mcaryf1

I have been having a continual battle with AVG to be allowed to run SC Gold. I have told it to ignore the file and the path but periodically it seems to forget this and moves the relevant file to the Virus Vault. I then have to reinstate it and it works for a while until the next intervention. When I tell it to restore the file it starts claiming there is a virus in the restore section of the disc and I end up getting multiple virus reports on that. I have gone so far as backing up the file on a memory stick in case AVG finally manages to purge it from my system. Is there anything else I can do apart from stopping heuristic scanning or is there a chance that the AVG people could be made to understand that this is not a threat? Regards Mike

Has anybody looked at the possibility of simulating captured fuel dumps e.g. with units in a certain radius getting a burst of supply at 10 for a couple of turns? I am thinking of the real situation when Rommel captured Tobruk and Allied dumps after Gazala. It was these extra supplies that enabled his forces to advance as fas as Alamein. Also during the Battle of the Bulge Peiper's Task Force very nearly captured a vast Allied fuel dump at Stavelot that could potentially have provided the Panzers with enough fuel to get to Antwerp. I regret that I have not yet fully understood how Supply events work - I know they can be used to interdict supply but can they also temporarily increase it for, say, 2 or 3 turns? I am going to be away from my PC for a few days so will not immediately be able to respond to any suggestions. Please accept my thanks in advance if you do have some ideas. Regards Mike

There have been a couple of threads debating the ideal scale for maps. One of the reasons why players might like a larger scale map is the opportunity it gives with more APs to move round and isolate enemy units. Clearly this is more problematic with a scale of nearly 100 miles per square as this would represent a truly epic breakthrough. In practice an attacker would have attempted to seal off trapped units somewhat earlier than a penetration of 100 miles. It occurs to me that SC might simulate this type of successful trapping attack, even with its standard scale, by applying a chance (like rolling a 6 dice) that a relatively weak unentrenched unit might surrender even when the attack had not actually reduced it to zero strength. The theory would be that the unit had become tactically isolated during the attack within the square that it occupied. The recent addition of the possibility for a unit to retreat could be the basis for this to be implemented. Thus in some situations the unit retreats in others e.g. low morale it surrenders where it stands - actually the ability to retreat in reasonable order while under attack does require high morale. I would probably limit the surrender possibility to occasions when the attacker was a Tank Group that had not already moved. With respect to allowing retreats it seems to me that this could be a mixed blessing for both attacker and defender. For the defender it might just move the unit back out of range of the units that the attacker expected to use in follow up attacks, for the attacker the vacated space might be a useful opening to bring in another attacker from further back. On balance, however, I think retreating is probably slightly more advantageous to the defender as the new swap feature has already given the attacker a bit more flexibility in bringing up attackers. Given that retreat can help defenders my suggestion of providing a slight chance of surrender would help redress the balance. Regards Mike

I should just add to my Panama Canal comment that it would have been very surprising if the Allies had left the Suez Canal in a useable state if Rommel had broken through into Egypt. Unlike the Panama Canal, Suez does not include locks, however, it took something like a year of mine clearance work for the Suez Canal to be reopened in 1975 after having been closed since 1967 as a result of the Arab Israeli War and subsequent blockade by the Egyptians. Thus transits and convoy routes round both S Africa and S.America should be available in your solution. Would it be possible with your "continuous 1 - 1" map to include a bit more of the East African coast and ideally the British base at Mombasa, at least part of Madagascar (Diego Suarez) and an area for ships where combat might occur representing their location whilst passing around Capetown or Durban? I am not sure if you are including your large dark area in order to limit the total number of locations on the map or to avoid an untidy looking break point where there is no room for the Southern end of Africa. It looks at first glance large enough to accommodate the sort of extra detail, albeit with at least one discontinuity belt, that I am suggesting. Regards Mike

