Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Jarek entered item 5.3 in the wishlist as follows:

5.3 Corrected readiness recovery for short-movement-rate settings.

I'm finding that to be somewhat cryptic. Can you expand on that please, Jarek?

I will point out that my item 5.4 below it suggests that readiness costs for movement aren't always scaled logically, and it may be those costs, rather than the recovery from them that is the real issue.

While we're on the readiness issue, I have some problems with lumping readiness costs for movement of foot/horse units with motorized units. That doesn't make sense to me. If I drive 500 miles I might be about as fatigued as if I walked about 5 miles. Yet TOAW fatigues foot and motorized units the same per unit distance. Now, I can see some issue if the vehicle is tracked, since tracks wear out much faster than wheels, but TOAW isn't making that distinction. Historically, being motorized was a big edge. Not so much in TOAW.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
To some extent, you assume modern, breakdown-free vehicles. Ten percent of the vehicles in a British tank brigade might break down in the course of moving a hundred miles; obviously, the combat performance of the brigade would deteriorate sharply with continuous movement. It would recover sharply given a pause of a day or two.

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In any case, for the distinction to be addressed properly, one really would need supply broken into several categories -- and have it operate in several ways. Trucks, for example will really eat up the miles -- until they run out of gas. Foot soldiers can keep moving on a minimum of supply. So the model might be about right for non-motorized movement in country with water, a minimum of forage, etc. It's almost irrelevant to the mechanics of motorized movement. My truck goes great until there's no more gas. Then it stops completely.

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I don't see motorized units as intrinsically having a 'big edge.' They're a lot faster -- as long as their needs for petrol are met. When these needs aren't met, they're completely immobile.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
To some extent, you assume modern, breakdown-free vehicles. Ten percent of the vehicles in a British tank brigade might break down in the course of moving a hundred miles; obviously, the combat performance of the brigade would deteriorate sharply with continuous movement. It would recover sharply given a pause of a day or two.

I think that's better covered already via the straggler mechanism. And, even there, you're talking about tracked vehicles. Wheeled vehicles didn't breakdown at that rate. (Perhaps we need another flag for that). Think of the difference in condition of a foot unit that marched 100 miles vs. one that rode that far in trucks.

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In any case, for the distinction to be addressed properly, one really would need supply broken into several categories -- and have it operate in several ways. Trucks, for example will really eat up the miles -- until they run out of gas. Foot soldiers can keep moving on a minimum of supply. So the model might be about right for non-motorized movement in country with water, a minimum of forage, etc. It's almost irrelevant to the mechanics of motorized movement. My truck goes great until there's no more gas. Then it stops completely.

There's a completely different parameter for all of that: Supply. Readiness is a different issue. That raises another complaint: Why should readiness be reduced to the supply level, if it's lower? Shouldn't they be completely independent?

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I don't see motorized units as intrinsically having a 'big edge.' They're a lot faster -- as long as their needs for petrol are met. When these needs aren't met, they're completely immobile.

Tell that to the foot-bound Italians in O'Connor's Raid. Motorized troops can manuver without getting fatigued. That's a big edge.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Jarek entered item 5.3 in the wishlist as follows:

5.3 Corrected readiness recovery for short-movement-rate settings.

I'm finding that to be somewhat cryptic. Can you expand on that please, Jarek?

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
There's a completely different parameter for all of that: Supply. Readiness is a different issue. That raises another complaint: Why should readiness be reduced to the supply level, if it's lower? Shouldn't they be completely independent?

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ORIGINAL: Legun

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
There's a completely different parameter for all of that: Supply. Readiness is a different issue. That raises another complaint: Why should readiness be reduced to the supply level, if it's lower? Shouldn't they be completely independent?

They should! I don't see any reason for such connection - as well as for 33 limit for readiness rediction. See German troops on the Marne - they were supplied, but too fatigued to fight.

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ORIGINAL: Legun

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
There's a completely different parameter for all of that: Supply. Readiness is a different issue. That raises another complaint: Why should readiness be reduced to the supply level, if it's lower? Shouldn't they be completely independent?

They should! I don't see any reason for such connection - as well as for 33 limit for readiness rediction. See German troops on the Marne - they were supplied, but too fatigued to fight.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
More seriously, some testing should be done before this 'error' is 'fixed.' The original reason for Norm's decision should be understood before the 'improvement' is released rather than after.

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ORIGINAL: Legun
Sure, I can. Readiness of a resting unit increases by value equal it the unit's movement rate. So, if your unit has 33MP's, it needs two turns to get 100% of readiness from total exhaustion. If the unit has 6MP's - it needs 11 turns.

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But reduction of readiness depends not only on movement, but also on supply consumption for combat.

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A designer can regulate recovery of supply, but units have fixed setting of readiness recovery.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Tell your claim to the immobilized panzer divisions in the Stalingrad pocket. Infantry can walk without gasoline. That can be a big edge.

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ou seem to want motorized units to simply be less subject to exhaustion.

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For tanks, well -- those do break down, as you noted. In an ideal world, I'd like a varying breakdown rate for tanks. It would help to explain why the Sherman really wasn't such a bad tank after all.

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Readiness recovery should be pretty fast. For exampe any unit would recover fully in a week. That is from physical exhaustion.

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ORIGINAL: Legun

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
We could replace present rule (readiness is between 33% and present supply level) by a similar - readiness is between 1% and supply_level+33%. Without readiness fixed at at least 33% artillery couldn't fire without any limits.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Readiness recovery should be pretty fast. For exampe any unit would recover fully in a week. That is from physical exhaustion.

Well, there's battle fatigue in addition to physical exhaustion.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Readiness recovery should be pretty fast. For exampe any unit would recover fully in a week. That is from physical exhaustion.

Well, there's battle fatigue in addition to physical exhaustion.

Yeah -- but that's also something that seems to be dependent upon the cultural expectations of the troops concerned. The American and British armies of World War Two seem to have had to concern themselves more with such matters than others. The French in 1940 were remarkably prompt to decide that various units had given their all and just couldn't be called upon to make another effort.

The 'need' also seems to sometimes be a luxury. I'm working on my Syria 1941 scenario -- where the Commonwealth found they had bitten off considerably more than they had bargained for when they went after the Vichy French. A lot of those Australian battalions fought for over a month without a break. No doubt if replacements had been available, it would have been decided that they 'needed a rest.' Since there weren't replacements, they just didn't get the rest -- and performed fine.

I suppose that pending a more elaborate modification, a reasonable general modification would be to make recovery of readiness follow a convex curve -- you get from 33% to 60% fairly quickly, but slow thereafter. Readiness recovery could be a proportion of the difference between the current readiness level and 100 plus some small constant value. You want that 100%, you have to really rest the unit.

To repeat history in a game is to be predictable.
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Legun
Readiness of a resting unit increases by value equal it the unit's movement rate. So, if your unit has 33MP's, it needs two turns to get 100% of readiness from total exhaustion. If the unit has 6MP's - it needs 11 turns.