Comprehensive Wishlist

[ColinWright]

The fact of the matter is, Curtis, that in the last week or however long this particular solar flare has lasted, you've made two valid points that I can recall.

The first was your objection to making rivers highways for movement by imposing the cost when one leaves the hex.

What happens when the rivers branch? Good point.

The second was your reference to wish list item 5.9. Yes, that would be an improvement.

Otherwise, it's been like listening to Hitler on a bad day. Abusive, poorly reasoned, often resting on a faulty appreciation of reality, and with unpleasant implications for the future.

[fogger]

Colin,
I would question your learned Muslims again as the Koran states "Allah created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days" (7:54)

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: fogger

Colin,
I would question your learned Muslims again as the Koran states "Allah created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days" (7:54)

Christians and Jews agree: according to them, he rested on the seventh day.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



It isn't a matter of scale. Start walking and don't stop. Your pace will slack off - all the way to zero eventually. Fatigue definitely impacts march rates. Battle fatigue too.

This is pretty representative of what you have to say.

The point would be meaningful -- if the TOAW foot movement rate for a fully rested unit represented continuous walking. At 35 km per every 24 hour period, it obviously doesn't. The rate isn't force-marching in the first place -- so to argue as if it does is simply pointless.

And so on, and so on, and so on... All you're doing is demonstrating how unfit you are for the position you hold. You're incapable of acknowledging that anyone else's ideas but your own have any merit, and unable to see the flaws in your own.

So now you're going to use the movement rate of TOAW foot units as evidence that fatigue doesn't affect foot movement rates! That's a unique source of evidence.

A unit that marches 20 miles, then sleeps 8-hours, will get up more or less fully rested. It is not fatigued. The issue is entirely what a unit that is actually fatigued would do. And, for sure, a unit truely at the limit of fatigue - one at the limit represented by 33% readiness, would have it's mobility seriously impacted. You're just ridiculusly wrong - as usual (and hilariously cocksure about it, too).

And, as I pointed out, this is a serious issue with TOAW. The main benefit of moving infantry by truck is that they arrive at the battlefield fresher than the ones that have to move by foot. Not so under TOAW.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Panama

And Leningrad. You forgot Leningrad. All the way to Gorodok on the Neva, south of Schusselburg.

Still 'n as a rule...

Two of the scenarios I'm working on -- Seelowe and one covering the Commonwealth invasion of Syria involve what are really rather modest naval squadrons that can provide fire support.

Left to the game engine, these squadrons can flail opposing forces up to twenty kilometers inland. It becomes very hard to hold a line near the coast.

In fact, and going by what actually happened both in the Syrian campaign and in Italy, ship's guns could be have a big impact -- but usually only right on the coast. As I say, as a rule the limit for really effective fire seems to have been something like five kilometers.

Are you seriously suggesting that TOAW be revised so that battleships can't support more than 5km from the coast, just because you can't find an example of them doing so?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Sure: as wargames they were often commendable. This does not make them valid sources of data.

The more commendable they were as wargames the more valid as sources they were. They can't be commendable wargames without it. Successful operation as a wargame validates the game's parameters, to whatever extent it's successful.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

On the other hand, the game has to actually work. That gives it a legitimacy no book or document can ever match.

The problem with the reasoning here is that the means used to obtain the historical result often owe nothing to historical reality.

There's no problem with the reasoning. To the extent that the game works (and there can be an extensive suite of metrics to establish that) however it brought that about warrants legitimacy no book or document can match.

Anybody that thinks that all you have to do is get the minutia right and the scenario will work, is in for a rude awakening. There are a host of subjective parameters that have to be gotten right for any hope of success. And they tend to be far more important than the minutia.

When I was researching "Soviet Union 1941" I made a comparative study of the OOBs & TO&E of all existing Barbarossa scenarios. Nobody had the same answer. Some of them were pretty awful. But the combination of them all formed something of a concensus that was superior to any one of them by itself. And filled in a gap or two that other sources couldn't.

The 'consensus' of all the scenarios out there...

Key point was that it was info that other sources couldn't fill. Official sources are often incomplete, contradictory, or ambiguous. I use as many sources as possible.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

The fact of the matter is, Curtis, that in the last week or however long this particular solar flare has lasted, you've made two valid points that I can recall.

