Matrix Games Forums

Any documentation on the maximum size and strength of each unit?

Eg. what is the max no. of tanks a German PZ BN can receive?

In the next ver. I would like to suggest the option of creating new units.

Originally posted by Ryan:
Any documentation on the maximum size and strength of each unit?

Eg. what is the max no. of tanks a German PZ BN can receive?

In the next ver. I would like to suggest the option of creating new units.

I second the request for strength info. I have no idea whether I should rest my units and await further replacements or whether they're already full-strength (or over-strength). Even just a strength percentage next to the readiness percentage would be useful.</P>

Also, the ALT+R report is a great idea, but doesn't go far enough IMO. I wish there were an HQ report, for each HQ, something like:</P>

<PRE>
Karelian Fin Army Commander: Mannerheim (7)
OP: 100 Replacements: 50%
===============
Ground
Avg. Experience: 83.3
Avg. Readiness: 99%
Avg. Strength: ??%

Infantry: 3657
Recon: 0
Arty: 806
AT: 540
Flak: 0
Tanks: 77
55x R-35
22x Czech 38t(E)
---------------
Total: 5080
Effective: 4189
===============

===========================
Aircraft
Avg. Experience: 79
Avg. Strength: ??%
---------------------------
Type Op Dmg Tot
FTR: 88 16 104
FTR-BMR: 152 31 183
BMR: 24 13 37
---------------------------
Total: 264 60 324
% 81.5% 18.5%
===========================
</PRE>

Naturally, for the Supreme commands, it would be an average/total of the subordinates. They should also give an idea about production...surpluses/deficits. It would be nice to have similar (although smaller) reports for the Corps and HQ's reserves. It would help if obsolete equipment no longer being produced was marked somehow. A symbol next to the name in all reports, maybe.</P>

Not to be all complaints, I'd like to thank you Matrix for reworking it (and PacWar). I'm beginning to enjoy it, even though I don't really know what (or how) I'm doing yet. Of course, after playing so many wargames where you strive for 3:1 odds, it takes some getting used-to to see "Odds: 120:1, Defender Retreats".</P>

Oh yeah, one more thing I'd like to see in the way of reports - a turn summary along the lines of:</P>

<PRE>
Total Combat Value: ####
Combat Value Change: +/-####
Cities Captured/Lost: +/-##
Territory Gained/Lost: +/-##
Total Combats: ##
Retreated Shattered
Axis # #
Russia # #
</PRE>

And an entry somehow comparing losses to production as a percentage maybe. A sort of net production instead of gross production.</P>

I probably sound like a statistics freak, but really I just think more feedback is necessary for new players.</P>

1.Why not allowing the player to edit the maximum size of his units? This would help everybody: You know how big your units could be, you stop the computer filling your divisions with squads until experience is down and you would enable the player to get new reinforcement by making his divisions smaller. Doing this should create a more experienced reinforcement of new divisions.
2. It would be great if you could have additional support weapons or something like this: The Wehrmacht lowered the number of men in their divisions and added a lot of MG so the combat value of the Divisions was higher than before. The best example are the Volksgrenadier Divisions which had 2 times more MG than a standard Infantry Division (OK, they were easy prey for almost everybody, but that had other reasons). You see it would be historical more realistic if you add this support weapons. Put them near the Squads and give the cities factories to build these weapons.
This automatic support weapons enabled the Wehrmacht to stop the Soviet attacks, when the regiment number in Infantry Divisions was reduced to 2 Regiments/Division.
3. I have read in your forum that you think about a "stability factor" for tanks. Don´t do this. In that caase you would have to create a repair ability factor to set the things right. (The Germans were great in repairing their tanks: a single Division repaired about 100 tanks in about 30 hours in 1941. The Russians sent their tanks back to the factories to get them repaired.)
4. You should not give Soviet and German artillery the same fighting values. The Germans had a perfect working forward observer system. The Soviet had nothing comparable. The Soviet used brute force and high artillery piece numbers with a lot of ammo. The Germans had the same effect with much less artillery and much less ammo. Adding 1 or 2 value points to the German artillery attack value would set the things right.