Hi Al I commend your efforts to come up with a good solution that expands the scale of the SC map. I probably would put myself down as wanting a 1 - 1 scales Europe and Asia as the movement of aircraft types between theatres otherwise becomes problematic. However there were two real possibilities in WW2 that I would very much like you to include in your eventual solution. First the Allies mounted their invasion of Madagascar because they were alarmed about the possibility of Vichy inviting the Japanese to use it as a base to interdict Allied convoys to and from the Middle East (Vichy did actually propose this). Interdicting the Indian Ocean was a strategy with huge potential for the Axis both for capturing the Mid East and to prevent supplies going to Russia via the Persian Gulf. There is evidence that it would have been the IJNs next operation after a "successful" conclusion of their attack on Midway. Thus whatever form your map takes I would like the threat to the Allies in the Indian Ocean up the East coast of Africa to be a real one. The second possibility was the Japanese plan to destroy or at least seriously damage the Panama Canal. They designed, developed and built a small flotilla of submarines each capable of launching 3 bombers as well as having the range to circumnavigate the world. With this force they planned to attack the Canal possibly approaching it from the East. They had confirmed from POWs that the US effort to guard the Canal had been relatively relaxed. Unfortunately for them the submarines were not completed until 1945 by which time the war was definitely lost. However, if the Axis had not started to collapse as early as it did this could have been a practical operation of war. Their estimate was that they ought to be able to damage critical features of the Canal so that it would be out of action for at least 6 months and possibly longer. Thus I would like your solution, whatever it is, to include the possibility that the transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific has to be via the extremities of Africa or S America with consequent delays and disruption to trade. I guess it would not be necessary to actually represent the tip of S America to do this but, taking my first point into account, Southern Africa could have become even more strategically relevant. Regards Mike

Hi Al Someone else might already have told you but on your map of the UK the city you called Manchester should be Newcastle and the city you called Newcastle should be Edinburgh. Have you thought of any house rules to deal with your differences in scale between the Pacific theatre and the European one? It seems to me to be about 3 to 1, so one of your corps can potentially move about 120 miles a turn in Europe and about 360 miles in China. One possibility would be to have different terrain types in the Pacific so that the cost of movement could be adjusted e.g. a tropical mountain has double or triple the cost of an ordinary mountain etc. There appear to be 12 different terrain types in SC so you could have 6 in each theatre with the cost in one being, say, double the cost in the other. I guess the sea only has one terrain type but the AP's for sea movement are way too low in the game anyway. After all a ship steaming at a steady 15knots could travel 5000nm in 14 days which would equate to well over 100 of your European squares and even 50 of your Pacific ones. The most problematic unit type to consider in terms of range would be aircraft but actually the Japanese typically outranged most others so even with the "European" scale for Allied aircraft the Japanese could be given longer ranges and still not be unrealistic. However, your AP of 8 for a US fighter is way too far for a Wildcat in the Pacific but would be alright for a Zero. I think you will probably need a house rule for aircraft but for sure you should increase the Japanese aircraft ranges relative to those of the US if you want to allow for one of the advantages they actually did have at least in the early years. Regards Mike

Weather is somewhat of a problem in SC when you have sequential turns. You may deploy a CV in good weather during your turn but have the weather quite different when your opponent has the initiative and can attack your exposed units. I realise of course that weather does change in the real world as well but then there is at least the possibility of forecasting the change although a 14 day forecast would have pushed the boundaries during WW2! I guess the main effects of weather on naval aspects are an inability to deploy aircraft, reduced spotting and a chance of minor storm damage (slightly more important if you are moving troops). I agree it would be a good feature if weather increased the percentage chance of evasion but I would prefer it to be total evasion of combat not the current one side getting a free hit. I would imagine building in weather related evasion might be quite a big change so I think I am going to be satisfied by the current possibility of giving both sides some degree of evasion and increasing the general possibility at least of no effective combat although that would not be weather related. I have not yet completed my allocation of RN ships into TF's although I have completed BB's and CV's. With the RN BB's it proved necessary to allocate some of the old ones e.g. "R" class to a different country (Canada) as I could not easily marry up the characteristics of the KGV's with them in similar BB TF's. Adm Somerville found in the Indian Ocean that he could not really deplot the "Rs" in the same TF as more modern ships when facing the IJN Raid. Another naval issue that I am also working on is the question of convoys. I am thinking about creating player Decision Events as to whether some hazardous convoys should be run, switched to another route or be suspended altogether. This mainly relates to the Arctic route where I could give the Allies a DE to suspend the convoys, as Churchill did after PQ17, but the price would be morale hits both in the SU and the UK (worker solidarity). I would also like the player to be able to switch the Arctic route to go via Persia instead. I think that can work because my understanding is that a second potential convoy route will become active if the main route is disabled for whatever reason - in this case an adverse DE. I do not want to overburden players with Decisions so I am thinking of making the choice about which convoys to run once every 6 months. Ideally I would like the MPPs delivered via the Arctic to be spent in N Russia (e.g. near Leningrad) and those via Persia to be spent in S Russia (e.g. near Stalingrad). I guess I might need USSR to be split into two countries which might be more bother to implement than its worth. One final point about convoys - the costs of supply and merchant shipping losses are both conspicuous by their absence in SC. One way to introduce them, at least for the Allies, would be to apply an additional MPP charge to a DE relating to continuing the convoys crossing the Atlantic. I would like to give the Allied player a difficult decision as to whether to let the UK starve (modelled by morale hits and after a perid of no convoys perhaps strength losses as well) or continue to fight a difficult and expensive battle in the Atlantic. Regards Mike

