Feeling Depressed
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:08 pm
I'm feeling depressed. Not because I'm having my head handed to me. That's expected. I'm depressed about doing the right thing and discovering the game screws you over for doing it. Just some examples:
Air operations--a squadron generates sorties, and an air headquarters works with sorties. We know quite accurately the night before how many sorties we will have available on a given day, barring weather, accidents, and enemy operations. We then assign those sorties to missions. We can also surge to about three times the normal day's sorties by deferring maintenance. Then if we want the sorties to carry more ordnance, have a longer loiter time, or reach some target at long range, we redeploy the squadron. It has been done like this since before WWII, but that's not how the game models air ops. I had an infantry brigade covering an airbase in Magwe, and I wanted to give it good direct support, so I flew some squadrons into the base. The brigade got overrun and I lost the planes without their flying. They should have at least evacuated... Excuse me?
Ground operations--a WWII division occupied about five miles (deploying over about 25 square miles) or screened about ten (deploying over about 50 square miles). An infantry division could advance about 15 miles a day during a pursuit, while an armoured or motorised unit could advance about 30-45. Advancing against a fortified or dug-in unit an attacker averaged less than a mile per day, while a delaying action or screen could hold an attacker to perhaps three miles a day. I've watched Japanese armoured units launch a successful overrun in a one-day turn from 60 miles away, with the straight leg infantry defenders retreating 60 miles in response. That makes the Afrika Korps look like real lazy bums because they never operated at that tempo. Excuse me?
Naval operations--the KB can launch a surprise attack on a defending air taskforce (deployed 240 nm behind a naval base conducting air search) from 900 nm away, advancing a full move to a range of 240 nm--basically at the naval base--to launch its strikes in the afternoon. The standard air search range was 300 nm, which means the KB was first seen 240-300 nm away from the naval base, and the defending air TF had ten hours of warning before the Japanese air strikes could launch. If the KB tries to arrive within search range of the defending TF at dawn, it's detectable the previous afternoon. This is important, because use of this tactic--which was understood prewar--was exactly how the US gained surprise on the IJN at Midway. Again, excuse me?
Air operations--a squadron generates sorties, and an air headquarters works with sorties. We know quite accurately the night before how many sorties we will have available on a given day, barring weather, accidents, and enemy operations. We then assign those sorties to missions. We can also surge to about three times the normal day's sorties by deferring maintenance. Then if we want the sorties to carry more ordnance, have a longer loiter time, or reach some target at long range, we redeploy the squadron. It has been done like this since before WWII, but that's not how the game models air ops. I had an infantry brigade covering an airbase in Magwe, and I wanted to give it good direct support, so I flew some squadrons into the base. The brigade got overrun and I lost the planes without their flying. They should have at least evacuated... Excuse me?
Ground operations--a WWII division occupied about five miles (deploying over about 25 square miles) or screened about ten (deploying over about 50 square miles). An infantry division could advance about 15 miles a day during a pursuit, while an armoured or motorised unit could advance about 30-45. Advancing against a fortified or dug-in unit an attacker averaged less than a mile per day, while a delaying action or screen could hold an attacker to perhaps three miles a day. I've watched Japanese armoured units launch a successful overrun in a one-day turn from 60 miles away, with the straight leg infantry defenders retreating 60 miles in response. That makes the Afrika Korps look like real lazy bums because they never operated at that tempo. Excuse me?
Naval operations--the KB can launch a surprise attack on a defending air taskforce (deployed 240 nm behind a naval base conducting air search) from 900 nm away, advancing a full move to a range of 240 nm--basically at the naval base--to launch its strikes in the afternoon. The standard air search range was 300 nm, which means the KB was first seen 240-300 nm away from the naval base, and the defending air TF had ten hours of warning before the Japanese air strikes could launch. If the KB tries to arrive within search range of the defending TF at dawn, it's detectable the previous afternoon. This is important, because use of this tactic--which was understood prewar--was exactly how the US gained surprise on the IJN at Midway. Again, excuse me?
