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ColinWright -> RE: Comprehensive Wishlist (2/15/2008 11:05:46 AM)
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Another one...
As some of us may recall, one of Norm's original intentions was that the game could model equipment transitions: you could have a battalion with 56/56 Pz IV's and 0/56 Panthers and it would evolve over time to become a battalion of 0/56 Mk IV's and 56/56 Panthers.
Of course, the obvious problem -- and one that designers encountered -- is that the unit had a nasty ability to evolve into an uber-battalion with 56/56 Mk IV's and 56/56 Panthers.
What if it was possible to assign an absolute cap to the number of pieces of equipment a unit could receive? This doesn't seem too hard -- and it would make it possible to realize the original idea fairly well -- whatever equipment type began to become more plentiful in the pool would tend to fill out the unit as it suffered losses and received replacements over time.
Aside from the obvious use of modeling equipment transitions, this would make it very easy to model declining morale in forces such as the 1918 German army or improving tactical skill in forces such as the Red Army of 1941-43. One would just need to create various rifle squads, such as ones that didn't have the active defender box checked, or did have it checked, or whatever, and allow history to take its course. Units that experienced losses and received replacements could radically change their combat characteristics -- far more than the current changes in proficiency permit.
For example.
A German 'stosstruppen' battalion of early 1918 might look like this:
36/36 'assault recon' squads.
0/36 'replacement light rifle squads.' These would be 'light rifle squads' with 'active defender' left unchecked.
9/9 5 cm mortars.
A 'total equipment cap' of 45.
I'm just winging it here as to organization, and I only picked a unit as small as a battalion to simplify the illustration, so don't bug me about that. Point is that no 'assault recon' squads would appear in the pool. Plenty of 'replacement light rifle' squads' would, though. So after one heavy assault and a bit of exploitation followed by some rest, it might look like this:
19/36 'assault recon' squads.
17/36 'replacement light rifle squads.'
9/9 5 cm mortars.
45 total pieces of equipment
Then after mounting another offensive or staving off an Allied offensive, it might look more like this:
5/36 'assault recon' squads.
32/36 'replacement light rifle squads.'
8/9 5 cm mortars.
45 total pieces of equipment
As the unit engaged in combat, its proficiency would naturally rise slightly. But -- particularly if it sustained heavy losses -- its combat ability would decline. It would fairly early on become noticeably less effective in the attack, and given enough time and enough bleeding, would finally become very prone to retreat even if firmly poked. This would nicely simulate, for example, what happened to the German Army over the Summer and Fall of 1918, or -- if the process was reversed -- what happened to the American army in Korea over the Summer and Fall of 1950.
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