Allied Armor

[jon_j_rambo]

@xwormwood --- Yeah, German was broke too, the rise of Hitler...rise of anybody for that matter. Difference is, the USA didn't blame Mexico & Canada for our problems, then invade them, then stuff them in ovens. We worked our way out of trouble. You know what? Who cares, long time ago. Today's world's is off to the One World Order...Rapture & Revelations 4 here we come.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by targul:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by targul:

I firmly believe you can have historical forces while still maintaining balance. You need to adjust the effectiveness of the units to accomplish this but it can be and should be done.

If you tweak effectiveness so muchtthat Germany has a chance with "historical forces" then IMO you no longer have historical forces!!

As for allied tank groups - well IMO this is showing the limitations of the simplistic 10-point single-type unit system that has been copied from PG.

</font>

[targul]

If you look I was discussing balance of the units to allow them to operate historically without using ahistorical forces for balance. As I said it is my firm believe the game can be balanced while using the correct historical forces by adjusting there effiency not there numbers.

Sorry but TOE's for infantry, armor etc are there TOE's. Formal attachments even in WWII are rare. Was the infantry supported by armour of course but it was not attached nor was it added to the TOE. There are and were very specific rules for attachments. The American army infantry and armor divisions normally maintain there TOE's. Both are supported but not augemented by the others divisions units.

A corps might be made of up of 2 infantry divisions and 1 armour. The armor component will be placed where necessary but will normally remain in the chain of command of the armour HQ. This is the same with infantry. Actually placing alien units under the command of a unit commander that is not familiar with there use would be both uncomfortable for the men and result in poor useage.

Unit integratity is important to soldiers. You belong to a specific unit you are not a member of many at once. Example while I was an FO I was assigned to the B Btry 1/77th Artillery 1st Cav Div. I supported the C CO 5/7th Cav 1st Cav Div. This meant I took my orders from the battery commander of 1/77th while I actually called in artillery for the C Company 5/7th. I was not part of the TOE of 5/7 nor could the 5/7 commander rate me but I actually supported that unit. This is the same for armour or infantry they may support whomever but they belong to only one command.

Problem lies that corps are not really operational level unit but strategic level. To correctly display the units you need Division. Corps are too large a scale and will constantly cause the problem of which you speak.

The British attached and detached unit willy nilly. I have never understood how they maintained unit integrity but they seem to do it somehow.

I cannot comment how the Russians did there units. They are Russian so that alone makes them different.

[Guest Mike]

As I said it is my firm believe the game can be balanced while using the correct historical forces by adjusting there effiency not there numbers.

Yes I got that - and I pointed out that if you balance hte game by making "efficiency changes" instead of quantity ones then you have to make such masive differences as to make any simulation rather poor.

WW2 was not balanced, so no game simulating WW2 can be balanced.

A game loosely based on WW2 can be.....but then it's not "really" WW2 IMO.

This paragraph is meaningless:

Sorry but TOE's for infantry, armor etc are there TOE's. Formal attachments even in WWII are rare. Was the infantry supported by armour of course but it was not attached nor was it added to the TOE. There are and were very specific rules for attachments. The American army infantry and armor divisions normally maintain there TOE's. Both are supported but not augemented by the others divisions units.

Divisions are not the units - corps/armies are. Allied Corps often (usually?) had mixed infantry and armour.

Corps and armies are exactly the level of this game, hence what is in them should be accurate surely?

And you just can't do it with the system the game uses.

British unit loyalty is to the Regiment (normally hte particular battalion of the regiment) - the Division is just a way of grouping battalions together.

They did not "attach and detach units willy nilly" - battalions normally remained part of a brigade and a division for long periods of time. However battalions of the same regiment only rarely served together - and then usually by coincidence.

It's all very simple if you think of battalions being the basic building blocks and not regiments.

For example the New Zealand Division go so sick of crappy support from British armour in the desert campaign (a whole brigade of 300 men was captured in 1 battle due to the Brits not turning up!) that they had a brigade of armour attached permanently - initially the British 9th Armoured brigade, but from 1943 the 4th New Zealand armoured brigade, which converted from infantry.

There's nothing particularly strange about Russian units - their Rifle units started the war with light tank companies in their TOE, but those soon disappeared and hte Rifle divisions were pared down to bare bones fighting units.

Corps were abolishedin Sept 41 as a waste of command resources, and armies typically contained 6-10 rifle divisions and ancillary units.

Tank Brigades were initially attached to armies as they were the largest armourd formation the Russians had expertise to command. Tank Corps were effectively large tank-heavy divisions with 3 tank and 1 motorised infantry brigades.

Mechanised Corps were very large divisions with 1 tank regiment and 3 Mechanised brigades each of 3 infantry and 1 tank battalion.

Army Tank Brigades would be attached to support where ever it was deemed necessary, as ould artillery. It's not so different from anywhere else.

