Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
... The current abstract system will remain the system of choice for most scenarios. It has to get priority.

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ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..dunno what Colin's problem is...

..yes, a division normally uses more supply than a battalion, but what it can use and what it gets are not usually the same thing.

..what dictates end-user supply are 1) the capacity of the supply-carrying assets that get it there, be they trucks, trains, port-offloading abilities or coolies with bicycles, and 2) the capacity of the supply route to carry that level of use (hard top/track/nothing etc )..(in no particular order)...

..to analogise for Colin..sigh....i may have 600 tomato plants to water (they will need more than 6 plants), my mains has a high delivery rate (high pressure and large diameter pipe), if i only have a 1/4" bore pipe, and a limited amount of that, they'll all suffer, if i whack in a 2" main line with 3/4" sublines, and 1/4" spurs on a direct drip system then my 600 will be happy..

..any change that does not take into account the delivery means and route, will still be so badly flawed as not to have been worth the effort..

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..dunno what Colin's problem is...

..yes, a division normally uses more supply than a battalion, but what it can use and what it gets are not usually the same thing.

..what dictates end-user supply are 1) the capacity of the supply-carrying assets that get it there, be they trucks, trains, port-offloading abilities or coolies with bicycles, and 2) the capacity of the supply route to carry that level of use (hard top/track/nothing etc )..(in no particular order)...

..to analogise for Colin..sigh....i may have 600 tomato plants to water (they will need more than 6 plants), my mains has a high delivery rate (high pressure and large diameter pipe), if i only have a 1/4" bore pipe, and a limited amount of that, they'll all suffer, if i whack in a 2" main line with 3/4" sublines, and 1/4" spurs on a direct drip system then my 600 will be happy..

..any change that does not take into account the delivery means and route, will still be so badly flawed as not to have been worth the effort..

So, say, the notion that nine battalions of infantry are going to need nine times as much food as one battalion goes right over your head?

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ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..dunno what Colin's problem is...

..yes, a division normally uses more supply than a battalion, but what it can use and what it gets are not usually the same thing.

..what dictates end-user supply are 1) the capacity of the supply-carrying assets that get it there, be they trucks, trains, port-offloading abilities or coolies with bicycles, and 2) the capacity of the supply route to carry that level of use (hard top/track/nothing etc )..(in no particular order)...

..to analogise for Colin..sigh....i may have 600 tomato plants to water (they will need more than 6 plants), my mains has a high delivery rate (high pressure and large diameter pipe), if i only have a 1/4" bore pipe, and a limited amount of that, they'll all suffer, if i whack in a 2" main line with 3/4" sublines, and 1/4" spurs on a direct drip system then my 600 will be happy..

..any change that does not take into account the delivery means and route, will still be so badly flawed as not to have been worth the effort..

So, say, the notion that nine battalions of infantry are going to need nine times as much food as one battalion goes right over your head?

..not need, "require" to function , according to the any given country's methods/understanding..

..my US troops may need ice-cream, air-con and loads'a transport, my Viets will function as well on a bowl of rice and some dried salt-fish given we get the bullets..

..if you have the transport, then i'd like air-con for my tunnels too, but , i can live without..

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
TOAW treats supply as if it was like cell phone coverage. Cell phone reception in Fields, Oregon will be so good. It doesn't matter whether there are ten users, or one user: cell phone reception will be the same. Similarly, in TOAW, it doesn't matter whether one division is relying on a given road for its supplies or if ten divisions are: they'll each receive the same quantity of supplies regardless.

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...and this is very inaccurate. Obviously, if ten cases of ammunition can come up a given road per minute, and there is only one division receiving these cases of ammunition, it can use ten cases per minute. If there are ten divisions, each could only use one case per minute.

This is not what happens in OPART. One division or ten divisions; they all get ten cases per minute.

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Now, Bob Cross has tried to argue that this only matters in marginal cases.

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It's true that the unrealism is most evident in certain cases: Norway 1940, North Africa, Murmansk. However and in fact, the unrealism affects simulation of even the most 'mainstream' scenarios: the advance of the Western Allies in Northwest Europe in 1944, for example. In point of fact, Eisenhower more or less had a choice between giving everyone ten percent supply or giving specific armies thirty percent supply.

Why? Because only so many tons of supplies could be delivered, and the OPART model notwithstanding, a ton used by one division can't be used by another.

