Matrix Games Forums

I'm not getting what ought to be a critical aspect of the estab editor.

When I open weapons in the estab editor, there is basically no "performance" data displayed.

That same "performance" data IS displayed in the scenario editor for weapons.

Is it hidden in the editor somewhere? Is it hard-coded and not subject to modification? What's the deal? [:)]

Do you mean this? You have to select one of the attack types in the box at left.

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

Do you mean this? You have to select one of the attack types in the box at left.

Thanks Franklin Nimitz,

I'm much relieved.

Still, I have what I consider to be a fairly major concern about the game data.

Could someone, PLEASE, tell us what categories of game data are, as yet, "turned off" by default?

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl
what categories of game data are, as yet, "turned off" by default?

I have a question in tech support along those lines concerning the physical dimensions (L,W,H). A 155mm howitzer the size of a footstool would be tough to hit, if those dimensions "matter".

I have a question in tech support along those lines concerning the physical dimensions (L,W,H). A 155mm howitzer the size of a footstool would be tough to hit, if those dimensions "matter".

Good eye Nimitz. I wonder too.

Do people know what muzzle velocity affects in the game? I am wondering because I was thinking about adjusting M1 rifle rate of fire to be increased, since it is semi-automatic and should not be the same rate of fire as the Kar98. But I'm concerned that adjusting only rate of fire will mess with balance.

This is a "me too" post.

I also really would like to know which data are used and which are not, to make my scenario creation playground more effective.

Hey Dave, Simovitch!: could you make a small concession to this loyal and fallen-in-love-with-BftB bunch, and allow us a peek into, ... ehm ..., should I call them CRTs?

Unless there are super classified military secrets, of course ...

Cheers.

I'll try to explain things a bit with some information clipped from the developer's forum. As far as the "CRT" is concerned, that is a black box that know one even dares asking about![;)]

ROF was discussed for small arms over and over and while we actually did up them a little bit, I don't advise that you change these values. Even if the M1 could fire more than the Kar98, according to the developers the fire routines were modelled based on these ROF's being similar and you will through the casualty rates out of whack. Remember, this is not a tactical simulation. Reliability has been fixed with the latest patch so the M1 is still the superior weapon of the two.

Again with small arms fire ignore the theoretical sustained rates that are often cited. Think "practical" or "low". Most belt fed MGs can fire off 500 rounds in a couple of minutes, however, few units can carry enough ammo to sustain that. So in practice MGs fire in short bursts of from 3-5 rounds and in heavy combat will fire off around three bursts a minute winding back to one per minute as things lessen off. If you much higher everyone will be out of ammo after the first engagement.

'Size' dimensions are taken into account only in AP fire versus vehicles 'to hit' resolution. The big guns can be randomly disabled by HE fire I think, but mainly when an artillery crew is destroyed by HE or small arms, the gun and transport get removed. Size is not taken into account for fire versus Artillery.

Muzzle velocity is for information only, as is the abilities for vehicles to portage men/weapons, cross trenches, and amphibious movement. Her are some other tidbits of knowledge for you scenario designers:

A ronsonability value of 50% will have no effect on the kill probability. If it is greater than 50% it could increase the kill prob by up to 25% and if less then bu up to -25%. But this only cuts in if the penetration is greater than the armour thickness.

As a rule of thumb use the following formula:

Inf Value

For inf units, inf value is the sum of their persQty less drivers, cooks and bottlewashers. Given that inf coys already have the cooks and bottlewashers removed, it's just drivers to be deducted. For recon units you need to research how many inf they actually carried. Armoured car units basically had none, but recon companies often had around 30% inf. Most other units will have none, though use the COTA estabs as a guide.

Recon Value

For recon units this equates to the Pers Qty, for inf units it's roughly 10%. Use COTA estabs for other unit types.

Eng Value

For Eng units one eng pt = 12 pers Qty. Some Hvy Wpns composite units had a pioneer component. So if this was say the equivalent of 30 men then give them 3 pts. In general I discourage the use of such composites where these comprise specialist type capabilities - eg mortars and engineers. It's usually best to split these up into separate spt platoons.