[ August 26, 2007, 05:32 AM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[Desert Dave]

The following quote from

The Man

Further down under!

Than - the REAL bush-soldiering Aussies were

Back in the last "good war:"

As for allied tank groups - well IMO this is showing the limitations of the simplistic 10-point single-type unit system that has been copied from PG.

Limitations? LOL.

How about combat units

That have a little "strength bar"

Hovering above, oh, like a side-viewed halo,

That can be green, or yellow, or red?

That settle you better?

How about a flat 1-D counter

That can be flipped over to show

It's "reduced strength" side?

Eeeny or meeny, it's wut youse gets,

No - miney or moe.

The best yet?

Copied from another game, you say?

How do you - assuredly - know it so?

Nuthin' new under the Sun,

I gotta agree with that old bromide,

EVEN when the summers & winters

Are all bollixed up

As in that there Nuu Zeeland?

Well you are arguing, in the specific,

About issues that don't matter

To the rotten general corps jot, IMO.

This is a GRAND STRATEGIC game,

Not a one where you'd

Attach a clatch or a gaggled detach

Of clerks, cooks or 'em Psy-Ops

Up & down eyed kinda Cats

To yer particular outfit.

Well, let's see... "infantry weapons"

Could be darn near ANYTHING

You might wish them to be, eh?

Armored cars.

Mortars.

Flame throwers.

Small detail of LURPS or their like

Carryin' spooled-wire or satchel charges?

Anti-tank can be, let's see,

Fixed or tracked vehicles,

Or, perhaps, merely the bazookas

And Pz Fausts?

Hey!

Even could be?

Small TANK brigade I'd reckon! :cool:

Imagination.

What it's ALL about.

What ANYTHING is all about.

Besides,

Why don't you wait and see

Just WHAT will appear forth, or be,

Esp -> RE: that most incredible Editor

[... you know, since Hubert has been'

so very generous with this ability

to, REALLY, create just about anything

you might want... from maps to combat

target values to unique event or AI

scripting, yep, the list is X-tremely

long, and you ain't knowin' even the half

of it yet, well, I just gotta wonder? WHY

on God's Green hasn't ANYBODY else done

such a thing?

Jeezly Crow -> ALL them famous and self

aggrandizing game-makers we been hearin'

accolades about all these years, and NONE

a'them would do this? Not even close

to this? Laurels for them? Hah! Now, there's

an actual puzzlement for you! ]

Before declaiming the inflexibility

Of the latest,

The greatest - Coming Roadside Attraction

You will ever see, oh, say,

Since Christ was a Corporal.

And, that - he was.

IMO.

Not any Lord-it-over-the-little-guy

Kind of... Staff Officer Cat, nope,

More like yer Willie & Joe sort

Of hump the XO skeleto spine of Italy, and

At last!

Find them cob-webb be-shrouded wine-cellars

In 'at 'er monastery name of - Monte Cassino.

[Baron]

Since it has already been pointed out that the Americans didn't even use Armor in Corps sized units why not just eliminate American tank units totally? What the heck we only produced 80K + tanks anyways right? Then you could have a balanced game since most of the players seem to want balance as opposed to anything that really happened IMO.

Seriously though there is a way to simulate all those American tanks and still have balance. Just have all American units start with an AT value of at least 2 or alternately increase the AT value of the Corps and Armies. The real ruler of the battlefields when we fought the Germans was artillery anyways. German vets from the Russian front could not believe the effectiveness with which Americans used their artillery. When the allies landed in Europe the Germans still had most of the armor on the Russian front. They did have an imposing concentration fighting in Normandy but these were worn down in under 6 weeks by continuous action against the Allied armies and airpower. So I believe that by increasing the AT values of American units it would simulate the numbers of American tanks on the battlefield. This would result in the Axis committing more Infantry units against the Allies as opposed to armor which is also historical. Axis infantry attacking American Infantry would not suffer any ill effects of increased AT values.

Just thinking out loud……

[Desert Dave]

Just thinking out loud……

Fine thoughts indeed.

And better... YOU... can... make

This game

Precisely as macro or micro

As you'd like it. :cool:

YOU yerself CAN - in ipso facto

Have EXACTLY what you want.

Just like lucre-stacking Croesus could

Once upon a time.

OTOH,

"Default game" is Hubert's choice,

And that's only fair & square, eh?

Since he bears the brunt of ALL

Expenses and all the good

And bad critiques.

Puts it on the line.

His money where his mouth is.

Plays dice with the GS gaming Universe,

So to speak.

