Mechanization

[l3w53r]

How about adding mechanization as a tech or an 'investment'?

The higher you are are the more you invest, the better the supply of your units, the farther they can go in a turn and the farther from a city they can op from (assuming that the sc1 op-from anywhere will be replaced).

Just my 2 cents.

[Bill101]

I saw in one of the screenshots an example where mechanization gives the German Army in the picture a movement of 3 rather than 2, therefore I think this must be already included.

[ April 22, 2004, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Bill101 ]

[ev]

Mechanization sounds like a great idea. But I don't see it as a tech research issue. By1939 all important players in Europe knew enough about cars, trucks, and tracked vehicles to "mechanize" their supply lines. They just did not have the industrial capability to do so.

I would rather see mechanization as an upgrade you can perform onto an HQ. By upgrading an HQ up to mechanized that HQ would have a better supply range and perhaps move a bit faster (one more square or hex).

Thus, for example, the German player may want to mechanize Rommel's HQ thus allowing the Afrika Corps to advance a little farther away from Tobruk, and, allowing the HQ to better keep up with his tanks.

I would make it fairly expensive to upgrade an HQ to mechanize status. Mechanized HQ's should be the exception, not the norm.

[Wachtmeister]

Agree that mechanization is more of an attribute than a technology requiring research, like jets or radar. However, the underlying national infrastructure can (and did) seriously inhibit the number of units that could be mechanized. Two main resources come to mind - Autmotive production capacity, and availability of POL (petroleum, oil and lubticants). The historical German WWII Army started out and remained about 3/4 horse drawn largely due to the lack of vehicle manufacturing capacity and fuel availability. In order to mechanize to the extent actually accomplished, many German mechanized units were stuck with a dozen or more types of trucks and utility vehicles from Germany and occupied countries, resulting in a maintenence nightmare that led to the abondonment of thousands of vehicles for lack of common spare parts.

How will these factors be handled in SC2, if at all? A cap on mechanization related to oil sites controlled, and maybe major cities representing at least potential vehicle manufacturing capacity? If generic MPP expenditures are used then the cost could vary e.g. more expensive for Germany, much cheaper for the UK and USA, something in between for the USSR. By caps I mean an option in the editor so that a historical simulation of actual Axis capacity could be attempted, but lesser restraints would also be possible.

Also, it looks as if different levels of mechanization are envisioned. If so, suggest that unit mobility is a function of the percentage of tracked versus wheeled vehicles, so that increasing levels of mechanization would imply increasing amounts of tracked vehicles, allowing increased mobiity in areas with poor roads, such as most of eastern Europe, especially the USSR. For example, increasing levels of mechanization could look something like the following:

Level 1 - Motorization - Tracked tanks - everthing else truck mounted or towed.

Level 2 - Tracked tanks, Artillery and AT towed by half-tracks/tracked prime movers. Infantry and supply trains in trucks.

Level 3 Add Track mounted AT/assault guns

Level 4 Add infantry in half tracked or tracked personnel carriers and self propelled artillery

Level 5 Fully tracked formations including supply trains

The above levels are merely examples, such that other level attributes might be more appropriate.

The mechanization option has great potential to simulate the actual tactical aspects of integrating the "fast" mechanized units with the slower moving "standard" infantry units that actually occurred in WWII.

Any feed back would be appreciated.

[pzgndr]

The plan for mech research is to improve the AP of infantry Corps and Army units only. With like a hefty 20% cost increase per level. Most countries will probably start with historical levels. Players probably won't want to push for more mechanization because of the cost, but it's an option. If you do research and get a tech advance, you can upgrade some rather than all units. Depending on your MPPs you will be able to afford all this or not. But it will be your choice.

[ev]

Originally posted by pzgndr:

The plan for mech research is to improve the AP of infantry Corps and Army units only. With like a hefty 20% cost increase per level. Most countries will probably start with historical levels. Players probably won't want to push for more mechanization because of the cost, but it's an option. If you do research and get a tech advance, you can upgrade some rather than all units. Depending on your MPPs you will be able to afford all this or not. But it will be your choice.

