Air and Ground Limits

[Shaka of Carthage]

I would be willing to play anyone either thru e-mail or TCP (we have to arrange the time) using this Houserule. No bids are necessary and you can pick your side. I think you'll find SC is a totally different game using the above. I'd like to replace the carriers with battleships (see below), but we can discuss that.

House Rule

Limit on Air and Ground units

Nation ....... Air ........ Ground

Germany....... 4 .......... 35

Italy......... 2 .......... 8

British....... 2 .......... 11 (12 if no Free Fr)

French........ 2 .......... 14

US............ 2 .......... 16

Russia........ 3 .......... 41

This doesn't include strategic bombers or Russian Siberian reinforcements. Something should also be done about the carriers and experience bars, but thats better handled by the initial scenario setup (I would recommend Bill Macons).

PS...

The problem with the air also extends to the carriers. They cause damage way out of proportion to the amount of aircraft they carry. So here is my solution, until SC does something about it. Replace Carriers in SC with Battleships. In its place, I think the British should get the number of Strategic Bombers that its assigned in the Bill Macon campagin.

[ August 05, 2003, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

[Kuniworth]

I love to play you Shaka. Im gone fishing until sunday but after that? I propose monday

[Shaka of Carthage]

Monday it is. Let me know if we are talking PBEM or TCP. And if TCP, what hours you are free.

[jon_j_rambo]

Okay, historical guys --- Didn't the United States win with air? Battle of the Bulge when the weather broke. The great Turkey Shoot against Japan was all technology. Fire bombing of Dresden. North Africa the Germans lost air support. All the island warfare against the Japs was to build air strips.

[Narayan Sengupta]

Shaka,

You are right about the carriers being disproportionately strong against land targets.

However, I feel they are too weak against sea targets! :lol

Narayan

[Oak]

Shaka,

I think the limits you propose on air need to be revised. Limit should be by side rather than by country. Each side can have 6 air. Having each country build a couple of air and invest in tech makes no sense.

We haven't had a chance to play yet, but when we do I will insist on this amendment to your house rules.

Oak

[JerseyJohn]

General Rambo,

"Okay, historical guys --- Didn't the United States win with air?"

Yes, it was a key historical factor and in the Pacific the United States methodically moved from island group to island group in step with overlapping control by aircraft based on other islands.

The problem in SC, as a lot of us see it, is the numbers of aircraft is disproportionate to other unit types. I think there's a definite imbalance in the game regarding air fleets.

[Hueristic]

IT would be a great Option in the initial setup of the game to set Unit limits. Maybe something that SC2 should incorporate?

[Panzer39]

I agree. That would keep players from going over their unit limit by accident and end cheating in regards to self imposed house rules. I think it would be great if the number of each unit could be limited as well instead of just Air and ground. However I also agree with Oak that unit limits should be imposed on Axis and Allies not individual countries. If unit limits can be set in SC2 I think it would be great if they incorporated both these ideas.

[Shaka of Carthage]

jon_j_rambo

Effectivness of air units. Lets take the Gulf War, 1991 as an example. Six (6) weeks of air strikes in open terrain. Iraqi's had to use passive defenses ("entrenchment", camouflaging, etc), no different than our WWII counterparts.

At the end of the six (6) weeks, some Iraq units had been reduced to less than 50% of deployed strength. The initial 500,000 to 600,000 men had been reduced to 325,000 to 350,000 men. 20 to 30% of the tanks, APCs and artillery had been destroyed and roughly one-third of all the tanks, APCs and artillery was inoperable. Even more important, the logisitcal network for the Iraqi units had been shut down. The majority of the air strikes were conducted by dumb bombs with a small percentage (I think less than 25%) were Precision Guided Munitions.

I think we call all agree, that the Coalition air units were quite a bit more effective than anything in WWII. But notice the effects. No units (Corps or Armies) were destroyed. Instead, you have a reduction in the combat power and a lack of supply. That can be represented in SC by a reduction in effectivness (my choice) or a reduction in strength points but no elimination.

The main point though, is that even in ideal conditions with much more effective weapons, you don't have air units "killing" ground units.

Didn't the US win with Air? ... Generally speaking no. But air superiority and strategic bombing did improve the combat effectivness of Allied units.

various examples listed ... In reference to the ground combat effects, it reduced the enemy effectivness, but by itself never was decisive. Even in the Pacific, the air strips were there to provide air cover for the naval support ships. Even when they were able to bomb enemy islands, air by itself was not decisive (nor was the naval gunfire support). Marines and Army units still had to assault the islands. You'd be suprised how many people survive artillery and aerial bombardments.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Oak

The Axis and the Allies "sides" don't have integrated economies. They are individual nations each with thier own problems and reasoning for the different units they raise.

