Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
...Regardless, none of the listed items require editing in order to be implemented, which was what I was saying.

That would also be true of a volume-based supply system. Presumably, just about all the values would defaults.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
This statement is simply untrue. I have referred to the Russian campaign, Northwest Europe, and North Africa. In what way do these rely on 'unrestricted amphibious operations'?

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I wish you'd quit wasting our time like this. You've got a totally indefensible position, won't admit it, and keep concocting nonsense to try to obscure the fact.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
No, it is sophistry. The ant unit phenomenon is a problem. The nonsensical supply paradigm is a problem. In no way does that imply the first problem has to be addressed before the second one can be.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

In contrast, physical supply handling will definitely require the scenario to be edited. Lift for the supply will have to be modeled.

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Since either the lift and/or the supply itself will have to be physically manifested on the map,

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Currently a unit at 1% supply can fight on regardless how far it is from a supply source. That amounts to allowing infinite length supply lines. To fix it we need a supply state inbetween "supplied" and "unsupplied" - call it "semi-supplied" or whatever. It will require units to periodically stop and build unit supply back to a minimum once beyond a max distance from a source. But they can't do that if the enemy can trivially suck all the supply out of them. Therefore, no one will dare cross that max boundary. We'll go from infinity to a barrier. Neither is correct. Both issues have to be fixed to fix the problem.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
If you choose to switch the "Advanced supply" option on, the game could automatically generate this figure based on the amount of equipment in your OOB, force supply level, and supply radius. This won't be appropriate for every scenario, but will be better than the current model for most of them.

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The program can also produce a default capacity for road and rail lines, based on the map scale. Again, this may not be ideal but it's better than the infinite capacity roads and rails currently have.

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Since either the lift and/or the supply itself will have to be physically manifested on the map,

I disagree. Supply movement will happen automatically as it does now.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
I agree the problem has to be resolved, but your solution to the problem explicitly works with the current system, and will have to be re-written when the new system is put together. Why not quantify supply first- and then fine tune it with fixes like these.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
...Regardless, none of the listed items require editing in order to be implemented, which was what I was saying.

That would also be true of a volume-based supply system. Presumably, just about all the values would defaults.

I just want to expand on this a bit, since I was rushed last time.

First, note that the listed items I referred to don't require editing of any kind in order to be implemented. The scenario file will remain exactly the same. Only the mechanics built into TOAW will change, and only the aspect of TOAW that those mechanical changes affect will be different for the scenario. All other aspects will work the same.

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In contrast, physical supply handling will definitely require the scenario to be edited. Lift for the supply will have to be modeled. Since either the lift and/or the supply itself will have to be physically manifested on the map, that will mean equipment items and physical units will have to be created for those tasks. Some sort of structure will have to be imposed on that process or it will get completely out of hand. (If each unit is supplied individually it could require a large number of supply lift units per combat unit - totally overwhelming TOAW's unit limits: 2000 combat units = 20,000 supply lift units, etc.). So there will have to be a hierarchy of lift units. That structure will require a human hand familiar with the details of the scenario. As will the selection of equipment types for the lift, and their initial placement on the map, replacement/reinforcement schedules for that equipment etc. Beyond that, schedules for supply quantities arriving at the source points will have to be devised. Once that's done, several iterations will have to be tested out via trial-and-error to get it to work in any acceptable fashion.

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Now, you have a loony-toon delusion that TOAW is going to make these changes automatically. That would be a coding task roughly on par with coding the AI from scratch - and work about as well. Regardless, one way or another, the scenario will have to be edited.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
This statement is simply untrue. I have referred to the Russian campaign, Northwest Europe, and North Africa. In what way do these rely on 'unrestricted amphibious operations'?

I'll ask again: Why is it critical for the Russian Campaign/FITE etc.? You've yet to do anything other than claim it to be true. It isn't.

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It's only true for Northwest Europe if you're allowed to invade anywhere. That's "unrestricted amphibious operations".

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The problem for North Africa is directly dependent entirely upon the limits of sea-based logistical communications.

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Where are the examples for scenarios that don't depend on modeling sea operations?

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I wish you'd quit wasting our time like this. You've got a totally indefensible position, won't admit it, and keep concocting nonsense to try to obscure the fact.