I have seen quite a few positive comments about the new recce feature but I have to express some doubts about it as currently implemented. I realise it is a nice "game" feature but in my view it moves SC a bit further away from historical reality. Each aircraft unit in SC notionally represents several hundred planes of whatever type and each player turn in the standard (sequential turn) game absorbs a time period of 28 days. The idea that a force containing several hundred planes might only achieve one recce mission along one specific axis in a period of 28 days seems rather strange to me. The original implementation where an aircraft unit might have an all round spotting ability not much less than its action point range seems to me to be a closer approximation to reality. It is of course entirely possible for scenario designers to restore the original spotting range if they wish. Another possibility would be to give all air units two strikes with house rules for human players that one strike should only be used for recce whilst the AI could choose what to do with its extra strikes. As a matter of interest has the AI been programmed to perform spotting missions? I suppose it has less need to do so as it gets a spotting bonus based on the difficulty setting. Regards Mike

My impression of the convoy system is as follows, however, I could be wrong as I am not part of the developer beta tester crowd. There are essentially two types of convoy - the first type comes from either a country that is your ally in the war or a country which you control. These convoys will operate unless interdicted or passing through a weakened port. The convoys will pass to you a percentage of the MPP generated in the country as specified by the scenario designer - you can spend the MPPs that arrive as you wish. Essentially the designer has decided that these MPPs should be put at risk because they might be intercepted. The percentage of the MPPs not sent to you by your owned countries or minor allies will be yours to spend regardless of the fate of the convoy. Notionally you ought to spend those MPPs in the country of origin by buying units there but this is not enforced by the game so again you can spend them as you wish. Similarly if a major country ally has sent you convoyed aid e.g. US Lend Lease then you can spend that which arrives as you wish in the receiving country UK or USSR or their minor allies. The MPPs that the US did not send are only available for spend in the US and its minor allies so this is a difference to convoys coming from your own cotrolled or minor allied countries. The second type of convoy comes from a country that is not yet an ally or an enemy but is trading with you. An example of this is Germany trading with Sweden. These MPPs boost your income and can be spent as you wish. However, there is a risk that your trading partner may turn against you through diplomatic pressure or as a result of your own aggressive actions. In this case the trade may stop and you no longer receive the MPP income. It is advisable to keep an eye on the leanings of your trading partners. If you conquer a new country or establish an alliance and no convoy appears (the designer has not created one) then you will get the MPPs from that country or ally and their transfer to you is not subject to interdiction. I hope this is both right and helpful! regards Mike

Hi Abukede The game's intelligence feature probably more closes matches a recon capability rather than the true intelligence which the Allies had via code breaking with respect to Axis intentions. In terms of true recon the standard scenarios are possibly weaker than they should be. Each standard SC square represents very approximately 100 miles. The PBY Catalina had a range of about 2500m so the Allies should have a recce capability out to about 10 squares. The IJN's Emily and Mavis recon planes had ranges of over 4,000m and the recon planes carried on their CAs, BBs and submarines(the IJN had over 50 subs equipped with planes) let alone their CVs had ranges of around 1200m. If you are designing a scenario you have a choice as to whether to implement the real life recon capability which would give the IJN an advantage or the real life intelligence which would mean giving the Allies the advantage. Probably the most reasonable approach would be to give both sides the same but better recon than the standard scenarios actually have. Regards Mike

