Shaka of Carthage

It wasn't simply a quantity vs quality type of thing. One of the big problems with the American doctrine, was the belief in Tank Destroyers. Those were the vehicles that were meant to destroy the enemy tanks. The American tanks were never intended (when they were designed) to fight other tanks. It wasn't until after the war, that American doctrine was able to influence the designe and create a true medium tank. Sherman was always a light tank that was adapted for other roles.

JerseyJohn's post is a good example reminding us that while we operate with 20/20 hindsight, our WWII equivalents didn't.

I'm slightly confused. What is the point of posting all of this statistical information? If its in a effort to "prove" a point or show "expertise", its the wrong way to go about it. Reading statistical information is just the start of a long process in trying to understand what it means. The numbers themselves are meaningless unless you understand the why. Have no professional military background but want to become a WWII expert? There is no better book to give you an understanding of war than this... How to Make War (Fourth Edition) : A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Warfare in the Twenty-first Century by James F. Dunnigan (Paperback - April 1, 2003) From here, this one gives some good insights into the "why" of WWII. Dirty Little Secrets of World War Ii : Military Information No One Told You... by James F. Dunnigan (Paperback - March 14, 1996) And if you really want to pursue the subject, there is no better way to start then by reading the fifty (50) books listed here... The World War II Bookshelf: Fifty Must-Read Books by James F. Dunnigan (Hardcover - April 1, 2004) Then there is the flip side of learning Systems Analysis and Design, assuming you are capable of learning how to program. I won't bother with detailing this. And for those of you who are not aware, Mr. Dunnigan (the author above), is the same Dunningan of S&T fame from 20 or so years ago. What was called the "Golden Age" of wargaming (though we are in a "Renassiance Age" currently). So don't bombard us with statistics... put together a reasonable argument supporting your position on something you feel is missing. Or simply ask why something is the way it is in the hopes we all can learn something from the answers.

JerseyJohn I agree with you. You need to be objective when writing about historical events, something you cannot be if you lived thru it. First hand accounts are great, as they give you the feel and flavor of what was happening, but you have to remember, like you said, that its a biased view.

To be able to concentrate your Strat Bombers on Oil, SC would need to represent Oil. It doesn't. We already have Anti-Aircraft in the game. Read the effects of the "AA Radar" Technology. I assume this will make its way into SC2. I don't want to get into a long discussion here about manpower, but AA Guns themselves were not the manpower drain, it was the personnel policies of the German Air Force and Army that had the Air Force taking alot of manpower that would have been more useful in the Army. But yes, they did use underage (as well as women) in the Luftwaffe AA units, but not until they needed that "prime" manpower in other places.

You do realize that when pzgndr stated MPP amounts, the MPPs being transfered represent all manner of equipment, not so much raw industrial production? If a nation didn't want certain equipment, then they wouldn't have asked for it. And while Russia didn't utilize some of the equipment that the US sent, it wasn't because they couldn't. Rather they had better stuff of thier own to use. There is no reason to have some sort of "efficiency of usage".

SC/SC2 are Grand Strategy games... deck guns have no significance at this level. Wire guided missiles... I believe if you look at todays ships, you will see that missiles have replaced the larger guns on surface ships, but not torpedos. Why would you want to bring your sub to the surface to attack something, when you could do it "in hiding" with a torpedo?

Because Malta was strategically important, while Messina was just another port. Thats not to say it shouldn't be represented, but it has nowhere the strategic significance of Malta.

The problem with representing the Battle of the Atlantic is the scale of the Atlantic Ocean. If you stick with a 50 mile hex, you would need another four (4) maps the size of the current map in SC. Even with the expanded tiles in SC2, you won't have enough to represent the Atlantic correctly, unless you change the land scale. In the past, there has been alot of discussion about "hex representation" vs "abstraction". Personally, I come down on the side of abstraction, since the important thing to me is the land battles on the Eastern Front.

