AE Land and AI Issues [OUTDATED]

[JeffroK]

Seems that we count every garbage scow with a flare gun, how many rivets there are on a P47D-R25-E38 but on the ground we make all sorts of "executive decisions" about Units.  Why cant the player decide if its better to fight with a Motorized Division, have any tests been done to see how WITP AE would have it behave? Does 3rd Infantry Division make the OOB? Does 1 SSF get to play their cameo?

PS.   Don's right about A/49Bn, when i get home I'll look up where the rest of the Bn was (I feel it was at cadre level somwhere)

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Seems that we count every garbage scow with a flare gun, how many rivets there are on a P47D-R25-E38 but on the ground we make all sorts of "executive decisions" about Units.  Why cant the player decide if its better to fight with a Motorized Division, have any tests been done to see how WITP AE would have it behave? Does 3rd Infantry Division make the OOB? Does 1 SSF get to play their cameo?

PS.   Don's right about A/49Bn, when i get home I'll look up where the rest of the Bn was (I feel it was at cadre level somwhere)

Rest of 49th Bn was at Port Moresby. I have a wonderful book by a veteran, Torres Strait Force, which goes into great detail. Data (from the book) is on Dr. Niehorster's site:
http://www.orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/017 ... st_08.html

(edit) I also have the first two volumes of Australia's Forgotten Army, which goes into similar detail for Northern and Western Australia. Unfortunately, the last two volumes seem to have never been published.

[JeffroK]

I have access to at least 2 forgotten army books, does the Darwin book cover the Torres Sts? If not I've seen 3 volumes.  they are fantastic and prove that its useless trying to fit the Australian Army into any nice, neat packages.
 
I've got 3-4 books on the Kokoda campaign which detail the raising of 30 Bde, typical Army balls up.
 
In addition, I have the Victorian State Library close by, they have most Bn histories available.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: JeffK
Seems that we count every garbage scow with a flare gun, how many rivets there are on a P47D-R25-E38 but on the ground we make all sorts of "executive decisions" about Units.  Why cant the player decide if its better to fight with a Motorized Division, have any tests been done to see how WITP AE would have it behave? Does 3rd Infantry Division make the OOB? Does 1 SSF get to play their cameo?

Our "Executive Decision" was to limit forces and formations --air, ground, and naval -- to those that actually saw action in the Pacific.

If you want to make your own executive decision to include 'what-if' organizations such as Motorized Divisions, the 'Heavy' Armor Division, Mountain Divisions &tc. have at it -- AE will include a superb editor that will let you Mod to your heart's content.

[Don Bowen]

Reference the data on Dr. Niehorster's site: http://www.orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/017 ... st_08.html

The reason 13th Rgt RAA is (-) is it's contribution to Wren Force (on Nauru Island) and Heron Force (on Ocean Island).

Don

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

ORIGINAL: JeffK
Seems that we count every garbage scow with a flare gun, how many rivets there are on a P47D-R25-E38 but on the ground we make all sorts of "executive decisions" about Units.  Why cant the player decide if its better to fight with a Motorized Division, have any tests been done to see how WITP AE would have it behave? Does 3rd Infantry Division make the OOB? Does 1 SSF get to play their cameo?

Our "Executive Decision" was to limit forces and formations --air, ground, and naval -- to those that actually saw action in the Pacific.

If you want to make your own executive decision to include 'what-if' organizations such as Motorized Divisions, the 'Heavy' Armor Division, Mountain Divisions &tc. have at it -- AE will include a superb editor that will let you Mod to your heart's content.

As 3rd If Div was based in Washington state until '43, and 1 SSF landed in the Aleutians I assume both rated as being in the Pacific theatre.

I hope that AE isnt an upgraded WITP vanilla, and is at the detail of RHS & CHS et al.

FROM THE ANNOUNCEMENT The most historical and detailed order of battle for the Pacific War ever put into a wargame

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: JeffK
As 3rd If Div was based in Washington state until '43, and 1 SSF landed in the Aleutians I assume both rated as being in the Pacific theatre.

Yep. 3rd Division starts in Ft. Lewis (Tacoma) and withdraws from theatre Sep't 42. 1st Special Service Force makes, as you say, a cameo appearance from Jul-Sep 43.

I hope that AE isnt an upgraded WITP vanilla, and is at the detail of RHS & CHS et al.

If the announcement and what you've read on these threads haven't convinced you of that already, I'm not sure what else to say.

[pad152]

Morale

In Witp if you had a land unit with a starting morale of 20 (Japanese), there was nothing you could do to improve it! I remember even shipping a unit with low morale all the way back to Tokyo for a few weeks, it didn't help.

What if anything can be done to improve the morale for land units during the game?

If a land unit with morale gets a leader with a high morale shouldn't this have an effect!

What about leaders, what if anything can be done with a leader with low morale, short of using the editor?

[Andy Mac]

Jeffk there are a number of factors at play that make me loathe to go down to every rivit on land units and the fact is to keep the game playable we need to keep the game as much as posssible at Divisional level (we use Bns or Bdes for historic accuracty and where appropriate but the game engine is designed to be Divisional).
 
