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Unit size for senario creation - 11/7/2007 2:28:45 AM

EasyGreen

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I am trying to determine the number of units to include in senarios. If I consider one ship as one physical ship and one plane as one squadron (12-25 physical planes) what should a rifle unit be (brigade, regiment, battalion, company)? How about a tank unit? Is it a tank brigade? This would determine how many rifle or tank units to include in a division, etc.

Also trying to find where the hex size is located. I see where to put the length of a turn, but there must be someplace to tell the senario how far it is from hex to hex. I think this must be used to find the distance a unit can travel in a turn.

I've read the manual section on the game editor and gone through the senario creation tutorial, but I'm not finding the answer to these questions.

Thanks for any help.

Post #: 1

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/7/2007 2:45:16 AM

SMK-at-work

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I think you can pretty much pick a ratio for yourself that makes sense.� as long as all forces use the same ratios then it really doesn't matter.

what does matter is the relative ratios between the various types of unit....eg if you choose an infantry unit = 1 company (say 1-200 men) and a cargo ship can carry 200 of them (just for the sake of the discussion) then that means the cargo ship is effectively a lot bigger than if you choose 1 infantry = 1 platoon of 30-40 men - the cargo ship can still only carry 200, but that is now only 200 platoons instead of 200 companies, or 20-25% of the total.

I'm doing a "historical start" mod for WW2 & have decided an infantry division is 15 infantry units (Rifle & SMG combined) & 1-2 MG and mortar units, with a couple of horses, a Panzer division is 2 lt tanks, 1 flak, 2 trucks and 5 infantry, and so on.

< Message edited by SMK-at-work -- 11/7/2007 2:48:42 AM >

(in reply to EasyGreen)

Post #: 2

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/7/2007 4:51:23 AM

EasyGreen

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Thanks SMK-at-work, that's making some sense now. The units may be different things in different scale scenarios. Just so the relationship between land, sea and air units is right. What about hex size? Is it set in the editor somewhere or is it not relevant? I don't see how the game knows how far a unit (say a tank brigade) can move in a given turn, unless the hex size is known.

(in reply to EasyGreen)

Post #: 3

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/7/2007 6:28:12 PM

TPM

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I asked this same question a while back...it intrigues me. Vic, tweber, etc., there must be some rational when creating units for a scenario...even though this is only a game, by its very nature there is a historical connection. I would ask the question this way: if I'm building a WWII scenario, building a standard German infantry division (let's say the division is the standard unit, HQ's being Corps and Armies), how would I go about doing it? I can look at historical books and see how many man are in the division, how many mortars, artillery, machine guns, engineers, etc., but how would you relate this to the game? Depending on the what kind of scenario you're going for, a division could have 20 Rifle or 60, or 100, whatever you want, but my question has always been what is the size relationships of the units between eachother? What is 1 Rifle compared to 1 Mortar? 1 company to 1 actual mortar? If I know how many infantrymen and how many mortars were in an actual German division, how would I relate this to the game?

Although I know this is hard to answer, but there must be some rational because these units have all been given different strengths...

Anyway, those are my thoughts on this...

quote:

ORIGINAL: EasyGreen

I am trying to determine the number of units to include in senarios. If I consider one ship as one physical ship and one plane as one squadron (12-25 physical planes) what should a rifle unit be (brigade, regiment, battalion, company)? How about a tank unit? Is it a tank brigade? This would determine how many rifle or tank units to include in a division, etc.

Also trying to find where the hex size is located. I see where to put the length of a turn, but there must be someplace to tell the senario how far it is from hex to hex. I think this must be used to find the distance a unit can travel in a turn.

I've read the manual section on the game editor and gone through the senario creation tutorial, but I'm not finding the answer to these questions.

Thanks for any help.

(in reply to EasyGreen)

Post #: 4

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/7/2007 7:17:41 PM

tweber

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Wikipedia has some interesting data on relative sizes of the different WWII economies and production levels. I have used this for determining production levels and relative amounts of different combatants. (e.g., German vs Soviet tank levels). You can drill down and get very specific data (e.g., how many t-34 tanks were produced in 1940).

