Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

If you have to add masses of extra equipment to achieve this then obviously something has gone wrong.

I'm pretty sure it would be dense regardless. In my match, I recall I had a lot of combat units piled up in the rear areas to avoid density penalties. Reduce the levels of equipment in units and these go straight into the front line hexes- and you still have a dense battle.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

There is the minor problem that as Ben noted, actually taking up positions in this density is tactically suicidal. Not only will you suffer severe losses, but you won't hold the hex either, as the decimated units will tend to evaporate or retreat out.

This leads to one of two possibilities. Either the historical Germans were complete idiots, or your scenario doesn't simulate the reality of the situation very well. That is to say, even if the troops were densely packed in, they couldn't have suffered the kind of increased losses this behavior will produce in TOAW.

Personally, my guess is that your denials notwithstanding, you're running afoul of Norm's excessively rigorous density penalties. If you do pack the troops in, you'll get hammered -- and if you've made the units larger still, the problem will be still worse.

Really, the whole issue could do with some analysis and discussion. But we won't get it. We'll stall out (once again) over the issue of whether your scenario is or is not perfection incarnate.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

There is the minor problem that as Ben noted, actually taking up positions in this density is tactically suicidal. Not only will you suffer severe losses, but you won't hold the hex either, as the decimated units will tend to evaporate or retreat out.

This leads to one of two possibilities. Either the historical Germans were complete idiots, or your scenario doesn't simulate the reality of the situation very well. That is to say, even if the troops were densely packed in, they couldn't have suffered the kind of increased losses this behavior will produce in TOAW.

Personally, my guess is that your denials notwithstanding, you're running afoul of Norm's excessively rigorous density penalties. If you do pack the troops in, you'll get hammered -- and if you've made the units larger still, the problem will be still worse.

Really, the whole issue could do with some analysis and discussion. But we won't get it. We'll stall out (once again) over the issue of whether your scenario is or is not perfection incarnate.

I have an AAR that analyzes the issue about as thoroughly as it can be analyzed. The scenario simply works too well to be that far off. As usual, all you have are untested theories - dashed by that AAR.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

You're firmly dug in on the grounds that your scenario is just fine, others are doubting it, and any issues of more general significance are getting left on the side of the road about six posts back.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



I'm firmly dug in on the grounds that my scenarios be evaluated on how they actually perform. Not on how you think they perform, envision that they perform, or theorize that they perform....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay


And just for the record, I was not the one that brought "France 1944" into this discussion. That was Ben in post #36. I agree it was a diversion, and said so further back. But if my scenario is being discussed I think I have a right to join the discussion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I agree. That's the problem. Everything becomes an involuntary referendum on your scenarios. You emotionally invest yourself in whatever solution you wound up adopting, refuse to consider the validity of any other solutions, and interpret even proposing these solutions as criticism of your scenarios.

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Rather predictably, it DOES become criticism of your scenarios, because you advance your scenarios as evidence, insisting that (a) they work perfectly, and that (b) whatever solution you adopted in them is therefore (1) a completely satisfactory solution, and (2) the only possible solution.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

'This really comes across in Bo- Curtis' France 1944 scenario. When I tried that, it was virtually impossible to avoid density penalties. See, every unit had about twice as many active defenders as I would have expected.'

I would guess that's true. Do you dispute it?

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If you don't dispute it, are you claiming that (a) the Germans foolishly incurred massively increased losses in Normandy by packing their troops in too tightly, or are you claiming that (b) their historical assertions notwithstanding, they actually suffered from a massive glut of troops in Normandy, having far more than they needed to fight the Allies?

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It must be one of these two, since you have already asserted that (a) your design solution has no drawbacks, and that (b) Norm's density penalties are calibrated just fine.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Anyway...looking at this without reference to CurtCross' Normandy and also without judging whether Norm's original density values are universally valid, we can make several related points.

1. Density penalties in TOAW can be devastating. If an orange- or red-light stack is hit with a serious attack, the defenders will be slaughtered, and the hex will probably be lost to boot. I've seen this in both scenarios I've played where density lights are likely to go off in the first place.

2. Judging by his designs for Korea and his Normandy scenario, and his response to the whole 'Jeeps and Tigers' thing (showing my age here), Norm's assumption when he came up with these density parameters was that only actual combat troops would be represented in the units. He wasn't allowing for cooks 'n clerks.