I guess SC carrier warfare actually best models the strategy the IJN intended to adopt before Victory Disease took over and they attempted to take Midway. Their plan was to create a defensive ring of islands to act as a trip wire and then strike hard with a central force of carriers when the USN or RN attempted to penetrate the ring. In SC terms this means wait and see where the US fleet appears and then strike it a devastating blow which is sort of what the USN did at Midway although they had the advantage of knowing where the IJN were going. Thus SC seems to favour the strategic naval defensive so long as your perimeter is manned by forces you do not mind losing. One slight weakness of SC in its standard scenarios is that its scale is that a CV unit typically represents more than one real unit. This multiplies the potential for catastrophic outcomes which were always present in WW2 carrier battles. Thus the Midway scenario has 3 x IJN CV's immediately confronting 2 x USN ones as opposed to the real 4 versus 3. My own inclination would be to have more CV units in SC scenarios to cut down the risk of losing most or all of one sides CV capability in one battle. Even in July 1942 after Midway the real IJN still had 6 x CV or CVL capable of deploying 30 or more aircraft as well as a couple of CVEs. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thank you for your answer. With respect to house rules re MPP's I guess a human opponent might have resigned in my trial game before being so heavily defeated which is one possible benefit of playing the AI. However, a significant disparity in MPP's and or units destroyed could be a way of determining who marginally had the better of a stalemate. Looking at my other query, if the build number goes negative, apart from no more builds being allowed, is there any other deletorious effect such as higher repair costs for existing units of that type? Regards Mike

Could I please tag a question onto this thread. I see the actual sprites used in the game are held in bitmap folders for the game as a whole and then for individual campaigns so they can be tailored. Is there any standard tool or recommended approach as to how to modify the sprite images? All the country sprites for every unit seem to appear in one image repeated 3 times with each set 10 lines deep (1 for each major =8 and 1 for each sides' minors =2, 8+2 + 10?) giving 30 lines of mini pictures for each type of unit. Some units appear to have progressive images e.g. 5 sets of increasing size tank images but others do not have the same variety. There are also some extra sprites for zoom, mirrored etc? It all looks quite complex. Is there a document that describes how to make simple changes. For example I would like to use the Antitank unit as representing a less powerful Tank unit with, for example, just one strike. The Germans did not typically deploy enough Tanks in N Africa to qualify for a full-sized Tank Group. It would be good to just change the current A/T sprite to be the same as a Tank Group but I am nervous of doing that without knowing how these various files interact. I will quite understand if someone tells me that it is too complicated to explain just to achieve a simple mod which I can do anyway by using the Tank Group from an appropriate minor although that will give home build complications. Regards Mike

Hi Strategiclayabout I agree that tech sharing was not automatic or universal between Allies. However, the French 2nd Armoured Div under Gen Leclerc was entirely equipped with Shermans when it fought in Normandy. My suggestion was that it might be done for a few specific techs by means of some type of Decision Event. The thing is that Allied minors such as Canada do get to share technology so it seems strange that moving France from being a minor to a major actually has a serious downside for her capability. I guess if I care that much about it I could always make France a minor again but then I have worked in Paris and I know quite a number of French people and they might take exception to that! Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Thank you for your reply. It seems to me that there is a problem with France. If it cannot do any sensible research whilst it is conquered and is not allowed access to other Allied technology for its forces once it has been liberated, then they are just cannon fodder. In reality its armed forces were given some US technology such as anti-tank weapons, tanks etc. I have not seen any events that are connected with research but it would be appropriate and interesting from a game play perspective if the Allied player were given random periodic choices (e.g. every 6 months or so) as to which technology might now be released to the French or amongst other cooperative Allies. Thus the player might need to choose whether to release infantry or armoured tech, modern aircraft or modernised ships (Richelieu was refitted in a US Navy yard with improved AA etc in early 1943). Clearly the decisions on which tech to share would relate to the current relative levels so the decision might ideally be rather open ended but I would settle for scripted if that were easier to implement. I guess the same might also apply to the Italians and Germans - the Germans did try to exchange technology with the Japanese via U Boat ferried material but not much came of that. However, if for example Axis forces gained a land border with each other as a result of conquering USSR then perhaps a technology exchange event ought to be some further bonus to reward this achievement. Regards Mike

