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Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:33:14 PM

vaned74
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Here I did a test of a unit with a lot of flak - 100 x 40mm Type 91 AA guns and 100 support squads. The unit with a starting allotment of 1,000 tons of supplies.

I started bombing it on Dec 18th. Until that point supply consumption was all normal.

Note the bombing raids used the "dummy bomb" and did no damage. Raids were conducted at the 8,000 maximum ceiling of the 40mm Type 91 gun.

Note the massive supply consumption on the first day of raids were ammo was plentiful. At roughly 2 lbs per 40mm shell that is a lot of shells. I think the thing that concerns me is that it appears that when attacked, some extra supply consumption routine is called - if one wanted to be gamey you can simply just bomb units with little intention to do damage, but, every intention to draw flak at ineffective altitudes and pile up the supply consumption of the target.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:34:49 PM

vaned74
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The target unit on Dec 17

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:35:09 PM

vaned74
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The target unit on Dec 18

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:35:28 PM

vaned74
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The target unit on Dec 19

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:35:49 PM

vaned74
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The target unit on Dec 20

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:36:10 PM

vaned74
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The target unit on Dec 21

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:37:16 PM

vaned74
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And finally, the target unit on Dec 22. Yes, the unit is curtailing its supply consumption - but this has little effect on its actual AA results. I have run the test out further and drained the unit of supply and then of course, it does not fire. Take a few more days.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:51:29 PM

tiemanjw
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I did a test on this a while back and noted the same thing. By the way, you can even draw off supplies with recon missions getting shot at.

I also don't see the problem with this. A rich unit is going to act rich. Notice that once supply drops below the supply required amount, they start to restrain themselves.

Also keep in mind that supply is not in "tons", but rather a generic supply units that doesntap to anything in the real world. Also, firing guns. need more then bullets. They need to replace barrels, fix worn out parts, the troops need potable water, the guns need lubrication, etc.

Sorry to be a bit nit-picky here. I do appriciate the tests and the information you provide us valuable. Thanks.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/19/2016 9:55:04 PM

vaned74
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Yep, I saw your test and modelled mine similarly, just isolated a few things. No problem with your comments and I agree a rich unit will shoot off lots of shells and the whole thing is an abstraction. However, the issue is that it is simply too easy to accelerate supply usage at a target if you want to abuse the system.

However, you should look at the tests using MGs in the attacked unit. Something seems wonk with the AA fire consumption and it must be getting called in a special routine beyond the ordinary supply consumption routine?

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 6:24:52 AM

Alfred
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Firstly, there are far too many variables which you have not controlled for which invalidate your test results and conclusions.

Secondly, there is no abuse of the game system at play here. The game designers were well aware of what happens in real life. Read any of my posts on this subject since 2014 to see how the game operates.

Alfred

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 8:58:07 AM

Dili
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quote:

Also keep in mind that supply is not in "tons", but rather a generic supply units that doesntap to anything in the real world.

That is play with words because it is near 1 tons. It is what is a "ton" when you put in a ship.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 9:00:28 AM

Dili
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Well you can see it is in an island.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 10:15:16 PM

mind_messing
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quote:

ORIGINAL: tiemanj

I did a test on this a while back and noted the same thing. By the way, you can even draw off supplies with recon missions getting shot at.

I also don't see the problem with this. A rich unit is going to act rich. Notice that once supply drops below the supply required amount, they start to restrain themselves.

Also keep in mind that supply is not in "tons", but rather a generic supply units that doesntap to anything in the real world. Also, firing guns. need more then bullets. They need to replace barrels, fix worn out parts, the troops need potable water, the guns need lubrication, etc.

Sorry to be a bit nit-picky here. I do appriciate the tests and the information you provide us valuable. Thanks.

The implications are a bit wider when you consider flak organic in large AV combat units. In the event a division is bombed heavily prior to the ground combat phase, the flak gunners will use up the supply. When the ground combat phase rolls around, you'll have a negative supply modifier for the unit in question.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 10:39:41 PM

obvert
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Firstly, there are far too many variables which you have not controlled for which invalidate your test results and conclusions.

Secondly, there is no abuse of the game system at play here. The game designers were well aware of what happens in real life. Read any of my posts on this subject since 2014 to see how the game operates.

Alfred

If you see something here please help us out. I think the OP is trying to figure out how the game works and make sure he can plan for that in games. What should the tests include that is not here?

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 10:49:21 PM

Alpha77
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quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Firstly, there are far too many variables which you have not controlled for which invalidate your test results and conclusions.

Secondly, there is no abuse of the game system at play here. The game designers were well aware of what happens in real life. Read any of my posts on this subject since 2014 to see how the game operates.

Alfred

If you see something here please help us out. I think the OP is trying to figure out how the game works and make sure he can plan for that in games. What should the tests include that is not here?

