Hmmmmmmm...
Well, we already have ammo dumps and HQ tents. We also already have ammo carriers and FOs. Those items don't seem to slow down play or otherwise hurt the game. Introducing a maintenance depot similar to an ammo dump would be a static feature. It would also have to be purchased as a unit just like an ammo dump, which means that players wouldn't have to buy it if they didn't want it. (As an aside, having a repair depot would give scenario designers a few more options to work with.) I don't see how this would hurt play or slow down the game. Recovery vehicles would be analogous to FOs, ammo vehicles, and barge carriers.
I don't think that players go overboard when purchasing support units like ammo carriers and FOs. There just never seems to be that many in play to hurt the game. Likewise I wouldn't think that having a recovery vehicle or two, or a repair depot which never moves, would hurt the game in any way. Indeed, I think it would be a valuable addition to SPWAW.
My memory may be going ("my mind is going, Dave, I can feel it...") but I recall reading somewhere that during the Battle of Kursk (and presumably at many other battles involving other nations) the German maintenance units and recovery vehicles were up close and personal to the fighting.
Something New in SPWAW
Moderator: MOD_SPWaW
-
Jon Grasham
- Posts: 70
- Joined: Mon May 08, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: St.Louis, MO, US
Just my take on it. The recovery vehicles may be ok, since they can pull an immobilized/damaged vehicle away, saving that side the points, but any repairs to take place would be well out of the timespan in the scenarios. Beyond a thrown track, which itself could take well over an hour to fix, what good would they do? If the engine breaks down, then a multi ton engine must be removed, a new one available, and dropped in. Same with a transmission, traverse mechanisms, etc. These would be multi day repairs for the most part. Perhaps pulling units out of the mud/snow/swamp would be a use of recovery units as well though. 
?
My point exactly. Its a nifty feature and in one sense would not slow down the game as far as the computer goes.
It would slow it down in the sense of having more to do, more to keep up, more "housework."
Of course, Victor, you are saying you don't mind that. And I am sure others don't mind that either, especially if it is an option.
I'll be candid, though. There are other features that for me are a higher priority.
And as John has pointed out, it is difficult to pull a tank from the field under fire, move it back to a repair depot and have it back in action in time to influence a battle.
I'm not badmouthing the suggestion, just wondering about it's practicality and realism for the scope of the game.
WB
------------------
In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games
It would slow it down in the sense of having more to do, more to keep up, more "housework."
Of course, Victor, you are saying you don't mind that. And I am sure others don't mind that either, especially if it is an option.
I'll be candid, though. There are other features that for me are a higher priority.
And as John has pointed out, it is difficult to pull a tank from the field under fire, move it back to a repair depot and have it back in action in time to influence a battle.
I'm not badmouthing the suggestion, just wondering about it's practicality and realism for the scope of the game.
WB
------------------
In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games
In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Independent Game Consultant
Agree with you their WB. Would be a nice feature for scenarios or campaigns but for a Email game or a IP game I would never use it. As is I never use the ammo dump or the HQ tent in a Email game and I hardly ever use ammo trucks. Something like this I could not see myself buying a recovery vehicle and a repair depot in a Email game. Points would be better spend buying extra units and saying hell to the damaged ones.
-
victorhauser
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Mon May 29, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: austin, texas
-
Kluckenbill
- Posts: 258
- Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Lancaster, PA, USA
I really think that it would be useful to add recovery vehicles and also the ability of like sized vehicles to recover other vehicles. Most of the time when a tracked vehicle "breaks down" that means it has thrown a track. Although I can't speak with certainty for WW2, I have commanded tanks and PCs in Germany and I have thrown more than my share of tracks. When maneuvering across difficult terrain it wasn't uncommon to lose more than half of our tanks (M60A1s) at least temporarily, M113s were MUCH more maneuverable. Depending on the situation, it can take anywhere from 1/2 hour up to many many hours to repair the problem. Also the ability to traverse difficult terrain, as well as the ability to repair the damage, both are dramatically improved with experience.
