Broken ground combat

[Jim D Burns]

After reading WiTP_Dudes and Zeta's AAR I made some coments about the unrealistic ground combat in this game that their AAR highlits so well. I felt the ground combat topic deserved discussion here so I'll post my comments from the thread below:


Well after spending the morning reading this thread, I must say I am very dismayed. Ever since the games release I’ve thought ground combat was too easy in this game, and this thread overwhelmingly confirms it.

China had been a stalemated slugfest for the Japanese for almost 5 years by the time this game starts, but dude has managed to capture almost the entire country in just a few months. If this doesn’t set off alarm bells in our community, I don’t know what else will.

Pearl Harbor fell after only a few weeks of fighting. Come on! There are multiple well entrenched divisions defending that island along with lots of smaller forces. No way it would only take a couple of weeks to clear, even if the US troops were green recruits, their sheer numbers would have required well over a month or more to clear. Given their preparedness and troop experience levels, that fight should have lasted for months.

Guadalcanal lasted 6 months! Okinawa lasted over 2 full months after the landings, and the allies had MASSIVE air and naval superiority. In this game the Japanese were getting mauled at PH, so no one can claim they had massive superiority. Iwo Jima lasted 6 weeks. Time and again I can point to historical invasions (on much smaller scales) that lasted twice to three times the length of engagements in this AAR.

Dude even stated his ground troops were almost as good as new and ready to be used elsewhere on the same turn the battle ended. If this doesn’t cry out for a redress by Matrix regarding the broken land combat engine, I don’t know what does.

I have no problem with the Japanese being able to achieve these kinds of successes, only it should take them months to see these campaigns come to a conclusion, not merely a few weeks. Additionally units should require 6-8 months or more for refits after such heavy engagements.

Personally I would like to see base capture ratios pushed from 2-1 up to 8-1. Additionally I think all Chinese ground units should start at full strength (just like the Japanese) and have their experience bumped up to the 50-60 range. They should also be redeployed along the entire front right up against all Japanese holdings. Japan found it almost impossible to move anywhere in China without getting surrounded, the deployments should reflect this threat.

Finally I think forts should take almost as long to reduce as they do to build!

Jim

Here's a link to the AAR thread:

tm.asp?m=716742

[Zeta16]

Another thing is that Coastal Defense guns seem to do nothing aganist the landing troops, sure the sink ships and cause a couple disabled troops. However, it seems these good coastal defense set up should kill a lot more troops. I know in our game Dude invaded PH, Aukland, and Java. I sunk a lot of ships, and it said I hit troops, but these guns did not even slow down the Japanese. If these guns are firing and hit some of these ships, with say a large warhead many troops should be killed. I have come to think in the landing phase that when ships get hit it seems that it asumes the troops are already of the ship. I mauled his ships at PH and Aukland and it seems like all of troops got ashore, yes with some disabled troops but still in close to there orginal size. I would asume these places with fixed guns would be hitting ships before they could even unload the troops into lighters and what not. There was a reason why places with fixed large guns where not landed on.

[moses]

Its a problem simulating so many types of ground combat. In almost every case ground combat should be slower, however in many important cases (like in singapore) forces did move very quickly.

The CD problem is related. At PH they would have been devestating to anyone stupid enough to invade near Honolulu. So invasions would have occured at any of dozens of locations that could not possibly be defended by a mere 2 divisions. So you would have probably very few losses to CD's followed by several weeks of delaying actions until the ports and airfields came under threat.

Its very easy to come up with situations where units could share the same hex but have no chance of even coming into contact much less fighting. But in the game you can always choose deliberate attack and have a full battle.

Of course complaining is easy and its hard to see a complete reworking of ground combat at this stage.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

After reading WiTP_Dudes and Zeta's AAR I made some coments about the unrealistic ground combat in this game that their AAR highlits so well. I felt the ground combat topic deserved discussion here so I'll post my comments from the thread below:


Well after spending the morning reading this thread, I must say I am very dismayed. Ever since the games release I’ve thought ground combat was too easy in this game, and this thread overwhelmingly confirms it.

