Matrix Games Forums

As far as identifying problems with the pictures, should I just skip this? Have you guys already ID'ed all the problem units? Would save me time too. Doing that last set of countries took me about 1:10.

Seth,

I didn't mean to be sarcastic or ironic, I'm sincerely sorry if it sounded so.

To clarify things, I can't certify there was no FT in French use, I just didn't find any documented evidence for it in the numerous books I have on the subject, among them the most useful "France 1940, l'armement terrestre" that lists everything from handguns to heavy arty.
Of course, there is always the possibility for mistakes (either from erroneous sources -or lack thereof- or human error), that's why contributions like yours are much valued.

My comment about pictures was for the French OOB only (that was the core of my very short and late contribution to SPWAW, with 1 campaign, 1 scenario, and some testing), I don't know about others...

Thanks again for your comments.
Joël

Fantastic job guys! It's everything you promised. I took a quick look through the unit encyclopedia, and was happy to see all the new stuff. I'm going to review it for suggestions tonight. One question first... I think you said that you didn't have time to put in all the unit pictures. I noticed that there were about 10-15 pictures of artillery pieces applied to almost all the guns I saw. Are they just placeholders?

Dutch bunkers looks like half track vechile and dutch motorcycles costs 1 point in game.

'Xcuse me but may I ask why you did so?

One can always find some cases where troops of any nation fought well and fought terribly.

The game establishes averages for each year. "good countries" get high values and "bad" countries get low values. The poles in 39 in general got their butts handed to them, so they are rated "low". Doesn't mean locally many Polish units didn't fight better than the Germans! That is something you can do to your hearts content in the editor - or by turning country training off.

IIRC Polish units in 44 are rated higher than they were in 39...I haven't seen the tables in a while. The probably look similar to the ones in SP3... I se if we can publish them.

This is nothing we have done new, its the way things have been in the SP series all along.

Pin/retreat/rout is a function of suppression and morale - the higher your suppression as a fraction of your morale, the more likely your staus will worse. It is tough to get guys to rout.

Yes units can shoot at you if they are retreated and sometimes go from retreat to pinned.

Not wanting to be churlish but, the Italian bicycle units are fortresses, and all the Filipinos have Chinese names.

And was there a conscious decision to eliminate the leg arty observers? I miss them.
troopie

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
One can always find some cases where troops of any nation fought well and fought terribly.

I see your point but that's not what I mean. I thought that 'lousy morale' factor has been set for
Poles due to their weak tactical 1939 performance (SP series is a game where tactical training skills
are most imoportant). In such case it would be a false statement, because Polish 1939 Army tactical
training was indeed very good.

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
The game establishes averages for each year. "good countries" get high values and "bad"
countries get low values. The poles in 39 in general got their butts handed to them,
so they are rated "low".

Yes but they didn't got their butts kicked because of lacking of training or morale. Losing the war
in 1939 was only effect of operational and strategical disfunction. And I thought these factors
are irrelevant to tactical scale SPWaW. That is why I'm suprised.

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
Doesn't mean locally many Polish units didn't fight better than the Germans! That is something
you can do to your hearts content in the editor - or by turning country training off.

Sorry - I thought that tactical quality of troops presented in SPWaW will be close to
historical. I do not want to switch training to 'off'. I'd prefer more accurate minor countries tactical troop characteristics.... ;-D

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
IIRC Polish units in 44 are rated higher than they were in 39...

That's more funny because in my personal opinion (driven from various books) in1944 Polish Army
(even the West one) was at best only equal in matters of tactical training to 1939 one. Much better
armored of course, but not much better as a fighting force.

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
I haven't seen the tables in a while. The probably look similar to the ones in SP3...
I se if we can publish them.

I'd be appreciate this ;-D

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
This is nothing we have done new, its the way things have been in the SP series all along.

That explains a lot. I thought you've created units stats from scratch (unimaginable piece of work
I think). But using data from SP is a logical solution. I suppose you do not going to insert any
official unit changes in future modules?

Pozdrawiam
Greg

I would argue it was very much a lack of training and morale...they were trained for a different war than the one that was thrust upon them, and once the operational mismatch was manifest, morale certainly suffered.

Using your argument, every campaign would have to be evaluated for tactical abilities of the combatants...It was tough enough to get technical data remotely right, how on earth does one evealuate the "soft factors" for each Country (Army? Division? Regiment??) Over the course of the war.

Many many Polish units outfought their German counterparts, but many many others did not. The net result was they were operational defeated, yet that has to have impact on the tactical battlefield. Operational Art involved use of momentum at the operational level to cause tactical collapse. How do you account for this at the tactical level - it certainly can't be ignored? We chose the existing system, which has good precedent in board gaming.

Doesn't make it Right...just comfortable! If I ever work on a Tactical Game for Matrix, I would do it quite differently...

SP and SP:WaW followed the lead of Squad Leader, lumping countries together in "Good, Medium, Poor" morale. Minor countries tend to be Poor...except in some scenarios where they are increased becasue of historical precendent. We follow teh same path.

How about we give the Polish all Elite ratings, but only 5 ammo? That may be more "realistic" but hardly any fun to play...

Games have to take historical situations and make them fun to be successful. Certain factors have to be abstracted. We had to work within a games framework - that assigned morale and experience averages based on year.

Such things are matters of judgement and no consensus if likely to ever be reached on such a thing, since it is so abstract.

THe alternative of doing such things "historically" as outlined above would be a life's work for someone and then STILL be argued.