But because of the OPART model, this aspect of the campaign simply can't be simulated. You can arbitrarily give all formations the same supply no matter what. You can give increased supply to the same formations that got it historically. However, you cannot be Eisenhower and decide for yourself how the supplies will be distributed. Various devices exist for partially simulating the choice -- but you cannot do what he did and say 'okay -- this army gets 30% supply but that one doesn't.' If you're the Russians in a 1942-43 scenario, you can't say 'let's leave the Italians alone for now and concentrate on reducing the Stalingrad pocket.' No -- all fronts will get just about the distribution of supply that the designer has determined before hand, and it'll be like pulling teeth to create any mechanism for altering this.

Why? Because the supply model fails to reflect the essential nature of supply, which is that if I eat a given bean, you can't eat it too. We need to have a model that reflects this. Until we do, we are not going to address the fundamental problem.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
TOAW treats supply as if it was like cell phone coverage. Cell phone reception in Fields, Oregon will be so good. It doesn't matter whether there are ten users, or one user: cell phone reception will be the same. Similarly, in TOAW, it doesn't matter whether one division is relying on a given road for its supplies or if ten divisions are: they'll each receive the same quantity of supplies regardless.

Note that this is more or less the same supply system used by board wargames for decades. In fact, they were usually far more simplistic: Line of communication = in supply, otherwise = out of supply. Worked pretty well for most subjects.

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...and this is very inaccurate. Obviously, if ten cases of ammunition can come up a given road per minute, and there is only one division receiving these cases of ammunition, it can use ten cases per minute. If there are ten divisions, each could only use one case per minute.

This is not what happens in OPART. One division or ten divisions; they all get ten cases per minute.

It's not necessarily inaccurate at all. That's one reason why there's a stacking limit - to prevent such over-concentrated conditions. In a normal force distribution, the limit isn't the capacity of the road or rail line - it's the amount of transport available - that's why supply level drops the further a unit is from a source. The designer has a reasonable idea of how much force and how much transport will be on the map at any given time and can adjust the Force Supply Level accordingly.

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Now, Bob Cross has tried to argue that this only matters in marginal cases.

Well, it certainly only matters enough to justify the huge effort required by programmers, designers, & players in marginal cases.

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It's true that the unrealism is most evident in certain cases: Norway 1940, North Africa, Murmansk. However and in fact, the unrealism affects simulation of even the most 'mainstream' scenarios: the advance of the Western Allies in Northwest Europe in 1944, for example. In point of fact, Eisenhower more or less had a choice between giving everyone ten percent supply or giving specific armies thirty percent supply.

Why? Because only so many tons of supplies could be delivered, and the OPART model notwithstanding, a ton used by one division can't be used by another.

But because of the OPART model, this aspect of the campaign simply can't be simulated. You can arbitrarily give all formations the same supply no matter what. You can give increased supply to the same formations that got it historically. However, you cannot be Eisenhower and decide for yourself how the supplies will be distributed. Various devices exist for partially simulating the choice -- but you cannot do what he did and say 'okay -- this army gets 30% supply but that one doesn't.' If you're the Russians in a 1942-43 scenario, you can't say 'let's leave the Italians alone for now and concentrate on reducing the Stalingrad pocket.' No -- all fronts will get just about the distribution of supply that the designer has determined before hand, and it'll be like pulling teeth to create any mechanism for altering this.

Why? Because the supply model fails to reflect the essential nature of supply, which is that if I eat a given bean, you can't eat it too. We need to have a model that reflects this. Until we do, we are not going to address the fundamental problem.

Actually, as designer - and then as player - you do have tools to address this - HQs and Supply Units. Check out "France 1944" - there is one Allied Supply Unit and HQs support all same-nation units. So, where that Supply Unit goes and where the HQs are focused will get about 50% more supply than elsewhere. And there are suggestions on the wishlist for further flexibility. The problem doesn't require the enormous burden of discrete supply handling. And I can't envision anyone designing (or playing) "France 1944" with such a system (it's hard enough as it is).

Now there are situations that do need it regardless of that burden, but those are primarily situations that involve extensive unrestricted naval operations. (So Colin's motive here should be transparent).

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ORIGINAL: Foggy

Ah - at least my light bulb went on Thanks Colin - that seems to make sense - as far as TOAW4 goes, should this be adjustable by the players or the scenario designer in an ideal situation?

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
One could make the same argument for just arbitrarily assigning a simple numerical value for combat and another for movement: 'it worked pretty well for most subjects.'

The fact is that the supply model you describe was used because prior to computers, there wasn't much of a choice, practically speaking. However, now we have a choice -- and there's little reason to persist in using ...

