Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



...And there's another factor not mentioned yet. Under earlier versions terrain had no impact on the chance of forcing the defender to retreat. It was as easy to dislodge a unit from a Fortified Line hex as it was from a Clear hex. And that fact probably accounted for most captures of Fortified Line hexes in the past. That's been changed in 3.4. Units are much less likely to retreat from such hexes now. So you actually have to battle them out of their pillboxes the hard way.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

When will engineers have an effect on fortified or entrenched units? This seems to be a persistant oversight.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

When will engineers have an effect on fortified or entrenched units? This seems to be a persistant oversight.

As far as I know, engineers do accelerate the speed at which one entrenches. What exactly did you want?

quote:

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Its my understanding that any Fortification tile within a hex provides protection for all sides. So you can put one on all six hexsides or one on only one hexside and get the same benefits. This doesn't negate the effect of attacking from a flanking position though.

To the engineer question, Engineer Squads have the same Anti-Personel value as Assault Squads, so they do have a greater effect than other squads when assaulting positions. Also, designers can put special equipment like bazookas, flamethrowers or heavy mg's into the engineer units. So the icon may not have an effect, but the equipment does.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

When will engineers have an effect on fortified or entrenched units? This seems to be a persistant oversight.

As far as I know, engineers do accelerate the speed at which one entrenches. What exactly did you want?

Good joke.

quote:

ORIGINAL: polarenper

Didn't the Germans bring a whole lot of pioneers to Stalingrad around x-mas time? Or would they count as assault troops rather than engineers?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Carolus Rex

As beeing Engr officer I am not realy unpartial, but I think the Engr ops is not simulated very well in the game. Some suggestions that I think should improve the game (without beeing completely revulationary)
1. Bridge Ops, having built several hundred bridges i know that luck has noting to do with it. The percentige rate should be accumulative so if trying several times you finaly reach 100 % and the building is a sure thing (realy frustrating to have to count on luck when planning your advance across an important bridge.
2. It should not be able to reach Fortified level unless an engr unit is present, all units can prepare a defence, but to get Fortified need engr support (extensive minefield, concrete bunkers ..)
3. To demolish a bridge, the unit should need to contain engr squads.

We do a lot of other stuff, bot all cant be simulated in TOAW, the changes abowe should make the engr somewhat more usefull in some of their main duties.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Carolus Rex

As beeing Engr officer I am not realy unpartial, but I think the Engr ops is not simulated very well in the game. Some suggestions that I think should improve the game (without beeing completely revulationary)
1. Bridge Ops, having built several hundred bridges i know that luck has noting to do with it. The percentige rate should be accumulative so if trying several times you finaly reach 100 % and the building is a sure thing (realy frustrating to have to count on luck when planning your advance across an important bridge.
2. It should not be able to reach Fortified level unless an engr unit is present, all units can prepare a defence, but to get Fortified need engr support (extensive minefield, concrete bunkers ..)
3. To demolish a bridge, the unit should need to contain engr squads.

We do a lot of other stuff, bot all cant be simulated in TOAW, the changes abowe should make the engr somewhat more usefull in some of their main duties.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

Combat engineers are assault troops. But with specialized equipment you won't find with a 'normal' unit. That equipment is meant to be used against dug in or fortified positions. But then since Colin says no one ever used them that must be wrong.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama



2. Yes. No line division is capable of fortified positions. It takes specialized materials and equipment. And lots of it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama



1. Yes. Repairing a bridge is not a roll of dice.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


What's more, even for the most 'fortified' of fortified positions, much or most of what isn't needed isn't a army-level engineer regiment showing up and saying 'how can I help' -- but simply shipments of barbed wire, mines, power tools, etc. You won't be able to simulate the presence or absence of that by adding more complex engineers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: polarenper

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


What's more, even for the most 'fortified' of fortified positions, much or most of what isn't needed isn't a army-level engineer regiment showing up and saying 'how can I help' -- but simply shipments of barbed wire, mines, power tools, etc. You won't be able to simulate the presence or absence of that by adding more complex engineers.

So it all comes back to that discussion about supplies!

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I'm not saying that some special type of 'assault engineer' would go amiss. But just give this special ability to all engineering squads, and make it especially effective on all fortified hexes? You might improve matters for the cases you're considering, but it might just skew the system further, overall. After all, now I'll be bringing up my poor civil engineers and railway workers from Sydney to assault those hill forts outside Damascus. After all, they never knew it when they were signing up, but now they're specially equipped and trained, elite assault troops.

quote:

ORIGINAL: polarenper

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I'm not saying that some special type of 'assault engineer' would go amiss. But just give this special ability to all engineering squads, and make it especially effective on all fortified hexes? You might improve matters for the cases you're considering, but it might just skew the system further, overall. After all, now I'll be bringing up my poor civil engineers and railway workers from Sydney to assault those hill forts outside Damascus. After all, they never knew it when they were signing up, but now they're specially equipped and trained, elite assault troops.

I'd like that too. But, we have something called assault squads. Isn't that a kind of assault engineer? At least that's what I've taken them for.

Anyway, i realize that engineers speed up the process of entrenching already, but i would still agree that engineers (the construction variety) should be required in order to reach the "F" deployment.

It strikes me that what i'm really after here is the ability to construct the fortified terrain as i go. I love my monster scenarios...

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

Combat engineers are assault troops. But with specialized equipment you won't find with a 'normal' unit. That equipment is meant to be used against dug in or fortified positions. But then since Colin says no one ever used them that must be wrong.

I didn't say that. I'm merely unconvinced that in general they have a radically different effect on the situation from the operational point of view than a similar quantity of ordinary infantry.