Historically, I don't care how many nations Germany conquers and plunders. It could be making 900 MPPs a turn. Germany can't go beyond a certain maximum number of air units (or armor). It just wasn't possible.

Playability, you end up with what you have now. Germany does all the conquering, because its more "effective" to invest in Jets and Long Range for Germany and build German air. How many of you build Italian air units?

Germany having four and Italy having two, forces you to plan. If Vichy France goes to Germany, where does Italy get its MPPs from? Balkans? And do you invest in Italian Jets/Long Range so you can be competitive against the UK/US air? Or do you take the chance and use them someplace else. Those are the kind of decisions we should be making at the strategical level.

Same with the limits on ground units. Taking Sweden and Spain is something you have to think about. Are the extra MPPs worth the garrison units its gonna cost you? Instead of dealing with the Partisans by dropping Corps on the partisan "hexes", maybe its better to keep a mobile unit around to deal with them. Strategic choices and decisions, that if you choose wrong, could cost you.

Hence, when you say "Having each country build a couple of air and invest in tech makes no sense." I have to disagree. Makes perfect sense to me.

Panzer39

I agree that certain types of units should have limits. Mainly we are talking Armor units. German max should be eight (8), Italy one (1), British zero (0), France one (1), US eight (8), Russia five (5). But one step at a time.

As far as the limits being on Axis or Allies, I tried to address that above.

[Logan Hartke]

Okay, so let me get this straight...

By your chart, Shaka, the Luftwaffe can be 2x as large as the USAAF and the Heer OVER 2x as big as the US Army?!?! Total US aircraf production = 303,713. Total German aircraft production = 119,871. So, let's assume that 2/3 of the US aircraft went to the Pacific (and I know that not nearly that many went to the Pacific). That still leaves a nearly equal number of planes for Germany and the US. Total USSR production = 158,218. So, USSR should get 6 if Germany gets 4. Total UK production = 131,549. UK should get 5 if Germany gets 4. More if you count Lend Lease and penalize the Americans for LL.

http://members.aol.com/forcountry/ww2/ac1.htm

Also, if you want a good restriction on army size, refer to this to get a good ratio worked out... http://members.aol.com/forcountry/ww2/pea.htm

Logan Hartke

[Logan Hartke]

...and another thing. I think that for every country that a country conquers, it should be allowed to build more units. If a country voluntarily allies, a country should get to build twice as many units. Germany had entire SS divisions of Norweigian and Dutch troops. Also, a large manpower force consisted of Russians, Ukranians, French (*shudder*), and Eastern Europeans. Similarly, Britain should be able to draw up an amry equal to Germany's in size because of her colonies and exiled troops.

Also, something I was thinking about earlier, a country shoudn't get to refit large naval units like carriers and battleships quickly. Germany should be restricted to 1 point per round, USSR - 1 point per 2 rounds, Italy - 1 point per 2 rounds, France - 1 point per 2 rounds, UK - 3 points per round, US - no restriction.

Fastest Built Liberty Ship

This title goes to Robert G. Peary, launched from No 2 Slip at the Permanante Metals Corporation at Richmond California on the 12th. of November 1942, but 4 days, 15.5 hours after her keel had been laid. In a further 3 days she had been fitted out for sea.

http://www.ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/WW2LibertyShips-TheBridge.html

Another example is the USS Yorktown...

Seriously damaged at Coral Sea, she made it back to Pearl. Repairs were estimated to take 3 months. It was ordered they be done in three days.

http://www.steelnavy.com/Yorktown.htm

Just to let you guys know how badly damaged the Yorktown was, the Japanese listed her as "sunk" after the battle because they knew that no ship in the world could stay afloat after being that badly damaged. The Americans had her battle-worthy again in 3 days without a shipyard (shipbuilding facility).

Logan Hartke

[Logan Hartke]

Oh, and by the way, that refitting thing works for prots, not ships. So, if a British battleship is damaged by a U-boat in the Atlantic, she can pull into a US shipyard and be fully repaired and not under the British restrictions. Similarly, any port captured has the restrictions of the country it used to belong to. In other words, the German-occupied French ports of Brest and Toulon are under France's more stringent restrictions, not Germany's. Unless otherwise mentioned, ports in minor allies should repair 1 per 2 rounds.

Logan Hartke

[Shaka of Carthage]

Logan Hartke

Production numbers by themselves don't give you information. They just provide you with data. You cannot use Aircraft production to determine the amount of combat aircraft being used on the battlefield.

