

I think what was happening in the old version, was the emergency requests where being logged as routine, and fouling the whole thing up.

It has obviously been fixed now [:)]

Fixed. Great.


Wrong choice of words, maybe, yeah. Sorry if they were - they perhaps didn't convey to you, Jim, what I wanted them to convey. Yes, I know your approach, Jim - you bring a wealth of experience of real life logistics in the US army, which is often very helpful and interesting. Thanks! It's nice to find bugs too though, to get the game working better.

ORIGINAL: dazkaz15

I think phoenix just used a bad choice of word there Jim.
What he probably was meaning is "its not that complex".

You need to remember that the core engine of this game is about 5 year old now.
When it was developed, they had to abstract a lot of things that would have happened in real life, and simplify them just to make the game run at a reasonable speed.
Even with todays supper computers, and years of coding I doubt if a simulation could be made that would reflect accurately all you know about logistics Jim, or all I know about Artillery, and that's not just because of the technical side but because of the human element that also goes into the decision making, which is then fed into the performance, of the war making machine, and that's not even taking into account the "Murthy's Law" side of things.

You don't need to go into the ESTABS or the E&S tab to see that he had plenty of capacity to transport supplies, for an airborne Regiment.

In the Depot tab in his screen dump, under the "Capacity" sub heading you can see "Payload" and a blue bar.
This represents the capacity in tons (not trucks) he can move in supplies to his men. The blue bar will empty as that capacity is used up. This does not mean that they have necessarily been destroyed, some might just be out delivering.

"Handling" represents the number of men available at the depot to load the supplies, which determines how long from receiving the request for supplies, until the convoy can be loaded then dispatched.

You can see what is out delivering by looking at "Transport Columns" sub heading. This lists the assets that are currently out delivering supplies.

The reason I could tell that something was wrong with his depot is, there where far to many routine supply requests.
The routine requests only go out a few times a day taking basics with the ammo, and fuel.
The scenario was only 2 days in, and there are only 18 units drawing supply from that depot, so 214 suspended routine supply requests is a ridiculous number.

I think what was happening in the old version, was the emergency requests where being logged as routine, and fouling the whole thing up.

It has obviously been fixed now [:)]

Thanks for explaining how the depot screen is read, as I had some difficulty understanding the manual, particularly the part about "payload."

I think you clarified my notion that "payload" is total hauling capacity broken down into how much is being delivered at the instant of a screen shot and what's returning empty from a completed delivery.

I'm not certain anything is "fixed" until I get a copy of the save that raised the issue to see what caused it.

Considered doing my own run through of All American over Nijmegen, but realized that my command decisions may not match those of the original poster, primarily because I don't run into these kind of supply problems when I'm running against an AI opponent.

I manage my units to use fire discipline and economy of force when attacking.

If there's not fire discipline (everything is high rate of fire, high ammo use, and high aggression) and no economy of force (using only what's necessary to reach an objective) the attack might work effectively for a few minutes, but then, the units tend to run out of ammo and send in emergency requests for resupply.

If the old version of the game eventually cancelled those emergency requests and rolled them into "routine" then the 214 figure you cite might be ridiculous only if the combat tempo were "routine" as well.

If the "fix" eliminated rolling emergency requests over to routine (and a slower tempo for filling the demands) I'd have to question what it distorted at the shipment end to meet "emergencies" because I still see what appears to be a lack of supply columns in the screenshots (at best there can only be 25 jeeps for 18 units) which would tend to cause a pile up requisitions at the depot on the assumption that an emergency request reflects the need for one delivery to a unit and each supply delivery to that unit eliminates that one request. If the units send emergency request "reminders" every ten minutes until the emergency is met, then there would be a significant number of nominal requests during any one "emergency" situation and one delivery should eliminate all those nominal requests.

For what it's worth, I enjoy the discussion of how my focus on 'reality' distorts the focus of the 'game.'

If the intent is to model reality, then understanding how things are supposed to work, and the things that hinder how they're supposed to work, is necessary to build effective software.

"Fixes" can eliminate a shortfall in calculating how things are supposed to work, or simply erase considering the things that normally would hinder them working as they're supposed to.

The first focuses on "reality."

The second masks it.

Well I am hoping that in CO2 we will get a bit of an improvement to supply, that will bring more clarity on the route that it chooses, and hopefully a bit of control over it as well.

Like you Sakrp part of the attraction of Command ops was the supply system as its such an important aspect of any battle.

My previous favourite game was Hearts of Iron 3 which also had a supply system.

I did a concept idea of the kind of thing I would like to see in the game a while back, its here if you want to take a look.

tm.asp?m=3302035