However, this does not help with relative proportions. To do this, I think the best way is to make units and then test them with combat sim (runs a battle 200 times and then reports results). When building units, it is important to understand the costs and relative combat performance of units across terrain types. In general, I like to try to get the make the effectiveness per unit cost reasonably similar (otherwise, you would only ever by a few exceptional effective units). You do have to make allowance for other characteristics (e.g., para is less cost effective than infantry but makes up for it in mobility).

Other considerations is the production available on the map and the cost and consumption of supply. If you put lots of production on the map, regimes can build lots of supply and support larger armies.

Another factor to consider with consumption is how long it takes a regime to replenish it's order of battle. It would be unrealistic, for example, for combatants in WWI to be able to completely replenish their OOB in 1 month, so I set production levels accordingly.

In general, there are lots of trade offs and you never get it right the first time. In developing the War in Europe, I probably went through 50+ revisions and tweeks.

< Message edited by tweber -- 11/7/2007 7:19:41 PM >

(in reply to TPM)

Post #: 5

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/9/2007 8:14:36 PM

TPM

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OK tweber, this makes a lot of sense, but I still have some questions about the unit compositions...I'll put it to you like this:

In your Barbarossa 1941 scenario, the formations on the German side (and Russian probably as well, although I didn't look at them) all are standardized...in other words, an infantry corps is 40 Rifle, 5 machine guns, 5 mortars, and 5 horses (I don't have the game in front of me, but I think this is what it is), and the panzer corps are also set to some standard configuration. My question is this: putting aside production and other matters, how is it that you came up with this configuration? Why not 3 machine guns? Or 6? What is the relationship between 1 Machine Gun and 1 Rifle? I know there's no exact numerical ratio, but I can't help wondering how you came up with this. Did you look at the numbers in a Germans corps and see that they had a certain number of men and a certain number of machine guns, and then correlate that to the game? And thus when you created the Soviet corps (armies), maybe you gave them less machine guns?

Or am I just way off track here, and you just came up with some configurations that seemed to provide desirable results when battle testing?

Further...one of the reasons I ask is that when I'm creating a unit, say a division, I want it to be somewhat based on reality. So, let's say I've decided I'm going to have 30 Rifle and 2 trucks so that it's fully mobile and there is some space for other units. How many machine guns should I add? I know I can add whatever I want, but remember, I'm trying to make this somewhat realistic...let's say it's a US division...what is the relationship between 30 Rifle and 1 Machine Gun? Let's say I had a division with 30 Rifle and 30 Machine Guns...wouldn't you say that is somewhat lopsided compared to a division in "real" life? What is the basis of that judgement...your answer has to involve some kind of ratio...in other words, you might say, "30 Machine Guns is too much because in this game 1 Machine Gun is equal to 1 machine gun in real life (x desired scale) and 1 Rifle is equal to 1 man in real life (x desired scale), and in most divisions the ratio of men to machine guns is 10:1 (obviously not reality, just throwing this out there), and therefore you should really only have 3 Machine Guns in your formation, if you're going to have 30 Rifle. If your divisions are going to have 60 Rifle, then you should have 6 Machine Guns, etc." Do you see what I'm getting at?

Sorry for the long post, but I'd love to hear more of your (or anyone's) thoughts on this. Thanks.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweber

Wikipedia has some interesting data on relative sizes of the different WWII economies and production levels. I have used this for determining production levels and relative amounts of different combatants. (e.g., German vs Soviet tank levels). You can drill down and get very specific data (e.g., how many t-34 tanks were produced in 1940).

However, this does not help with relative proportions. To do this, I think the best way is to make units and then test them with combat sim (runs a battle 200 times and then reports results). When building units, it is important to understand the costs and relative combat performance of units across terrain types. In general, I like to try to get the make the effectiveness per unit cost reasonably similar (otherwise, you would only ever by a few exceptional effective units). You do have to make allowance for other characteristics (e.g., para is less cost effective than infantry but makes up for it in mobility).