The current model of SC has invisible supply lines that orginate from your capital to nearby cities, and from those cities on and outward to other cities. Depending on what the rating of the city is, determines how much supply gets thru, and the level of supply (among with distance and terrain) determines the readiness rating of your individual units. HQ's have a positive effect on this relationship, as they can extend the supply lines. What more would you like? In defense of SC and the "micro-managing" comment, please realize that complexity doesn't equal realism. One of the great strengths about SC is that it achieves realistic results with elegant simple solutions. The effects can be achieved without having to "toggle" numerous variables. So back to the above supply model. If the strategic submarines were done correctly, the Axis could reduce significantly the UK (and some USSR) production in the early years, forcing the Western Allies to spend quite a bit on ASW technology (ie R&D and destroyers, neither of which have to be represented as units). On land, the problem is that SC assumes you have unlimited supply. It would be nice if you had to purchase supply points, with different units using variable amounts. Then you could reflect that for an offensive, you have to build up enough supplies, while very few are needed for defense. It would also be nice for aircraft to be able to properly perform battlefield interdiction roles, instead of always being used as attack aircraft. Even so, you have the strategical ability to cut units off from thier supply, reducing thier offensive capability. Not to mention, the difficulty Germany has, the further it advances into Russia. All SC players early on learn the futility of invading a land mass without control of a city. Thats a basic logistical lesson that alot of "wargames" don't reflect. The basic system works fine... it just needs a few "tweaks".

Scale of representation is too high to have speciality ships like the ones you mentioned. Personally, the convoy route(s) in SC are a great idea, but suffer from a poor representation of how subs were used. We don't need counters to represent the Merchant ships, we just need to represent the convoy routes.

The scale of a hex in SC is 50 miles. How many bases and airfields can fit in a hex? Still think its a good idea? In a roundabout way, I think what you really are after is the logistical infrastructure that supports a military force. While I would support a more realistic version, I wouldn't support any level of representation beyond what is already abstracted now.

Hmmmm... I want to say what I have to say very carefully. There are a few inaccurate and biased statements in the posting. I would hope that someone who knew nothing about WWII would read more than the above.

Quite some time back, I did an economic analysis of SC and compared it to equivalent games. Overall, it worked out to something like this. German production is fine when the game starts, but is allowed to grow too large by conquest. You ended up with a Germany that was twice as strong as a historical Germany. US production is vastly understated. To be historically accurate, you would need a lower US production, that based on various events in the Pacific and European theater, would be able to ramp up. You would also need the ability for the US to "lend lease" production to CW, Russia, France (and China). And that assumes we leave off all of the production that was spent on R&D. Its hard to represent the US correctly and have a playable game. USSR production is vastly overstated. Alot of the US production is already built into the USSR production, denying the Axis the ability to sink it before it arrives. Italy production is too high, but almost every game does that, otherwise, the "Axis" don't balance out very well against the Allies. France doesn't survive long enough for its production to be an issue, though occupied France does produce too much for Germany. Commonwealth production is also high, but again, because US Lend Lease is already built into it. What really hurts the Axis, is that the submarine strategic warfare is poorly represented in SC. Its almost impossible, for the Axis subs to strangle the UK, which they almost did historically. So once a few turns have gone by, historical accuracy regarding production is gone. However, that doesn't mean that the playability is gone, and I beleive alot of the above decisions on who got what production were more for playability than realism.

The problem isn't the concept of plunder. The problem is that occupied nations after they are plundered, still produce too high of a MPP. Thats why I call it Borg economics. If a conquered nation was reduced to a small fraction of its initial production (say 10%), the massive German MPP values wouldn't exist in the later stages of the game.

Because the slave laborers were considered less than human and not worth the cost of a bullet to kill. Hence, by working them to death, you got some benefit from them before they died.

Bloodstar as was mentioned, the strategic bombing effect you are asking for is already in SC. Its not that the numbers need tweeking, like you suggest. The problem has always been that to protect yourself from a strategic bomb run, all you have to do is put a land unit on the hex you want to protect. The strat bombers cannot get to the target until the land unit is eliminated. SC2 will fix that. Retributar, SC gives exactly the effect you want, since the damaged hex isn't producing at full capacity, hence you have lost production. The problem with Strategic Bombing, is that we can analyze it from a 20/20 hindsight. Before the war, the UK and the US (as well as some in Italy) both felt that strategic bombers had the ability to destroy production, but more importantly, had the ability to reduce a nations will to fight a war. In practice, they found out that it didn't have the ability to force a nation to quit fighting. We know that going into the game, so we analyze what the Strat Bombers can do for us solely in terms of reducing production. In that role, they are not very cost effective machines, even without the inability to get past land units stationed in those hexes. It will be "fixed" one way or another in SC2, because we can change the unit cost. But then another problem will arise, as depending on what those costs are, Strat Bombers will be used in tactical bombing roles, with people justifying it as "carpet bombing". [ December 09, 2004, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

France should start with a HQ. There should be a British HQ in Egypt. Poland should not have a HQ.

