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In most, if not all, cases a towed anti-tank gun was a weapon of ambush. Ideally dug-in concealed, supported by infantry, and awaiting the on-rush of advancing bad guys, its job was to wreak havoc upon armoured and soft skinned vehicles.

The British 17pdr anti-tank-gun was probably the most formidable weapon of its type to take the field in WWII and it was a massive brute of a weapon. But its size and weight made it a totally impractical weapon for swift advance and support in attack yet, in every TAOW database I’ve come across, its offensive strength always exceeds its defensive strength.

So why is it that the offensive strength of such weapons virtually always outweighs their defensive strength?

Answers on the back of a postcard please.

Hummm,the barn door gets almost 30 mm more penetration at comparable ranges(?)...

Ah! So the barn is an offensive weapon too?

The scales fall from my eyes and all becomes as clear as... an obscure thing in Obscurityville on a very misty day.

If I were watching a Panther IV coming at me I'd rather throw a brick from 17pdr at it than barn door, but I'm just picky about things like that.

So why is it that the offensive strength of such weapons virtually always outweighs their defensive strength?

It appears so because it is a comparison of apples to oranges.

The "DF" (defense factor) of guns is auto-generated by TOAW as a function of the weapon's range. Compared to artillery pieces, AT guns have a short range, and their DF is calculated low. Note this is not a rating of the weapon's effectiveness; it is more a measure of the gun's ability to "hold its ground". This, in turn, is driven by the range, and in TOAW, an assumption is that the longer the range, the more men in the crew, and thus, more ability to "hold ground".

There are two offensive ratings. One is the "AP" which reflects the weight of the high explosive projectiles fired by the gun and the gun's rate of fire. The other is "AT", which is, IIRC, a rating in centimeters of armor penetrated by an armor piercing projectile at a range of 1000 meters.

If one looks at the Soviet postwar 125mm AT gun ... same thing. DF=1 in the equipment database, because it is a gun that uses direct fire, and correspondingly at short range, to engage targets.

Cheers

Thanks for that explanation.

I can see how, in the world that is TOAW, that it makes sense.

Regards,

R193

One thing to try is to setup a very small test scenario.

Environment: 0.25 miles per hex (leave the rest as default)
Calendar: 1 hour turns, start 4A, Start day 8, Start month 8, Start year 1944, Last turn 30 (probably too long for this test)
Map Boundaries: x=80, y=30

Then build up an OOB.

Of course this takes some work, I am currently building one now but it's not ready for testing yet.

Yikes! I'm keen but I'm not that keen mon brave.

I'm an entirely, and completely ineptly, self-taught idiot trying to fathom the mysterious depths of this game.

In truth curiosity was piqued by the anomalies I found in Erik Nygaard's "A Bridge Too Far" scenarios - basically because the whole ferries thing went to hell in a hand-basket in some-or-other update - and one thing lead to another.

First I tried to sort that out but I couldn't. Then I tried to do a new map but gave it up as a bad - for me impossible - job and then move on to OOBs and TO&Es and it was all downhill, a Cresta Run in a badly driven bobsleigh, from there.

The first query I ever posted on here was to do with transportation and trucks and I received the standard, if gnomic, response that "One truck is many trucks..."

I understand that the game is "old" and much reasoning in the code is antiquated and one has to make allowances for all that, and I do. The thing that really irritates me is the total impenetrability of the Manual.

I'm a writer by trade and I'm simply appalled by the circularity of the nonsense it contains, so many words that explain nothing, in many cases are self-contradictory, fail to use standard terms and expressions or, even worse, use similar terms for very different things.

... erm... straying of topic... apologies.

I'd be interested to know the result of your test scenario should you be god enough to post them.

Thanks for your response to my query.

Regards,

R193

I’ll post it for testing once it’s done but I’d like to do some more research first, I found a nice sized scenario idea based on your queries, but it will take some time to build up a proper historical scenario, alternatively I can just make a quick testbed type of scenario to see some results.

In my view, the TOAW IV System works best at the battalion level with ranged artillery, there’s some ideas I want to try out but I got to dig into the research a little bit more and see what I can come up with, this is pretty intriguing, thanks for your query it’s lead me to re-fire up the editor again and monkey around...

I guess that, in principle, TOAW IV ought to be scaleable from company-size (which is where ABTF is) up to divisional level units but it does seem to work best at battalion level. Mostly, I assume, because at that scale it delivers the best verisimilitude, ironing out the nitty-gritty problems of company-sized units without having to make the inevitable compromises of lumping too many types of unit/equipment/specialisations into one counter (can I call it a counter?).

Restricting HQ units to brigade, rather than battalion, level removes the inevitable conflict between the tactical 'command' versus and the administrative 'supply' functions at lower levels. For instance, the 'tactical' HQ of a British armoured regiment often put itself in harms way whereas the other HQ chaps did not. But then again for British infantry battalions, which typically comprised 4 rifle companies plus anti-tank, pioneer and carrier platoons, the default sub-divisions into 2 or 3 sub-units doesn't fit all that comfortably into a battalion level OOB.