Other considerations is the production available on the map and the cost and consumption of supply. If you put lots of production on the map, regimes can build lots of supply and support larger armies.

Another factor to consider with consumption is how long it takes a regime to replenish it's order of battle. It would be unrealistic, for example, for combatants in WWI to be able to completely replenish their OOB in 1 month, so I set production levels accordingly.

In general, there are lots of trade offs and you never get it right the first time. In developing the War in Europe, I probably went through 50+ revisions and tweeks.

(in reply to tweber)

Post #: 6

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/9/2007 9:45:15 PM

tweber

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There are 2 benefits from standard units. (1). It is easier to make units that are copies of another. (2). It is easy for a player to quickly scan units and understand what they have. This is a trade off between playability and realism.

The standard German infantry unit has 50 infantry units. This is 50 stack points. So you can have basically 2 units per hex w/o crowding. Production is set based on my estimates of the ammount of German and Soviet GDP that was devoted to the war. I set absolute production levels to a point where the German army cannot get much bigger and still purchase adequate supply.

I gave the Germans a mix of mg's and mortars so they will be extra effective in both attack and defense. A mortar is basically 5x the attack effectiveness and an mg is roughly 2.5 x the defense effectiveness. This unit now fights like a 60-80 infantry stack of rifle but takes less space and costs less to supply. All in all, it is pretty effective (although it will need it if the Soviets survive the first year).

I chose the ratio of 4 standard infantry to 1 special infantry to make the German infantry corp somewhat better, but not insanely better. I also gave the infantry corps 5 horses so it was fully carried by horse. The German army used lots of horses in Russia, so I wanted the unit mix to reflect this.

So particular reason why I choose 5 and 5 for mortars and mgs other than I wanted to strike a balance between offense and defense.

The total infantry ratio between the Germans and the Soviets was in line with some of the historical sources I have seen. The Soviets had a larger army, but were badly surprised at the outset. I model this with a large readiness penalty. I also make the Soviets short on staff to reflect the state of the officer corps after the purges.

You can certainly make the map larger or smaller, add more or less detail to the units, change the time scale (I choose 20 days as it gives the Germans a reasonable chance to get close to Moscow by December), or even tinker with events. I would be interested to see what other variants players come up with.

(in reply to TPM)

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/9/2007 9:48:19 PM

tweber

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quote:

Further...one of the reasons I ask is that when I'm creating a unit, say a division, I want it to be somewhat based on reality. So, let's say I've decided I'm going to have 30 Rifle and 2 trucks so that it's fully mobile and there is some space for other units. How many machine guns should I add? I know I can add whatever I want, but remember, I'm trying to make this somewhat realistic...let's say it's a US division...what is the relationship between 30 Rifle and 1 Machine Gun? Let's say I had a division with 30 Rifle and 30 Machine Guns...wouldn't you say that is somewhat lopsided compared to a division in "real" life? What is the basis of that judgement...your answer has to involve some kind of ratio...in other words, you might say, "30 Machine Guns is too much because in this game 1 Machine Gun is equal to 1 machine gun in real life (x desired scale) and 1 Rifle is equal to 1 man in real life (x desired scale), and in most divisions the ratio of men to machine guns is 10:1 (obviously not reality, just throwing this out there), and therefore you should really only have 3 Machine Guns in your formation, if you're going to have 30 Rifle. If your divisions are going to have 60 Rifle, then you should have 6 Machine Guns, etc." Do you see what I'm getting at?

I think it is hard to get hard historic data to determine ratios between types of infantry. Most sources will tell you number of troops, tanks, etc... You can look at data to get paper strength of units, but that also changes based on a lot of factors. I think making the unit ratios is part fact, part guess work, and part adjustments based on the actual mechanics of the game.