Originally posted by Frank:
3. I have read in your forum that you think about a "stability factor" for tanks. Don´t do this. In that caase you would have to create a repair ability factor to set the things right. (The Germans were great in repairing their tanks: a single Division repaired about 100 tanks in about 30 hours in 1941. The Russians sent their tanks back to the factories to get them repaired.)

Repair of vehicles wouldn't need to be explicitly supported. Simply have a "durability" factor that determined what percentage of tanks available for battle, actually show up at the battle. It would be just like what the "readiness" factor does, applied right after the "readiness" factor is applied. With 100 tanks, and a readiness of %50, then only 50 tanks are left. Now, if durability is %80, then 40 tanks, out of the original 100, would make it to the battle.

P.S. The Germans may have been good at repairing tanks in '41, but they also produced the most complex tanks of the war, so I think these things neutralized one another. It was a fairly common occurence for Allied soldiers to drive by an abandoned Tiger or Panther along the side of the road. No combat damage, just broken down.

We should not speak about the last weeks of ww2 but of the complete time of War in Russia.
The German tanks I - V were reliable vehicles. In the last weeks of war tanks broke down not because of failures but because of lack of fuel. The GI would not have driven away any Tiger when it was so complicated to repair them. They simply put fuel into them and got away! This fuel problem is just put inside the rules and the readiness factor.
German tanks were not that complex or otherwise the mechanics were used to repair them: Pz III and Pz IV were buid for the entire war. The chassis (? right word?) was the same. They used it for tanks, tank-destroyers, assaultguns and selfpropelled artillery! Only the basic model was modified:
add new armour, put in a new maingun, leave away the turret,... . They did this with almost every type of tank. But this was not only done by the Germans, the Americans added a heavier gun and some extra armour on their Sherman tanks (Jumbo!).
What I wanted to say is that using a reliability factor additional to the readiness is quite problematic: tanks would be repaired when units are not moved for a short time. This means after one turn
(=1 week!) not moving your tank units and not being attacked their readiness should be 100% if supplied, independent of the terrain type. The same thing you start a offensive: all your tanks would be ready and supplied with ammo, fuel, etc. With the new special supply rules an army could only supply one corps per turn.
So don´t touch the readiness rules, it won´t make things better.

Oops, I should have kept the quotes. This is a response to Frank's post of Sept. 15.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Frank:
1.

I'll post this to the mailing list.

2.

This is a good idea if we were talking about a completely new implementation of WiR, unfortunately we are very limited in the changes we can make because its a DOS program that is already close the memory limit. If Matrix ever decides to do a full remake, like they are doing with WitP as a remake of PACWAR, then post this idea then.

3.

This was not an "official" idea on the todo list. When it came up, Nick said it was too much of a change to make it into the update, but again, if they do a full remake, this idea should be debated again then.


4.

I'll post this to the mailing list.


[This message has been edited by Ed Cogburn (edited September 20, 2000).]

Originally posted by Frank:
We should not speak about the last weeks of ww2 but of the complete time of War in Russia.
....

Don't worry Frank, the idea was brought up here but Nick said, correctly I believe, that its too much of an addition to the DOS upgrade, so its not going to happen anyway. It was never discussed on the Beta team mailing list. However if Matrix decides to do a full remake of WiR, we can argue about it then.

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but, what I would rather see is the ability for the Germans to use captured Russian material. Possibly by 1943 the German tank pool should start getting their own versions of the T-36, in relatively small batches. I am pretty sure that at least one German armoured Division was fully equipped with captured Russian AFV's, repaired and repainted to German standards.

Regular German tank strengths are fairly abstract anyway. I never have any trouble after 1942 in filling up all my Armoured Divisions with the most modern vehicles (since many old types are retro-fitted with the latest guns and armour), and the rate of repaired tanks from the battlefield would be insignificant when dealing with a game this size.