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Personally I think this site is much better and it does point out the flaws in the Russian operational planning and logistics (you have to back through the assessments from the beginning or during the three different phase the war has gone through):

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgr ... t-april-21

cathar1244 wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 1:36 pm Part of the Russian losses are caused by soft factors.

Poor leadership, lack of initiative, and failure to conduct reconnaissance.

When one blunders down a road without scouting ahead and on the flanks, stiff losses are the order of the day.

Should be enough settings in TOAW to tweak to account for that.

On tanks, my guess is in the future the best equipped armies will have at least a few battalions of MBTs with all the bells and whistles, just to joust with other heavy hitters. But most armies will go for light gun platforms with thin armor and just accept the losses that come with that. Most tank action IIRC is fire support for the infantry in any case.

Cheers

The failure to conduct reconnaissance on the part of the Russians seems incredible to me. Seeing all those destroyed columns of AFVs as they have attempted to drive down a street that looks great for an ambush almost beggars belief.

I don't doubt NATO are providing Ukraine with satellite intel so as to ambush the enemy but the lower level Russian leadership has to be questioned.

IslandInland wrote: Sat Apr 30, 2022 11:25 am The failure to conduct reconnaissance on the part of the Russians seems incredible to me. Seeing all those destroyed columns of AFVs as they have attempted to drive down a street that looks great for an ambush almost beggars belief.

Well, at the outset the Russian rank and file were told, the local people are not supportive of the government, the army is corrupt and demotivated and anyway all the effective units are in Donbas, this will just be a matter of rolling in and taking over.

What's remarkable is that they seem to have persisted with this attitude long after it became apparent that the reality was completely different.

A friend of mine (Colin Wright) did once say Russia begins all her wars with a military disaster. Barbarossa, Tannenberg, Port Arthur, Plevna, Silistria... the last war which breaks this rule for Russia was the campaign of 1812 where the Russians wisely declined to fight a major battle until the French were well into the Russian interior.

With the technological advances in Man Portable AT and AA weapons, and UAV's/Drone's, are expensive Tanks and Jets useful anymore?

Still being interested in this discussion, I came across this one on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF_kbEWSf1M&t=2s

The speaker spends most of the video using analogy's from the past that we have heard before and that do not apply, but he does say that while the Russian's MBT's seem to be taking a beating, he contends this is not due to technological advances but rather to Russian faults, such as their MBT's being in poor condition, their lack of proper training and tactics, and lack of supplies. These conditions are allowing the Ukrainian's to get the better of their MBT's.

Another factor, put forward but a different analyst, is the supposed lack of effectiveness of the Russian Electronic Warfare Countermeasures. The analyst stated that the USA uses systems that defeat the ManPAT's in most cases, but that the Russian countermeasures are not effective, especially against the advanced technology of systems such as the Javelin and NLAW.

There are some settings in TOAW that can be adjusted, such as:

Force Electronic Support Level
(1-100%) - This represents the general electronic capability of the force: Radar, Electronic Countermeasures, Signal Intelligence, etc. This characteristic is only visible in the Editor or the Expanded Situation Report.

Electronic Support Checks
An electronic support check passes if a random number from zero to the friendly Force Electronic Support Level is higher than a random number from zero to the enemy Force Electronic Support Level. Default value of 33% is treated as a value of zero for this purpose. Only if the values are changed from the default level does the above take place. (The feature was non-functional for years. Once fixed, this qualification had to be made to avoid breaking existing scenarios).