Estab Notes

Force Size:
This value has a number of uses within the game. It helps determine the threat range out to which it will look for enemy threats when planning and reacting. It's used in sorting forces either directly ( eg sort by descending size ) or indirectly ( eg in sort by descendinding seniority where otherwise they would be equal ). It's used to determine the standard orders duration period and hence orders delay; command range and hence orders delay and command status. It's also used in determining the enemy intel displayed.

So it's important that these be right in the estabs. Wherever possible try and match the force size to the persQty. There is one exception or balancing factor here, though. That is for Bases. Because the IsSeniorTo() relies in part on forceSize it's important that even if a Div Base has say only 500 men that its force size be set to a Bde ( ie one below its organic superior's size ).

However, I have also gone through the base estabs and reset their force size to one below their organic superior's forceSize. Well I have done this up to Div Bases. Thereafter I have set the force size to Bde for Corps/Army and Army Gp bases. the reason I have done this is I do not want their force size to distort their behaviour too much as they usually have 1000 men or less.

So to recap:

base->forceSize = min( Bde, organicSuperior->forceSize - 1 )

Ammo Reorder Qty and Weight
As a general rule of thumb I would recommend the following min order quantities:

* small arms - 100
* AT rds/PzSchrecks/Bazookas - 5
* Lt Flak ( 20mm ) - 100
* Mdm Flak ( 37/40 ) - 50
* Hvy Flak ( 76/88 ) - 10
* Fld Arty ( 75 - 105 ) - 10
* Mdm/Hvy Arty ( > 122 ) - 5
* Lt/Mdm RL - 10
* Hvy RL - 5
* Lt/Mdm Mor - 20
* Hvy mor - 10

Then determine your weight by referring to the source reference's weight per shell + an estimate of the packaging weight. The latter will vary from maybe +10% for small arms to +2% for heavy shells. Sometimes your reference sources actually specify the packaged weight.

Bases PersQty, Capacity and Handling
Aim to clear the full backlog of resupply requests in 2 hours of loading. Work on 80% of trucks doing resupply runs – the rest are used for internal depot/base functions. As a rough rule of thumb a normal unit can employ 10% of its persQty for loading/unloading ( ie handling ). A Base/depot can employ 20%. Each man available has a loading capacity of 20 kilos. So if a Base has say 500 men, then 100 of these can be available for handling, giving it a capacity of 2000 kilos or 2 tonnes per minute. If a supply run has five 3 ton trucks, then the Base could load in 8 minutes.
So if you have 1000 tonnes of trucking total, truck capacity = 1000* 0.8 = 800 tonnes. The handling capacity required to despatch that over two hours = 800 / 120 = 7 tonnes. The number of personnel to provide that = 7000 / 20 = 350. Which means you would need around 1750 personnel assigned to the base.
Base Pers Qty/ capacity guideline:
Army/Corps = 1000 pers, 500 tn trucks
Div = 600 pers, 150-300 tn trucks
Bde = 400 pers, 100-200 tn trucks
Regt = 250 pers, 50-100 tn trucks
Inf value. 1 pt per rifleman employed in inf duties. For a Rifle/Inf Coy inf value = persQty – though for some inf companies with obvious heavy wpns attached like inf guns or AT guns you may want to subtract the crew of these. For Bases inf value = 30 or 10% PersQty to represent their defence platoon. HQ=0
Recon Value. For recon units, recon value = persQty. For inf units, recon value = persQty/ 5 ( ie 20% ). For Bases, HQ, recon value = 0.
Arm recon plt.=10, coy=30, sqn=30
Eng Value. For field engineer/bridge units, eng value = persQty / 12. All others = 0. Arty Deployment times:
Med Mortar = 15
Hvy Mortar/ Arty<105mm =20
Arty 105 = 30
Arty 150 =40
Arty 240 =60
-5m for IG’s
Base Deployment times:
Army = 4 hrs
Corps = 2 hrs
Division = 1 hr
Bde/rgt = 40 min

Thanks Simovitch, great info.