[arado234]

It sounds like some people want the game to be much more historical.That would mean somehow adding in ultra and adding in the very good chance of russia joining germany or at minimum becoming neutral untill attacked.The game would then have no point to it.Just like adding in all 80,000 ami.tanks etc,etc.Evertime the game was played and russia joined germany the other side would just giveup.Remember the brits(allies)have one HUGE atvantage over germany you can never take away.They know before the game even starts that russia and america will join their side and can plan their overall strategy accordingly.In reality they had no such knowledge at first.By reducing overall alied strength you in a crude way are factoring that atvantage in.I know germany has some atvantages but nothing like the allied one.

[Desert Dave]

Did I fail to mention?

Darn.

The making of a "mod"

Is so-o-o-o doggone EASY,

That any one can do,

They puts their mind - to it.

Click.

(... peruse them X-tremely basic and well

organized, finely outlined instructions)

Click click click.

Click!

Yer done!

Bang-bang,

The WHOLE SC gang's

Bong the gong

Along, yep,

I assure you, it's

Just like that! :cool:

[ebitt]

From Targul's post:

Formal attachments even in WWII are rare.

I think that attachments were the norm rather than an exception. Below is an extract of a VII Corps Operation Order from WW II (Courtsey of FM 101-5 (Staff Organization and Operations)):

I just looked at the unit history of the 4th Armored Division which was published in June 45 and it has a full page of units that were "Attached" to the Division. The periods of attachment varied, but most were very short.

[Desert Dave]

That would mean somehow adding in ultra...

Hmmmmmm. :confused:

ONLY an "educated guess," at best, but,

May be... let me think a bit here,

May be -> could be accomplished in

That there on

Coming Roadside Attraction?

Now,

I ain't claimin' it IS so,

But,

I AM a'sayin' you can get - close

To what you want?

With or without?

Click - click!

[Baron]

Arado234 - you have a point. I think that the game can be more historicaly accurate and still maintain balance. A good example is the lack of Axis surface ships being able to do anything while in the convoy lanes. They did not do as much damage as the subs or aircraft did but step back and imagine what would happen if the Italian Navy got loose in the Atlantic due to the fall of Gibralter? As it stands right now - big deal, so what - unless the UK is getting ready to be invaded or N. America is getting ready to be invaded what do they accomplish? They make it more difficult to invade Europe is about all they can do. The reality is that the UK would probably have been starved to death and forced to surrender. No way to replicate that in the current system - maybe balance is why it is not included, who knows. But like it or not there is no doubt that the US contribution is way under represented in this game. I for one like Blashys solution of having the victory conditions date based but as he pointed out it is not a popular opinion. That doesn't mean that the opinions expressed here are wrong though it is just that the decision has been made to keep things more balanced as opposed to historicaly accurate and it does seem to be working All in all I love this game! Sure there can be tweeks here and there and not everybody is ever going to be 100% satisfied but there is nothing else even close on the market.

[xwormwood]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

@xwormwood --- Yeah, German was broke too, the rise of Hitler...rise of anybody for that matter. Difference is, the USA didn't blame Mexico & Canada for our problems, then invade them,

Right.

But after Versailles 1918 Germany did blame France for her problems, and if we look back to the role that a certain Mr. Clemenceau played there, well...

But anyway, you are of course right, especially when it comes to the satanic Holocaust crimes.

[Desert Dave]

The periods of attachment varied, but most were very short.

Kinda how it WAS

Back in them rock-roll psych

The self-less Delphic soul... 60's. :cool:

Thousands & thousands

Of flower POWER girls

Such as

Well,

Came to an end,

As all good, grace-full things tend to do,

Too much freedom, I guess.

Nuthin' left to lose.

Both of the above sentiments

Spooked the be-jesus

Outta them there

Main Street anti-freaks!

Come to think of it though,

The attachments were brief, ah,

But them incredible - memories!

Are yet,

At least for me - an indelible,

Imperishable... night

After night kinda

California dreamin

This?

What you mean?

[arado234]

Yes baron you are correct.There is no way to please us all.The game is fun the way it is.Cant wait for WaW.

[targul]

Baron may have the solution. Since this is a corp and up game armor makes to sense and maybe better patterned inside the corp/army.

Think this would cause a rout though cus we like seeing armour. Even though it would be there if we dont see it we will feel cheated.

With the new release coming out soon these arguments may soon be moot and we shall all be sitting in our beach chairs with our laptops say wow this is awesome.

[Guest Mike]

Limitations? LOL.

How about combat units

That have a little "strength bar"

Hovering above, oh, like a side-viewed halo,

That can be green, or yellow, or red?

That settle you better?

Nope. I wanna see a system where each strength point equals something - a battalion or a brigade/regiment or some other "real world" unit.

You then build your formatinos with whatever mix of such units as you have available to your own choice.