Regardless, I like the concept of more uncertainty caused by the new damage rules. Keep up the great work.
Regardless, I like the concept of more uncertainty caused by the new damage rules. Keep up the great work.
Target, Cease Fire !
-
Tommy
- Posts: 232
- Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: In that brush, behind you; raising a PIAT to my sh
Originally posted by Jon Grasham:
[snip] If the engine breaks down, then a multi ton engine must be removed, a new one available, and dropped in. Same with a transmission, traverse mechanisms, etc. These would be multi day repairs for the most part. [snip]
Jon,
In the book "Death Traps" written by an American Maint. Battalion officer, he said that the standard process in battle was to replace all lost tanks within 24 hours. The replacements were almost never the original tank; usually it was a rebuilt tank that had been in the system for a few days or a new tank fresh off the boat. He said they were able to meet this 24 hour goal most of the time.
That doesn't help us here though, 24 hours is out of the frame for our battles.
Tom
PS: He said his Division ended the the war (D Day to Berlin) with about a 600% tank replacement rate! ie, they went though 1,200 tanks for their 200 tank group.
[This message has been edited by Tommy (edited July 17, 2000).]
Just one more quick thought on the "breakdown" feature. In Panzer General 3D Assault, they have an option to skip a turn to "repair and refit" the unit.
If the breakdown feature is implemented in SP:WAW, it might be a good idea to incorporate something like the "rally" button, but for maintainance, and it would have the same sort of variable chances of being sucessful.
This would simulate the crew of the tank trying to do a field repair on a weapon or track. This could also be used to simulate the rescue of a vehicle from an immobilized condition. The unit would be prevented from doing anything else, like firing or moving, if this was selected.
Maybe it would also increase supression or make the unit more vunerable to enemy attack at the same time, as if a tank crew gets out to repair a track, anyone can take a pot-shot at them pretty easily.
JIM
If the breakdown feature is implemented in SP:WAW, it might be a good idea to incorporate something like the "rally" button, but for maintainance, and it would have the same sort of variable chances of being sucessful.
This would simulate the crew of the tank trying to do a field repair on a weapon or track. This could also be used to simulate the rescue of a vehicle from an immobilized condition. The unit would be prevented from doing anything else, like firing or moving, if this was selected.
Maybe it would also increase supression or make the unit more vunerable to enemy attack at the same time, as if a tank crew gets out to repair a track, anyone can take a pot-shot at them pretty easily.
JIM
I read in one of the postings either here or under some other heading that it was possible to load tanks onto prime movers. The example given had some weird bug about loading a PzIII or IV onto an Skdf-7 and ending up with an eighteen man tank crew.
I played about with a few tests and found that it does appear to be possible to do some kind of recovery vehicle simulation as things stand with the current OOBS.
I was using the British Hippo heavy truck as a recovery vehicle (which does say it can load guns, infantry and vehicles - presumably meant for barges). It seems that you can lift some of the British tanks with it, without causing any aberrant crew number reports.
This means that it is possible to move immobilized tanks, relocate them, and indeed, give them a more useful facing (particularly useful for non-turreted vehicles?).
However, I guess that if the vehicle is immobilized due to swamp or mud conditions, then the recovery vehicle is also prone to becoming immobilized in the effort of extracting it.
Maybe this will provide some kind of work around to some of the debates. As an end note, I was amused to see that it is also possible to load a Matador truck onto another Matador truck. Plausible if it is meant to be towed, but I don't know how the flags work for towed/internal carriage...
...of course all this just leads to speculations about simulating British sunscreen tactics (tanks disguised as trucks during the desert war), by "loading" a tank onto a truck, and then tweaking the truck attributes in the scenario editor so as to give it the smallest possible values when it is destroyed by the enemy (crew=1, cost=1), ie. when the thin fabric coating is shot off the tank...
...interestingly enough, vehicles loaded onto other vehicles retain almost full movement when their mount is shot out form under them, even if by close assault, which seems kind of weird. I guess a lot of this might just be working on the assumption that the only vehicles loaded will be barges.
anyhow, any response to the above?