I mean the OP seems to have fun with his experiments... that is what counts. I doubt if it good to know any small detail how the games works "under the hood" tho - seems boring to know everything (to me

)

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 10:54:05 PM

obvert
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Firstly, there are far too many variables which you have not controlled for which invalidate your test results and conclusions.

Secondly, there is no abuse of the game system at play here. The game designers were well aware of what happens in real life. Read any of my posts on this subject since 2014 to see how the game operates.

Alfred

If you see something here please help us out. I think the OP is trying to figure out how the game works and make sure he can plan for that in games. What should the tests include that is not here?

I mean the OP seems to have fun with his experiments... that is what counts. I doubt if it good to know any small detail how the games works "under the hood" tho - seems boring to know everything (to me )

This one could help a lot actually. As pointed out, some things here might be used to run units out of supply and there would be no way to combat that, since you can't for instance put a unit in rest while an enemy is in the same hex. So the AA will fire, and if that is causing all of the supply to go, it's breaking the abstraction a bit (since some of that supply should be ammo for all of the other kinds of arty as well as the other things it abstracts like chow for troops).

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/20/2016 11:01:13 PM

Alpha77
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I am not saying it may not help.... actually I think it can be interesting. But regardless of that OP has fun with trying things out and the game should be fun. Also in this way, if it will yield any important insights is questionable. I remember I made such experiments myself a lot when I was doing OOB stuff for SPWAW and TOAW. It was fun, but in the end doubtful if a eg. a Tiger needs 1 more armor point or not or a T34 needs one more point of AP etc.

But there can be pages of pages discussing such stuff, that is amazing

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 1:17:32 AM

vaned74
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All good discussions. Here is what clued me in actually to look deeper. I was playing a head to head game, just dabbling with opening strategies. As the Allies, I bombed a Japanese invasion force right after the landing - not the ships, but the troops. The troops - a broken down, happened to have organic AA MGs.

As is often the case in an amphibious landing, the units, if the unload capability is high enough, get inundated with supplies well beyond the normal 1-2X basic requirement.

I almost always in the past would target the invasion TF itself, just tried something different. The result I noted was a lot of supplies being used by the invaders as AA. An interesting defense strategy and one a few people have advocated of hitting the troops - but perhaps not for the reason of causing a lot of supply loss. Also, the troops generally have less AA than a well protected invasion TF and as well where your planes have a preference to target hard to hit warships as opposed to transports anyway. Not many folks in my experience use sometimes precious assault capacity to land AA units in the first wave also so you are killing off supplies in the combat units.

I will post the test conditions a little later - I think I have things pretty well isolated. I suppose Alfred disagrees, but, I have read all the posts in the past and I don't think I am missing much.

The test results are what they are - whether an abstraction or not, how much should be used or not, or whether there is some consumption of supply somewhere that simply cannot be tested due to how the turn processes is what it is.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 2:17:14 AM

tiemanjw
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quote:

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

quote:

ORIGINAL: tiemanj

I did a test on this a while back and noted the same thing. By the way, you can even draw off supplies with recon missions getting shot at.

I also don't see the problem with this. A rich unit is going to act rich. Notice that once supply drops below the supply required amount, they start to restrain themselves.

Also keep in mind that supply is not in "tons", but rather a generic supply units that doesntap to anything in the real world. Also, firing guns. need more then bullets. They need to replace barrels, fix worn out parts, the troops need potable water, the guns need lubrication, etc.

Sorry to be a bit nit-picky here. I do appriciate the tests and the information you provide us valuable. Thanks.

The implications are a bit wider when you consider flak organic in large AV combat units. In the event a division is bombed heavily prior to the ground combat phase, the flak gunners will use up the supply. When the ground combat phase rolls around, you'll have a negative supply modifier for the unit in question.

Remember though, that both the supply consumption and negative modifier are both scaled. Once you get yellow in supply, consumption drops, and drops more and more as you get lower. So it would take an awful lot of A/C to run him out (assuming he can get supplied). The negative modifier is also scaled, so just a bit below max is just a small penalty down to 0 supply (which I believe is 25%).

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 3:09:54 AM

vaned74
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Actually, not entirely true. I monkeyed around with a similar test of the unit with just the 10 MGs, 800 devices total and 2,000 start supplies. Started bombing runs at 3,000 feet with just about 70 a/c average per turn. In 13 days, the unit went straight to 0 supplies...

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 3:47:59 AM

vaned74
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Ok, scenario testing sandbox in the tech support thread as well as save game 91 which can be used to simply load head to head and see what happens if anyone is interested.

Conditions that I thought I needed to control and or test for:

1. Supply sources - no unit being tested has any supply source other than the supplies they have on hand. They are placed on islands with no bases.

