Weather - VOTE

[Kuniworth]

Dave I apologize if I used some harsh words. If I get some good facts that says Im completly wrong I will back down but Im pretty sure about when winters kick in around here.

ANyway as I stated it also depends on how we define "clear", "mud" and "snow".

[JerseyJohn]

DesertDave,

I'm picturing Casablanca being represented as a sort of smoking volcano.

Kuni,

I think your weather patterns look very good.

Lars,

I'm sure your weather is terrible, but reading accounts from Barbarossa it's common to hear about men whose froze while relieving themselves! Lubricants for German vehicles and artillery froze up. The total lack of paved roads made bad weather much more critical in Russia than elsewhere in Europe.

Also, we're talking 60 or more years ago, when global warming was not a factor.

-- To state the Russian Winter isn't so bad, in light of WWII and Napoleon's invasion seems very strange to me. It is a key factor, perhaps the most important single factor in waging war in that part of Europe.

[Lars]

It's terrible if you're not dressed for it. Agreed. But that's not really a weather effect, it's a piss-poor planning effect.

Look at '42-43, when they had the longjohns on. Bad, but not a disaster. Er, except for getting surrounded in Stalingrad. But I mean elsewhere on the front.

[Kuniworth]

Climate depends on various number of factors and I'm not sure it's possible to make weather zones that are completly accurate. They don't go horisontal at all.

[Desert Dave]

-- To state the Russian Winter isn't so bad, in light of WWII and Napoleon's invasion seems very strange to me. It is a key factor, perhaps the most important single factor in waging war in that part of Europe.

That first one was indeed an absolute horror, Boardwalk Raconteur, that's fer sure.

[... I hear yer writings have been going grand, accepted as outstanding... I congratulate you! :cool: ]

You know, IF I were a betting man, which I'm not ordinarily

(... all these Powerballs and Casinos on Reservations... merely a way to "tax" those who can least afford it, IMHO, IE, those most desperate who will wager rent monies and even, I've heard tell, their last pair of walk-the-road Moto Boots :eek: ),

Well, anyway, I would - perhaps, bet on some "tweaks" to this here Russian Winter issue.

Merely my opinion... which has now & then been disproved, if not attacked and smacked all up & down, over these 50 + years. LOL!

'At's alright, I'm thrilled when taken to task; how else would I ever learn nothin'?

And so, like I mentioned, it WOULD be cool if some SC Cats would "mod" some different zones and weather percentages and the like, so to sufficiently ILLUSTRATE their points.

You do need MANY plotted points on the graph, and not just the one or two possible outliers.

Can't hardly draw in ANY kind of accurate "sine-sign line," eh?

[JerseyJohn]

Lars,

Agreed. I was stationed in northern Maine and that's exactly how it was, the guys who had been there a while didn't mind the winters but the new guys, especially from the south, really suffered.

Speaking of longjohns, that was one of the things we'd try to tell the new guys, that if they started wearing them too early they'd end up dead in January, when they really needed them.

Guess you've got the same bug problem we had up in Arrostock County -- especially with horse flies and mosquettoes -- they come out late, only live a couple of months, but they're gigantic and vicious!

Kuni,

True. Weather maps never do divide into neatly lined areas. Our local map has a swiggly line just north of us that goes out into the Atlantic. Standing on our beach we often look across the bay at New York City and they've got different weather from our own.

[Kuniworth]

SOme vital info;

the swedish word for long johns are "långkalsonger". Prenounced in english like "laaangkalsaanger"

[JerseyJohn]

Continued from above.

DesertDave,

Appreciated, it's almost been going too well!

The good part is I've been breaking into higher levels and that alone causes us to improve -- there's nothing more humbling than looking at what you're appearing in, reading the work of others and feeling like they're new shoes while you're old sneakers (to paraphrase the late George Goeble).

Hope you're right and there will be a tweak here, though I don't think it would need to be anything major, to me Kuni has it down perfectly. Lars makes good points too but I think he's so used to bad weather that he mistakes it for good weather.

Kuni,

You Swedes have the right idea. With a name like that people are more inclined to give them the respect they deserve.

Now they're calling them Thermal Underwear in the U. S..

[Lars]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Lars makes good points too but I think he's so used to bad weather that he mistakes it for good weather.

God, ain't that the truth.

Thermal underwear sucks btw, go silk.

[JerseyJohn]

Silk! :eek:

Gives me a new reason to work harder.

I agree, those thermals are kind of hard on the system. Thankfully our weather has been pretty mild and I haven't needed them for five or six years. :cool:

[Lars]

Ounce for ounce, silk's the warmest. It's not that expensive, especially compared to freezing your *ss off. You can pick up a set for around $50. Give it a try, you'll never go back to anything else.

Just remember, cotton kills.

[Cary]

One thing to note is that some of the weather effect is abstracted into the turn-compression: December goes by awful quick.... This would be one of the reasons why movements in mud don't drop to one, instead of two -- you're moving at a "1" rate over twice the time.

All said, I'm not so sure this is a good design decision -- variable turns are somewhat quirky, and it is dividing weather effects into different "modules." (to say nothing of inflating production in summer). But this is the design as it stands.

A second note -- there's an influential literature significantly revising the relative effect of the Russian Winter and the Russian military in halting the advance on Moscow. Basically, one of the problems we've had in assessing the Russian campaign is that our sources were disproportionately German military witnesses. The had a vested interest in emphasizing the "dumkopf" theory about Hitler while deemphasizing the degree to which they were stymied by the Russians themselves.