(in reply to tweber)

Post #: 8

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/9/2007 10:40:26 PM

elmerlee

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A great source of info is the "Nafziger Collection" but for some reason all I can get on the net is the way to get printed copies of the data. When I went to the sight a couple weeks ago it was all available to view. As a matter of fact I've used the sight for at least ten years.

My other source is a book by John Ellis."World War Two - A statistical Survey". This is a great source of statistical info of all kinds. As an example a German 1939 Panzer Battalion was comprised of 34 PZI, 33 PZII, 5 PZIII, 6 PZIV. According to this source anyway. As mentioned, different places may have different figures but this has interesting stuff.

(in reply to EasyGreen)

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/9/2007 10:50:08 PM

TPM

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quote:

I think it is hard to get hard historic data to determine ratios between types of infantry. Most sources will tell you number of troops, tanks, etc... You can look at data to get paper strength of units, but that also changes based on a lot of factors. I think making the unit ratios is part fact, part guess work, and part adjustments based on the actual mechanics of the game.

Thanks for the insight tweber...this answers my questions...in a game like TOAW, where the attempt was made to model everything down to the rifle, you can just plug in the numbers...AT (and PT) isn't quite the same, and so I've always been curious how you designers came up with the numbers. Thanks again...this a great freaking game, I'm really enjoying playing it!

(in reply to tweber)

Post #: 10

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 12:26:25 AM

SlowHand

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quote:

this a great freaking game, I'm really enjoying playing it!

Amen. And this has been a really interesting and useful thread for "grokking" some of the nuances of AT. Particularly tweber's comments on MGs and Mortars. And on rationales for Unit size of stk=50. And etc.

(in reply to TPM)

Post #: 11

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 12:51:01 AM

leastonh1

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I have a�fascinating (but very expensive!) book called Wehrmacht by Tim Ripley, The Brown Reference Group Plc, 2003, ISBN: 1 84044 137 2. I hope the information below (from the book) helps you with scenario design and numbers.�Here's what the book has to say about the make-up of a German WWII Division in 1939:

Infantry Division:
600x Officers & Officials
2,500x NCO's
13,400x Enlisted troops - Machine guns (500), Mortars (140), Infantry Guns (25), 37mm Pak Guns (75), Howitzers/Cannon (48), 20mm FLAK Guns (12), Armoured Scout Cars (3), Tanks (0), Trucks (500), Passenger Cars (400), Motorcycles (500), Sidecars (200), Horses (5,000), Covered Vehicles/Wagons (1,000)
Total: 16,500

Motorised Infantry Division:
600x Officers & Officials
2,500x NCO's
13,400x Enlisted troops - Machine guns (500), Mortars (50), Infantry Guns (25), 37mm Pak Guns (75), Howitzers/Cannon (48), 20mm FLAK Guns (12), Armoured Scout Cars (30), Tanks (0), Trucks (1,700), Passenger Cars (1,000), Motorcycles (1,300), Sidecars (600), Horses (0), Covered Vehicles/Wagons (0)
Total: 16,500

Panzer Division:
500x Officers & Officials
2,000x NCO's
9,300x Enlisted troops/crews - Machine guns (220), Mortars (50), Infantry Guns (10), 37mm Pak Guns (50), Howitzers/Cannon (28), 20mm FLAK Guns (12), Armoured Scout Cars (100), Tanks (324), Trucks (1,400), Passenger Cars (560), Motorcycles (1,300), Sidecars (700), Horses (0), Covered Vehicles/Wagons (0)
Total: 11,800

Light Division:
500x Officers & Officials
1,600x NCO's
8,700x Enlisted troops - Machine guns (460), Mortars (60), Infantry Guns (10), 37mm Pak Guns (50), Howitzers/Cannon (24), 20mm FLAK Guns (12), Armoured Scout Cars (100), Tanks (86), Trucks (1,400), Passenger Cars (600), Motorcycles (1,100), Sidecars (600), Horses (0), Covered Vehicles/Wagons (0)
Total: 10,800

< Message edited by Jim_H -- 11/10/2007 12:53:06 AM >

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 1:10:34 AM

darrellb9

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Thanks Jim_H. Very helpful.
Don't suppose you have a fascinating (and expensive) book with that same info for the Allies

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 1:23:56 AM

leastonh1

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db99 LOL!! At �80 ($160)�for the book, I doubt my wife would let me buy any more in the series without earning serious brownie points first!!! If you're interested in WWII, it is well worth the money and can be bought much cheaper as a used copy.