I have recently acquired Gold so it is possible that the first point in this post has been addressed but it is not mentioned in the documentation. I am interested to know whether the relationship between majors has been adjusted to reflect the new status of France and Italy. For example when these were minors they could share research with their major partner, is this still the case? It would actually be a good option if it were possible to share research between cooperating majors. In reality of course the UK did use a load of US equipment (its carrier air, Sherman tanks etc) as well as pooling research on the A Bomb so it would be correct historically. My second question is whether creating two new majors has proved easy and whether there could be more? It would for example be an interesting game variation if the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was actually treated as if it was an amalgum rather than a single entity. One possibility that this would enable is that the SU could be divided into two parts West and East. Then Arctic supply convoys heading into the NW could only be used to create units in the W and similarly for the East (e.g. a Persian or Vladivostok route). It was historically the case that the Arctic convoys provided units to be used in the battles for Moscow whilst the Persian convoys supplied the battles for Stalingrad. The use of two entities for the SU would make the movement of capitals to some extent superfluous and give the possibility of a negotiated peace event. It was Hitler's intention to stop at the so called AA Line, Archangel to Astrakhan so this could be the West East boundary. Regards Mike

Hi Al I guess Sealion for real might have been possible if the 300,000 troops of the BEF had not made it back to the UK. The Germans would have needed a mine barrage across the Channel to keep the RN away and at that stage of the war the RAF was quite incapable of hitting anything as small as ships in transit particularly if most of the transit was done at night - the RAF investment in TAC air was virtually non-existent in 1940. Thus a landing force might well have achieved a foothold without horrendous losses. There are some flat areas and some airports along the South coast in Sussex so it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that they could have held a beachhead and built up supplies by air once they were there. The Germans had a big fleet of JU 52's that successfully moved Franco's Nationalist army from Morocco to Southern Spain when the Spanish Navy and Air Force stayed loyal to the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. There was very little in the UK in the way of trained soldiers or heavy weapons other than the BEF in June/July 1940 and therefore little to restrain them from breaking out of a bridgehead. It would, however, have required the Germans to take quite a big gamble both to use their tanks to eliminate the BEF before France was fully beaten and then to cross the Channel - fortunately for us they did not try either of those possibilities. By the way I have experimented with my new Gold release to see if I can set it for instant re-builds of sunk subs at 30% cost and that seems to work. I think it might well be the best way to go with respect to both subs and DDs otherwise there will be too many units. A unit then represents, say, 32 subs and if it is sunk or damaged then it is assumed that only the 8 - 10 subs on operations in that period are lost so the unit can be rebuilt with just 30% of the cost for replacements. Germany had about 200 subs operational in 1942 and were building 20 more a month whilst losing less than half that. Thus allowing re-builds does make sense historically as well as being a good solution in game play terms as the potentially random outcomes of ASW clashes are less catastrophic on either side even when units are completely destroyed in a battle. Regards Mike

Hi Al I am grateful for the suggestion you made in a previous post about thinking of SC in broad conceptual rather than literal terms. In that context I am interested in the question of supply which is effectively free in the game if a supply source is available. Does this mean that the supply cost of units is effectively subsumed in their creation cost or does the concept of limits on the number of units attempt to recognise the restrictions on a country from being able to supply too many units? I notice that in Brute Force you have substantially increased the build limits for example for German Armies and Corps. Clearly with your larger scale map the unit representation can be different. Thus are your limits based on what was historically achieved or what you think might be appropriate for playability? I suppose, if they are historical e.g. the Germans deployed about 250 Divisions in 1942, the limits would need to recognise that Axis forces might have been larger if they had not suffered the same 1m or so casualties during the first Russian winter. If the original MPP cost has future supplies factored in, then is that one of the arguments for cheaper re-build costs? Just as an example the weight of steel etc consumed to create the hardware in a US armoured division would have been less than 20k tons but at 700 tons per day their supply consumption at least in weight terms would have exceeded their build consumption within 1 month. Obviously the build cost should include a training period when supplies are consumed but I guess I could make an argument that the cost of supplies consumed during operations might be equal to the original build and training cost. So might half the "purchase" MPPs be the future supply consumption costs? Regards Mike

