Transport is SUNK!!!!

[NotOneStepBack]

This is just infuriating. There doesn't seem to be anyway to prevent this and it causes huge VP losses. What's the deal? Even on clear water hexes that are friendly controlled, you will loses thousands of men to this. Did the Allies really lose that many transports just shipping around friendly waters?

[Denniss]

Subs? Mines? E-Boats?

[NotOneStepBack]

I understand if I were shipping around in bad weather in enemy controlled seas. But I don't think moving an HQ from Africa to Sicily should lose thousands of men that aren't even combat soldiers.

[whoofe]

i try to make sure I move my transports only in +2 or better interdiction zones if at all possible

thus - IMO its a good idea to leave a few naval air patrol groups along the African coast

[Fallschirmjager]

Between July 1943 and June 1944 the Western Allies lost 88 merchant ships and had 200+ damaged in the Mediterranean theater.

After the capture of Rome, no more ships would be lost to U-Boats for the rest of the war in the Med.

[Q-Ball]

The Allies lost merchant ships, but they didn't lose that many troops transports, and it certainly wasn't even close to the level that it is in the game. How many troops in the Med were lost at sea, really?

What about this as a fix: When a ship is sunk, the equipment is destroyed, but the men go back in the pool. This would provide an incentive to protect shipping, but not a big VP penalty when the ships sink.

Let's assume the ships have lifeboats, and most of the guys are rescued

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The Allies lost merchant ships, but they didn't lose that many troops transports, and it certainly wasn't even close to the level that it is in the game. How many troops in the Med were lost at sea, really?

What about this as a fix: When a ship is sunk, the equipment is destroyed, but the men go back in the pool. This would provide an incentive to protect shipping, but not a big VP penalty when the ships sink.

Let's assume the ships have lifeboats, and most of the guys are rescued

I don't know. My 88 figure was for all 'merchant' ships. I don't know how many troop ships that means.

I think there needs to be some kind of penalty in play. Otherwise the Allies will just do crazy stuff with little penalty.
If you removed the losing troops from sunk ships component out of game play then the only determent to landing in far flung places would be lack of air cover.
And then the Allies could completely shut down their naval air forces and save on the planes and pilots lost.

And I am not sure every troop lost in a sunk ship is a complete loss. I think some are disabled and get 'rescued' and restored after a time.

[Q-Ball]

I am a new player as Axis, playing a tester (meklore), who is generally acknowledged to be pretty strong in handling his air.

It's November '43, and he has lost nearly 500 ships. He has suffered as many casualties via sunken ships as from my panzers and bullets

This isn't Allied Fanboy crying; it's busted, and needs fixing.

I agree there needs to be an incentive still for Allies to not run shipping through contested waters, but from what I can tell it's out of whack vs. history for sure

[Baelfiin]

I think the problem is with HQ and armored units. Whenever they take a loss it seems to be pretty huge. And you always take a hit it seems moving an HQ.

Only way that I can think of to try to isolate the problem would be to save before every shipping move, but . .

[NotOneStepBack]

I would just eliminate troop shipping losses entirely. The Allies struggle enough with VPs.

[LiquidSky]

The worst troopship disaster to befall the U.S. happened on the 26th November 1943 when German planes made a concerted attack on a military convoy in the Mediterranean. A force of 30 He-177 planes, the much delayed German long range bomber, released 60 glider bomb at the ships but only succeeded in making one strike. The single missile caused fatal damage to the Rohna but most of the casualties probably happened subsequently. Over 2,000 US troops were on board and 1,015 would be lost together with 123 crew from the Rohna.

Note..the Rohna is 8000 Tons, which in game would equal 8 Troop Ship points.

[LiquidSky]

Hmm..a quick perusal of the Maritime Disasters list show only a few allied troops ships sunk in the European/Mediterranean theatre. In fact, it shows an awful lot of axis ships carrying passengers sunk.

The average death toll in troops seems to be around 400-600 for the allies. Thousands for the axis.

