QB units values

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

RE Panzer: what cold war game are u talking about? anyways it has to be remembered the m1 wasnt the version we know now. Soviet attack before HAs woulda been bad even after we had nowhere near the numbers we have now. And the Soviet Army just in East Germany outnunbered the entire US military worldwide iirc. Personally i think the Red Army woulda steamrolled through West Germany and if not or plans seriously derailed introsuced nuclear weapons. I mean remember WW3 for the SU if lost means ruling party is basically dead. They'd play for keeps. And i think the surprise attack nature and horrendous casualties (imo Vietnam levels of dead within a day or two) would mean the US public would be seriously pissed off... 

 

It's the Cold War book to the Ambush Alley set of table top gaming rules.  

 

Numbers...don't matter so much.  A lot of what the USSR could bring to bear was obsolete, or relied on much lower quality soldiers.  There were serious organizational errors in Soviet thinking too that became evident post-cold war.  Simple technological equipment matters a lot less than organization, training, and planning, which decidedly starts to swing into NATO's favor by the early to mid 80's.

 

Re: Geography

 

I think cost assumes less "this is the availability of the platforms in theater!" and more "how common is X piece of equipment within the organizations we've pitted against each other"

[Sublime]

Vanir- i dont use aps. nor do i play games with it in it. besides balance reasons i have other reasons that are more grounded in realism.

Panzer- Whilst the flaws in Soviet doctrine have been revealed post CW not against enemies who would have fought as hard or at all. And in terrain perfect for all the strong points of US equipment in those time periods. Further against enemies who let us decide when and where the attack and battle were to begin. Thats different than a massively planned WP invasion of Western Europe. Also on the two organization argument which is all well and good but if the US needs to ship armor to Europe in REFORGER and you have Soviet submarines attacking said convoys etc things get more complex. What if the ships dont make it,or in the wrong numbers? Plus whilst some WP countries were considered to have lousy quality troops others such as the GDR were thought to have some near fanatical troops. idk man end of the day your the armor officer and im the civvy so you.d know better than me. just my thoughts

Edited July 2, 2015 by Sublime

[Sublime]

I did not. Please repost

soooo tempted you have no idea. cut the nose to spite the face type stuff

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

Panzer- Whilst the flaws in Soviet doctrine have been revealed post CW not against enemies who would have fought as hard or at all. And in terrain perfect for all the strong points of US equipment in those time periods. Further against enemies who let us decide when and where the attack and battle were to begin. Thats different than a massively planned WP invasion of Western Europe. Also on the two organization argument which is all well and good but if the US needs to ship armor to Europe in REFORGER and you have Soviet submarines attacking said convoys etc things get more complex. What if the ships dont make it,or in the wrong numbers? Plus whilst some WP countries were considered to have lousy quality troops others such as the GDR were thought to have some near fanatical troops. idk man end of the day your the armor officer and im the civvy so you.d know better than me. just my thoughts 

 

A Soviet offensive through western Europe, especially one in the Air-Land battle area is going to have a lot of problems with logistics and going to suffer a lot of attritution.  In many ways going back to my previous comment about supplies, Air-Land was less there to kill Russians faster than they could kill us, and more there to force the Soviets to expend their ability to continue an offensive via striking the logistical tail (and using the loss of momentum to launch local counter attacks to facemaul the Soviets).

 

It's really functionally irrelevant at the strategic level if you're doing that with M60A3s, M1s, or M1A2 SEP V2s sent back via timetube.  

 

Looking at the ability of the Soviets to sustain even modest military operations literally next door to the USSR itself, it begs the question about how well that logistical network would survive a focused, targeted, and highly aggressive attack.  And it's again irrelevant what the Soviet spearheads are made of if they're out of gas, bullets, and time.

 

Reforger called for a lot of stuff to travel via sea....but there were still not insignificant in-theater stocks.  Certainly not enough to keep the war rolling for terribly long, but certainly enough to make going west a dangerous a not-trivial exercise.  I won't claim 100% for sure NATO massive victory in a shooting war...but NATO's end mission was to be too dangerous to attack and through that prevent Soviet aggression and military adventurism beyond the edge of the Iron Curtain, and it succeeded in that goal handily.  