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a supply paradigm that simply contradicts reality.

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...and this is very inaccurate. Obviously, if ten cases of ammunition can come up a given road per minute, and there is only one division receiving these cases of ammunition, it can use ten cases per minute. If there are ten divisions, each could only use one case per minute.

This is not what happens in OPART. One division or ten divisions; they all get ten cases per minute.

It's not necessarily inaccurate at all. That's one reason why there's a stacking limit - to prevent such over-concentrated conditions. In a normal force distribution, the limit isn't the capacity of the road or rail line - it's the amount of transport available - that's why supply level drops the further a unit is from a source. The designer has a reasonable idea of how much force and how much transport will be on the map at any given time and can adjust the Force Supply Level accordingly.

This simply ignores my point. How have you demonstrated that ten divisions do not in fact require ten times as much supply as one division?

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The workarounds you describe are just that -- workarounds. And I doubt if you can convince even yourself that they are completely satisfactory.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Hmm...

Well, let's leave Curtis in his room, and go find a donut shop. Call us on the radio if he tries to break out.

It may be reasonable to treat supply as the ability to distribute supplies from an essentially infinite stockpile. After all, countries rarely actually run out of bullets or beans. They just have problems getting them from the factory to the field -- and so it's their ability to make these deliveries we want to look at above all. Exceptions -- but those we can look at some other day.

That said, the current supply model provides a usable paradigm for deciding how hard it is to get supplies to a given point in the field. In other words, it tells us just how much in the way of resources delivering a given quantity of material to a given point requires. It takes eight times as much in the way of resources to get me those twinkies if I'm on top of Mount Lyell than it does to get them to me if I'm sitting in downtown Fresno. Something like that...

Then a military organization is naturally going to try to address the needs of the most depleted first. It's not going to listen to you whimpering about how you only have fifty percent of your authorized ammunition stocks if someone else has only ten percent. So there's a default routine for deciding how supplies should be distributed. To the starving first.

Finally, there's an absolute limit to how many supplies can come through a given point. For Antwerp, this limit is extremely high. For Dieppe, it's quite low. But there's always an absolute limit. (Parenthetically, I suspect it would be a good idea if this limit could be raised or lowered by event so that players can simulate things like the Clan Fraser blowing up in Piraeus and wrecking British supply to Greece in 1941).

Each unit would be assigned a value based on its transport weight (ideally, heavily modified to increase the 'cost' of supplying artillery.) This value and the location of the unit would determine how much supply would be consumed to give that unit a percent of resupply.

Supply would then be tentatively supplied. The program would look at how much supply was now flowing along the one best supply route to the unit in question and then modify the 'cost' by how much supply was flowing in total along that route. The algorithm would be similar to that used to determine traffic costs, and the usage could be brought up in an optional view that would tint hexes according to their supply usage. So you could see that keeping those ten regiments fighting at the end of that dirt road was really costing you. In connection with this, it would be nice to have more types of roads and rails. If nothing else, designers could have the ability to put in a road or rail two or three times over to increase the capacity of a given route.

Players would be able to over-ride the default distribution of supply -- similarly to the way they can set units to 'ignore losses' etc. So it wouldn't matter if everyone else was starving: the First Colins still get fed. Similar to what the Russians used to do when they were gearing up for an offensive in a given sector. Similarly, designers could give certain formations a statuatory preference in the editor. As they currently designate the replacement priority for a formation. {i]Trieste may be out of fuel for its trucks, but 21st Panzer will still get its needs met.

Of course, the absolute limit of a given point would determine how much total supply could be distributed from a given point.

Something like that...I'm not stuck on a particular system, nor do I know enough about programming to know what is or is not easy to do. I just want to see a system that grants that the harvest is a function of weather, soil, and fertilizer rather than a function of the religious practices of the farmer.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

As I've said, my commute to work isn't completely satisfactory. It won't be until I get to go by helicopter. If you ignore all practical considerations (as you seem determined to do), then you can justify the most impractical choices. Discrete supply is both impractical and of little benefit for most normal subjects.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Hmm...

Well, let's leave Curtis in his room, and go find a donut shop. Call us on the radio if he tries to break out.

It may be reasonable to treat supply as the ability to distribute supplies from an essentially infinite stockpile. After all, countries rarely actually run out of bullets or beans. They just have problems getting them from the factory to the field -- and so it's their ability to make these deliveries we want to look at above all. Exceptions -- but those we can look at some other day.