I wish you'd quit wasting our time like this. You've got a totally indefensible position, won't admit it, and keep concocting nonsense to try to obscure the fact.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



The problem for North Africa is directly dependent entirely upon the limits of sea-based logistical communications.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
No, it is sophistry. The ant unit phenomenon is a problem. The nonsensical supply paradigm is a problem. In no way does that imply the first problem has to be addressed before the second one can be.

Currently a unit at 1% supply can fight on regardless how far it is from a supply source. That amounts to allowing infinite length supply lines. To fix it we need a supply state inbetween "supplied" and "unsupplied" - call it "semi-supplied" or whatever. It will require units to periodically stop and build unit supply back to a minimum once beyond a max distance from a source. But they can't do that if the enemy can trivially suck all the supply out of them. Therefore, no one will dare cross that max boundary. We'll go from infinity to a barrier. Neither is correct. Both issues have to be fixed to fix the problem.

And let me add that that "semi-supplied" state (Item 5.9) is another one of those items I listed that are prerequisites for physical supply handling.

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ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



The problem for North Africa is directly dependent entirely upon the limits of sea-based logistical communications.

..what limits are these ?

..major ports, got em, enough shiping ? had it till it got sunk by the damned Brits allotting a sizeable part of their war effort to do just that..

..The USA didn't seem to have any great difficulty crossing the Pacific with large tonnages of supply in WW2 or Indochine 2, nor in improving/constructing port facilities..

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
This is not necessarily a good thing. See the changes wrought with early turn-ending. I'd give a hundred bucks to have the luxury of being able to have that only if I modified Seelowe to 'take advantage' of the improvement. As it is, I've been subjected to it, and now have to attempt to undo the damage.

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This would only be the case if you want to take advantage of the alternative system. As I've proposed, the old system could be left in place to be used if desired.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I don't play FITE, nor did I cite it as an example.

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With regards to the Russian campaign in general, I cited the example of the German attempt to take Murmansk as an example where the OPART supply paradigm would create problems if an attempt was made to incorporate this campaign into a scenario covering the rest of the theater. In fact, this has happened: see Decision in the North. But I guess that becomes another 'marginal scenario' now...

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Or if you just sort of don't worry about the significance of Antwerp, or frog-march the player into making exactly the same supply allocations that Eisenhower made, or...

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Further more, also untrue. See Kufra and Siwa. If you can send one battalion across the deep Sahara, you can send fifty.

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Handily, I just cited three. Murmansk, the actual supply problems experienced in Northwest Europe, and the deep Sahara in a North Africa scenario.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
The program can also produce a default capacity for road and rail lines, based on the map scale. Again, this may not be ideal but it's better than the infinite capacity roads and rails currently have.

This is way overblown as an issue. The true limit for that is congestion - already modeled by stacking limits and traffic penalties. Without congestion the supply capacity of a road is huge and rail is an order-of-magnitude greater.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I don't play FITE, nor did I cite it as an example.

Somebody cited FITE.

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With regards to the Russian campaign in general, I cited the example of the German attempt to take Murmansk as an example where the OPART supply paradigm would create problems if an attempt was made to incorporate this campaign into a scenario covering the rest of the theater. In fact, this has happened: see Decision in the North. But I guess that becomes another 'marginal scenario' now...

Or see "Soviet Union 1941". And do you seriously think that's a critical issue for the Russian Campaign? Finally, I don't really think that issue is actually addressed by supply handling. I suspect it had more to do with the need for special gear (including logistical gear) that far north. There just weren't that many divisions outfitted for it.

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Or if you just sort of don't worry about the significance of Antwerp, or frog-march the player into making exactly the same supply allocations that Eisenhower made, or...

Antwerp can be handled just fine by the current system. Capture it and you have a supply point much closer to the front. If you want, you can boost the Force Supply level at the same time, if that's appropriate. What's the problem?

As to prioritization, the current supply unit feature clearly models player supply prioritization. It just needs to be expanded a bit - say by allowing their effects to combine. That's far easier than having 20,000 supply packets moving around the map.

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Further more, also untrue. See Kufra and Siwa. If you can send one battalion across the deep Sahara, you can send fifty.

A problem that has to be solved via the implementation of a "semi-supplied" state, the supply radius issues in 5.8, and finally a boost to motorized movement on improved roads. Physical supply handling doesn't address that at all. If it still leaves us with just "Supplied" and "Unsupplied", then players can head out into the deep desert with their entire force. After all, they're "supplied" - they have a line of communications.