We make the best approximations possible I put a guideline of no more than 2 TOE upgrades per unit during the war on the OOBers to prevent units constantly being down filling up to new TOE's (unless its a special weird unit)
 
The only formation I did that gets 3 upgrades is 17th Indian Div that goes through some seriously weird iterations in 43 that are worth showing and ends up a Motorised Div in 45. 
 
Happy to take input if you can refine locations of 49th Bn I will split em out happily but the premise that all OOBers are working under is that we are operating at Divisional scale wherever possible and if that means making some abstractions so be it.
 
Others undoubtadly will disagree thats fine as I said right up fornt if you want to mod at Bn level feel free !!!![:D][:D]

[Andy Mac]

p.s. I was not involved in either RHS or CHS and I like all the OOB'ers on the land side did primary research for the OOB's and TOE's we have used as we cannot use others work without their permission and I do not know who did Australian OOB for CHS.
 
So what you see is as a result of primary research and I genuienlly believe as a result of this work that we do have the most historical OOB possible while keeping in the spirit of the game that the primary unit should be the Division.

[Andy Mac]

pps one clarification to this the first 6 months tends to be lower scale on both sides.
 
Indian Army has about 30 Bn sized units (ranging from SSVF Bns and 2nd Argylls in Malaya to the BAF Railway Bn in Burma and the Burma Rifles and the Malabar Police Bn and 1st Patalia Lancers in India), NZ (3 Regular Bns on Fiji, various militia Mounted Inf Bns in NZ and a few others) , Aus about 15 (Mostly 30th Bde, AIF pioneer Bns, Birds and independent Lt Horse Regts - in various incarnations motor/mg and normal seperate from the Cav/Motor Bdes and Canadians including the 2 Bns in HK and others.
 
Other nations have similar at start breakdowns.
 
Most of the these forces will be destroyed in the Japanese advance or dissapear over time (Aus bns tend to either join up to Bdes or disband/merge as the LH units did to consolidate manpower or become part of the Divisional TOE i.e. the Indian Army Divs when they become 10 Bn formations with the additional HQ security Bn.
 
Andy

[JeffroK]

Problem with the announcement from matrix is that they put out WITP vanilla in the first place.
 
Your info on the Brit/Indian/Aust/NZ is reassuring, while WITP was Divisional in scope, much of the war fought by the Commonwealth forces was more at Brigade level.
 
Square Divisions on the West Coast
35th Division, 27th Division, 41st Division, 37th Division
each of these dropped at least 1 Rgt before shipping into the Pacific.
32nd Div dropped 125Rgt on 8/12/41 so isnt worth the change
37th Division dropped a Rgt 16/1/42, dont know where the Div was at the time.
 

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
107 Cavalry Regiments -- San Diego, CA

Is this a Guard regiment?

[Andy Mac]

I agree that a lot of fighting was done at Bde level but normally on campaign it was based on Divisional control.
 
And the game mechanics (which we did not change) tend to destroy units smaller than Divs very quickly in extended fights. I am a fan of Divisions fighting as Divisions and certainly in Burma and NG that tended to happen.
 
Andy

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

37th Division dropped a Rgt 16/1/42, dont know where the Div was at the time.

Give me a few minutes and I can get you that info.

[Andy Mac]

OK the first in a new series of data from the land team (and a few air and sea thrown in for good measure)
 
The is DRAFT I am still correcting errors and tweaking but I thought as a group you would like to see the latest iteration of the leader table as amended for the changes I am making -- this is the Brit/Ind CW listing only I will put up the others here when I get them a little more finalised.
 
Feel free to comment, disagree or argue as we get permission to release more info we will do so.
 
 

[Andy Mac]

[:D]OK it helps if I actually attach the file [:D]

Cannot seem to upload the spreadsheet had to load a s a text

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
107 Cavalry Regiments -- San Diego, CA

Is this a Guard regiment?

Yep. Ohio National Guard.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: JeffK

37th Division dropped a Rgt 16/1/42, dont know where the Div was at the time.

Give me a few minutes and I can get you that info.

The 37th ID was at Cp. Shelby, Louisiana when the 166 Regiment was detached. See the following for details on what was detached and what happened to them:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:I_H ... cd=2&gl=us

[Andy Mac]

From the allied side (and to some extent but less so the Japanese)
 
1st 6 - 9 months the balance is for more smaller units Bn, Bde and 'special' adhoc units - e.g. BlackForce, Birds, RM Viper force these reflect the lack of staying power and organisation the allies face etc etc
 
Divisions are around but especially in India and Australia are heavily under strength and the sheer quantity of smaller units around swamps them.
 
After that period it moves towards a more Divisional focus as reinforcements and round out units arrive allowing recombination of Divisions and replacements start to fill up Divs and some of the smaller adhoc units disband.
 
Over time Frontier/Light Horse Bn's in India and Australia disband - in India because some Divisional TOE's move to having a 10th Bn and in Australia because they were absorbed in other formations and manpower was needed.
 
Andy