I do happen to have a copy of another amazing book called: The World War II Databook by John Ellis, published by Aurum Press Ltd 2003. This one does have OOB's for combat divisions, but it's broken down into individual countries. I can post the odd specific if you have a country in mind, but we're talking 25 pages of tables, complete with organisational charts for each country and division. And that's just for starters. This book is over 300 pages of facts & figures for absolutely everything you could imagine from WWII, including maps, casualty lists, OOB's, equipment lists etc. etc. all broken down by country! Again, well worth buying a copy.

Regards,
Jim

< Message edited by Jim_H -- 11/10/2007 1:25:56 AM >

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to darrellb9)

Post #: 14

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 2:01:58 AM

elmerlee

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I have an idea that the Ellis book I mentioned was the same Ellis book I cited.
It is pretty darn good.

But here is the real reason for my post.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020802200716/http://www.freeport-tech.com/WWII/index.htm

This has about all the info a person would want in OOB and such on WWII. If you are not familiar with Nafziger he seems to be a AAA authority on this type thing. And not just WWII.

(in reply to EasyGreen)

Post #: 15

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 2:03:11 AM

elmerlee

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I meant the same book as Jim_H cited.

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 2:08:55 AM

leastonh1

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Wow, that's a good reference site elmerlee!! Thank you for the link, I'll probably use it a lot now I know of it. Too much to read about WWII and not enough time!

I'm glad someone else likes the Ellis book too. My wife nearly fell off her chair when she learned how much it cost. Boy, did I pay for that purchase!

Regards,
Jim

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to elmerlee)

Post #: 17

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 2:15:30 AM

davetheroad

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Has one of the original questions been answered? How do you determine hex scale and its EFFECT ON THE GAME

Dave

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 6:24:53 AM

darrellb9

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Thanks Jim, I may look around for that Ellis book. $160 a pop for the other series would pretty much kill my games budget

In the meantime that site elmerlee posted looks great! Thanks for that elmerlee.

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 7:00:16 AM

tweber

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quote:

Also trying to find where the hex size is located. I see where to put the length of a turn, but there must be someplace to tell the senario how far it is from hex to hex. I think this must be used to find the distance a unit can travel in a turn.

There is no place to specify size of the hexes. But, with map overlay, most of the scenarios are overlays from either Google Maps or the West Point Military Atlases. I never worried about actual hex distance since I assumed that the maps were good. The trick is to balance distance, unit speed, and time. The design guideline is that I wanted was for Germany to be near Moscow by December which is roughly turn 9. It is about 24 hexes from the border, so the Germans must make almost 3 hexes per turn. This is a good clip - almost as fast as an unhindered infantry can walk. Distance - speed - time are related. If I made the map bigger, I would have to either give the units more speed or more time in turns.

BTW, the distance from Kiev to Moscow is about 475 miles. In the Russia War scenario, it is 24 hexes so a hex is roughly 20 miles. You can make similar measurements of other maps to come up with hex distance and this is probably something that could be in the scenario description.

< Message edited by tweber -- 11/10/2007 7:02:02 AM >

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 12:28:08 PM

leastonh1

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EasyGreen - I'm sorry your thread got sort of hijacked. My sincere apologies. I hope some of the almost ot info was of use though.

