janh
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Joined: 6/12/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: turtlefang
As far as the JU88 flying fuel goes, you could do it but you really need to ramp up the losses due to wear and tear on the air frame.
To be honest, even if you upped the wear and tear losses for the bombers by 30%, it wouldn't be much of a problem until 1942 , when I'd start to regularly use the bombers in their original role. In my last GCs due to completely shutting off bombing missions with a few exceptions, losses are so low that my pools remain well filled.
Might be that the amount of fuel dropped could use a further "decreasing odds" modifier. Someone above mentioned that fuel drops were usually performed as stop-gap measure to retain tactical movability, and ability to defend -- and not to make another 200 miles progress. So what would seem right is what Trey implied, much less penalties if isolated or in poor supply state (mud), but with a minimum fuel amount. That would also give pocketed Soviets more stiffness, and hence more need to use air support to reduce pockets. WitE2...
quote:
ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
... Trey has pointed out that air is important, and some of the current WitW system has incorporated impact of interdiction on movement/supplies/disruption. Exactly how this might impact isolated units is still to be developed in WitW. My impression has been that ground support can have a substantial, if somewhat hidden impact on combat through the disruption it causes to ground units (as opposed to outright losses). ...
The words "somewhat hidden" caught my attention. Maybe just my opinion, but a lot of confusion seen on this board in the past year or two stemmed from factors that were actually accounted for by the engine, but were "(somewhat) hidden". Maybe the casual gamer would like it better that way, less cluttering with details and such, but hiding too much seems to be as much a source of confusion as showing every little detail?
I would have especially one example, where I would favor the game to "speak" a little more to the player: combats. It would be great to have combat reports, like in AE exported to a txt file, or maybe to look up after turn resolution with a button, that would give the full combat messages as if you watched on highest detail levels. I often watch them on level 2, that takes long enough for a turn -- but sometimes results are so odd in the end, that I would wish that I could rewind and watch that specific one unfold with all details. Just a thought...
Another thing I would advocate is making these details more "human readable", aka not have a decimal fatigue, disruption, experience or leader skills scale, but actually attributes a human would use if he'd view a strung out unit and needed to report back: sort of "low, medium, high, very high" disruption, etc. Would change the feel of control somewhat.
quote:
ORIGINAL: turtlefang
- Air kills on tanks were over reported by a factor of 10 to 15
- Soft vehicle kills were over reported by a factor of 5 to 10
That brings up an interesting point: FoW. Actually a lot of things were done they were because people missed the hindsight we have 70 years later. A lot, there have been so many examples here or over at the AE boards now where one wonders why people did so apparently foolish or inefficient things.
Ideally, without hindsight, this would mean FoW on combat resolution with air support could easily overstate losses that amount (not sure what the FoW contribution is now, but I think is it much smaller, right?). We'd probably use it extensively then. Likely in 41 the true losses "apparently" inflicted by Luftwaffe are indeed higher in comparison to those in 43 or 44, because as someone mentioned above also damaged and on the retreat abandoned tanks might count in as well etc. So there is a discrepancy, but also a success rate. I'll speculate a bit now, but I'd guess what also happened in the East was the following: Over time one did change faster than the other: reports remained overstated by pilots, a bit like during the transition from France to the Battle of Britain. But losses for the Soviets probably went down a lot once the situation stabilized. Even if the officers and staff reading the reports were surely aware of the exaggeration, they probably couldn't catch that change and the true size of this problem. Else, I would think, the Battle of Britain hadn't been fought the way it was, and half the Luftwaffe had been on fuel transport duty by September 41... Anyway, without our hindsight and such a FoW implying high enemy losses, we'd also keep using LW in CAS missions later. But unfortunately we have that knowledge now, and even if one upped FoW in WitW or WitE, we'd still not fall for the trick. However, back then this was probably one reason why Luftwaffe could never have been transformed in a flying supply train -- "reportedly" inflicted damage surely was a good reason to back up privileges and position (the effect of disruption aside).
I suspect it is somewhat similar with ground combat. Pelton and MT are presently doing the exact opposite, number crunching for victory. With a greater FoW (esp. no accurate view of enemy total strength every turn!), and an FoW that would have an own dynamic over time, it would take you longer to realize whether the true losses are still following that typical FoW factor and whether it is time to stop attacking... A little more FoW wouldn't do harm, and FoW that may in size also change over time... I can't say whether Officers back then had this timely and accurate information on own losses and also rather accurate information on the enemy losses and captured stuff, but my impression from reading is that there was a lot more lag than "<7 days max", one turn before the numbers converged on something more accurate. It took them at least 2 weeks after Kiev's pocket faltered to come up with a good total. Then add on top that all those losses and gain today are much debated, and often overstated by the reporting side, I feel the game could use more Fow even on own figures.
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RE: Nerfing the LW fuel drops. - 
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