China had been a stalemated slugfest for the Japanese for almost 5 years by the time this game starts, but dude has managed to capture almost the entire country in just a few months. If this doesn’t set off alarm bells in our community, I don’t know what else will.

Pearl Harbor fell after only a few weeks of fighting. Come on! There are multiple well entrenched divisions defending that island along with lots of smaller forces. No way it would only take a couple of weeks to clear, even if the US troops were green recruits, their sheer numbers would have required well over a month or more to clear. Given their preparedness and troop experience levels, that fight should have lasted for months.

Guadalcanal last 6 months! Okinawa lasted over 2 full months after the landings, and the allies had MASSIVE air and naval superiority. In this game the Japanese were getting mauled at PH, so no one can claim they had massive superiority. Iwo Jima lasted 6 weeks. Time and again I can point to historical invasions (on much smaller scales) that lasted twice to three times the length of engagements in this AAR.

Dude even stated his ground troops were almost as good as new and ready to be used elsewhere on the same turn the battle ended. If this doesn’t cry out for a redress by Matrix regarding the broken land combat engine, I don’t know what does.

I have no problem with the Japanese being able to achieve these kinds of successes, only it should take them months to see these campaigns come to a conclusion, not merely a few weeks. Additionally units should require 6-8 months or more for refits after such heavy engagements.

Personally I would like to see base capture ratios pushed from 2-1 up to 8-1. Additionally I think all Chinese ground units should start at full strength (just like the Japanese) and have their experience bumped up to the 50-60 range. They should also be redeployed along the entire front right up against all Japanese holdings. Japan found it almost impossible to move anywhere in China without getting surrounded, the deployments should reflect this threat.

Finally I think forts should take almost as long to reduce as they do to build!

Jim

Here's a link to the AAR thread:

tm.asp?m=716742

Ahhhh, as I light a rare smoke (can't be good 100% of the time). Another convert. Thank you![8D]

[Zeta16]

Have you been to Oahu, not many places to land without very high surf and reefs. He landed in the winter months, which makes the north shore almost impossible to land on. I am just saying in the game terms if a ship gets hit more troops should die than do. PBY's would have seen where they were going and it doesn't take long to move any where on the Island. Most of the bases are smack in the middle of the island. If they land on East side the have to go over 4000 foot mountains or around a very narrow coast to get to PH and the central plain. Which would bring them under fire from Diamond Head. Same thing goes from the West of Pearl Harbor.

[Jim D Burns]

Even with an 8-1 base capture routine I doubt Singapore would hold out very long due to the allied tendency to surrender without really fighting much. Once you're isolated, supply begins to take a toll on your ability to fight, so eventually Singapore will be easy to push over the 8-1 ratio.

The problem I have with things now is there is no attrition built into the system. I feel units should only surrender when they are totally out of supply and have over 90% damaged equipment (the PI defenders only had a day or so of rations left at surrender). Currently units surrender at the drop of a hat and the net result is Japan pays very little for their victories and things like conquering China in 4 months become possible.

I merely want to see the game reflect realistic constraints faced by both sides. Japan wouldn’t have had the time to conquer the entire map in four months as Dude has in his AAR. They would have had to refit for months before redirecting their efforts towards the DEI, which he seems to be doing in just a few turns. No significant down time that I can see at all between his invasions.

Of course if you’re not much of a student of history then I suspect all this is lost upon you.

Jim

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

After reading WiTP_Dudes and Zeta's AAR I made some coments about the unrealistic ground combat in this game that their AAR highlits so well. I felt the ground combat topic deserved discussion here so I'll post my comments from the thread below:

China had been a stalemated slugfest for the Japanese for almost 5 years by the time this game starts, but dude has managed to capture almost the entire country in just a few months. If this doesn’t set off alarm bells in our community, I don’t know what else will.

