ColinWright
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Joined: 10/13/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Panama Personally I would like to see transport as precisely modeled as tanks are. If something isn't there to pull the artillery it isn't going anywhere. If something isn't there to move the ammo something isn't going to be able to shoot. If something isn't there to move the fuel a tank is just a pillbox. Won't ever happen but it would be nice. I'd take the position that you might as well model food supplies just as precisely. It does matter whether that's a battalion of T-26's or a battalion of T-34's that just popped up in your rear. It doesn't really matter whether it's a Ford or a Bedford lorry or a requisitioned bread van that brings the shells up -- all that matters is that they are brought up. ...and that's another point. There's a whole lot of stuff that isn't directly represented in TOAW at all that still has to be moved. Let's take an artillery battalion. Twelve 105's and twelve trucks (actually, six, but never mind that). Great, it's motorized. In the real world? Not. No way to move the shells, no way to move the communications and forward observers, no way to move the food. That battalion is going to need three trips to get everything hauled to the new firing point. So it's all a bit arbitrary to want the number of trucks to somehow match the number of weapons. There isn't a one-one correlation in real life, and you're going to save yourself a whole lot of rather pointless fussing if you just think of the 'truck' as an abstract representation of the transport assets available to the unit. You assign 'trucks' until the unit has the mobility you feel it should have. After all, in reality, a fully motorized unit with twelve field artillery pieces would presumably have more like sixty trucks than twelve. Let's take a British infantry battalion up to 1940 TO&E. Around twenty trucks or so, as I recall. Does that mean everyone rides, or that half ride and then the trucks come back for the other half? No. No one rides. They all walk. The organic trucks are to haul tents, bedding, ammo, food, field kitchens, etc. The unit's got a springier step, and its supply is always right at hand -- but it's still quite completely foot-bound. In fact, there were further divisional level transport assets (in theory) to allow one brigade out of every three to be 'lifted' as needed, so the division would be semi-motorized, but not because of the battalion-level transport assets. You can't literally represent the actual trucks in an OPART unit. Why? Because the OPART 'unit' itself omits half of what's being hauled. So it's a fools errand to start worrying about having the number of trucks somehow appear to match the number of weapons.
< Message edited by ColinWright -- 5/31/2010 8:43:40 PM >
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