Jeff Heidman Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 Someone needs to setup a scenario to see what happens when a single Tiger is attacked by 100 jeeps. Jeff Heidman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage2 Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 Someone has been playing TOAW... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 Oh Gawd not that again There was a HUGE thread on one of the newsgroups, (wargames/historical?) that went into just that issue, though it dealt with a different game. Actually I was thinking of doing something roughly similiar (not that I have the game yet ... {sob}). It would be seriously cool to see all those 50 cal armed jeeps running around ... right up till they turned into flaming piles of junk of course. Anyone remember the old US TV series "Rat Patrol"? Now there was an authentic WW2 flick. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by sage2: Someone has been playing TOAW...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> sorry I'm not up on this one? TOAW? Help anyone? Jeeps vs that Tiger ??? huh? can someone fill me in? -tom w ------------------ <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> "Have you thanked BTS by buying your SECOND copy of CM yet?" <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aka PanzerLeader Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 tom w, TOAW: The Operational Art Of War. A Talonsoft wargame. Scale: operational. Covers the years 39-55. All the countries are included. It was made by the legendary Norm Koger. It was brilliant, the only flaw was that the combat results were sometimes a bit obscure. The AT values were aggregated together in any unit, which meant an army of 10000 jeeps could defeat 10 Tigers. But you cannot dismiss TOAW like that. It is still the best wargame of its scale around. Extremely flexible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sten Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 There was this huge flamewar about the amassed firepower or armor rating or something from 1000 would equal one Tiger, thereby making them equal on the battlefield. This was all said to exemplify what someone percived as a flaw in TAOW's system. I wasnb't involved, and this is all IIRC, someone else prob knows more about the details. Sten Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrD Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 TOAW was a great operational game BUT was seriously flawed in the combat model. Units (divisions through battalions) actually consisted of individual units which were "conglomerated" into one. So you would click on say a German panzer division and get info like "x Panzer IV's, y rifle squads, etc." However, since the individual unit stats were all conglomerated into a final "divisional" stat which was then used in combat certain anamolies croped up. The most infamous was that a unit made up of only 100 jeeps could actually beat a unit made up of a few Tigers! The resulting discussion was quite heated and often funny as supporters tried to figure out a way this could happen in real life i.e. 10 jeeps get through and the drivers throw Molotov cocktails on the tanks, etc." Overall though it was (is) a great game and alot of fun. It had one of the best supply models I've ever seen. [This message has been edited by DrD (edited 06-22-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w: sorry I'm not up on this one? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If a game uses an abstraction like hit points instead of a realistic damage model (e.g. a Jeep is kaput after 50 points, and a King-Tiger after 5,000, while a K98 rifle inflicts 5 points of damage with a shot and a 17pdr 4,000), it is possible to destroy the King Tiger with two hits by the 17 pdr. or 1,000 hits by the K98 rifle. Very realistic, because it happens all the time in wargames and RPGs. ------------------ Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epée Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 TOAW stands for "The Operational Art of War". It is an excellent wargame from Talonsoft, but very different in scope from CM - it is hex based, turn based and its smallest unit is a division or battalion I think. In TOAW 1 if you had jeeps fighting tigers you could end up losing a few tanks, however unrealistic that might be. It is because TOAW added up the attack factors for the jeep, instead of computing armor penetration for single shots. This was fixed in TOAW 2 and subsequent versions. The newest game is TOAW: A Century of Warfare, and I do recommended it. Well, I would recommend it if I hadnt played CM before. No other wargames for me now, thanks. Epée Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Heidman Posted June 21, 2000 Author Share Posted June 21, 2000 Sorry, I just could not resist! As penance, when I get the game, I will setup a scenario with a single tiger and as many jeeps as I can get, and see what happens... Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spook Posted June 21, 2000 Share Posted June 21, 2000 If I recall correctly, the "test scenario" was 100 jeeps vs. 50 Tiger I's in the original game of the series, TOAW Vol. 1. Even Fionn Kelly wrote an editorial at the time that basically defended many of the "grognard" challenges to TOAW V1 last year. I can post a link later on if anyone's interested. It's funny that this particular test generated a bunch of new commentary again at the w-h games newsgroup last month (some of it VERY bitter), when all of the discussion missed the central point: The TOAW V1 combat model is obsolete, and was changed with TOAW V2, and backdated into the WW2 timeframe with follow-on TOAW versions. The "100 jeeps to 50 Tigers" test would be quite different in the WOTY or ACOW versions released this year. The TOAW series evolved repeatedly, usually for the better, but is still hobbled by things like a contrived naval model that makes amphibious/Pacific-area operations difficult to "get right", and lots of erroneous equipment data. Many present TOAW fans now want an equipment editor (as I do), but TalonSoft is against this addition, and the series is finished anyway. Although just this week, Norm Koger did drop a hint that he would like someday to return to the TOAW theme in a "real-time environment that can be paused." Maybe in 1-2 years. When such a thing comes to pass....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted June 22, 2000 Share Posted June 22, 2000 Yes, I was quite centrally involved in this whole controversy. I was at The Wargamer at the time which published the initial grognard article which showed this flaw. I was still there when Jim Rose fired back with a major, major league blast which was posted at the Gamer's Net. I was a tad unhappy at some of what Jim Rose said and argued that we should defend ourselves since I knew the article was right about the basic facts... The Wargamer head honcho didn't agree so ( since I was double-jobbing ) I went to my editorial spot at GA-Source and published my rebuttal there . Basically Norm's algorithm seems to misunderstand and misapply material stress. It assumes that 10 x 10mm penetrations have the same effect on a tank as 1 x 100 mm penetration. His anti-armour rating in game is a function of penetration and rate of fire SO the 75mm PaK is actually rated as having LESS AT potential then the 50mm PAK since the 50mm PaK had a higher rate of fire. End result a 2nd line German division with 10 Pak 50s is a BETTER anti-tank unit than a front-line division with a dozen PaK 75s. I suggested that what he should do is add in a modifier so that the average armour protection of the target is compared to the average anti-armour penetration of the shell being fired and if the penetration is significantly less than the tank's armour that the "kill" be disregarded. I also had some harsh words for Jim Rose and regretted the tone of some of the statements in the Wargamer's initial article. Basically though I will note that the end result of this was that when TOAW 2 came out shortly afterwards it had EXACTLY the armour/ anti-armour system I suggested in my article so, obviously, while Norm didn't publicly say I and others were right he obviously had reaced the same conclusion as I and others regarding TOAW's modelling of the anti-armour battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted June 22, 2000 Share Posted June 22, 2000 I have to admit to being one of the people who “lit the fuse” on that whole explosion, although I had lost interest in that discussion before the “heavy hitters” got involved. It all started when the Talonsoft board became crammed with people saying that the infantry in the game were too powerful and they felt that the AT rating should have been lowered from a 5 to something less, like a 1 or a 2. After much heated discussion (with me more or less defending the data in the game since nobody had produced any contradictory evidence from published sources) I suggested that perhaps the entire combat routines were flawed and that it was not just focused on the infantry ratings. I created a test scenario were I had 3 pure tank units, 3 pure infantry units, and 3 mixed units of tanks and infantry which each had 100 items in them (either tanks, infantry or 50/50). I then put those nine units up against various “pure” and mixed units. One match up was 100 88mm AA guns vs 100 Matildas, another was 50 T 34s and 50 Rifle Squads vs 100 75mm AT guns. Anyway, I put the results on the board without comment and let the board review my data. Others began doing their own tests. If I remember correctly, someone later took 100 HMG vs 100 Tigers and posted his results. People then began using more and more ridiculous examples which eventually turned into the now infamous Jeeps vs Tigers battle. My main thing was to stress that the game results should be compared to “real” battlefield results that can be quantified, not just how it ‘feels’ to the average grognard. After stressing that numerous times, the heavy hitters really started getting involved as someone from one of the websites recreated the battle of … I believe it was Arras? … and compared the game results to the real results. Wow, what a discussion that was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertanker Posted June 22, 2000 Share Posted June 22, 2000 This is akin to something I used to do for fun in Squad Leader, and was going to try setting up in CM: the old Killer Mite trick. To tweak the nose of my friend who was in love with the JagdTiger, I would send three or four jeeps with heroes (or leaders) and bazookas in the back. Most of the time, at least one of them would get around behind and shoot it in the butt. What fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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