Same with your military manpower numbers. Peak US military manpower was over 12 million. But that was in 1945. Of the 12.1 million, 8.2 were in the Army, 3.4 were in the Navy and .5 were in the Marines. I can provide you with that breakdown from 1940 thru 1945 if you like.

US combat divisions went from eight (8) in 1939 to a peak of ninety-five (95) in 1943. There were 90 Army divisions in '43, since the Marines didn't get there 6th division until '44. In Dec '44, there were 43 Army divisions in the ETO, 7 in the MTO and 21 in the PTO. There were 16 more "in transit", (1 on way to ETO front, 4 in England, 11 in US or on the way to ETO). In other words, the US only had 50 combat divisions in ETO/MTO. Then you have the non-divisional units, which from a combat power perspective, just about doubled that 50 division number.

Germany, on the other hand, in 1941 had about 192 full strength divisions. 131 for Russia, 38 in France/LC, 13 in Norway/Finland, 1 in Denmark, 7 in Balkans and 2 in Africa. By 1944, Germany had almost 300 divisions, but for SC to properly reflect that, you would have to limit the strength points max to seven (7), with most units being around three (3) or four (4).

You also didn't take into consideration combat power. SC has generic units. So how many Italian divisions go into a Corp? The answer would be six (6). How many British divisions? That would be four (4). Germans also had four (4).

So on and so on.

Thats part of what I did to get the numbers I have above. My ratios work out just fine. There are certain issues that I have yet to resolve, and those I'd be willing to expand on if you are interested. As most people get bored with that level of technical detail, I don't bother detailing those questions out anymore.

[Liam]

It's hard for air units to win battles. It depends highly on terrain, experience and what the target is. People tend to forget in real life flac guns were much more deadly! To effectively bomb in those days you had to come down in range of the flac to get a vis and a X on your target. Fighters were ill equiped and there were special made aircraft for taking care of each type of foe. Turn fighters, B&Z fighters the backbone of the Air Supremacy Role. Fighter-bomber, <primarily used as air to ground...along the side of divebomber and the carpet bombing B-17s and Lancasters which noone has ever really proven that much accuracy with. Although very devastating on a city!

Aircraft carriers in the Pacific were well equiped but I never heard much about Atlantic Aircraft Carriers were much to talk of... When you have a lot of space to cover and a tool that with 1 bomb can knock out a battleship it is deadly. Inaccurate though against ground forces. Would've taken thousands of sortis and made Aircraft Carriers vulnerable to u-boat or ground based air units<who would gladly die for the Reich to take out a whole carrier!>

[Shaka of Carthage]

...and another thing. I think that for every country that a country conquers, it should be allowed to build more units. If a country voluntarily allies, a country should get to build twice as many units. Germany had entire SS divisions of Norweigian and Dutch troops. Also, a large manpower force consisted of Russians, Ukranians, French (*shudder*), and Eastern Europeans. Similarly, Britain should be able to draw up an amry equal to Germany's in size because of her colonies and exiled troops.

Thats a nice theory, but it didn't work that way in reality.

Germany by '42, had exhausted its manpower pool and had to go other places to get manpower. Thats one of the reasons the SS was able to recruit "foreign" Germans. They had "exclusive" rights to it. Other nationalities were recruited by the German Army, but they were not all treated the same. Alot of the foreigners went into "static" divisions, which were not really part of the regular Army. SC doesn't have a unit to reflect those. Allowances have been made for the foreign manpower already as part of the thirty-five (35) German units.

Allowances have also been made for the Luft field divisions and the Paratrooper divisions, that were not part of the Army.

British Commonwealth troops are already part of the eleven (11) British units. 3 Canadian, 10 Australian, 1 New Zealand, 3 South African and 10 Indian divisions are part of those units. And of the 35 British divisions, three (3) include those with "colonial" personnel. There were many political reasons, not to mention the Japanese, that prevented the British from utilizing anymore Commonwealth troops in the MTO or ETO. In some respects, it should be less, since some of the CW troops wouldn't serve outside of Africa.

In some ways, the British numbers are too high, since I gave them eleven (11) units, and those 11 could be all Army units. They should only be allowed four (4) Armies and seven (7) Corps (some of these never being allowed full strength), but I am trying to keep it simple.

[Hueristic]

Excellent thread. I do like the repair limiting of ports. But turns are not of a uniform time scale.