BTW, where did you get those clips from? Is that forum freely accessible?

I have seen listed large calibre ammunition weights where (empty) packaging weight exceeded 60% of the total weight of the round.

It is expected that WW2 ammunition packaging was slightly less enthusiastic than current practice, but 2% seems awfully low for an average overhead.

ORIGINAL: Lieste

I have seen listed large calibre ammunition weights where (empty) packaging weight exceeded 60% of the total weight of the round.

It is expected that WW2 ammunition packaging was slightly less enthusiastic than current practice, but 2% seems awfully low for an average overhead.

Point taken Lieste. The packing weight comes into play when the game allocates ammo stocks to the available truck pool in the supply bases. So in the game a 1/4 ton truck may end up carrying a few more rounds than it could in real life... no biggie eh?

Except that (at least in previous iterations) I always felt there was too much supply available - I was editing my COTA establishments down by up to 50%. Plus&nbsp;the difference isn't "a few", but a little more than 1/3 less. On a 1/4 ton truck (assuming 250kg, a packaged 81mm mortar would give you 10 rounds carried, 7 rounds fewer than the 17 unpackaged rounds that could be handled. You would need 3 trucks to carry what currently fits on 2 (and still not quite get the same...)

It would help moderate the Allied artillery somewhat if it's ammunition ate more supply allocation, which would be a good thing IMO. Currently most games can be decided by judicious use of artillery. This is also true of German artillery of course, but they tend to have less of it.

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ROF was discussed for small arms over and over and while we actually did up them a little bit, I don't advise that you change these values. Even if the M1 could fire more than the Kar98, according to the developers the fire routines were modelled based on these ROF's being similar and you will through the casualty rates out of whack. Remember, this is not a tactical simulation. Reliability has been fixed with the latest patch so the M1 is still the superior weapon of the two.

Again with small arms fire ignore the theoretical sustained rates that are often cited. Think "practical" or "low". Most belt fed MGs can fire off 500 rounds in a couple of minutes, however, few units can carry enough ammo to sustain that. So in practice MGs fire in short bursts of from 3-5 rounds and in heavy combat will fire off around three bursts a minute winding back to one per minute as things lessen off. If you much higher everyone will be out of ammo after the first engagement.

I am wondering what the wiggle room here is. Give us a tool like the weapons editor and users will want to fiddle if they see numbers they think don't match real life.

Heat is also an issue for rate of fire.

The Bren seems to have no advantage over the BAR despite the fact that the Bren had a changeable barrel. From reading the manuals available on line, the maximum practical rate of fire for the BAR was close to 60 rpm while the Bren was advertised at 120 with a barrel change but was probably closer to 100 various factors weighed in . . .

I have a similar question for the scaling of the various mg's. With the stock data there just doesn't seem to be much difference between the air-cooled, water-cooled, and changeable-barrel type of MG's. Am I missing something? Supply is an issue of course. But one sees all of these pictures of Germans carrying extra belts of ammo for their MG's because they could send a critical amount of lead down range when needed.

Just bought the game and am enjoying it. If there is some central repository that answers these types of questions I would love to be pointed to it. Otherwise I am going to be asking about silly details like bullet weights. They all seem to be the same. What happens if I change those values?

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

I am wondering what the wiggle room here is. Give us a tool like the weapons editor and users will want to fiddle if they see numbers they think don't match real life.

Heat is also an issue for rate of fire.

The Bren seems to have no advantage over the BAR despite the fact that the Bren had a changeable barrel. From reading the manuals available on line, the maximum practical rate of fire for the BAR was close to 60 rpm while the Bren was advertised at 120 with a barrel change but was probably closer to 100 various factors weighed in . . .

I have a similar question for the scaling of the various mg's. With the stock data there just doesn't seem to be much difference between the air-cooled, water-cooled, and changeable-barrel type of MG's. Am I missing something? Supply is an issue of course. But one sees all of these pictures of Germans carrying extra belts of ammo for their MG's because they could send a critical amount of lead down range when needed.