Drat! Now I'm worried about those two.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

The more commendable they were as wargames the more valid as sources they were. They can't be commendable wargames without it. Successful operation as a wargame validates the game's parameters, to whatever extent it's successful.

If I were writing an encyclopedia I would not use other encyclopedias as my primary source- no matter how good they are.

Like a photocopy (an HP photocopy at least), with each iteration you get further and further from the original image. If you want to produce the best image possible, you have to go back to the source.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

On the other hand, the game has to actually work. That gives it a legitimacy no book or document can ever match.

On the face of it, that remark's indefensible. Vide France 1940. It obtains entirely plausible results through entirely illegitimate means.

One can brute-force any result one wants. Simulating what actually happened is a different matter entirely.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Sure: as wargames they were often commendable. This does not make them valid sources of data.

The more commendable they were as wargames the more valid as sources they were. They can't be commendable wargames without it. Successful operation as a wargame validates the game's parameters, to whatever extent it's successful.

That's nonsense. The original Avalon Hill Battle of the Bulge is, was, and remains an outstanding war game. As simulation, it's almost absurdly bad.

Your statement essentially boils down to saying that because this game works, we know that German Volksgrenadier regiments at the end of 1944 were fully a match for American infantry regiments, and because this game works, we know that Panzer Lehr was indeed at full strength at the start of the battle.

After all, this is how they are portrayed in Battle of the Bulge and since that game can deliver historical results, it follows that the portrayal of the units is accurate.

[ColinWright]

I'll grant that working through a scenario can be illuminating. For example working though Seelowe has made it clear to me that any claim that Hitler should have gone right ahead and invading England without hesitation is unjustifiable. Even making a string of assumptions to give the invasion any chance at all still leaves a hard fight with a problematical outcome.

However, that's a different matter from concluding that a scenario design is ipso facto more valid than a book. After all, in my scenario (which is almost absurdly well-researched) you will find the British employing x number of Vickers B tanks. Well, that number -- and even the type -- is a wild guess. However, since this isn't a book, I have to take that guess. After all, it would be even less reasonable to assume the British wouldn't have pressed whatever was available into service.

If I was writing a book, I would have the luxury (as my sources do) of simply noting that the British did have obsolete tanks available and perhaps providing a few scattered references to their employment.

A scenario designer doesn't have that luxury. He has to pick a number. That one fact renders all numbers provided more or less suspect.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Panama

And Leningrad. You forgot Leningrad. All the way to Gorodok on the Neva, south of Schusselburg.

Still 'n as a rule...

Two of the scenarios I'm working on -- Seelowe and one covering the Commonwealth invasion of Syria involve what are really rather modest naval squadrons that can provide fire support.

Left to the game engine, these squadrons can flail opposing forces up to twenty kilometers inland. It becomes very hard to hold a line near the coast.

In fact, and going by what actually happened both in the Syrian campaign and in Italy, ship's guns could be have a big impact -- but usually only right on the coast. As I say, as a rule the limit for really effective fire seems to have been something like five kilometers.

Are you seriously suggesting that TOAW be revised so that battleships can't support more than 5km from the coast, just because you can't find an example of them doing so?

Yes.

To be strictly accurate, in the cases I have encountered, naval gunfire has exerted a strong effect only on fighting near the coast -- much closer than the range of TOAW ships would permit. Therefore, the game should simulate that.

For whatever reason, most ships did not provide naval support very far inland. I suspect that it was because they generally lacked any kind of good fire control coordination with the army, and so had to confine themselves to shelling what they could see, but that's secondary.

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

There can't be many places on Okinawa that are more than 5km from the sea.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

There can't be many places on Okinawa that are more than 5km from the sea.

[:D] You have to give him that one.

[Curtis Lemay]

I did some testing and managed to figure out the formula the game uses for movement allowance. I used 2.5km/half week turns with an adjustment of 455% to get the numbers high enough. The attached table shows the test values, and how the formula I deducted gets those same values.

The formula I deduced is:

Movement Allowance = Full x (0.5 + 0.5 x (Readiness + Supply)/2)

Note that proficiency has no effect, and the formula is the same regardless of movement type. Even if we could set R and S to zero, the MA would drop no further than 50% of full. Foot and Fast Motor both use the above formula. This is a problem.