Electronic Support Effects
Locations with HQ units, Air units, and units that move or fire are “noticed” at the beginning of the following Turn if the enemy player makes an Electronic Support Check for the location. Combats involving large numbers of units are affected by relative Electronic Support levels. Artillery, HQ, and Air units can only support combats if they pass a Communication Check. Attacks with a large fraction of units failing Communication Checks will take longer to resolve. Individual units and entire Formations may be unavailable for orders (reorganizing) at the beginning of a Turn due to enemy Electronic Warfare. Individual units may be unavailable if they fail Communication Checks, and Formations are more likely to be unavailable if a significant proportion of attached units fail Communication Checks.

and:

Force Precision Guided Weapons Level
(1-999%) – Systems with precision guided weapons capabilities (set in the equipment list – mostly aircraft) have their Anti-Air, Anti-Armor, and Bombardment Strengths multiplied by the following:
100% + Force Guided Weapons Level %
If you set this value to the maximum value of 999%, these systems will have their strengths multiplied by almost 11 times. This characteristic is visible only in the Editor or the Expanded Situation Report.

However, it is not obvious that either of these settings would affect specific ManPAT' vs. MBT combat. Perhaps Unit Proficiency is the best way to represent this?

I'm a fan of Ordnance so I found this interesting. I drew the red line going up to indicate how the mine jumps up and then shoots down, it apparently is activated by sound and vibration, so that other vehicles may pass but the MBT's trip it.

The Russian Jumping Mine!

sPzAbt653 wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:44 pm These are the results of one Round of Russia unit attacking Ukraine unit. The T-72's are all gone.

The results indicate to me that the Attrition Divider needs to be adjusted. This makes sense as the setting for this test is the default setting of ten, which is generally used for one week turns. This scenario has one day turns. Therefore, we got a weeks worth of fighting in one day. Otherwise, it seems that the results are as expected.

I should check Javelin vs. T-80 before resetting the AD.

It is becoming a great scenario, congratulations!. But just a technical comment: The default setting of ten is used for one day and not one week turns. (If I understood correctly, Bob comments from this post).

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 4&t=379925

What you did increasing the AD is good to decrease loses (but against the default value of TOAW4 per day of battle). Bob for example, set the next war 1979 scenario with AD=4, because it is half week (3.5 days). So it increases loses compared to a single-battle day. Technically, you should have kept the scenario as AD=10, for one day turn scale. But I understand this leads to a huge armor loses. I was suffering this kind of loses in the Next War 1979.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8&t=380098

Cheers,

Thanks for the analysis! I will mention that this isn't entirely true:

Technically, you should have kept the scenario as AD=10

There are some suggested guidelines for many TOAW settings, but each scenario requires testing to discover the best setting to gain the desired result. That was the reason for this thread, to demonstrate the AD setting. Someone had asked elsewhere if TOAW could handle Modern Weapon Systems, and the answer is of course, yes.

As another example, we are still working on getting the Russians to suffer 2-1 casualties in their attacks. However, I suspect that this may have more to do with most players not conducting suicide attacks. We tend to be more aware of Force Preservation than some High Commands

So the way combat calculations work is that you have AT power and Armor defense. If AT power > Armor Defense, the guns always penetrate the armor if they hit. We can literally ignore armor pen checks. Thus, the question of whether the T72s will be killed or not only deals with two things. First, the accuracy of the javelins. Second, the value of defense of the tanks.

Accuracy depends on terrain and targeting system. Generally, it's 50% chance to hit for AT weapons with no targeting systems in plains. Enhanced targeting system is 65% I think, and enhanced II is 75% chance to hit. It's in the manual.

Second part is defense and AT value, which determines how many javelins can spot and shoot at the enemy tank. You'd think all 20 would be firing, but not all of them can see a T-72, generally, although in this case, I'm pretty sure all 20 get to fire, because 55/3 > 1.

So it's a flat 0.75*20, which equals 15. That's the same value as what you have in the game.

How would you avoid this scenario? Higher defense. More infantry means you have higher defense. Higher defense means the ATGMs can't spot the tanks because there's infantry in the way. If you had a defense of 100, you'd save ~4 tanks. If you have a defense of 200, you only lose ~8. Percent of attacks that go through is calculated by this formula:



Attacker stats go on top, defender stats go on bottom.

Where q and m are your morale (proficiency, supply, and readiness), a is attack power (you use AT power for that), j is defense, and u and o are other modifiers from terrain and entrenchment. Cities and forts multiply defense by 5 I think, and entrenchment does something. I never tested entrenchment.