I do not believe Japan made much effort in china once they took the bases they wanted. They mostly left the status quo alone and concentrated on other areas.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Pearl Harbor fell after only a few weeks of fighting. Come on! There are multiple well entrenched divisions defending that island along with lots of smaller forces. No way it would only take a couple of weeks to clear, even if the US troops were green recruits, their sheer numbers would have required well over a month or more to clear. Given their preparedness and troop experience levels, that fight should have lasted for months.

Guadalcanal lasted 6 months! Okinawa lasted over 2 full months after the landings, and the allies had MASSIVE air and naval superiority. In this game the Japanese were getting mauled at PH, so no one can claim they had massive superiority. Iwo Jima lasted 6 weeks. Time and again I can point to historical invasions (on much smaller scales) that lasted twice to three times the length of engagements in this AAR.

So you're saying that the entire area of PH was one big fort with everything built underground like Okinawa ? Hawaii was a vacation paradise and on its way to becoming a state - it was not an armed camp with bunkers every five feet.. Do you really think US soldiers would carpet bomb (with arty or air power) downtown Oahu just to kill some japanese ? What about the civilians ? If japan really landed in Hawaii and captured the bulk of the civilians and put all of there barracks and supply depots near the civilians, do you think we would have attacked them ? I doubt it very much... or if we did it would be very carefully with special ops more than massed infantry and tank assaults.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Personally I would like to see base capture ratios pushed from 2-1 up to 8-1. Additionally I think all Chinese ground units should start at full strength (just like the Japanese) and have their experience bumped up to the 50-60 range. They should also be redeployed along the entire front right up against all Japanese holdings. Japan found it almost impossible to move anywhere in China without getting surrounded, the deployments should reflect this threat.

By raising it to 8:1 you would never take a base without massively superior firepower.. What about undefended bases ? Some small units can barely get 2:1 odds against an empty base, how would they get 8:1 ? The chinese shouldn't start at full strength - I do not think the EVER achieve full stength throughout the war - let alone at the beginning. As for their low experience levels, they were that crappy. They had little to no real training, only whatever experience they have picked up fighting the japanese - for those that survived that is.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Finally I think forts should take almost as long to reduce as they do to build!

It never takes as long to destroy something as it does to build it.. You go build a nice house.. Give a demolitions guy 1 kg of C-4 and 5 mins and he'll wipe it off the face of the earth...

In my games I currently have roughly 4 divs worth of troops (including engineers) attacking bases and days go by without me affecting the fort level at all.. I've even Shock attacked in attempt to lower the fort level and had it failed.

Someone else mentioned that CD guns do a good job of hitting ships and killing men on those ships but suck at killing men on the beaches... I may not be a combat engineer, but those guns were designed to attack ships, not men.. Most of the static guns would not be able to depress low enough to target the beaches they protected - that was the job of the army - not the CD guns...

I'm not saying that the ground combat doesn't need some work (something needs down to slow the pace down a bit), but raising the odds 8:1 won't help - it will just force me to bring 2 divs instead of 1... I personally do not know what it needs - but raising the odds or similar altering won't effect the pace of the game at all - or if it does it will make it too slow and cumbersome... I am currently working on a set of house rules with my next opponent in PBEM for just such a thing - to slow the pace down... Not sure if a game of this scope (and current design) can do such a thing by itself, without a major rewrite - which is not gonna happen... If my opponent and I come up with anything, I'll let you know.

Xargun

[Tophat]

Weather effects reducing supply can be very important in China,Burma theater.Also more fatigue/disruption should happen to units...based on size when they participate in landings.Divisional landings should engender more unit disruption than regimental level landings....why? because it show the greater certainty of alot of little things not going according to schedule that turn into major time-consuming ballsups.
You don't need to throwout the combat system,simply tweak it to drag things out more.And weather effects alone on movement,supply and a negative combat modifier......would work wonders.

[moses]

Reply to Zeta 16

Spent 4 years with the 25th infantry in Oahu. Its got a whole lot of coastline and while much of it might not be ideal it would sure be hard to oppose a landing anywhere other then around the key bases where you would expect the defence to be concentrated. You do have to do some marching to get to the key bases which was my point. You could not land on the east or north shore, take 2 days to unload, and then launch a deliberate attack. It would take weeks to get to reach a decisive battle. Diamond head would not be a factor as it only defends against a seaward attack.