The fact that rockets were intercepted, should be factored into the accuracy of the Rocket unit. Granted, they were intercepted, but there is no way the number of aircraft a Air unit represents would have be used. So either reduce the ability to hit, or if they will always hit, reduce the amount of damage they inflict.

Currently we have four (4) experience bars. I have always considered them this way ... No bars ... Poorly or not trained. 1st bar ... Trained but inexperienced cadre. 2nd bar ... Trained with experienced cadre. 3rd bar ... Combat veterans 4th bar ... Elite Examples would be: No bars ... Russian units. 1st bar ... US Army units. 2nd bar ... Early war German units. As pointed out, once you start adding new replacements, your experience bars suffer. If you string out the replacements, one (1) point a turn, there is some lessning of the effect on the experience bars. Three (3) bar combat veterans gaining that fourth bar, should not be an easy thing to do. Especially since in real life, you don't see these "elite" units other than in small (battalion or less) sized units. I would agree, that the gaining of experience should be more difficult for this level. Its especially a problem in SC when you get "elite" Air or Naval units (but thats a different problem and approach). In SC2, there is talk about how "elite" replacements won't dilute the current experience bar. As these are not really "elite" replacements, rather "experienced" replacements (ie combat veterans returing from the hospital), I understand the logic behind not diluting the experience bars. I think a simple solution to potential problems this would cause, is simply to put a cap on the number of experience bars a unit can have once they receive replacements (experienced or not). A three (3) bar cap (ie combat veterans) would work for me. Btw, using the above combat experience model, is the only way I have been able to recreate Eastern Front combat in a model that I believe is abstract yet realistic.

Got to agree with Kuni, Desert Dave and JJ... without the Russians, the Allies would have had a very difficult, if not impossible time invading Europe. The US made plans on building a large Army, since they expected to bear the burden of manpower fighting Germany (these plans were made before Germany invaded Russia). Thats why the US Army was suppossed to have 180 to 250 divisions, and why it ended up with more combat support units than any other power. There were even plans to include Mexican manpower into divisions equipped and armed by the US. With 200 US Army divisions and a few Marine divisions, it is a possibility that US forces could have found a foothold into Europe. Considering the freed up German units that would be opposing them, whose is to say that the Allies would not have gotten even more creative and possibly considered landing in Portugal or Spain? The flip side of this though, would be the willingness of the US to accept the kind of losses that the Russians had in the Eastern Front... which alone may have forced the US to negotiate a peace settlement. To explore the above possibilites though, is something that should be designed as a new scenario in SC2, not something that should be a possiblity after Russia surrenders.

I think some of you are falling for the post WWII propaganda that was put out. Don't get the wrong idea and think that I am pro-Hitler or pro-Stalin, but when you objectively think about it, you have got to admire the accomplishments those two men achieved. Stalin basically took an agrarian nation and turned it into a superpower. Hitler equalled and almost exceeded Napoleons dream of controlling Continental Europe. Think about Alexander the Great (whom they are doing a movie on btw). Comparing him to our version of a contemporary male, he falls far short of what we expect from a man. But compared to his peers, he was no worse than any other man of his day and age. Granted, Stalin wasn't a great Grand Strategist, so just about any of us would beat him in SC... but the problem would be that he would make sure that none of us lived to finish the game... hence he would win by default.

I'd have to disagree that a unit must take a "hidden" posture. ev has the right idea.

A case could be made, that at the scale SC represents, we don't have the ability to control the path of the units we have issued orders to.

Composition of units in SC, are not based soley on the amount of manpower. So using the total manpower that Finland had under arms, and trying to make SC equivalent sized units won't work. Of more importance, is the number of artillery tubes and armored fighting vehicles. To some extent, your artillery tubes can be increased by the number of large mortar tubes. Headquarter units are purely based on what the designer of the game is trying to achieve. Without getting into detail, I suspect that Mannerheim in SC would be better represented in SC by a SC unit with an additional experience bar, not a HQ unit.