[LiquidSky]

Okay..Math time! My favourite part of the day.

Naval Path attrition is calculated as follows:

Add for EACH hex traveled through.

+1 if friendly
+2 if SHIPPING CONTESTED
+3 if SHIPPING HEAVILY CONTESTED

+ (Enemy Interdiction - 9) if adjacent to land
+ (Enemy Interdiction - 9) /2 if transport and not adjacent to land.

NOTE: Interdictions shown on the map are divided by 10. So a value of 9 would actually be 90-100 Enemy Interdiction.


+ 1 for RND(10)< 0:Clear, 1:Rain, 2:Heavy Rain, 3: cold, 4:snowfall, or 5:blizzard.

Now Randomize the total between half and full. (50% and 100%)

After this total....divide by 10.

If greater then 180 then it equals 180. Then for each point of transport, PERCENTILE are rolled and if less then RND(AV) then a sink occurs. END MATH


But what does this mean in game? Take the 2nd US Armoured Division for example.

Right clicking on the division shows a Transport Cost of 26998. This requires 27 Troop Transport points.

These 27 points travel from Algiers to just outside the Invasion area....64 hexes.

All these hexes are Friendly...so +64. There is no Enemy Interdiction on the first turn, and weather is clear...so 64 is it.

So the possible range of values will be from 32 to 64....which is then divided by 10 for the final value.

SO...Between 3 and 6.

Now its random time. You roll a die from 1-3(to 6). The computer rolls percentile. If the computer is lower then you, it wins, if you are lower, you win. BUT:

You roll 27 times....for each transport point.

For fun, I pretended it my value is 6. I roll 27 times:

4 4 1 3 3
2 5 1 4 5
2 5 2 5 2
3 3 5 6 2
5 6 6 6 1
4 5

The computer rolls percentile 27 times:

87 39 23 50 33
63 39 4 18 79
73 43 88 17 37
55 96 34 84 25
87 59 37 35 17
33 97

The computer only gets close on the 8th roll..but I rolled a 1 and he rolled a 4...so all 27 troop ship points make it.

[LiquidSky]

At the other end of the scale though, take AFHQ.

It has a transport cost of 34 Troop Ship Points.

Lets assume about 10 hexes of travel through SHIPPING CONTESTED Hexes. For fun, lets assume the axis have level 6 interdiction (60 points) in 10 hexes of travel, but the allies have 9 in each of those hexes...thus making the travel friendly.

Still 64 if travelling from Algiers. However..there is enemy interdiction.

so we now add (60-9)/2 for each hex traveled..10 of them: say..250

Now we are rolling from 1 to 15 to 30 depending. Worse case 30. AND EVERY HEX WAS FRIENDLY. And the HQ needs 34 rolls.


Moral of the story.

Interdiction kills ships. (Higher values added per hex) Distance kills ships. (More values added) Size of convoy kills ships. (More rolls for death)

Friendly interdiction does little. It would be the difference between adding 1, 2 or 3 to the enemy interdiction (which would be at least 20 to cause SHIPPING HEAVILY CONTESTED) so 21 or 23? Phhhttt.

[JeffroK]

Could the problem also be that the already battered Luftwaffe seems to be everywhere, seems that they could put in 1 good effort IFF concentrated on a limited number of hexes. In game it seems they can project this strength off Algiers, off Tunis, off Sicily, Sardinia & Corsica all at the same time.

[JocMeister]

I realize the entire naval system will be changed once they add the naval module. But I seriously hope they will do something about the current system as that module probably is a long time from materializing. As it is now I feel its dragging the entire game down. Its way, way too abstracted and too much is happening completely outside the players control. I don´t mind loosing "stuff" but it has to make sense. When it doesn´t people get upset. Losing 5-20.000 men sailing along the African coast one time is one thing. Having it happen repeatedly despite a heavy friendly CAP/Naval patrol is something else entirely.