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Handily, I just cited three. Murmansk, the actual supply problems experienced in Northwest Europe, and the deep Sahara in a North Africa scenario.

And were wrong on all three. Really, the only place where physical supply handling is truely necessary is where extensive sea operations are critical to the scenario.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


I want to hit this some more, since it seems to be a bulwark of Colin's position...

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ORIGINAL: Karri

All I can say, is that this certainly is not something I want to calculate while thinking where to move my 1000+ units in starting turns of FitE. It would really make the game unplayable. Or to send my panzer deep thrust towards Moscow only to find out at the gates that last turn I forgot to change the supply adjustments to give them that extra gallon of fuel so that they'd actually get in the city.

There is indeed certain truth in some of the ideas, but while they critisise the current system, they do have flaws of their own aswell.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Meanwhile, I was thinking that it might facilitate matters to approach the new supply system as a matter of discrete supply units -- at least for purposes of working out what the mechanisms of the system should be.

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This has some advantages.

First, it's easy to visualize -- both for the designer and for the computer.

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In this connection, note that the player wouldn't have to see the supply units -- just the computer.

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The supply units would move up to where there was a need and disband. The supply points would be distributed among the units within a given radius from the point where the supply unit was disbanded in the manner of replacements. If, for example, there were twenty units each having an average of 400 of their 1000 possible supply points, and the supply unit was carrying 1000 supply points, each unit would receive 50 supply points.

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There are a number of advantages.

An attrition effect could be applied to supply units on the map at the end of each turn. This would nicely reflect the greater cost and difficulty of supplying at the end of a long logistical supply pipeline. For the Germans in an Eastern Front scenario, the supply units might appear at Warsaw. They'd reach the front before Moscow more or less at full strength, but be considerably weakened by the time they got to the Caucasus

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The supply units would of course simply retreat out of the way if enemy units move through their location. Perhaps they could even automatically disband. This could nicely simulate the disruptive effect of even one enemy unit getting into your rear. In any case, the supply units would have no effect on hex ownership.

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Rail capacity would work nicely. You can use all your rail capacity to ship combat units around -- but in that case, that much less will be left for Elmer to move his supply units. It'll cost you, in the end.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
...in connection with lift, I've long felt that there should be a general truck lift -- since many units were often moved by truck without actually being panzer grenadiers. I.e., they used trucks -- but not for tactical movement. If we had such a system, using this lift to drag around combat units would obviously also prevent the computer from using it to move supplies quickly.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
...in connection with lift, I've long felt that there should be a general truck lift -- since many units were often moved by truck without actually being panzer grenadiers. I.e., they used trucks -- but not for tactical movement. If we had such a system, using this lift to drag around combat units would obviously also prevent the computer from using it to move supplies quickly.

Of course, under that system, the trucks wouldn't take losses. And when lifting combat units they could possibly lift things they really couldn't lift - or be expended for things that didn't really need lift.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




I was calling them "supply lift units". The game already has something called a "supply unit". But, whatever.

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Actually it's a very difficult design and programming problem. There are mulitiple means of transport - sea, rail, road, air. Which to use, in what sequence? How to organize the hierarchy of units? They'll need objective tracks. It's further complicated by the fact that it will take multiple turns to get there, often by multiple means. Then the "lift" has to turn around and go back the way it came before it can pick up some more.

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They have to be visible to allow interdiction by air/sea/land, etc. And for player intervention in prioritizing. It's also best that the lift be physically realized so that it can take losses, and consume fuel, etc. There's no advantage, as far as the computer is concerned, to making them invisible anyway.

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The supply has to be physically carried to the individual units. That's where most of the congestion and enemy land interdiction will take place. And that part of the trip has to have its lift requirements and terrain effects modeled. That means hundreds, if not thousands, of more "discrete supply units". And note that this method eliminates HQ effects. That needs to be added back in somehow.

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What's the advantage for that specific subject? This could be far more easily modeled via the current system just with some refinements to the supply radius thing. It would also require the implementation of a "semi-supplied" state.

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The only real advantage would be in the cases I've stated: where modeling sea operations are critical to the scenario.

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By the way, how do you propose to handle "supplied" and "unsupplied" status?

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??? They should be subject to combat just like any other unit. Don't you want to allow the RN to intercept and sink the supply convoys to England? Then there's the subject of escorts.