3. Therefore, in any scenario in which there's any likelihood that troops will be crowded, adding in cooks 'n clerks will produce density penalties in excess of those originally intended -- and this change will have a major impact on how the scenario plays.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Now, there are a couple of further points I think are germane.

First, Norm wasn't God.  A lot of these conversations take the values Norm chose as if they were product of years of research, and as if Norm had a miraculous ability to render the fruits of those years of research on each question into code.  Flawlessly, without error.

It's curious how many of the resulting values are integers.  Not x1.72, or x2.31, but x2.  Go figure.  The more cynical of us might suspect that a lot of these values were chosen casually, and that Norm may not have even devoted years of study to determining what they should be.

So heresy or not, I'll come out and say it.  Norm is probably often wrong.  Naturally, one should be careful to test the effects of tinkering with the machine, but it's theoretically entirely possible it would work better with other values than the ones Norm chose.

Secondly, any careful historical reading will quickly make it apparent that Norm's density values are off for a lot of times and places.  One repeatedly finds complaints of troops being overstretched -- and the densities would still be setting off yellow or orange lights in a TOAW scenario.  Attacks are mounted on frontages and in situations that would virtually guarantee futile slaughter in TOAW-land.  And that's without cooks and clerks.

I think the 'correct' density value varies by time and place.  There's communications, tactics, and I suspect terrain.  A lot more troops can find adequate cover in a square mile of devastated city than can find cover in square mile of flat plain.  Similarly with forest, bocage, etc.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

"France 1944" and "Soviet Union 1941" do work quite well,

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I would guess it depends upon how many defenders Ben was expecting.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Looking at the Germans, the number of squads for a regiment - 99 all in - doesn't seem too outrageous. However the addition of 36 AT+ teams (I realise these are in the TO&E but the game sees them as a 10 man squad for density purposes) and 15 Jeeps increases the density effect of the unit by more than 50%. You could mitigate this by putting the AT+ into the squads and just scrapping the Jeeps.

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The Allies are worse. 231st Infantry Brigade has 210 combat squads and 145 active defender vehicles. I would have expected to see a maximum of maybe 144 squads or so, and very few active defender vehicles. I realise that most of these are tracked carriers which are in the TO&E, but they add a huge amount to the density penalty. The scout cars are another egregious point- these too are real, but hinder more than they help.

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The fact is I think you could dramatically reduce the number of squads assigned to the Allies, dump them in replacements- and actually make the Allies more effective, not less.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

The squads already have AT ratings. If I had plain squads without AT ratings, I could have incorporated the teams into them, but that wasn't the case. The jeeps affect recon levels. We're talking about actual combat elements that were in the unit.

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But why would I want to do that? They're effective enough as it is. I don't want to pretend that Normandy was the eastern front. Furthermore, there was another, independent, adjustment made to combat lethality by the Attrition Divider. That was set by trial-and-error.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Forgetting France 1944 for a minute, just assume the two forces have units with 36 combat squads each - nothing else. But those squads are 8-man with 1-LMG for one force, and 13-man with 2-LMGs for the other force. How do you model them?

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You were actually claiming that Norm was off by a factor of about 30%. Norm's values probably weren't the result of "years of research". But I'm guessing they have far more research into them than any figure from you.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay




...Now take the 13-man squad unit. It has 468 men and 72 LMGs. So you can form about 47 squads from it. That leaves 25 extra LMGs. So, as above, 21 Rifle Squads, 25 Heavy Rifle Squads, and 1 Light Rifle Squad.

In each case, you get the relative density, lift requirements, and combat strength correct. That's impossible to do if you try to force both units to have 36 squads. And note that we've still only modeled those 36 squads - no cooks or clerks, etc. were added.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Does your unit also have the exact same number of trucks as the real unit as well?

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No. Design for effect. Best solution would probably be a modified .exe whereby your AT+ squads and Jeeps are passive defenders.

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Really? Because it strikes me that the loss rates of soft equipment in this scenario are so high that it almost breaks the scenario. Perhaps if there weren't so many squads to kill, you wouldn't have to skew the game to kill them.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Anyway, clearly not what you've done in France 1944. You'd need British rifle squads of 22 men or something ludicrous.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

However, you now have 47 squads where Norm would have had only 36 squads.

Assuming Norm's original density formula is accurate, your density is now off by (47/36=1.31) -- 31 percent.