Finally, you multiply this by accuracy, and then you have approximately what the game should spit out at you.

I'm gonna pass out right now, I pulled an all nighter relearning this stuff off my very poorly kept notes. I'm prepping to use my knowledge to break the game.

Very good! I am not at all into number crunching so your analysis is very much appreciated. The 'all 20 of them firing' part is one thing that always concerns me about TOAW calculations. It makes me consider this question: Will all systems in a Unit fire in a combat? In some cases this may not seem accurate. However, the Attrition Divider setting seems to offset any inaccuracy.

Looking at the combat as depicted in the TOAW log file, I think the amount of forces engaged and the losses incurred is in some ways more symbolic than concrete.

TOAW scenarios are won by occupying objective hexes. Where combat fits into that is "moving" opposing units that block occupation of the hexes.

I don't think the elapsed time depicted in a turn affects casualty rates for combat unless a designer alters the attrition divider. To the point of sPzAbt653, the amount of forces that actually fire on enemy units in a combat action seems too small to be a valid representation of combat; thus my comment "symbolic".

It seems the trick for designers is to balance the attrition divider against the replacements rate in order to model a given campaign or war. Losses in the game, then, are representative rather than depicting any firm number.

Cheers

sPzAbt653 wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:10 pm Very good! I am not at all into number crunching so your analysis is very much appreciated. The 'all 20 of them firing' part is one thing that always concerns me about TOAW calculations. It makes me consider this question: Will all systems in a Unit fire in a combat? In some cases this may not seem accurate. However, the Attrition Divider setting seems to offset any inaccuracy.

sPzAbt653 wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:10 pm Very good! I am not at all into number crunching so your analysis is very much appreciated. The 'all 20 of them firing' part is one thing that always concerns me about TOAW calculations. It makes me consider this question: Will all systems in a Unit fire in a combat? In some cases this may not seem accurate. However, the Attrition Divider setting seems to offset any inaccuracy.

Afaik, I don't know what the attrition divider does. It probably just divides the amount of casualties taken by each force. But the short answer is generally yes. The long answer is no. All AT units will fire as long as the amount of AT attack is greater than defense. This is calculated from readiness, supply, and proficiency as stated before, and multiplied by unit attack, and any terrain modifiers.

For infantry combat, this means that generally not every troop is going to get a shot if you don't outnumber the enemy in attack points. I'm not sure if having more AP than defense does anything, as each infantry only gets to attack once, right?

For tank combat, that depends on the AT strength vs the defense, I believe. 20 Tanks with a defense of 200 will actually 'dodge' units with AT up to that 200 point number. Past 200 AT power, it's assumed that you don't have enough screening force to protect your tanks. I don't know how AT strength is calculated, but it's separate from armor penetration. This means combined arms will help protect your tanks, which I think is neat. Infantry have a defense value of 10.

But yeah, the obvious thing I noticed is that more units means more number. So stacking is pretty important in TOAW IV, as you'd expect. However, the amount of losses you take is a percentage value, so if you're not overmatching the enemy significantly, you might win a tactical victory, but lose a lot of the force committed. 5% of 100,000 is more than 50% of 2000. That's not including the readiness, supply, and proficiency, you lose.

For fun, you could try testing that battle with the ATGMs again, except this time giving the Russians infantry as well as the tanks.

EDIT: I threw together a test, and this is with the tanks attacking the infantry. All I did is add 100 infantry. There were no ATGM losses.



It makes sense. I feel like the Russians would do a LOT better if they had infantry patrolling around their armored columns for AT weapons teams. Armor is very useful, but very fragile, and this hasn't really changed in my opinion, only gotten worse with better equipment.

I don't know what the attrition divider does

See this one here if you want the best info we have to date:
tm.asp?m=3045873

sPzAbt653 wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 6:41 pm

I don't know what the attrition divider does

See this one here if you want the best info we have to date:
tm.asp?m=3045873

That's a good thread. A lot of hidden jewels in the TOAW III forum.

Cheers