2. Units do not share supplies, so no additional supply is provided to the units.

3. Unit supplies do not suffer from spoilage - and running 30-40 turns of no activity shows this to be the case.

4. Unit posture - was not tested, all cases were run in "Combat" mode.

5. The only unit that had engineers in it was the "I like to dig brigade" - so no other unit could consume supplies for building field fortifications, etc.

6. The only activity that would change the supply consumption was the activity tested - eg being bombed, digging, taking replacement, repairing.

7. Fatigue / Disruption - I ran some tests on this too, not posted the results. But, recovery of fatigue does not seem to require supplies. I thought it might be a function of the units being bombed being fatigued/disrupted and then recovery taking supplies and this not being seen as you cannot stop the turn processing / but, is not the case.

8. Experience/preparation gain - does not take supplies.

9. Upgrading - all units set to no upgrade / no replacements (unless testing taking on replacements was indeed the test).

10. No other units on the map to cause any sort of interaction - eg recon flights, etc.

11. Damage from bombing - I set the bombs to be able to do no damage / but, this is in anyway irrelevant. If the bombs did do damage to the unit the repairs do not cost supplies anyway. The only thing that would change is the base supply consumption.

12. Device types - irrelevant. Supply consumption is one point per device in the unit for every 30 days. It is dead nuts on the button.

So, as far as I can tell, the only influencing action on the consumption of supplies by the targeted unit is that which was tested - eg did it dig, did it take replacements, did it repair squads, did it bombard, was it bombarded, was it ground attacked by air and did it shoot back, was it ground attacked by air and did it not shoot back.

If I am missing something, please advise. If it is simply not possible to test something, that is OK too. These were more to get a sense and feel of what is being consumed.

And, really the only test that concerns me is the one where the unit with 800 devices, 10 of which are AA MGs, gets it supply chewed up pretty quickly by non-damaging air raids. 800 devices is a pretty typical reinforced brigade / small division size for Japan. 2,000 supplies or 2.5 months on hand is a slight excess of supply but would be pretty typical if the unit was amphibiously landed and did not immediately capture the base. Around 900 sorties within flak range will take all the supply from the unit - by mid-late war Allied standards, not a lot - 70-80 sorties a day for 10-15 days. Eg - its the big units with very small organic AA contingents that seem to cause the cases I see could be a problem. They can be easily drained if they are isolated and then you can bomb at whatever altitude you want with no fear of AA damage.

< Message edited by vaned74 -- 3/21/2016 3:49:17 AM >

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 4:17:27 PM

mind_messing
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quote:

ORIGINAL: vaned74

And, really the only test that concerns me is the one where the unit with 800 devices, 10 of which are AA MGs, gets it supply chewed up pretty quickly by non-damaging air raids. 800 devices is a pretty typical reinforced brigade / small division size for Japan. 2,000 supplies or 2.5 months on hand is a slight excess of supply but would be pretty typical if the unit was amphibiously landed and did not immediately capture the base. Around 900 sorties within flak range will take all the supply from the unit - by mid-late war Allied standards, not a lot - 70-80 sorties a day for 10-15 days. Eg - its the big units with very small organic AA contingents that seem to cause the cases I see could be a problem. They can be easily drained if they are isolated and then you can bomb at whatever altitude you want with no fear of AA damage.

This has been my experience also. In a frontline setting you can have the AA machine-guns of a division-sized formation end up leaving the rifle squads without enough supply to shoot at the enemy troops on the ground.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/21/2016 5:59:21 PM

tiemanjw
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quote:

ORIGINAL: vaned74

Actually, not entirely true. I monkeyed around with a similar test of the unit with just the 10 MGs, 800 devices total and 2,000 start supplies. Started bombing runs at 3,000 feet with just about 70 a/c average per turn. In 13 days, the unit went straight to 0 supplies...

but he is not getting resupplied (at least according to your initial description) between turns. So that means it took 70*13=910 sorties to drain him. If you can get 910 sorties over a unit in a day, than I'm ok with it being out of supply (read as unable to effectively resist) a ground attack later in the day.

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/22/2016 1:08:11 AM

rustysi
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Just two more things here.

One, I would not consider 40mm a heavy flak unit. Its light like in your previous test. Heavy flak would be more like 75mm and above. Just sayin'.

quote:

As pointed out, some things here might be used to run units out of supply and there would be no way to combat that

Anyone ever hear of fighter support?

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RE: Supply consumption - heavy flak unit - 3/23/2016 6:48:39 AM

Yaab
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Basically, 40mm AA guns and 13.2mm AAMGs should be in the same Auto-Weap category - flak guns fed by clips with high rate of fire (120-140 rounds per minute). The test should be redone with single-loaded 75-120mm guns, shooting 15 rounds per minute.

BTW, 100 x 40mm AA guns in a single one unit should see lots of used suppply for sure.

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