Put it this way. We could sweat blood to make engineers able to have an enhanced combat value against fortified hexes only. But would that really improve the game all that much, and wouldn't it introduce other anomalies as units that were in fact strictly construction engineers became lions of the battlefield?

Take the Australian pioneer battalions in Exporter. Well, these were 'engineers' in the sense that they fixed bridges and improved roads. What's more, in the pinch, they were thrown into the line against the French. However, once there they were merely sincere but somewhat underequipped and undertrained light infantry.

As is, they are merely the ordinary TOAW engineers and the situation's not so bad. But make them your elite assault engineers and they won't go into the line at a pinch. They'll be leading the assault on the forts outside Damascus.

It's not an inherently bad idea to somehow change how engineers function on the battlefield. However, (a) the problem isn't a particularly acute one, and (b) we'd need to start by creating five-six kinds of 'engineers' -- and in an ideal world, come up with a way of assigning more than one of the various possible attributes to a given squad. After all, presumably there are plenty of engineers that are both able to clear mines and have a good idea how to go about fixing a bridge.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama



2. Yes. No line division is capable of fortified positions. It takes specialized materials and equipment. And lots of it.

I don't know about that. Ordinary infantry divisions routinely build bunkers, dig trenches, etc. They might need help for such monsters as the Hindenberg Line, but they can get to what is summarized as 'fortified' status more or less on their own. Give even an infantry battalion a month to get itself dug in, and it'll be pretty hard to dig out.

A 'line division' contains most of the services you seem to want. It has its signalers burying their telephone lines -- and its engineer battalion helping with the trickier bits. It can indeed get to 'fortified' status all on its own.

What's more, even for the most 'fortified' of fortified positions, much or most of what isn't needed isn't a army-level engineer regiment showing up and saying 'how can I help' -- but simply shipments of barbed wire, mines, power tools, etc. You won't be able to simulate the presence or absence of that by adding more complex engineers.

Finally, I'll repeat something. Engineers do accelerate the rate at which one can dig in. Here, I really don't see much of a problem. The sort of detailing you're talking about is absent throughout the system.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama



1. Yes. Repairing a bridge is not a roll of dice.

Yeah -- but ultimately, nothing is. Know enough about about the elements going into any situation, and theoretically, the outcome can be predicted ahead of time.

A battle isn't 'a roll of the dice.' Neither is the weather. Both are merely extremely complex processes with so many unknowns that the we can't predict the outcome. However, in theory, it could be predicted.

A 'roll of the dice' isn't a roll of the dice. Know enough about the starting position of the dice, the strength and movements of the thrower, and the condition of the table, and it could be predicted what numbers will come up.

A bridge is not inherently different from this. It's merely that in reality we can ascertain enough of the variables to safely predict the approximate outcome.

However, we're not in reality. We're in TOAW -- and those variables can't be known in TOAW. The game just has generic 'bridge.' It tells us nothing about how solid the surrounding ground is, where the nearest source of structural steel or heavy timber is, etc, etc. So bridge repair is handled with a 'roll of the dice.' Like combat outcomes. Not that either one really is.

In TOAW, we have a generic 'bridge' that is either blown, or not blown. That's all we know.

Our military engineer says that fixing a bridge isn't a matter of chance -- that he can tell you within 10% or so how long it will take.

Indeed he can -- but that's because he can see the bridge, knows what resources he has, and knows exactly to what extent he is expected to fix it.

Now, ask him how long it will take to fix a bridge -- if he can't see it, if we won't tell him what materials are available, if we won't even tell him whether we want it 'fixed' so that an infantry battalion can pass over in single file or we were figuring on a stream of Tiger I's going one way while empty trucks came back the other way. For that matter, we won't tell him whether his 'engineers' are World War One Serbians or 2011 US Army.

Gee -- he'd kind of have to guess, wouldn't he? Might take five hours -- might take a month. Kinda like it is now in TOAW.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Panama



1. Yes. Repairing a bridge is not a roll of dice.

Yeah -- but ultimately, nothing is. Know enough about about the elements going into any situation, and theoretically, the outcome can be predicted ahead of time.

A battle isn't 'a roll of the dice.' Neither is the weather. Both are merely extremely complex processes with so many unknowns that the we can't predict the outcome. However, in theory, it could be predicted.

A 'roll of the dice' isn't a roll of the dice. Know enough about the starting position of the dice, the strength and movements of the thrower, and the condition of the table, and it could be predicted what numbers will come up.

A bridge is not inherently different from this. It's merely that in reality we can ascertain enough of the variables to safely predict the approximate outcome.

However, we're not in reality. We're in TOAW -- and those variables can't be known in TOAW. The game just has generic 'bridge.' It tells us nothing about how solid the surrounding ground is, where the nearest source of structural steel or heavy timber is, etc, etc. So bridge repair is handled with a 'roll of the dice.' Like combat outcomes. Not that either one really is.

In TOAW, we have a generic 'bridge' that is either blown, or not blown. That's all we know.

Our military engineer says that fixing a bridge isn't a matter of chance -- that he can tell you within 10% or so how long it will take.

Indeed he can -- but that's because he can see the bridge, knows what resources he has, and knows exactly to what extent he is expected to fix it.

Now, ask him how long it will take to fix a bridge -- if he can't see it, if we won't tell him what materials are available, if we won't even tell him whether we want it 'fixed' so that an infantry battalion can pass over in single file or we were figuring on a stream of Tiger I's going one way while empty trucks came back the other way. For that matter, we won't tell him whether his 'engineers' are World War One Serbians or 2011 US Army.

Gee -- he'd kind of have to guess, wouldn't he? Might take five hours -- might take a month. Kinda like it is now in TOAW.

I'm not real sure what your saying. What do you mean can't see it? If he's there to fix it he can certainly see it.