That said, the current supply model provides a usable paradigm for deciding how hard it is to get supplies to a given point in the field. In other words, it tells us just how much in the way of resources delivering a given quantity of material to a given point requires. It takes eight times as much in the way of resources to get me those twinkies if I'm on top of Mount Lyell than it does to get them to me if I'm sitting in downtown Fresno. Something like that...

Then a military organization is naturally going to try to address the needs of the most depleted first. It's not going to listen to you whimpering about how you only have fifty percent of your authorized ammunition stocks if someone else has only ten percent. So there's a default routine for deciding how supplies should be distributed. To the starving first.

Finally, there's an absolute limit to how many supplies can come through a given point. For Antwerp, this limit is extremely high. For Dieppe, it's quite low. But there's always an absolute limit. (Parenthetically, I suspect it would be a good idea if this limit could be raised or lowered by event so that players can simulate things like the Clan Fraser blowing up in Piraeus and wrecking British supply to Greece in 1941).

Each unit would be assigned a value based on its transport weight (ideally, heavily modified to increase the 'cost' of supplying artillery.) This value and the location of the unit would determine how much supply would be consumed to give that unit a percent of resupply.

Supply would then be tentatively supplied. The program would look at how much supply was now flowing along the one best supply route to the unit in question and then modify the 'cost' by how much supply was flowing in total along that route. The algorithm would be similar to that used to determine traffic costs, and the usage could be brought up in an optional view that would tint hexes according to their supply usage. So you could see that keeping those ten regiments fighting at the end of that dirt road was really costing you. In connection with this, it would be nice to have more types of roads and rails. If nothing else, designers could have the ability to put in a road or rail two or three times over to increase the capacity of a given route.

Players would be able to over-ride the default distribution of supply -- similarly to the way they can set units to 'ignore losses' etc. So it wouldn't matter if everyone else was starving: the First Colins still get fed. Similar to what the Russians used to do when they were gearing up for an offensive in a given sector. Similarly, designers could give certain formations a statuatory preference in the editor. As they currently designate the replacement priority for a formation. {i]Trieste may be out of fuel for its trucks, but 21st Panzer will still get its needs met.

Of course, the absolute limit of a given point would determine how much total supply could be distributed from a given point.

Something like that...I'm not stuck on a particular system, nor do I know enough about programming to know what is or is not easy to do. I just want to see a system that grants that the harvest is a function of weather, soil, and fertilizer rather than a function of the religious practices of the farmer.

You're completely ignoring the most important consideration - transport: How much sea/rail/air/truck transport is available for supply lift. It's not built into current scenarios. It's a critical design decision that will have to be made by designers.

And note that replacements will have to be included in the transport process - or the port/rail/road capacities will be pointless.

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ORIGINAL: Foggy

Ah - at least my light bulb went on Thanks Colin - that seems to make sense - as far as TOAW4 goes, should this be adjustable by the players or the scenario designer in an ideal situation?

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Note that this is more or less the same supply system used by board wargames for decades. In fact, they were usually far more simplistic: Line of communication = in supply, otherwise = out of supply. Worked pretty well for most subjects

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Something like that...I'm not stuck on a particular system, nor do I know enough about programming to know what is or is not easy to do. I just want to see a system that grants that the harvest is a function of weather, soil, and fertilizer rather than a function of the religious practices of the farmer.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
In other words, the current system delivers supply to units in a nonsensical fashion. This port suffices to resupply one brigade at a given rate? Why, it must suffice to resupply ten brigades. Or the converse: since it can't support ten brigades, not even one brigade can be supported.

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Take CFNA. Well, actually, if you look at deployment maps for Crusader and such, you'll find a battalion or two down in the deep desert -- like at Kufra or Siwa. Now, you can't do that with the current system. Either military operations can't be allowed at all, or you could run two divisions out of Siwa if the notion took you. If this doesn't cripple your scenario it's just good luck, and if you've come up with a workaround, I doubt if it's completely satisfactory.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Okay -- now you're being constructive. What are your ideas on how to handle transport?

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Total bullets coming out of the ammunition plant in Kansas City are rarely the key element in determining whether 3/3 Marine does or does not run out of ammunition.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

To me it seems obvious that the most desireable changes to TOAW are those which give more power to the designer- and these are ipso facto changes which will require reworking of existing scenarios.

If we just keep pootling along with changes to gameplay, we will still be playing the same scenarios and they will still work in basically the same way. If we want to add to TOAW rather than just changing what is already there, we are going to have to get over it. Existing scenarios will still be there. They'll work as they always did. But you can now have something else- something better- as well.