I played about with a few tests and found that it does appear to be possible to do some kind of recovery vehicle simulation as things stand with the current OOBS.
I was using the British Hippo heavy truck as a recovery vehicle (which does say it can load guns, infantry and vehicles - presumably meant for barges). It seems that you can lift some of the British tanks with it, without causing any aberrant crew number reports.
This means that it is possible to move immobilized tanks, relocate them, and indeed, give them a more useful facing (particularly useful for non-turreted vehicles?).
However, I guess that if the vehicle is immobilized due to swamp or mud conditions, then the recovery vehicle is also prone to becoming immobilized in the effort of extracting it.
Maybe this will provide some kind of work around to some of the debates. As an end note, I was amused to see that it is also possible to load a Matador truck onto another Matador truck. Plausible if it is meant to be towed, but I don't know how the flags work for towed/internal carriage...
...of course all this just leads to speculations about simulating British sunscreen tactics (tanks disguised as trucks during the desert war), by "loading" a tank onto a truck, and then tweaking the truck attributes in the scenario editor so as to give it the smallest possible values when it is destroyed by the enemy (crew=1, cost=1), ie. when the thin fabric coating is shot off the tank...
...interestingly enough, vehicles loaded onto other vehicles retain almost full movement when their mount is shot out form under them, even if by close assault, which seems kind of weird. I guess a lot of this might just be working on the assumption that the only vehicles loaded will be barges.
anyhow, any response to the above?
-
Jon Grasham
- Posts: 70
- Joined: Mon May 08, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: St.Louis, MO, US
Quite true, however, this would negate the entire concept of a repair shed/recovery repaiur teams, as this is what is modeled by buying/"repairing" a destroyed or otherwise knocked out/disabled vehicle in the upgrade segment of campaigns. Keep in mind though, this is for US armor formations as well, they had more tanks coming in then they knew what to do with. For other nations, 1 or more days depending on the severity is probably more realistic. Soviets made a lot, but their logistics system left much to be desired. And the Germans, well, they were ready to do whatever it took to get a recoverable vehicle back in shape, because they may never get a replacement. Japanese, well, they could rumage up some paper and build a new one I guess.
Japanese, well, they could rumage up some paper and build a new one I guess. Originally posted by Tommy:
Jon,
In the book "Death Traps" written by an American Maint. Battalion officer, he said that the standard process in battle was to replace all lost tanks within 24 hours. The replacements were almost never the original tank; usually it was a rebuilt tank that had been in the system for a few days or a new tank fresh off the boat. He said they were able to meet this 24 hour goal most of the time.
That doesn't help us here though, 24 hours is out of the frame for our battles.
Tom
PS: He said his Division ended the the war (D Day to Berlin) with about a 600% tank replacement rate! ie, they went though 1,200 tanks for their 200 tank group.
[This message has been edited by Tommy (edited July 17, 2000).]
?
Recovery vehicles would be very nice, they were there historically and could be a fun addition to a scenario. The use of them would be realistically fairly limited though, simply because most reparations take a lot longer than the scope of the battle that's pointed out here already.
However, i can think of one exception from this. Pulling a stuck tank out from a small river, mud or whatever should be very possible.. and for a trained crew this is very fast work, especially with a specialized vehicle to help. Most of the time the tank is just stuck and not broken, dug down with the tracks too deep with no chance to get up.. (I've been there, very embarrassing to explain to the platoon commander how the hell my tank could get stuck )
A thrown or broken track, the most common way of losing a tank in rough terrain can be repaired fairly quickly by well-trained crews. Our record was 16 minutes, although this of course varies between different tanks.. anyone know how easy it was to repair a track on a ww2 tank?
However, i can think of one exception from this. Pulling a stuck tank out from a small river, mud or whatever should be very possible.. and for a trained crew this is very fast work, especially with a specialized vehicle to help. Most of the time the tank is just stuck and not broken, dug down with the tracks too deep with no chance to get up.. (I've been there, very embarrassing to explain to the platoon commander how the hell my tank could get stuck
)A thrown or broken track, the most common way of losing a tank in rough terrain can be repaired fairly quickly by well-trained crews. Our record was 16 minutes, although this of course varies between different tanks.. anyone know how easy it was to repair a track on a ww2 tank?
