Vehicle reliability

[Sequoia]

Just for discussions sake, would any one be in favor of a remote chance of a vehicle becoming immobile due to breakdown? The percent chance would be varied by a ballpark figure of the vehicles reputation for reliability (Shermans lower, Panthers higher chance). I say ballpark as there are probably no firm statistics.

[Daroc]

The same applies with chance of immobilization. Should be higher depending on footprint.

[womble]

Random stuff like that is just a great way of hacking people off, generally. At least with immobilisation you've generally got some way of influencing whether your vehicle is at risk (don't drive through the mud...) but unless it was affected by how hard you drove the thing, it's just another way to throw off a carefully balanced scenario. Say it's a roughly platoon-sized scenario, with a single tank constituting a notional half your firepower, and necessary to winkle out some well dug-in defenders: having that tank conk out on the start line would make victory (the general goal) extremely difficult or even impossible to achieve. Lotteries like that don't generally make for fun games.

[Sequoia]

Womble, that's pretty much my view too, but I wanted to throw it out there for discussion as we haven't had much official news of late to talk about.

[Warts 'n' all]

I agree with Womble. And also, it would need a redesign of the UI, otherwise we'd all be screaming at the screen wondering why the hell a perfectly good tank wasn't moving.

[varnp]

I would rather focus be given to fixing broken stuff, not adding more broken stuff.

-Pv-

[postfux123]

I would not like a feature to simulate a completly random breakdown.

I think reliabilty is also factored in cross country ability. I think getting stuck in rough terrain also simulates mechanical breakdown.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I think reliabilty is also factored in cross country ability. I think getting stuck in rough terrain also simulates mechanical breakdown.

It's not and it doesn't.

[Tempestzzzz]

We factor in mens morale-why not vehicle "morale"

[varnp]

Men morale does not disable them completely and randomly.

-Pv-

[postfux123]

It's not and it doesn't.

I obviously was wrong. Reread the manual and it seems bogging and offroad performance only relates to "may get stuck in mud".

There is some room for improvement to simulate mechanical reliabilty. Didnt miss it till now.

[Michael Emrys]

Just for discussions sake, would any one be in favor of a remote chance of a vehicle becoming immobile due to breakdown?

As I recall this question came up within the last year, and the answer then was that mechanical reliability was more likely to be a factor in whether a tank made it to the battle than how it performed after it got there.

Michael

[varnp]

^^^

Makes sense.

-Pv-

[db_zero]

If CM was an operational game yes. On the tactical level CM simulates its not worth the effort. If we go down this road we're going to have to start randomly having men in squads go away due to lack of food, diarrhea ect...

and what about ammo duds? I've heard stories of German ammo being defective because the forced labor used in the manufacturing of it deliberately sabotaged it.

[varnp]

... then you have to have maintenance crews and randomly defective parts, mash units, supply convoys, breach jams, MREs vs hot meals, fresh socks, disease, prisoner camps, guards, MPs, segregated units, civilians, yes- duds...

Where does it all end?

[Tempestzzzz]

... then you have to have maintenance crews and randomly defective parts, mash units, supply convoys, breach jams, MREs vs hot meals, fresh socks, disease, prisoner camps, guards, MPs, segregated units, civilians, yes- duds...

Where does it all end?

Welcome to reality. It never does. They don't call it Human Comedy for nothing.

[IronCat60]

In a maintenance unit you have a Technical Manual for each type of equipment. In that manual is the Mean Time Before Failure Rate Table for all critical parts. If the equipment has a weapons system then a manual covering that equipment has a Mean Rounds Before Failure Table.

DD-314 is used to schedule maintenance periods for a individual (vehicle) piece of equipment. This can be regular scheduled maintenance like oil and filter change, inspection and replacement of constantly wearing parts like track and suspension, and Lifetime maintenance (critical) routines as forecast by the Mean Failure Tables.

When a unit is assigned a operation, HQ's estimates a block of time for that mission.

The Motor Sergeant looks at the DD-314's to see what equipment has routine services or Lifetime maintenance during that time. He then informs the commander of vehicle status and whether he can effect services before mission time. All possible effort is placed into getting the equipment mission ready.

If mission time cannot be met due to lack of parts, length of time for Lifetime maintenance, etc. Then depending on before mentioned faults and situation (moving to new area or staying put) services may be started on equipment or equipment kept operational and used in a limited capacity only.

The unit with the affected equipment is not included in the battle plan as equipment failure may jeopardize the operation. However remaining equipment from the unit that is serviceable may be used as reserves, security or what ever is deemed necessary.

From a former Motor Sergeant and Mech Infantry Plt Sgt

Mech.Gato

[JoMac]

As I recall this question came up within the last year, and the answer then was that mechanical reliability was more likely to be a factor in whether a tank made it to the battle than how it performed after it got there.

Michael

Yes, at the CM Scale the Reliability\Breakdown would be a factor before a Battle. If a Unit is on the battlefield, then they already made it past this problem.

I suppose if you wanted to simulate something like this, then you could have one or two Vehicles per Company on each side have a move rate of 'Slow' instead of 'Fast'.

-Or- play a Scenario based around an Immobile Vehicle...Your King-Tiger broke down, and need to defend it until repair crews can arrive.

However, it would be nice to have levels of Reliability\Breakdown in an Operation\Campaign.

[JoMac]

... then you have to have maintenance crews and randomly defective parts, mash units, supply convoys, breach jams, MREs vs hot meals, fresh socks, disease, prisoner camps, guards, MPs, segregated units, civilians, yes- duds...

Where does it all end?

You can simulate many of the above in CM by setting the levels of Fitness, Motivation, Headcount, etc.

[postfux123]

Intersting stuff mech.gato.

What could be implemented is a breakdown not due to lack of service but wrong treatment/ tendency to break fully serviced.

Driving full speed over the breach just blown by your engineers might brake a jeep fresh from the ship. Also I believe to have read german commanders where not too happy with the Panther partly because the front suspension qas too weak.

The jeep thing is at least partly simulated by wheel damage, the panther thing perhaps is not worth the effort or didnt result in breakdown.

[Sgt Joch]

Just for discussions sake, would any one be in favor of a remote chance of a vehicle becoming immobile due to breakdown? The percent chance would be varied by a ballpark figure of the vehicles reputation for reliability (Shermans lower, Panthers higher chance). I say ballpark as there are probably no firm statistics.

Its a fine line, personally I would like to see the chances of bogging/immobilizations/breakdown increased just so players would think twice about moving off that road into a muddy field, etc.

However, we have had some discussions about this in the past and I don't think we would ever have a consensus about relative reliability of vehicles. Like many other things about WW2, you have a lot of anecdotes, but not that much hard empirical data.

The bigger issue though is the AI which already has enough problem navigating the map as is. A change like this would just give the Human player an even bigger edge against the AI.

Vehicle reliability is probably best handled by the scenario author when he decides how many vehicles actually make it to the battlefield.

[Michael Emrys]

Vehicle reliability is probably best handled by the scenario author when he decides how many vehicles actually make it to the battlefield.

Right you are. Vehicles, especially tanks and vehicles built on tank chassis, didn't always show up on the battlefield in complete companies.

Michael