r6kunz
Posts: 1103
Joined: 7/4/2002 From: near Philadelphia Status: offline
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It is remarkable the Norm Koger, the original designer came with fairly accurate values for the TOAW equipment. Bob Cross and Tamas made a major improvement to using the database in TOAWIV; you can now make changes to the equipment values in EDITOR and then SAVE EQUIP. Now you have a new .eqp file for that scenario. The newer .eqp values are not pulled out of the air. But others such as JosAnt and Oberst_Klink have made major contributions to the equipment list. The designers of FitE2 (Fire in the East), have created an incredibly detailed database. They were kind enough to give me permission to use it for my scenarios (Road to Moscow, Ardennes 1944...). Each weapon system incorporates every imaginable parameter obtained from multiple sources. Think armor thickness, slope, and vehicle silhouette, gun range, rate of fire, shell weight, penetration...even optics. Ditto for individual squads. Unfortunately, as the name of their scenario states, their data applies only to WWII East Front equipment (which includes Lend Lease), so it must be extrapolated for other countries. And, as far as I know, their databases have not been generally published. I obtained their permission to use it and I gave appropriate credit in the briefings. One caveat for adopting a new .eqp file for your scenario. Each piece of equipment occupies a slot number in the .eqp. The game reads only what is in that slot. So if you want to add a German heavy machine gun (s.MG43) in the HMG slot, then every unit that had an HMG in the original scenario will now have an s.MG43, including Soviet units... So you place a Maxim in the MG (Early) slot, and all then Soviet units then must have the s.MG43 deleted and the Maxim added. Great when you create a new scenario from scratch, but a bit of a chore when you modify an existing large East Front scenario. Another caveat, as much as you may disagree with some of Norm's original .eqp, the existing scenarios have created and balanced using these values, and changing them could imbalance the scenario.
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Avatar image was taken in hex 87,159 Vol 11 of Vietnam Combat Operations by Stéphane MOUTIN LUYAT aka Boonierat.
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