[womble]

 

I think cost assumes less "this is the availability of the platforms in theater!" and more "how common is X piece of equipment within the organizations we've pitted against each other"

I thought cost was supposed to be a more-or-less objective representation of the "average" (whatever that means) fighting worth of the element being charged for. Rarity is about frequency of appearance, and I think that's about relative frequency in the theatre, which will be pretty much proportional to relative frequency in the formations of the nation you're buying from.

[Sublime]

A Soviet offensive through western Europe, especially one in the Air-Land battle area is going to have a lot of problems with logistics and going to suffer a lot of attritution. In many ways going back to my previous comment about supplies, Air-Land was less there to kill Russians faster than they could kill us, and more there to force the Soviets to expend their ability to continue an offensive via striking the logistical tail (and using the loss of momentum to launch local counter attacks to facemaul the Soviets).

It's really functionally irrelevant at the strategic level if you're doing that with M60A3s, M1s, or M1A2 SEP V2s sent back via timetube.

Looking at the ability of the Soviets to sustain even modest military operations literally next door to the USSR itself, it begs the question about how well that logistical network would survive a focused, targeted, and highly aggressive attack. And it's again irrelevant what the Soviet spearheads are made of if they're out of gas, bullets, and time.

Reforger called for a lot of stuff to travel via sea....but there were still not insignificant in-theater stocks. Certainly not enough to keep the war rolling for terribly long, but certainly enough to make going west a dangerous a not-trivial exercise. I won't claim 100% for sure NATO massive victory in a shooting war...but NATO's end mission was to be too dangerous to attack and through that prevent Soviet aggression and military adventurism beyond the edge of the Iron Curtain, and it succeeded in that goal handily.

I dont doubt logistics would be a major issue and certainly cant argue many od your points. I still think chemic agents probably would have been used first leading to tac nukes etc. I just cant see that escalation happening. And though logistics are a problem the WP didnt have a whole helluva lot of ground to take to cause utter disaster for NATO and cause nuclear strikes in panic of a WW3 Dunkirk.

Theres always the example as well of the French making missiles without the range to even hit the SU iirc leading to many to believe the missiles were really intended to be launched at a tactical target in West Germany if the Rhine was crossed to tell the Soviets to back off on any intentions on France.

Even if untrue Frances not being in NATO means a cluster**** of coordination and everything once the balloon went up and the French suddenly decided 'Hey we.re on your side!'

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

I can see it going nuclear after a mass CBRN attack from the Warsaw Pact, however at the same time our stated policy was to treat ALL weapons of that sort as a nuclear attack and worthy of similar retalation, which puts using those weapons tactically rather off the tables as then pushing tanks about Western Germany matters pretty little when you've ended the world as we know it.

 

 

 

though logistics are a problem the WP didnt have a whole helluva lot of ground to take to cause utter disaster for NATO and cause nuclear strikes in panic of a WW3 Dunkirk.

 

Read up on the various hoops the Western Allies and the Soviets had to go through to keep rolling through similar terrain in 1945.  Controlling logistics and planning for it has advanced, as has some technology (like palletized load systems etc), but the simple reality of pushing the sort of supplies you need to sustain something the size of what the Soviets needed to sustain through countryside that is some combination of:

 

1. Under indirect and aviation threat

2. Might still be chock full of chemical/nuclear hazards

3. Likely has some major holes knocked into the transport nodes and networks (either collateral damage, or intentional area denial measures) 

4. Separate from simple indirect, hurray FASCAM!

5. Likely still has stragglers still active and armed (and lots of stay-behind elements)

 

Complicating these measures:

 

A. Looking at the munition and fuel expenditures of the various modern mechanized wars....it's going to be a violent suck of nearly every bullet or drop of gas available.  Even fairly modest conflicts or limited actions still burned through supplies rapidly...and the Soviet reliance on massed artillery fires would have certainly put a stain on a fully functional and unmolested supply network.