Regards,
Jim

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to tweber)

Post #: 21

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 3:42:00 PM

kevinkins

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I think a lot of long time wargamers are scratching their heads at the abstract nature (call it flexible) of AT. Hex size was explained above but I think we want to know how to build historical units. What does a single AT infantry, tank, MG etc. we purchase represent in real life?
Look above, what does 50 infantry units within a larger unit represent? Why is that a German infantry division? 16500 / 500 = 330 soldiers per 50 units. Are these battalions ? If so there seem to be too many.
Kevin

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Post #: 22

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 4:15:22 PM

EasyGreen

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No need for apologies. This is just the kind of information I was looking for.

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RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 4:50:47 PM

tweber

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quote:

I think a lot of long time wargamers are scratching their heads at the abstract nature (call it flexible) of AT. Hex size was explained above but I think we want to know how to build historical units. What does a single AT infantry, tank, MG etc. we purchase represent in real life?
Look above, what does 50 infantry units within a larger unit represent? Why is that a German infantry division? 16500 / 500 = 330 soldiers per 50 units. Are these battalions ? If so there seem to be too many.

When putting together the scenario, I was less concerned with absolute modeling than relative modeling. Does the relative strengths of the 2 sides seem right? Do they have a reasonable chance of performing similar to the historical campaign given equal playing skill?

If you have any suggestions as to a more historic order of battle that works within time and map scale, I would be happy to help you make a variant of the scenario.

(in reply to EasyGreen)

Post #: 24

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 6:22:24 PM

JMass

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

I think a lot of long time wargamers are scratching their heads at the abstract nature (call it flexible) of AT. Hex size was explained above but I think we want to know how to build historical units. What does a single AT infantry, tank, MG etc. we purchase represent in real life?

I think you must take in consideration also the stacking points, i.e. if you think in a hex only 3 divisions could fight well best have about 30 stacking points per division...

_____________________________

"Klotzen, nicht Kleckern!"Generaloberst Heinz Wilhelm Guderian

My boardgames collection: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/JMass?own=1&subtype=boardgame&ff=1

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Post #: 25

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 6:42:22 PM

kevinkins

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Another way to ask the question is at the lowest level what does the combat power of a single rifle infantry or single tank represent? If its all relative then they could represent a single man or tank or much larger formations as long as all sides are in balance. A panzer division could be a single unit "chit" within which you have :

4 tank unit = 4 tank battalions
4 Mot rifle units = 4 Mot rifle battalions
3 Arty units = 3 Arty battalions
1 Arm Car = 1 Recon battalion
1 Mot AT unit = 1 Mot AT battalion
1 Mot Eng unit = 1 Mot Eng battalion
for 14 subformations in a singel Pz division unit or "chit"

But that begs the question .. is that the right amount of ENGINEERING capability and overall combat balance?

(in reply to tweber)

Post #: 26

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 8:09:29 PM

rickier65

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Kevin,

I think that the answer is only relvent within the context of a specific scenario. tweber has indicated he didn't model his scenario in quite that way.

Before buying AT, I was also asking myself these same questions, but reading some of the modding threads made methink it was worth a shot to get it and see how things could be done. So far I've been pretty happy with it.

Back to your question, the "meaning" of 1 Lt Tank Unit or 1 Infantry unit can vary. In the Africa Scenario, it looks like Vic has at least loosly chosen Unit counters to represent Divisions.

I'm in the process of doing my first scenario on Salerno, and I think I'll shoot for Bn size units, but I haven't figured out how many Infanty strength points will be in a unit yet, becasue I haven't gotten there yet, it will depend on a few factors such as Stacking limits I decide to use (either 100, or whatever I adjust them to), what turn or round duration I select, How many hexes I decide to use to represent the area, what build capacity I decide to allow. I dont think building a strict historically accurate scenario is going to be easy with this editor, mainly because it is extremely flexible.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the community scenario builders get moving with this game, I think we're going to see some pretty diverse implementations. So farm I'm pretty impressed with both the game, and equally(if not more) so with the editor.

Sorry for the long non-answer.