What I'm suggesting is that foot and motor types need to have different formulas. Foot should be more dependent upon readiness while motor should be more dependent upon supply (better would be fuel, of course).

I tried a couple of alternate formulas (shown in the table). They assume we have component supply, so I use Fuel instead of Supply in them.

For foot, I tried:

Movement Allowance = Full x (0.4 + 0.6 x (9 x Readiness + Fuel)/10)

This causes foot to be much more impacted by readiness than fuel. The 33/1 value is about the same, though.

For motor, I tried:

Movement Allowance = Full x (0.2 + 0.8 x (Readiness + 9 x Fuel)/10)

This causes motor to be much more impacted by fuel than readiness. The 33/1 value is now much lower.

Horse types would be similar to foot, but perhaps a bit more impacted by fuel. Mixed would be somewhere inbetween.

This illustrates how component supply could allow better modeling of mobility issues.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yes.

To be strictly accurate, in the cases I have encountered, naval gunfire has exerted a strong effect only on fighting near the coast -- much closer than the range of TOAW ships would permit. Therefore, the game should simulate that.

For whatever reason, most ships did not provide naval support very far inland. I suspect that it was because they generally lacked any kind of good fire control coordination with the army, and so had to confine themselves to shelling what they could see, but that's secondary.

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

A "fact" used without context is a dangerous thing.

I can think of lots of reasons other than "it was not possible". (In fact, it's absurd to think that it was not possible.) For example, that battleships are costly things to repair or replace and therefore Admirals like to keep them out of range of shore batteries. If shore batteries could be placed on interdiction...

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

If I were writing an encyclopedia I would not use other encyclopedias as my primary source- no matter how good they are.

Like a photocopy (an HP photocopy at least), with each iteration you get further and further from the original image. If you want to produce the best image possible, you have to go back to the source.

An encyclopedia, unlike a wargame, doesn't have to work to be successful. It just has to sound good.

A better example would be, say, a bridge design. If the bridge didn't fall down, and carried its traffic for decades, it's worth studying it. I can use the Golden Gate Bridge as a templet for design elsewhere. I don't have to start from scratch.

A wargame is an engineering project - similar to a bridge. To the extent that the wargame successfully simulated reality (and, as I said, there can be a multitude of metrics that determine that - not just a simple "who won?"), valuable information can be gleaned from it.

In contrast, you can get all the OOB and TO&E exactly right and still have a busted design. There are a host of non-objective parameters that have to be right for the game to work. They often can only be determined by trial and error. Consulting an existing wargame that has already sorted out those subjective parameters is a good thing.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Foot should be more dependent upon readiness while motor should be more dependent upon supply (better would be fuel, of course).

This is the problem with having you exert such an influence over the development of TOAW. You're simply impervious to either rational argument or fact.

It's been suggested to you that foot movement rates aren't particularly impacted by 'readiness' -- and yet you charge right ahead with a change that would cause them to be impacted by readiness.

You don't even bother to look to see if historical evidence supports your assumptions. It's like having a flat-earther in charge of a mapping project.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Yes.

To be strictly accurate, in the cases I have encountered, naval gunfire has exerted a strong effect only on fighting near the coast -- much closer than the range of TOAW ships would permit. Therefore, the game should simulate that.

For whatever reason, most ships did not provide naval support very far inland. I suspect that it was because they generally lacked any kind of good fire control coordination with the army, and so had to confine themselves to shelling what they could see, but that's secondary.

Since they generally didn't in reality, they shouldn't in TOAW -- even if the US Navy at Okinawa provides counterexamples.

A "fact" used without context is a dangerous thing.

I can think of lots of reasons other than "it was not possible". (In fact, it's absurd to think that it was not possible.) For example, that battleships are costly things to repair or replace and therefore Admirals like to keep them out of range of shore batteries. If shore batteries could be placed on interdiction...

It doesn't really matter much what the reasons are. The fact of the matter is that it generally didn't happen -- for whatever reason.

Therefore, it shouldn't be allowed to happen in TOAW. Whatever the constraints were that prevented it, all us computer generals shouldn't effectively be permitted to override them by fiat.