"If infantry is the Queen of the battlefield, artillery is her backbone", Jukka L. Mäkelä about the Finnish victory at Ihantala.
-
PR^Spanjab
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Tue May 09, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: London
- Contact:
Okay - I was a bit overhasty in my assumptions about what would happen when one used peime movers or heavy trucks as recovery vehicles. Remember - never try and second guess the SP engine. This machine is full of ghosts...
Here's what I did:
I rolled a Matilda about in the mud by a lake until it got immobilised. This happened right at the edge of the water, on one of the beach hexes. The Matilda had entered from the NE, and so the tank's body was pointed to the SW.
Then I tried to lift it out with a Hippo heavy truck. I drove the Hippo down into the same hex, and it managed NOT to get bogged down in the mire. I then loaded the Matilda onto the Hippo, using the normal 'L' command.
I drove the Hippo out of the beach hex and back onto terra firma. I then unloaded the Mattie and...
...it still had Move:0. This was to be expected. However, what I didn't expect was that wherever I put it down and picked it up again with the Hippo, regardless of the Hippo's direction of travel or alignment, the Mattie's body retained the nose to the SW alignment.
So, as I say I was somewhat overhasty in my assumptions as to what would happen - I had expected the Matilda to have been unloaded sharing the alignment of the carrier vehicle, this is, after all, what happens with all other carried or towed loads - even those which have speed zero, such as AT-guns or ART pieces.
End result: one can shift immobilised vehicles, given a powerful enough loader, and so set them down again in either a safe zone or a better firing position, but their body will retain the direction it was facing when they were immobilised. Under certain circumstances this could be useful, but 'realistically' if a truck can suck them out of the mud and cart them away to safety, then it should also be able to nudge them around sixty degrees or so when it sets them down again.
All I can suggest is that you play about with the heavy trucks and prime movers and see what results you get for yourself.
Here's what I did:
I rolled a Matilda about in the mud by a lake until it got immobilised. This happened right at the edge of the water, on one of the beach hexes. The Matilda had entered from the NE, and so the tank's body was pointed to the SW.
Then I tried to lift it out with a Hippo heavy truck. I drove the Hippo down into the same hex, and it managed NOT to get bogged down in the mire. I then loaded the Matilda onto the Hippo, using the normal 'L' command.
I drove the Hippo out of the beach hex and back onto terra firma. I then unloaded the Mattie and...
...it still had Move:0. This was to be expected. However, what I didn't expect was that wherever I put it down and picked it up again with the Hippo, regardless of the Hippo's direction of travel or alignment, the Mattie's body retained the nose to the SW alignment.
So, as I say I was somewhat overhasty in my assumptions as to what would happen - I had expected the Matilda to have been unloaded sharing the alignment of the carrier vehicle, this is, after all, what happens with all other carried or towed loads - even those which have speed zero, such as AT-guns or ART pieces.
End result: one can shift immobilised vehicles, given a powerful enough loader, and so set them down again in either a safe zone or a better firing position, but their body will retain the direction it was facing when they were immobilised. Under certain circumstances this could be useful, but 'realistically' if a truck can suck them out of the mud and cart them away to safety, then it should also be able to nudge them around sixty degrees or so when it sets them down again.
All I can suggest is that you play about with the heavy trucks and prime movers and see what results you get for yourself.
That's amazing, I think I need to purchase one unit that can carry tanks just so that mired vehicles aren't totally useless. I hate it when I get an assault gun accidentally crashed into a building facing another building. Now I'll grab it and take it back to defend the back-field like an AT gun or something. I hate that feeling of wastage when you get immobilized units that point into useless areas. Part of me likes the realism of sending a bunch of units forward knowing that some percentage of them will go down just for trying to get there, but being able to use them in a secondary role as defenders somewhere away from the action sounds nice.
Tomo
Tomo