Hi Al I have now acquired Gold so I can give you some proper comments soon. However, I note that you have made Midway even larger than in previous versions. It now seems to occupy a greater land area than the Japanese island of Hokkaido which is actually 32,000 sq miles whilst Midway is just 6 sq miles! This comment applies to all other SC campaigns I have seen as well as your own - I would suggest that Port Defence against submarines should be reduced from 4 to something like 1 or 2. My uncle was commanding a patrol boat in Scapa Flow when the Royal Oak was sunk there by a U Boat. He succeeded in blowing his own stern off whilst attempting a depth charge attack and the U Boat escaped unscathed. Recent research suggests that West Virginia was torpedoed by one of the mini-subs used in the IJN attack on Pearl. British ships were successfully attacked in several harbours (Alexandria, Diego Suarez and Gib) by submarine launched units. Thus ports were often not safe havens for shipping. Regards Mike

Hi Al Rather than make islands unrealistically large, if you want to have both land and air capability how about giving an air unit some additional defensive values as if it was a land unit so it is effectively an air unit with an attached garrison. I guess as an air unit you would be able to operate it in and out of islands but that sort of gives you an air transport capability. I am interested to know whether you have tried to make any sort of uniform adjustment in the number of units as compared with the standard scenario to recognise your larger scale map. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I might be wrong but I think the game mechanics are that only one convoy can be active leaving a country at any one time. Thus if one route is inoperative the system will default to the next in sequence in the convoy events. I have experimentally created a Persan route for the US as one of its defaults but not played it through yet. I am not sure whether the game could cope with the complex political situation of a Vladivostok route. In reality the Japanese did not molest US ships supplying the USSR via the Far East in the forlorn hope that Stalin would not subsequently attack them despite the fact that they were at war with the US - truth is never trust a dictator. Whether the game can cope with that subtlety depends on whether convoy routes are identified by the country sending supplies or by the country receiving them and I cannot answer that. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I suppose in my model your objective would be fulfilled if there are a number of warships with an * in the build list at the end of a game as these would represent ships that are available for "cheap" repair but which the player still cannot afford. This has happened in some of my AI v AI runs. In the real WW2 ships would need refits after a year or so of heavy use so whilst I might argue for a gradual increase in experience I could also argue for an automatic accumulation of damage or morale loss points that take 4 or 5 turns resting in port to come back. However, I am not going to argue too strongly for it because the relative simplicity of SC is one of its strengths. I have been assembling data on the RN deployment of DDs. They really did suffer quite horrendous losses in the early years but not usually of a whole flotilla in a theatre. They also had a steady rebuilding programme so I think making DD units both harder to hit and instantly rebuildable at something like 50% cost is not too bad a way to model this. With respect to land based air I am not arguing that it should be impossible for it to sink a BB type unit merely that it should be difficult because it was not often done. It is perhaps unfortunate that air attacks on ships in ports are made more difficult in SC than doing it in open sea by the diversion of hits to the resource. Hitting the ship in port was probably the most effective way to do damage to a BB in WW2 - more were "sunk" in harbour than at sea. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey Actually very few BBs were sunk solely by aircraft except when they were in harbour. The main exceptions being Prince of Wales, Repulse, Musashi and Yamato. In the case of POW and Repulse these were the examples that caused the AA capability of BBs to be massively upgraded; in the case of Musashi she was in a TF containing several BBs and she was the only one sunk and Yamato was on a solo suicide mission. There were a number of reasons why few BBs were sunk by a/c possibly the main one being that they were not usually put in harms way without air cover or they were deployed at night (e.g. around Guadalcanal) also their vastly increased AA capability kept even the Kamikazes away. I am not sure why you make a distinction with land based air in your post. It was really only torpedo carrying aircraft that were a threat to BBs at sea and the majority of land based air in WW2 was not designed for that mode of attack. Tirpitz was finally sunk with a massive Tallboy bomb but that was only effective because the ship was static. With respect to experience gain and loss, I think there is a bit of a logic flaw in the implementation of experience with respect to CV's in SC. They can only gain experience by successful use of their aircraft but they can lose it from both damage to their aircraft and to their ship structure. Two ways to lose and one way to win means that they can rarely retain it, my plan to deal with this is to make most CVs start very experienced. This should also help to distinguish CVLs and CVEs by giving them less. Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey Lots more thinking to do on this yet but early ideas are that heavier calibre guns will give an evasion factor e.g. they are shooting from beyond the range of the foe, better armour will also give an evasion factor, 8 or more aircraft in the TF will give greater spotting range (note some IJN CA's carried 6 float planes), any TF in the top 90k group will get two strikes, all TFs deliver one point of damage, those with guns of 8" or more deliver +1, those with 11" or more deliver +2, those with 15" or more deliver +3, those capable of firing 24 or more torpedoes get +1. Those capable of travelling at 30 knots or more will get a defensive evasion. All these variations will only apply if all a countries TF's in that category have the attribute. Where there is a disparity in attributes within a country, I will look to use experience as a means of giving better or poorer performance. I am thinking that every TF for a major country (except possibly USSR and China) would start with experience of 1.5 so that I can use that to fine tune strength ratings but this has implications for production. I should perhaps note that I am talking about the Axis High Tide scenario so all the navies really have had some chance to gain wartime experience. The TF which has the best in the world stat (e.g. the thickness of Yamato's armour) could be distinguished with better initial experience possibly 2.5 instead of 1.5 so I can give her an extra strength point also the fastest TF might get extra evasion and so on. Any TF populated entirely with slow, unmodernised BBs might get reduced to 0.5 experience. However, where possible I will prefer to modify the specific characteristics for a country's units as, if I use experience too much, this will force me to manage future production rather more than I would like. I have previously been involved in helping to develop a detailed naval computer wargame so fortunately I have tons of stats readily available. There really are a lot of factors within SC that can be used to fine tune the starting characteristics. Thereafter of course the players can invest in technology to improve their situation. I am just starting work on creating the UK 1942 TFs so it might yet go horribly wrong if I cannot get them to give sensible values! Regards Mike