I agree with Q-ball that the losses in men feel extremely exaggerated. Not to mention ship losses occurring "somewhere" despite the fact that not a single point of Axis naval interdiction can be found anywhere on the entire map.

[Smirfy]

Troop convoys were really heavily escorted. As Jeff says the Luftwaffe is everywhere despite being degraded. I'm experimenting with two styles at the minute one slightly gamey and one by playing sensible. the sensible way gets you nowhere and invaisions is one area were that is obvious due to the topics in this thread

[NotOneStepBack]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



At the other end of the scale though, take AFHQ.

It has a transport cost of 34 Troop Ship Points.

Lets assume about 10 hexes of travel through SHIPPING CONTESTED Hexes. For fun, lets assume the axis have level 6 interdiction (60 points) in 10 hexes of travel, but the allies have 9 in each of those hexes...thus making the travel friendly.

Still 64 if travelling from Algiers. However..there is enemy interdiction.

so we now add (60-9)/2 for each hex traveled..10 of them: say..250

Now we are rolling from 1 to 15 to 30 depending. Worse case 30. AND EVERY HEX WAS FRIENDLY. And the HQ needs 34 rolls.


Moral of the story.

Interdiction kills ships. (Higher values added per hex) Distance kills ships. (More values added) Size of convoy kills ships. (More rolls for death)

Friendly interdiction does little. It would be the difference between adding 1, 2 or 3 to the enemy interdiction (which would be at least 20 to cause SHIPPING HEAVILY CONTESTED) so 21 or 23? Phhhttt.

THANK YOU. I knew the mathematic rules from the manual, but couldn't really put it into words. This tells the story. Something needs to change so that friendly hexes in clear weather would give you about a .00001% chance of sinking per hex, only if the captain of the ship was drunk. Even then, he'd probably wing it.

[whoofe]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



Okay..Math time! My favourite part of the day.

Naval Path attrition is calculated as follows:

Add for EACH hex traveled through.

+1 if friendly
+2 if SHIPPING CONTESTED
+3 if SHIPPING HEAVILY CONTESTED

+ (Enemy Interdiction - 9) if adjacent to land
+ (Enemy Interdiction - 9) /2 if transport and not adjacent to land.

NOTE: Interdictions shown on the map are divided by 10. So a value of 9 would actually be 90-100 Enemy Interdiction.


+ 1 for RND(10)< 0:Clear, 1:Rain, 2:Heavy Rain, 3: cold, 4:snowfall, or 5:blizzard.

Now Randomize the total between half and full. (50% and 100%)

After this total....divide by 10.

If greater then 180 then it equals 180. Then for each point of transport, PERCENTILE are rolled and if less then RND(AV) then a sink occurs. END MATH


But what does this mean in game? Take the 2nd US Armoured Division for example.

Right clicking on the division shows a Transport Cost of 26998. This requires 27 Troop Transport points.

These 27 points travel from Algiers to just outside the Invasion area....64 hexes.

All these hexes are Friendly...so +64. There is no Enemy Interdiction on the first turn, and weather is clear...so 64 is it.

So the possible range of values will be from 32 to 64....which is then divided by 10 for the final value.

SO...Between 3 and 6.

Now its random time. You roll a die from 1-3(to 6). The computer rolls percentile. If the computer is lower then you, it wins, if you are lower, you win. BUT:

You roll 27 times....for each transport point.

For fun, I pretended it my value is 6. I roll 27 times:

4 4 1 3 3
2 5 1 4 5
2 5 2 5 2
3 3 5 6 2
5 6 6 6 1
4 5

The computer rolls percentile 27 times:

87 39 23 50 33
63 39 4 18 79
73 43 88 17 37
55 96 34 84 25
87 59 37 35 17
33 97

The computer only gets close on the 8th roll..but I rolled a 1 and he rolled a 4...so all 27 troop ship points make it.

well explained! thanks!

[Kumppi]

Naval path attrition calculation changed in the 1.00.08 version so that now each heavily contested hex adds a value of 15 instead of 3.