Rick

(in reply to kevinkins)

Post #: 27

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 8:09:31 PM

TPM

Posts: 349
Joined: 2/8/2007
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

I think a lot of long time wargamers are scratching their heads at the abstract nature (call it flexible) of AT. Hex size was explained above but I think we want to know how to build historical units. What does a single AT infantry, tank, MG etc. we purchase represent in real life?
Look above, what does 50 infantry units within a larger unit represent? Why is that a German infantry division?�16500 / 500 = 330�soldiers per 50 units.�Are these battalions ? If so there seem to be too many.��
Kevin

Yep, this is exactly what I'm trying to get at...the great thing about AT is its flexibility, but it does leave you "scratching your head" as to what equals what. Because the game can take on different scales, 1 Rifle is going to equal different things for different scenarios, and that's fine, I'm not asking for set size for 1 Rifle unit. My question has always been what is 1 Rifle in relation to 1 AT? Or 1 Light Tank? Hate to lay it out again, but if I'm deciding to create a standard German WWII division (for whatever year, that's not the point), and I arbitrarily decide that there is going to be 30 Rifle in that division (because of stacking reasons, whatever), if I know in reality how many AT units where in that division, how do I relate that to the game? What is that ratio?

Let's use Jim_H's post above for numbers:
13,400 enlisted troops
75 AT guns

This is a ratio of about 178:1, which is too out of wack for the game...where do we go from here? Well, we can say that 1 Rifle in the game is actually 6 men, and 1 AT in the game is one AT gun in real life. Then we have something like this:

30 Rifle
1 AT

This looks reasonable, compared to already created scenarios...but what about the other units? 1 AT in the game equals 75 real AT, so for machine guns we have 500/75 = about 6 or 7 MG. This seems a bit high in a unit with 30 Rifle when I look at the scenarios.

Anyway, this is long and somewhat boring and might not have anything to do with the enjoyment of the game, but for historical scenario creation, I think it's important. I don't expect any hard and fast rules from Vic or tweber on this, I think it's exactly as tweber said:
"I think making the unit ratios is part fact, part guess work, and part adjustments based on the actual mechanics of the game."

This is reasonable considering the flexible nature of this game.

(in reply to kevinkins)

Post #: 28

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/10/2007 9:53:02 PM

leastonh1

Posts: 879
Joined: 2/12/2005
From: West Yorkshire, England
Status: offline

To be able to design a scenario based on WWI, WWII or something else whilst constraining the equipment lists to remain within the historical context of any/all would be impossible. The Divisional lists I posted above for 1939 are going to be quite different to the lists for 1945, yet for the purposes of a wargame these are still generally within the bounds of the same historical period. The map size and scale is also a consideration.

To leave it to the designer, as Tom said, to determine what works best for their particular scenario is brilliant imo. What would the posts in this forum be like if we had a game touted as being capable of creating scenarios for almost any period, yet Vic had forced us to use WWII unit scales (comparitive)?

Yes, I know I'm a fanboy and all that, but I still cannot honestly remember ever seeing such a flexible system as this one with such enormous potential for scenario designers. You can do anything you like and make it credible.

Just my 2p.

Regards,
Jim

_____________________________

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.
Richard Winters: We're paratroopers, Lieutenant, we're supposed to be surrounded.

(in reply to TPM)

Post #: 29

RE: Unit size for senario creation - 11/11/2007 12:54:06 AM

kevinkins

Posts: 2257
Joined: 3/8/2006
Status: offline

But still the player wants to know what they are fighting with and with historical battles that the OOBs conform somewhat to history. This will date me. But I recall the game Perfect General and the WW2 add-on. The battles felt like WW2 and played fine but the level of abstraction was very high. I am getting that same feeling now with AT. This is not a bad thing. But I think the flexibilty with AT can allow for accurate OOBs hence all the questions. Scenario designers can have detailed design notes to explain how they arrived at their force structure. I have been enjoying an AT random with about 50% water all week. I like the system and want to understand the nit and gritty a bit better before I hit the editor.

Kevin

(in reply to leastonh1)

Post #: 30