Just bought the game and am enjoying it. If there is some central repository that answers these types of questions I would love to be pointed to it. Otherwise I am going to be asking about silly details like bullet weights. They all seem to be the same. What happens if I change those values?

Good questions and observations.. I had a lot of the same impressions when I started on the Legends of the Blitzkrieg (LOTB) Estabs..

For the tactical game I am moving all of the ROFs for the various weapons to closer to real world rates... I found rifle and MG ROFs to be way too low.

It is a balancing act though and I encourage you to play with the ROFs for various small arms weapons to see the effect in game. You might find units running out of ammo faster then normal, or perhaps not engaging as enthusiastically as they should be.

I am also re-visiting all of the small arms ranges as listed in the game to get them down to a more realistic range. Most small arms combat occurred at 200m or less and for LOTB I want that close range firefight to be the norm with the longer range engagements being the realm of support weapons.

I stress that this is all for the tactical game (LOTB) with line units at the Platoon and support weapons at the team level... I am looking for a higher level of fidelity that is not necessarily needed for an Operational game like BFTB or HTTR.

Bil

Thanks for the info Bill. Glad to know I likely won't break the system.

I am a long time owner of TOAW and various iterations of Grigsby's Pac War. Both provided many years of happily modding picayune detail.

Seems to me that running out of ammo, or not moving as crisply to contact as desired, is part of the game.

and for LOTB I want that close range firefight to be the norm with the longer range engagements being the realm of support weapons.

What is LOTB? A mod I'm guessing. Do I search around this forum or is there a central place where people post this stuff? I only found a few scenarios at wargamers. Seems like there would be a few more based on the threads.

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

Thanks for the info Bill. Glad to know I likely won't break the system.

What is LOTB? A mod I'm guessing. Do I search around this forum or is there a central place where people post this stuff? I only found a few scenarios at wargamers. Seems like there would be a few more based on the threads.

LOTB - Legends of the Blitzkrieg is an upcoming Command Ops game on the tactical scale representing combat during Fall Gelb in France 1940... read a bit more about it here: tm.asp?m=3104160

Interesting stuff Bill. Looking forward to the scale, if not replaying Fall Gelb.

For now I am fixing the TOE's and battalion combat teams. The game is a lot of fun, but little things are driving me crazy, like the US armored assault gun platoon gallivanting about like tanks, missing heavy weapons, etc. I hope the Germans and Brits are in better shape.

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

For now I am fixing the TOE's and battalion combat teams. The game is a lot of fun, but little things are driving me crazy, like the US armored assault gun platoon gallivanting about like tanks, missing heavy weapons, etc. I hope the Germans and Brits are in better shape.

BFTB force estabs will generally not follow established TO&E's. Many elements like mortars, HMG's, etc. were removed from HW platoons/companies and parsed out to line units for game purposes. Other weapons and vehicles were distributed to/from HQ's and bases to work better with the system.

Go for it but be careful where you go - we had some of the best of the best working on the estab data, and went back and forth ad nauseum to come up with a working balance between playability and historical "paper values".

Weapon ROF was also reviewed, argued and rebutted several times. In the end, Dave O'Conner's explanation of the combat code and how it works with the estab values usually put us back in our places.

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ORIGINAL: Central Blue

For now I am fixing the TOE's and battalion combat teams. The game is a lot of fun, but little things are driving me crazy, like the US armored assault gun platoon gallivanting about like tanks, missing heavy weapons, etc. I hope the Germans and Brits are in better shape.

BFTB force estabs will generally not follow established TO&E's. Many elements like mortars, HMG's, etc. were removed from HW platoons/companies and parsed out to line units for game purposes. Other weapons and vehicles were distributed to/from HQ's and bases to work better with the system.

Go for it but be careful where you go - we had some of the best of the best working on the estab data, and went back and forth ad nauseum to come up with a working balance between playability and historical "paper values".