Be glad you get a bargain and only pay 7 points of a squad (A bug that will be fixed btw...)

Keep in mind that 1st MARDIV carried M1903's at Guadalcanal. The Americal Division, which reinforced/replaced them did carry the M1. It would be interesting to know what the total production numbers were for the M1 from 1936-1941.

It is hardly unusual that newly mobilized American formations went to war with the last generation's weapons. The limited availablity of the M1855/M1861 rifle-musket in the initial year of the Civil War is an analigous situation.

I was wrong, the leg arty observers are there.

troopie

I got a question/suggestion for the Marine oob.
Do they get some kind of special artillery bonus to reflect their use of Navajo code talkers? If not, maybe they should. From what I know, the Japs could not make sense of these codes, nor could they impersonate the code talkers because they could not possibly learn the Navajo language. I believe that because of this, the Marines always enjoyed faster artillery support since there were never any code books to crack open or secret passwords to mess up or even a possibility that the enemy was calling in artillery on friendly units. If this isn't in the game, I think it should be, in the form of even faster artillery from Marine FO units or something like that.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Larry Holt:
I have a question about the GE amphibious and mine clearing tanks. I know some were built but I've been unable to determine how widely availible they were. Were they like the Maus or the King Tiger?
Larry, according to my sources, here goes;
PzII Schwimmkorper-Developed for the invasion of England in late '40. Used as regular light tanks by 18th Pz Regt formed Oct. '40, used in central Russian front from June '41.
Pz III Tauchpanzer-mid '40 as above, Sea Lion.Most modified for use in fording rivers. July '40 4 sections trained on island of Sylt,3 sections attached to 18th Pz Div.,rest went to 6th Pz Div.. June 22, '41 18th Pz vehicles crossed River Bug at Patulin.
Pz III Minenraumpanzer- Prototype
Pz IV Tauchpanzer-42 converted from July '40, bulk went again to the 18th Pz Div, rest to the 6th. Crossed River Bug same as above.
Pz IV minenrollern-Prototype. Hope this helps,
Warhorse

Hi Paul: I've been tinkering with the editor to place an M3 GMC 75mm M2 in the TD slot for 1942. The goal I had was to start with the M3 and later to have the M 10. Can't seem to get it to do it, but I think I know why. The M-10 has a turret, the M3, does not. Because of the work done to make TD turrets move That has become a hard copy feature of the TD designation. If this is so, it's a fine solution and I understand the work-around you used to get the M3 TD in the game. I guess I just want to know if my thinking on this is correct.

I haven't seen any command tanks(Panzer Befehlswagen)either for the allies or axis, i think they are important. I would like to se them included. If i can remember correctly they were identical to the normal panzer 1-6
but with more radios and a dummy main gun. If it is possible to make some radios better then other, then the command tanks with their better radios would enhance the C3 aspect of the game.

Spelling error in german Oob, wagon should be wagen.

The german captured T-34 is identical to the russian T-34's. The germans installed radios, added schurtzen protection and a commanders cupola taken from scrapped panzer 3-4's. I would guess they installd better optics to. The refitting was done in Germany and in Riga i think. So i would suggest adding radios (maybe thats already been done, can't remember), szhurtzen protection and increasing fire control.

And Norway need som coastal artillery.

Wasn't the Mp-44 better known as the sturmgewher-44 (Stg-44),The name Mp-44 was a way to fool Hitler i think because Hitler had decided to halt development of new rifles, but he found out about the weapon anyway and liked it and changed the name to sturmgehwer-44.

I hope this help's the continued evolution of this great game.

As i dont have my books to read from at the moment, feel free to correct my mistakes. The hazard of moving to many time's in to short a time. You get realy sick of carrying boxes with books.

------------------
Mvh Daniel E.

I'm not sure Mark...There are two Tank Destroyer classes, turreted and non-turreted. The two are seperate and since teh formations are build of like classed units there is no way to make a formation that "crosses the class boundary" . You have to make two different formations and turn one "off" at the end of a year and turn teh other "on" the following year.

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 05-21-2000).]

"Command tanks" as you refer to them are not really represented within the limited C2 model of SP:WaW. "Command Tanks" in the game are used for US and British platoons that mixed tank types in PLatoons (usually a Firefly or 76 gun with "regular" Shermans.

Field modification of tanks leads one down a path that the limited number of unit types right now can't support. I've seen photos of Captured T-34s both ith and without field mods. Feel free to add them in the editor if you wish! That is why we put it in there

Hi

Been playing as the 1944 Rumanians and found that the TACAM TDs are equipped with APCR but that in the penetration table within the unit stats APCR is not listed. Instead HEAT is listed, but none of the vehicles are equipped with it.

Possible error??

Cheers
Al

The Nationalist Spain victory hexes give the Chinese Communist flag(Franco must be spinning in his tomb) You can't buy Italian bicycle units.

But I loved the 400 tonne launch in the Japanese OOB. It's the one they used to support landings. I've never heard of it in any other wargame.

troopie

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
"Command tanks" as you refer to them are not really represented within the limited C2 model of SP:WaW. "Command Tanks" in the game are used for US and British platoons that mixed tank types in PLatoons (usually a Firefly or 76 gun with "regular" Shermans.

Field modification of tanks leads one down a path that the limited number of unit types right now can't support. I've seen photos of Captured T-34s both ith and without field mods. Feel free to add them in the editor if you wish! That is why we put it in there

If using C&C, might be nice to get a few more command points for the Company comander, or a higher chance or remaing in contact over further distances.