I'm not denying your solution isn't valid. I'm not even saying it's not the best choice -- given the situation you describe. I'm merely pointing out it can't be denied that it will skew the density.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

However, you now have 47 squads where Norm would have had only 36 squads.

Assuming Norm's original density formula is accurate, your density is now off by (47/36=1.31) -- 31 percent.

I'm not denying your solution isn't valid. I'm not even saying it's not the best choice -- given the situation you describe. I'm merely pointing out it can't be denied that it will skew the density.

Absurd as usual...

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

So charming. Anyway, it's obviously not absurd. Norm formulated his density requirements based on a certain way of constructing units. If you come up with another way that increases the amount of equipment in a given unit by 30% over what Norm would have chosen, you've obviously thrown off the density. Density penalties will kick in with a 30% lower concentration of units than Norm assumed they would.

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I'll sin here and refer back to your Normandy scenario. Conveniently, there is also a disc Normandy scenario dating back to when Norm was designing TOAW. Also conveniently, Ben has noted the number of squads and active defender vehicles you have in the 231st Brigade.

Ben counts 231 squads and 145 active defender vehicles in your 231st Brigade. The disc 231st brigade has 153 squads and 39 active defender vehicles.

And you think it's 'absurd as usual' to say that your approach will skew the density effect from what Norm intended. That you do so reflects on you, not me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I've explained my philosophy about the need for more than just the immediate frontline equipment for those situations where the forces are going to fight beyond the point where the frontline elements have been lost, and where major encirclements are going to take place. France 1944 was one of those situations.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

So charming. Anyway, it's obviously not absurd. Norm formulated his density requirements based on a certain way of constructing units. If you come up with another way that increases the amount of equipment in a given unit by 30% over what Norm would have chosen, you've obviously thrown off the density. Density penalties will kick in with a 30% lower concentration of units than Norm assumed they would.

Right. Whether it has 1 man or 1,000 men, a squad is a squad is a squad. And all squads have the same density. I can see you're going to stick to this lunatic nonsense to the bitter end. And you had the gall to accuse me of never admitting I'm wrong.

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I'll sin here and refer back to your Normandy scenario. Conveniently, there is also a disc Normandy scenario dating back to when Norm was designing TOAW. Also conveniently, Ben has noted the number of squads and active defender vehicles you have in the 231st Brigade.

Ben counts 231 squads and 145 active defender vehicles in your 231st Brigade. The disc 231st brigade has 153 squads and 39 active defender vehicles.

And you think it's 'absurd as usual' to say that your approach will skew the density effect from what Norm intended. That you do so reflects on you, not me.

Stop confusing what I'm doing in France 1944 with the technique I listed in post #76. That was only about how to model the 36 frontline squads. France 1944, on the other hand, does have extra elements added intentionally. That is a completely separate issue. What is included in the unit is not the same as how to model whatever is included.

And, of course, the disk Normandy 44 scenario was designed, not by Norm, but by the same team that designed the disk France 40 scenario. Care to discuss about how well that was designed? The disk scenarios aren't any sort of standard to follow.

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ORIGINAL: vahauser

The 231st Brigade had three combat battalions, right?  Even at 45 squads per battalion, that's only around 135 squads for the Brigade, right?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

I've explained my philosophy about the need for more than just the immediate frontline equipment for those situations where the forces are going to fight beyond the point where the frontline elements have been lost, and where major encirclements are going to take place. France 1944 was one of those situations.

I want to expound on this a bit more regarding encirclements. Earlier, I discussed how it was important to have more than just the frontline elements modeled if it was expected that rear-area elements were going to get involved in the fighting.

But the additional expectation of encirclements adds another justification: It adds a reward for achieving the encirclement. If all you model are the frontline elements, then an encirclement only traps those elements. That's not enough reward for the cost of driving the pincers through the enemy defenses and closing them on the pocket.

It also makes it unrealisticly easy to rebuild the trapped forces once destroyed. By losing only the frontline elements, the forces have not lost any more than they would have lost due to just having their frontline elements decimated via frontal assaults, etc.

It also makes it unrealistically easy to reduce the pocketed forces, since they lack all those rear-area elements - and won't be getting them via replacements while pocketed.

So, when modeling a topic that is sure to get wild, the need for modeling more than the frontline elements becomes important.