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Interdiction complicates things. To review - force supply is currently reduced by the enemy interdiction level. But now, supply is going to be physically interdicted like unit movement. So the current interdiction supply reduction will need to be discarded. To then get things right, the rail cap (like the sea cap & air cap, etc.) may need to be modeled via physical rail lift units - made up of physical trains, etc. Cargo ships, & transport planes, too.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Why would it have to be rewritten? Units will still be evaluated for supplied/unsupplied status, and those states will have the same effects. Same for semi-supplied.

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Let me add that the Ant unit problem is universal - it affects every scenario - not just scenarios on the margin.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Or see "Soviet Union 1941".

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Antwerp can be handled just fine by the current system. Capture it and you have a supply point much closer to the front.

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A problem that has to be solved via the implementation of a "semi-supplied" state,

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

First, roads. Let's say we have 5-ton trucks doing 20mph = 30fps, spaced 200 ft apart. That gives a rate of 45 tons per minute = 32,400 tons per 12hr day down the road = 972,000 tons per month.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright
In any case, working out the mechanics for physical units at least defines the process and makes it tangible. Notice how it's gotten you arguing about the specifics of reform instead of just claiming the current system is fine.

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I don't see why the player has to see the units to make interdiction possible.

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As to what's an advantage, thee point is to not have one's view of the battle cluttered up with eight hundred supply units making their way here and there. Presumably, these units would be left visible during development. Perhaps you could even making viewing them an option. However, most players would rather just focus on the fighting.

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One could have the supply units head for the HQ's. That would actually model the effect of HQ's quite nicely.

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No it can't. In point of fact, when the Germans thought they were going to succeed in busting across the Caucasus, they formed one specialized brigade-sized unit for exploitation: they knew -- even if you don't -- that while they might be able to keep one unit in supply over such a distance and such terrain, they couldn't keep a hundred in supply under such conditions.

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The only real advantage would be in the cases I've stated: where modeling sea operations are critical to the scenario.

Now this just isn't true.

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A unit would always use some supply. Very little, if it wasn't moving and wasn't fighting. but some. If the supply being consumed exceeds the supply being delivered, the unit starts having problems. In this connection, note that 'surrounded' units that weren't being actively attacked withered away very slowly.

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Point is, one wants to be able to move and to fight without dealing with all those supply units.

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Actually, the current 'hex ownership' paradigm could be replaced by having to pay the cost if the hex you're entering contains an actual supply unit. Or not -- the whole hex ownership penalty should go, anyway.

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This doesn't follow. You could still interdict rail movement of 'real' units even if you were also interdicting specific supply units instead of just globally reducing enemy supply. In any case, if you also want to model cargo planes, I'm all for that. As an option, of course.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay
Of course, under that system, the trucks wouldn't take losses. And when lifting combat units they could possibly lift things they really couldn't lift - or be expended for things that didn't really need lift.

There's no compelling reason that I can see that designers couldn't have a 'truck capacity' rating that could be used by chosen units to engage in 'embarked' movement along roads.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Your system for determining if a unit is supplied, semi-supplied or unsupplied depends on a certain system of supply distribution; one which is based on supplies being distributed equitably but ever more sparsely as you move away from the source. If you have one unit out at the extremes, then it can probably be supplied anyway- all the trucks just go to that one hex rather than a few going to every hex even though most are empty. But if you have a hundred then, yes, they're going to be semi-supplied.

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Let me add that the Ant unit problem is universal - it affects every scenario - not just scenarios on the margin.

Ah- like the supply problem then.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Or see "Soviet Union 1941".

Now THAT is a scenario on the margins.

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Antwerp can be handled just fine by the current system. Capture it and you have a supply point much closer to the front.

But Antwerp didn't just mean the supply lines were shorter- it meant that there was more supply on the whole. During August and September, some Allied units simply sat in Normandy- there just wasn't enough supply for them. This would never happen with the current supply system. They'd be right up the front getting as much supply as everyone else.

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How about the Atlantic Ports? Why does the Allied player send detachments to reduce them, ...

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...and why is the German player obliged to garrison them?

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I have the suspicion you just use a VP bonus for this in your scenario. Hardly elegant.

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NO. In the real world, one battalion at Siwa will have full supply. Twenty will have no supply. In your system, you can have the whole bloody Afrika Korps down there and they'll still be on "semi supply"