This applies not just to this issue, but to almost every major issue pertaining to the revision of TOAW. Curtis has shown some interest in adding more ship designs. But Curtis- existing scenarios won't benefit from it unless they are revised!

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

To me it seems obvious that the most desireable changes to TOAW are those which give more power to the designer- and these are ipso facto changes which will require reworking of existing scenarios.

If we just keep pootling along with changes to gameplay, we will still be playing the same scenarios and they will still work in basically the same way. If we want to add to TOAW rather than just changing what is already there, we are going to have to get over it. Existing scenarios will still be there. They'll work as they always did. But you can now have something else- something better- as well.

This applies not just to this issue, but to almost every major issue pertaining to the revision of TOAW. Curtis has shown some interest in adding more ship designs. But Curtis- existing scenarios won't benefit from it unless they are revised!

The most desirable changes are the ones that have the broadest application. And there are a lot of Supply suggestions that would improve it for most scenarios while still employing the existing system. Cost vs. benefit has to figure in as well. Discrete supply handling is going to be a high cost item.

The ship design issue is clearly labeled as "revolutionary" in the wishlist. Obviously, the rational plan would be for simpler Naval Warfare changes that have more "bang-for-the-buck" (Naval Interdiction, for example) to be implemented first. Supply is the same.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Okay -- now you're being constructive. What are your ideas on how to handle transport?

See item 5.15 in the wishlist.

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Total bullets coming out of the ammunition plant in Kansas City are rarely the key element in determining whether 3/3 Marine does or does not run out of ammunition.

That plant is rarely where the supply point is. Take CFNA, for example. Each supply point is linked to the national supply net via tenuous sea links. They're not sources of infinite supply, nor are they constant in amounts arriving per turn. Or take Leningrad during the siege, etc.

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ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

To me it seems obvious that the most desireable changes to TOAW are those which give more power to the designer- and these are ipso facto changes which will require reworking of existing scenarios.

If we just keep pootling along with changes to gameplay, we will still be playing the same scenarios and they will still work in basically the same way. If we want to add to TOAW rather than just changing what is already there, we are going to have to get over it. Existing scenarios will still be there. They'll work as they always did. But you can now have something else- something better- as well.

This applies not just to this issue, but to almost every major issue pertaining to the revision of TOAW. Curtis has shown some interest in adding more ship designs. But Curtis- existing scenarios won't benefit from it unless they are revised!

The most desirable changes are the ones that have the broadest application. And there are a lot of Supply suggestions that would improve it for most scenarios while still employing the existing system. Cost vs. benefit has to figure in as well. Discrete supply handling is going to be a high cost item.

The ship design issue is clearly labeled as "revolutionary" in the wishlist. Obviously, the rational plan would be for simpler Naval Warfare changes that have more "bang-for-the-buck" (Naval Interdiction, for example) to be implemented first. Supply is the same.

..nahhh, the most desirable changes are those that give the player no cause, or limited cause, for complaint...

..at the moment, the current discrete system is a real dog's breakfast...

..since when did a load of boats batting to and fro, from A to B, get to be discreet anyway, what's discreet about an x'ty thousand tonne tanker ?...

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
The most desirable changes are the ones that have the broadest application. And there are a lot of Supply suggestions that would improve it for most scenarios while still employing the existing system.

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The ship design issue is clearly labeled as "revolutionary" in the wishlist.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Plus, now you've got me thinking about the Ohio. Need to get Mel Gibson to make a film. We can have a pig-headedly stupid British convoy commander. Necessary concession to get Mel to agree.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
The most desirable changes are the ones that have the broadest application. And there are a lot of Supply suggestions that would improve it for most scenarios while still employing the existing system.

OK: what are the major improvements which can be delivered to the supply distribution model in existing scenarios without any extra work being done on those scenarios?

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
But in TOAW, supply points are sources of infinite supply. If they can keep one brigade operating at a given level, they can keep a hundred operating at that level at a given point.

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It's an absurdity, ...

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and to have to waste time arguing with someone bent on defending it out of sheer pig-headedness is a further absurdity.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
OK: what are the major improvements which can be delivered to the supply distribution model in existing scenarios without any extra work being done on those scenarios?

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Certainly, nothing which addresses the particular problem that Colin has raised- which is the single biggest problem with the supply system.

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The ship design issue is clearly labeled as "revolutionary" in the wishlist.

And yet you're eagerly hammering away at it, even though the benefits would be felt in fewer scenarios than would be the case for supply improvements.