Anyway my point was just that in many cases the CD's could be avoided to an extent by landing at sites some distance from the main base. Then after a significant delay the main base could be attacked from the inland side.

In the current model you always face the full brunt of the CD's but then you can launch a deliberate attack and take the base within a day or two of landing if you have sufficient force.

[Zeta16]

I guess what I am saying is that they have air search and know where the landing is going to be, the US had truks which would be used to move troops quickly. Yes there are many beaches in the winter a lot on the North and East really can't be used to well. If used there would be major disruption. Many of the beaches do not give you a big beach head to land divisons of troops, all during WWII after the PH attack they were afraid of landings and did all they could do to make it a tough nut to crack. I think they had CD other places besides PH and Diamond Head. You have lived there these beaches arn't roling beaches like Florida and such. So if everyone is going to land at places not covered by CD's at these hexes, why do we even need the CD guns?

[moses]

In my initial post I was only commenting on the difficulty of improving the combat model and pointing out a relationship between CD's and the speed of ground combat. Mainly that there is a trade off where you can avoid the main defences in exchange for a delay in the decisive engagement. This is not modeled in the game.

Of course the CD's are important. They keep you away from the main objectives or force the enemy to pay dearly in order to take them by storm. If the enemy takes a more indirect route you have time to react.

As for north shore, its got a lot of beachfront. I'm sure they set up some defence but there's just a lot of front and I would assume they would concentrate on the area around PH. But the JP would have a lot of walking to do to get to PH and if the weather turns bad the landing could have real problems.

[Tophat]

Did you say weather moses? Here is an idea....work within the existing system for some weather modifications.........ie....bad weather causing "disruption".
I really don't see why everyone has their shorts in a bunch.....its early in the patching phase for the game.

[moses]

Well I don't remember even a bad port in the North so if you had rough weather I would think it would be hard to unload supplies and such.

[Tophat]

fine,
hey irrelevant......do you happen to have a topigraphical map of Oahu say circa 1940 floating about? So these fine gents can move past the relative merits,lack thereof or anything else having to do with the invasion of the Hawian Islands?

[Zeta16]

OK we are never going to agree about where they are landing, but if these ap's are getting hit by large shells why are more troops like in the water, I would not think that the gunners are going to wait until troops get into the boats to hit the big ships. It's not like they are unloading 10 miles out, maybe a few. I guess my point is not where they land it's why Cd's don't seem to kill many troops when they are killing the transports.

[moses]

Hey TOPHAT give me a break. I'm just chatting while I wait for the patch. Whats wrong with discussing an invasion of Hawaii. Better not tick me off or I'm just going to have to haul off and take Hawaii from ya.[;)]

[Tophat]

Thats my plan.......get you all committed close to the West Coast.........just remember unlike your myhical IJN sub force.....my boys sank some tonnage.....when their dang torpedo's actually went off! Still can't believe I was 0 for 3 on your Flattops and 0 for 4 on your BB's.....Yamashiro led a charmed life.
Now back to ground combat..........perhaps a house rule to take into account Monsoon season? I'll get my weather effects oneway or another........lol!

[moses]

The game seems to model things OK for atols by forcing you to shock attack so there is some chance that the attack can be stopped at the beach. Against non-atols there seems to be little chance of stopping an invasion unless the defender can shock attack before enough attackers land.

[tsimmonds]

I haven't seen many topo maps online; the folks who make things like that usually want to get paid for access to them; go figure. Here's a pretty good map though. Pretty rough coastline, mostly. THis doesn't show roads, but they mostly just go along the coast and through the central valley. There are some roads between Honolulu and Kaneohe Bay there on the east coast.

[kaiser73]

why not making shock attack happen always in landings?

after all, everytime a amphibious landing has been done in RL, it caused tons of casualties if the place was defended.