I do take your point about the artillery ranging issue, and it is a fair compromise to make. But, somehow, treating anti-tank guns like a version of the Royal Horse Artillery battery in 1914, galloping into the field, firing five-rounds-rapid and then galloping off again, just doesn't feel right to me. They didn't 'hold their ground' because that wasn't their job but I'd wager that in 1944 a battery of anti-tank gunners with rifles, brens, and Piats would do far better job than a battery of 'field artillery' because they were in the the frontline whereas the 25pdr field gunners were not. More often than not, the latter had the time, opportunity and transport to make a a timely departure, three luxuries the AT batteries were seldom afforded in close action.

But its all a case of swings and roundabouts!

Regards,

R193

TOAW isn't like some other games where Attack Factor's are compared to Defense Factor's to resolve combat.

19.2. Notes On Combat Resolution

Anti-Tank and Anti-Personnel fire are handled at the level of individual weapons firing at individual targets.

TOAW combat is resolved by comparing Shot(s) vs Shot(s) [:)]

The thing that really irritates me is the total impenetrability of the Manual.

It's a tough thing to tackle, the rewrite of the Manual. It was written in a different time. In addition to the things that you mention, I also find it difficult to search. I've been making slow progress in improving it for myself, but don't mind sharing it. I split it into two parts, a Player Manual and an Editor Manual. Here is the Player Manual if you are interested.

It's in simple text with no pictures. I have an idea to link passages to Screen Shots where beneficial.

Wow!

Thank you so much for sharing your work on the Manual. I've had a quick skim through it and will read it more thoroughly when I get the chance. But first my first impressions are very positive. I appreciate how time consuming it must have been to sort it out - a veritable labour of love with a large dollop of masochism thrown in!

l'd be intrigued to read the Editor Manual.

I've found the best way to "search" the current manual is to download it as a PDF and then use the global search facility in PDF Expert. Usually that eventually gets me to the thing I want to know.

As for the Anti-tank gun thing, I do understand the Shot for Shot principle and I recognise that given the game's structure it makes sense.

Anyhow, thanks again, for your re-write of the Player Manual I really do appreciate it.

Regards,

R193

I worked with Steve on this manual but we parted ways on creativity, I made it a word doc with hyper linked entries and searchable. You can find it here if you search for civilian manual and look to my post with a zip file attachment. You coul probably make a PDF.

Creative differences eh?

I've worn that t-shirt a few times myself. [8|]

I'll have a look for the civilian manual.


Many thanks.

R193

Here is the link:

fb.asp?m=4693131

Creative differences

Well, I wanted a plain-jane type thing [like the one I posted above], Don made a really nice professional looking document, a lot of great work you can see if you grab that one.

Eventually we'll have it stickied, but right now that is on hold. I want to have it available for others to make suggestions. As some of you may have noticed we often need various views on how to word things before we can decide on a concise passage that will make sense to most. I am also always interested when someone searches for something but can't find it, because usually that requires a minor change in wording or word placement.

l'd be intrigued to read the Editor Manual.

The Editor part:

Okay,

I’ve had a quick peek at the draft TOAW CIVILIAN PLAYER MANUAL attached to the link you sent me.

I’ve a couple or three observations to make about it but it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate to make make them in this forum and, anyhow, they would probably best be explained by my sending you (or whoever) a marked-up version of a few pages that illustrate the points I’d want to make.

Does that sound feasible to you?

Regards,

R193

My e-mail can be had by clicking my name on the left, if you don't want to post here.

I'm entirely happy to post here I was merely thinking that the conversation had moved well beyond the topic of towed anti-tank guns. Also, there's no way to put all this succinctly but here goes!

I think there is a a fundamental problem that militates against making significant improvements to the manual, beyond improving the clarity of syntax, which is to do with the inconsistent use of language within TOAW IV itself. Let me take the words “Scenario” and “Game” as a simple example.

On the opening ‘control screen’ the player is presented with button options labelled: “New Game”, “Load Game”, “Scenario Editor”, “Play Online” and “Quit”. Whereas the manual describes (incorrectly as it happens) the first two buttons as: “Play New Game” and “Resumed Saved Game”. Once a Scenario (or should I call it a game?) is opened the “File” menu offers: “Begin New Game”, “Load Saved Game”, “Save Game As…”, “Go to Editor” and etc. However in The Play Menu options included: “End Scenario” but “Game Options” while The View Menu offers a: “Scenario Briefing”

My point is that that “game” and “scenario” are used interchangeably but they are not actually the same thing at all. A Scenario is the ‘playable element’ whereas the game, TOAW IV, is the environment in which the Scenario is played. Initially a player opens a new or a saved Scenario or goes to the Scenario Editor because, per force the game is already up and running. Similarly a player saves a Scenario in which Scenario Options (not game options) have been selected.

In a workshop, screws, bolts, nails and fastenings, hammers, spanners (that’s wrenches to you guys!) and screwdrivers have different names because they do different things in different ways. But TOAW IV uses words in much the same way as Lewis Carrol’s Humpty Dumpty, they mean just what TOAW chooses them to mean - neither more nor less. For the player the trick is inferring correctly what was actually meant.

So, the best way re-write a manual would be to to define a standard thesaurus of terms which wouldn’t be too difficult when it came to applying them to a re-write of the manual. However, I’ve absolutely no idea if doing the same to the game itself would be practical or even possible. The alternative would be to reverse-engineer the manual by painstakingly ploughing through every menu and option in the game and then cutting and pasting it together with some lucid prose to cover the joins.