In terms of games subscribing to this revisionist view, probably the most influential is Dean Essig's Operationial Combat Series (published by Multiman Publishing -- www.multimanpublishing.com) It is worth downloading the designers note for the system to explore his thinking and the literature it is based on. http://www.gamersarchive.net/theGamers/archive/ocs/GBII.pdf

[JerseyJohn]

Great info Carey and I agree on most points, but I think Hitler truly was a dumkopf so many times over and so frequently that finding occasion to not pin the blame on him is the really challenging task.

Agreed, though, that the Russian soldier rarely receives enough credit. They fought hard even during the summer of '41 fiascos, and at that the disassters were directly attributable to their leadeship and not the fighting men.

Lars,

Silk it is -- Cotton kills? Good idea you've got, raising silk worms in a greenhouse.

[Lars]

Cotton holds water, that's why they make bath towels out of it. Stay dry, stay warm.

For anyone who thinks that Russian winter is a killer, just ask yourself, "how many Russian soldiers froze to death?".

It's not a weather problem, it's an equipment problem.

[Kuniworth]

Hey hello!

IMPORTANT; This is about wether their were winter and in early dec or not and that it had an effect on the germans.

I agree with Glantz when he says the Red Army not the winter stopped the germans. But they did it in winter conditions. That's the real issue here. Personally I don't like the design decision to have the harsh winter start at dec 21, but that we can discuss.

[Lars]

Here you go.

http://meteo.infospace.ru/main.htm

Go down to climatic data for the location you like.

Knowing winter like I do, dec 21 is not far off the mark for the harsh stuff. I've gotten pretty sunburned in the early part before.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Originally posted by Cary:

One thing to note is that some of the weather effect is abstracted into the turn-compression: December goes by awful quick.... This would be one of the reasons why movements in mud don't drop to one, instead of two -- you're moving at a "1" rate over twice the time.

All said, I'm not so sure this is a good design decision -- variable turns are somewhat quirky, and it is dividing weather effects into different "modules." (to say nothing of inflating production in summer). But this is the design as it stands.

Since part of the discussion revolved around Kuni's

Eastern Front scenario, where he has turns of

equal length, I think the point still applies, tho

you raise a valid point to as it relates to the

vanilla '39 scenario. All we need is some way to

mod the weather to our exact specifications, and

everyone's happy.

[Cary]

Cotton holds water, that's why they make bath towels out of it. Stay dry, stay warm.

Strange thing is, wool holds it better, in the sense that wet wool gets warm and stays warm -- the water doesn't evaporate as fast. I guess it's kind of like a wetsuit.

Cotton T-Shirt, AKA Hypothermia rag.

This thread may be locked by the cotton lobby soon!

[KG]

International Station Meteorological Climate Summary for Moscow

Jan. - Dec.

Ave. temp. F

16 18 28 42 54 60 63 60 50 39 28 21

Highest temp. F

46 50 61 75 84 90 95 90 84 73 50 50

Lowest temp F

-33 -29 -17 16 21 32 41 32 21 7 -13 -44

Ave. precip.(inches)

1.4 1.1 1.3 1.5 2.0 2.6 3.2 2.8 2.3 2.0 1.7 1.7

[Blashy]

Nice work KG, but let me put it in scientific terms .

Jan -8.8

Feb -7.7

Mar -2.2

Apr +5.6

May +12.2

Jun +15.5

Jul +17.2

Aug +15.5

Sep +10

Oct 3.9

Nov -2.2

Dec -6.1

Mind you this data is from when?

It was colder back then, the planet is 1 degree celcius warmer overall and that has made a BIG different, I see it here in good old Canada compared to just 20 years ago.

[Liam]

Random, entirely.. Snow can fall anytime in Late Fall Early Winter.. not that it neccessarily will.

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Ive sent a email to Hubert about this. Found it out when I was tweaking my own Battle for Russia scenario. As it stands now weather data for Russia is very wrong. Winter starts on dec 21 and late fall from dec 1 to dec 20 have a lot of clear turns. As Im a northern european myself I can tell you that this is entirely incorrect. And it's not fun wanting to reenact Zhukov's counteroffensive on dec 5 in clear or muddy weather. This is a must change for patch 1.3.

Have your say. What weather changes have to be made to the vanilla 39 scenario.

[Yogi]

It was colder back then, the planet is 1 degree celcius warmer overall and that has made a BIG different, I see it here in good old Canada compared to just 20 years ago.

Just what we need. A discussion of global warming as it alters history in simulation wargaming. The SC2 thread proudly evolves into the present day theories. A conspiracy perhaps?

[SeaMonkey]

Is this about choreographed weather patterns? Well, this is about weather....right! Is there anything more random?

Well here in Corpus Christi, it was about 85 degrees F on Christmas day, 2005. I've seen it in the 90s, awhile back. In 2004, there was about 5 inches of snow on the ground, sounds consistent to me.

It never ceases to amaze me, people here want a realistic simulation of WW2, even though we all have the benefit of hindsight.

How are you going to simulate the "Unknown", intangibles, that the original participants faced without randomness.

Keep it as it is, that's my vote for SC2 weather.

[Yogi]

How are you going to simulate the "Unknown", intangibles, that the original participants faced without randomness.

Hey SeaMonkey, that is a very good point. The same weather as actually happened can be put in the game, but the player would have the advantage of knowing what the weather would be. The historical participants did not.

[Rolend]

I tend to agree with Lars on this one, the russians handled the winter very well and as far as I know they are human How they did it was they understood the effects and knew how to stay warm and keep their equipment running.

The one weather effect that mucked up everyone was the real bad mud in the spring and fall each year, even though we focus in on that problem in Russia because they had few paved roads, it could effect any battle in Europe as once you got off the main roads tanks and turcks had trouble moving rather they were in Russia or France.