Weapon ROF was also reviewed, argued and rebutted several times. In the end, Dave O'Conner's explanation of the combat code and how it works with the estab values usually put us back in our places.

I might be more careful if the editor didn't make it so easy to make changes so quickly. If I break it I reinstall it. It's not rocket science, and I'm not at the office.

I do miss my m1917 machine guns from the heavy weapons platoon. The un-armed M20 was missing from the tank destroyer units, and frankly, those TOE's were a mess. The count of vehicles seems without rhyme or reason. If you must parcel out the 57mm AT gun, why not parcel out its prime mover? For now I have put the 57's back into Battalion HQ where their transport is.

And if weapons counts are going to include assets from the maintenance platoon and what not (which seems to be the case) then you have to count the people that would have served those weapons or shouldered their rifle if those crew served weapons were threatened.

However, I don't add the mechanics to the infantry count. Pioneer and recon units do get added where they existed, such as the US battalion pioneer platoon. There have been some guesses. The recon value of the US platoon is one scout per squad, and the platoon guide, so that's a downgrade from the stock value.

The only thing I am leaving out of my revised units are the various baggage trains and their weapons, if any, because I assume that those are the units I keep receiving unhappy messages about. No hot food today men. Our supply column was 100% wiped out.

I have also renamed all of the units into a style friendlier to my eyes, such as Tank Destroyer Platoon, Self Propelled M10, March 1944 -- the date to indicate which TOE or KStN is being used. I am assuming I will be playing the game long enough to get past the TOE's required for the stock scenarios. I don't have equivalent sources for the Brits, but I will eyeball them according to sources I trust.

The only thing I have done with the weapons data so far is to list the correct weights for the various projectiles according to TM 9-2005 1942, TM 9 1901 1944, and TM 9 1985-3 1953, among others.

Since I have the data on projectile weight, and filling weight, I would like to examine the burst radius numbers. In the case of the artillery pieces I have looked at, the burst radius seem to be the diameter of the tube * .14666666. I don't know what their exact formula was, but I can understand why this was done and why it generally works. So I am not complaining.

But I have the time to make it more accurate if I understood the correct formula to plug the data into. So, for example, the German 105mm GR 38 weighed 15.004835 kilos and was filled with 1360.777 grams of burster versus the US 105mm HE M1 at 14.97 kilos and 2177.243. This information was relatively easy to plug into Kogers' TOAW, but it's not exactly easy to find on google how to convert the known information into meters. My search results have ended up littered with wizards and nukes. So I won't make any changes here until I can get some guidance.

Just to be clear, it's not like I expect wildly significant differences to appear in most cases. It's mainly that I have worked with data for 25 years now and I am comfortable with going after more and better where and when I can.

Once I have a better grasp on burst radius I will add in the rifle grenades. Other nationalities seemed to have a hit or miss relationships with them, but they have clearly been continuously assigned in large numbers to US forces since they first got their hands on them in WWI. It gives the US platoon its assigned AT weapon without having to figure out how to parcel out 5 bazookas from company HQ. Until then, my US platoons will have to get along without an anti-tank weapon.

Some of the penetration data looks wildly optimistic. I have found a very interesting compendium of penetration figures put together by one John Salt. It includes everything from War Office research to quite a number of books by Lentz, Hogg, and others.

Rate of fire will be the last thing I look at, after I get a lot more playing time under my belt. Within the existing range of ROF values I might take a closer look at the relative values between weapons and tweak where necessary.

Central Blue,

Re burst radius. By and large if we do not have specific data on a given weapons burst radius, we use the table within Dupey's "Numbers, Preictions and War". So if you have specific sources, feel free to use these.

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Central Blue,

Re burst radius. By and large if we do not have specific data on a given weapons burst radius, we use the table within Dupey's "Numbers, Preictions and War". So if you have specific sources, feel free to use these.

Well then . . .

I was hoping there was a formula that I could use from the numbers I do have, which are projectile weight and filling weight. Seems not. Time to troll the internet and see what I can come up with. I don't want to contradict Dupuy, et. al., without something solid to go on.