 

B. Soviet units on Afghanistan wanted for even very basic supplies, consumed at a fairly modest rate.  While you can assume some wastage due to insurgents/corruption/whatever....those elements don't magic away in a conventional war, and then are further complicated by the other elements I mentioned.

 

It's really not a simple matter, and as stated the very challenging situation of supporting the vast armies the Soviets fielded, while facing a doctrine designed to dismantle said logistics network is simply something the Soviet Army was not likely to be able to handle.  

 

Re: Womble

 

 

I thought cost was supposed to be a more-or-less objective representation of the "average" (whatever that means) fighting worth of the element being charged for. Rarity is about frequency of appearance, and I think that's about relative frequency in the theatre, which will be pretty much proportional to relative frequency in the formations of the nation you're buying from.

 

Either way, if we're talking about pricing, cost or rarity the fact Russia is closer to the Ukraine should be irrelevant.  We've already got the various forces to the battlefield, so while there may be an abject lack of M1A2s elsewhere in Ukraine,  in the local in which the player is operating his tank company, the Abrams is going to be not at all uncommon.

 

I'm not all about having 1:1 Abrams to T-90 rates or something, but it's going to be silly if the only way I can have a "balanced" game will be having two Abrams to face down the better part of a company or some nonsense.  

[womble]

 

Re: Womble

 

Either way, if we're talking about pricing, cost or rarity the fact Russia is closer to the Ukraine should be irrelevant.  We've already got the various forces to the battlefield, so while there may be an abject lack of M1A2s elsewhere in Ukraine,  in the local in which the player is operating his tank company, the Abrams is going to be not at all uncommon.

 

I'm not all about having 1:1 Abrams to T-90 rates or something, but it's going to be silly if the only way I can have a "balanced" game will be having two Abrams to face down the better part of a company or some nonsense.  

That leads to the question: what's the smallest quantity of Abrams you'd see acting without higher echelon support. If Abrams are spread thin, there will be a drive (however strongly resisted) to "penny packet" the assets out, the realisation of which would feed into fights of the CM scale... Is there any way the US Army would ever leave 1, 2 or 3 Abrams in a "hot" area, or would the minimum acceptable concentration be a full platoon (or the survivors of two combined, but at least 4)? Which doesn't have any impact on the points cost or rarity of the system, per se but might give a lower bound for armour based forces total points if you wanted to try and stay realistic, that is, enough points for the minimum number of Abrams plus some infantry.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

You'd never see a single Abrams unless you're simulating someone who just suffered massive losses or something.  In practice you always send two "like"* vehicles to enable self recovery (or if one tank is damaged, the other tank can drag it to a safer pickup location).

 

In terms of organization, two is about the lowest you'll ever see committed, and in that format it's called a section.  The section is generally used to support other units, like if you had a task organized infantry company (2X mech infantry platoons 1X tank) you might slice off two tanks to each of your mechanized platoons.  If you've got more than a company sized element of US troops on the battlefield it's going to effectively be a whole platoon on hand.

 

In terms of leaving small surviving elements, in theory once you're down to two it's going to be time to pull that platoon out just in terms of how much damage it's taken, but in reality if you needed the last tank standing from a platoon to stay you'd keep it as long as you could.

 

With all of that said however the platoon is the preferred smallest unit to be committed to a fight.  It allows for the two mutually supporting equally capable elements, which is quite handy for maneuver on the battlefield.  The highest concentration of armor you'll likely see however will be the tank company, which is rarely committed organic and instead generally is task organized losing a tank platoon and replacing it with a platoon of mechanized infantry (so the 8 "line" tanks plus the Company HQ plus the mech platoon).  It might still be committed "pure" however as a spreadhead/counter attack force, or pure with augmentation (so instead of taking one platoon and replacing it with mechanized infantry, all three tank platoons plus a platoon of mechanized infantry or something).

 

 

*Or you might not send two exactly identical vehicles, but if you send two vehicles that can tow each other, you're good.  As the case is it's tanks or dedicated recovery assets that can move Abrams though.