So yuo can put 1 armoured division and 2 infantry divisions into a corps if you want, or 3 infantry or 3 armour, or 2 infantry and a couple of independant tank-hunter brigades...

you can make artillery divisions if you want - provided you have enough artillery points of course, or even AA divisions.

you could put as many or as few such "points" into a unit as you wanted - since not all units of nominally the same size were actually exactly the same strength.

you could have a standard unit mix for, say, an "Infantry corps" and just produce it with a single click if you wanted (essentially as now) or you might want to build a different version as a one off, or possibly change what was in the "Standard" one to refelct advances in production (eg decrease the amount of infantry if you're running out of manpower, increase the amount of artillery perhaps if yuo have a surplus of that)

Combat values for each formation would reflect its actual composition. Losses would be of specific strength points so might change hte nature of the unit quite a bit if, for example, you lost all the armour.

So something that reflects the real world a little better than a flat 10-point

Sorry to have to stretch your imagination past cardboard counters, but we have so much computing power on our desktops now that I see no excuse for board-game relic loss systems any more.

[ebitt]

Thousands & thousands

Of flower POWER girls

If she was part of your 60’s scene, I hope the attachments weren’t too brief. Like the hippy burn-out, Frank (George Carlin) said in “Outrageous Fortunes”: “The 60’s were good to you.”

[Patton_Pending]

I'm an old puppy who started playing wargames some 40 years ago, and have been away from the scene for some time. I'm surprised to see the same "game as fun" vs. "game as history" arguments going on. The truth is, like "certs" which is both candy and breath mint, the best games can be both. Some of us just want a good game that is sort of realistic, while others want to explore the "what ifs" of history. I myself have wanted both at different times. Even when I play it as a game, I still like to think of it as "replaying history" even if the game is far from realistic. And even when I am exploring the what ifs and trying to understand just how lucky or unlucky the actual events that occurred were, I still want the game to be fun.

It would be hard to create a completely realistic game that was not rigged by knowledge of history. How could you do a WWII in the Pacific game that was realistic and have the U.S. surprised by Pearl Harbor, for instance? All the US player needs to do is move the fleet to San Diego. And if the disastrous defeat at Pearl did not happen, what hope would Japan have? Heck, they came to an abrupt comeuppance less than a year later at Midway. Yet, the idea that a game can help you understand history is very appealing. It can let you explore the different scenarios, let you experience first hand the difficulties faced by the opponents, and let you see if you might have done better.

Ideally, every game would have a "balanced" mod for "game as fun" play as well as a "realistic mod" for "game as history", so you could easily do both as wanted.

[jon_j_rambo]

nice post, welcome aboard General.

[targul]

SO: "Nope. I wanna see a system where each strength point equals something - a battalion or a brigade/regiment or some other "real world" unit."

That would really make many of us happy I think. You could play with the correct starting forces but allow the creation of your own TOE's

That is a game I would like to try out.

[SeaMonkey]

Man I go away for a couple of days and this thread is still going. Lots of good ideas here and we have hashed many of them over and over throughout the years of SC existence.

I think the best thing is to wait and see what HC and the gang comes up with in WaW.

Ha...can you tell the natives are restless?

Look this was a simple intended thread, with a simple fix, gotten kind of complicated now with ideas that don't have an iota of a chance, although good, to make it into WaW.

With the Allies having only three TGs in the west, it simply limits their flexibility in a number of different theaters. In WW2, there was Italy, Normandy, and S.France going simultaneously, that puts one TG in each, sound acceptable?

Now examine the combat values of a TG vs Army/Corps, you do see that they have an advantage of hitting power and mobility?

Didn't someone mention this as a characteristic of Western Allied operations in a return to the continent?

Now apply upgrades and examine the potentials of the TG vs Army/Corps, now a greater disparity.

Mobility and offensive power against the German's experience and defensive prowess and that is where the balancing act exists. It was the reality of WW2 and also of SC, simple?

Currently that Mobility and Offensive striking ability exists in only 3 W.Allied TGs according to build limits of SC2.

Its simple, reduce the number of armies allowed by UK and USA build limits and give them the three additional TGs as replacements, same number of overall units.

Now you'll also find that the W.Allies will have the incentive to do HT research.

[Guest Mike]

Yeah advanced allied heavy tanks - I can see how that fits into any picture of WW2....

the allies get hitting power from high tech aircraft and infantry - more tank units are another of your fantasies.

[SeaMonkey]

Sometimes Fantasies are a premonition to reality.

So, SO tell me what can the Allies research over and above the Boche. (thanks xwood )

I thought the whole concept of a level playing surface for the default FW campaign was a fantasy in itself?

No way the Axis could win, right? 50/50 not possible!

So now we're going to be fantasy selective.

[jon_j_rambo]

I'm with SeaMonkey all the way on this one. This Bunta Community loves their "what ifs", but anything with the Americans is...oh, by the way, they just had industry. Our Paratroops are the BEST in the world, both then & now. USA is misrepresented in this area. The Navy is weak. Oh, but if Spain is DOW'ed, we suddenly become strong?

USA forever,

-Legend