And yes if there were limited units, conquest or joining minors should adjust the manpower ratio's. Maybe only minor "Type" units could be formed. I.E. no C&C.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Hueristic

I used the '41 Barbarossa OOB to obtain the German limit. That already takes into consideration the conquest and minors that have joined the Axis.

France, Low Countries, Denmark, Norway and Swedish "volunteers" are already in the German military, or have freed up German manpower for the military. Balkan minors have thier own units.

If Spain was to join the Axis, its manpower would be in Spanish units. The "volunteers" are already in the German military. Same with Sweden. You could make a case that if they were "conquered", you may obtain manpower that way. Then again, maybe not, since you have garrison requirements. That would be an interesting idea for someone to justify.

If you had a optional rule for "Russian Liberation", than that would give Germany more manpower. I would agree that would increase the unit limit. Same if you disbanded Naval and/or Air units, it would free up manpower for Army units. But thats way beyond any House Rule.

I covered the actual numbers for each ground and naval unit in an older thread on Manpower.

[Liam]

The German gaining willing and decent soldiers from the ideal manpool outside of Germany's 18-35<?> stocks would be in trouble as would England had less a population of actual true Englishmen and only a few colonies most busy with their own countries affairs. Remeber there was the Japanese threat as well.

Also if you united all of German Speaking people in Europe which Hitler did you had quite a manpool to pick from.

tenative pops

110 million? for germany Britian always been around that 50million point? The Brits really needed the Manpower<money and supplies> from their American friends but I consider possibly could've taken France back alone with heavy losses towards the end without the US help

No soldier from a foreign country aside from a few perhaps Finland would have the anger and quality of infantry outfitted by Germans to face any of the Allies in significant #s. You've got to have a will to fight. A STRONG will, especially when your foe is fairly even and your life is on the line. France-Germany-UK-Germany-USSR-Japan-China are the only countries that seemed to prove they'd sacrifice in great #s

Italy by it's early switch over seems to me is a sign the people felt mislead and no real cause

The Rest of the Stock was mostly German at least partially

[ August 01, 2003, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

[Panzer39]

To add a small random factor to unit limits, how about adding a tech that would raise the ceiling for the unit cap. Better yet, tie the cap limit to industrial tech. To me this would make sense because as your industry increases so would your ability to support and create new units (manpower not being counted).

Industrial tech or a new tech could also be tied to repair times for ships and other units that would take longer than 2 weeks to bring up to strength (uniform turns should be apart of SC2 with weather slowing things down in Winter not artificial turns). For example a country with level two (tech name) can repair two strength points of damage to its ship in port. For land units their could be a 3x multiplier so that the same country with level 2 tech could repair 6 strength points to one of their armies. Maybe air units could get a 2x multiplier. I think this would be more realistic than the instant full strength units that pop up on the front.

New ships would be purchased at the strength level of the tech that controls refits and would than be built up from there. No more new BB that took years to build in real life being constucted in two weeks. If this idea was carried over to land and air units as well, there might not be any need for unit caps since units would take longer to form.

[ August 01, 2003, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: Panzer39 ]

[Shaka of Carthage]

Still looking for people to play using this HouseRule (see first post). Any takers out there?

[ August 05, 2003, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

[Iron Ranger]

bump

[pzgndr]

Replace Carriers in SC with Battleships.

A suggestion. UK starts with 2 Carriers in the 1940 scenario instead of 3. Consider replacing only one Carrier in the 1939 scenario with a Battleship or Cruiser. That should reduce UK's air power enough without compromising their spotting advantages at sea. They do have those Carriers for a reason, yes?

[Shaka of Carthage]

True, but the spotting difference is only one (1) hex (granted, it increases if you do LR tech). That reduction in spotting ability makes the "Battle of the Atlantic" more even as well. And the extra Strategic Bombers do make up for it, somewhat.

I thought about keeping the carrier in the Med, since Egypt, Malta, Gibralter really don't have any "seeing" ability like they did in real life. Giving them "Malta Air" isn't the answer, since 99% of us put it in England first chance. Thought about putting a Strategic Bomber there as well, but then the offensive ability is too much. But the advantages of the Air/Carrier are just too much.

Speaking of the Med, did you notice Iron Rangers "House Rule" about not using Free French? At first I thought no, but in a way, it makes sense. It stops the "evacuation" of French units to UK, forcing them to stay and fight for France. More importantly, it means you can't move the Syrian and Algierian units, something again, 99% of us do. I think he has come across something that should be the standard.

PS... With the no Free French option, I will increase my British limit to 12. That extra unit would be "Free French" of course. In a no-limit game, it makes even more sense.

[ August 05, 2003, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]