...infantry units with higher mech levels will move faster?

Keep in mind that Tank Armies were mostly composed of infantry. A full strength panzer division had 2 battalions of tanks, three battalions of infantry, one battalion of engineers, one recon batalion, and the rest was artillery, anti air, anti tank and support. The panzer granadier divisions had even fewer tanks. And a panzer corps usually was a mix of panzer and panzer grandier divisions.

US and british tank corps were also mainly compossed of infantry and supporting units. Tanks always made a small percentage of the total fighting force.

My point is that mechanization should also improve the AP's of Tank units.

...by the way, how will AP's work in SC2. Do you need to spend AP's to attack? Can a unit with a lot of AP's attack more than once? etc.

[Shaka of Carthage]

I think the intent of "mechanization" will become clearer if you rename it "motorization".

Horse drawn units have an increase in APs, because they are now in trucks. You can even put in a gradual increase, to represent a Corp/Army that is partially motorized (ie the infantry walks) compared to one that is fully motorized (the infantry ride in trucks).

By virtue of them being Armor units, they are already motorized or mechanized (depending on the nation). There is nothing to be gained here in an AP increase.

[ May 04, 2004, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

[SeaMonkey]

Perhaps, Shaka, we could have both. Since the Tank Group in SC1 represented both infantry and tanks, abstractly thinking this is a tank heavy group. The motorized infantry unit could represent pure infantry mobilized by truck transport only, affording it more APs. Now for the mechanized infantry unit, abundantly armored infantry with some tanks....can you say panzergrenadier. Maybe 1 less AP than the mot.infantry and on par with the Tank Group, perhaps an additional 1 tank defense and soft defense value. Sure would be nice to see a unit counter with a halftrack and/or a truck icon. Seems appropriate for a game named "SC2 Blitzkrieg".

[ev]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Perhaps, Shaka, we could have both. Since the Tank Group in SC1 represented both infantry and tanks, abstractly thinking this is a tank heavy group. The motorized infantry unit could represent pure infantry mobilized by truck transport only, affording it more APs. Now for the mechanized infantry unit, abundantly armored infantry with some tanks....can you say panzergrenadier. Maybe 1 less AP than the mot.infantry and on par with the Tank Group, perhaps an additional 1 tank defense and soft defense value. Sure would be nice to see a unit counter with a halftrack and/or a truck icon. Seems appropriate for a game named "SC2 Blitzkrieg".

I agree that the tank units represent a mixture of tanks, infantry, artillery and other weapons. At the scale represented in the map, tanks probably compramised around 10% of the vehicles in a tank group. Supporting artillery, infantry, engineers, recon, communications, supplies, communication, command and control, and even medical facilities all had to be motorized in order to keep up with the tanks.

Improvements in mechanization should benefit armored divisions. Some WWII examples:

When WWII started, German recon units rode mortocycles. By 1944, the best equiped German panzer recon rode Pumas - multiwheeled armored cars with a small cannon on a light turret.

When WWII started, supporting artillery in the British, US and German tank formations all were towed by trucks. By the end of the war, artillery units in the armored units were often towed by halftracks (which could go off road) or were self propelled - which allowed them to set up and start firing a lot quicker.

During WWII all major combatants developed self propelled anti air guns to acompany tank formations.

When WWII started no major combatant had specialized armored command and control vehicles...

These and many other advances in support vehicles allowed tank formations to move faster, since they did not have to wait for their support vehicles. As a matter of fact, the bulk of these support vehicles were concentrated in the armored fomations.

I strogly feel tank units should benefit from advances in mechanization. A tank formation that does not mechanize its support weapons (mech level 0) should not be able to move faster than a light infantry corps. On the other hand, a fully mechanized infantry or tank unit - mech level 5 - should be able to cover more distance per turn than allowed for in SC1.

Germany should start the war at a higher mech level (1 or 2). Russia should be way down the road (mech level 0). The US, France, England and Italy should be somewhere in the middle: perhaps some ongoing research or even a mech tech level 1 if Germany has mech tech 2.