Hi SeaMonkey I am not 100% sure about trying to exclude supply 5 ports from a historic perspective. After all Alexandria is supply 5 but both Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were sunk there by Italian frogmen. There was enough expertise to get them both raised although they had to limp home to get a proper refit. Of course if I allow players to rebuild them then that would place the unit back in the UK 9 months later which is not a bad match to what actually happened. The other thing of course is that I do not think there is a distinction in game handling as far as the unit is concerned - it still gets allocated supply 10 even if it is in a supply 5 port and it keeps supply 10 until it is in a fight but I presume the fight will reduce the supply unless the unit is actually in or very near a port. I am not sure where supply reduction and subsequent supply replenishment might fit relative to a decision by the program as to whether a ship is eligible for rebuild. I have been trying an exercise to allocate Japanese ships into a number of TF's to map onto Strategic Command's BB, CA and CL/DD units. So far I am using 90k tons of displacement for BB, 45k for CAs and 30k for CL/DD. That has given me 6 BBs (Yamato got to be in a unit on her own plus a CA and 2 x DDs, the other BB units were 2 real BBs in each plus a DD escort) and 5 each of CA and CL/DD. The CA units were typical;y 3 x CA/CL plus some DDs, whilst the DD's had one or two CL's plus up to 12 x real DD. I think I might want another CL/DD unit so will possibly switch that to 25k of displacement reducing the real DDs in each by about 3. However, the crunch will come when I try to do the same exercise with other countries and see if I end up with reasonable numbers. I have started to think about CVs and will probably initially try having something like 150 a/c per CV unit or two real CV's. The trouble here is the RN as most of their carriers in 1942 were carrying half the a/c compared with the USN or IJN but their carriers were somewhat more robust. Regards Mike