RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs)

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RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 4:40:41 PM

Ron Saueracker

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Well, in one of those oh so common massive stacking of units in base hex duals (this one at Yenen between 100,000+Chinese vs 150,000+Japanese), I have just gone one entire week where my 600+ artillery pieces have failed to register one casualty on my opponent. He, because he fires first, does all the damage. This is getting more than annoying. Initiative for bombardments is a bit much. How dumb does one have to be to always fire late? These are timed barrages and everyone starts their day at the same time.

He who has the initiative craps first.

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RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:03:53 PM

BlackVoid

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I agree that casualty rates for naval bombardments sometimes are a bit high. There are many times though, when the bombardment is not really effective, so there is variance.

BBs should be able to shut down airfields. An airfield cannot be dug in. The japanese at Lunga made piecemeal attacks with only a few large ships. Many times in the game players bombard with 4-6 BBs. This should crater an airfield nicely (repaired in a few days by the millions of US engineers anyway). Sometimes even large bombardments with many BBs yield very little result (look at PzB vs Wobbly AAR).

Again, this seems to be a complaint from allied players. Not surprisingly, they never complain about the ability of the allies to keep operational a large number of bombers almost anywhere and their ability to shut down airfields with a few raids.

THIS IS A GAME, balance is also important. If all the allied players would have their way, soon the only thing that will play Japan is the AI. I am all for historical accuracy, but it should apply to both sides.

Ground unit bombardment is broken, I fully agree. Naval bombardment maybe needs a few tweaks, but it is quite good.

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Post #: 32

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:19:08 PM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I have just gone one entire week where my 600+ artillery pieces have failed to register one casualty on my opponent.

Got a save?

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Post #: 33

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:29:36 PM

Ron Saueracker

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I have just gone one entire week where my 600+ artillery pieces have failed to register one casualty on my opponent.

Got a save?

Playing Mogami, he can verify this.

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Post #: 34

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:36:36 PM

moses

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WITP_Dude and I have been bombarding each other for 4 months at Chungking. There's around 4000 artillery pieces firing every turn. A normal turn has each side lossing 50 casualties or so although it varies and on occasion I've seen 200 casualties in a turn to one side.

This would probably be OK until I remember that these are pretty much all disabled. Are kills going to happen here in 1.5 as with retreats?

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Post #: 35

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:42:09 PM

moses

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quote:

Ron Saueracker:

He, because he fires first, does all the damage. This is getting more than annoying. Initiative for bombardments is a bit much. How dumb does one have to be to always fire late? These are timed barrages and everyone starts their day at the same time. He who has the initiative craps first.

I don't think initiative is the problem. It seems more to me like some kind of odds calculation is goning on. Your 600 guns will kill a bunch if I only have 6 guns. If I have 3000 guns your 600 will be ineffective.

I have seen bombardment attacks where the attacker takes losses and the defender losses nothing.

Simple test: Have a unit with 6 guns bombard a force with 1000 guns. I'll bet the attacker takes casualties and the defender is not touched.

< Message edited by moses -- 2/11/2005 9:42:14 AM >

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Post #: 36

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:44:25 PM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Playing Mogami, he can verify this.

A save would be more useful. I've never seen such a phenomenum

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Post #: 37

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 5:49:43 PM

Ron Saueracker

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Need your email address again, Steve. Lost it on this end.

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Post #: 38

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/11/2005 5:58:29 PM

mc3744

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Really, all it takes is a couple of PT boats or a handful of mines and no more bombardments for quite some time.

I'm afraid I can't agree with this.
In one of my games, PM before being invaded, has been shut down by naval bombardments. It had 600+ mines. Not one enemy ships in several days has it one mine

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Post #: 39

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/11/2005 5:59:57 PM

Ron Saueracker

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quote:

ORIGINAL: mc3744

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Really, all it takes is a couple of PT boats or a handful of mines and no more bombardments for quite some time.

I'm afraid I can't agree with this.
In one of my games, PM before being invaded, has been shut down by naval bombardments. It had 600+ mines. Not one enemy ships in several days has it one mine

Mines only seem to hit the odd ship in an invasion convoy. Haven't seen a mine hit on a BB TF yet.

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Post #: 40

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 6:02:54 PM

Nikademus

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PM sent

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RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 7:44:25 PM

2ndACR

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I do not know what is different, but in my game with Pzb, we are banging away at each other in Henchow and killing 400+ men with each bombardment. And this is straight artillery duels and not the deliberate attack method.

In Clarke, same game, we are having about the same result with bombardment attacks. This game was started fresh under 1.4.

I have 100,000+ men and 2000+ artillery at Henchow and he has about the same.

This is the first time I have seen bombardment attacks work like this. Any other time, we would only see 50-100 casualties.

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Post #: 42

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 7:49:15 PM

moses

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What terrain is Henchow? Any forts?

< Message edited by moses -- 2/11/2005 11:49:30 AM >

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Post #: 43

RE: Bombardment efficency (LCUs) - 2/11/2005 7:54:58 PM

2ndACR

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Not sure what the terrain is. I never paid attention. I have taken Henchow many times in the past and this is the first time I have seen bombardment casualties this high.

Pzb would have to answer what his fort level is. I have not attacked him yet. I am in my softening up phase there.

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Post #: 44

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/11/2005 11:47:48 PM

eltaco

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I had the Yammato and about 1 ca 2 cl's and 4 dd's to hit Rangoon....

maybe in 3 or 4 night runs i had well over 120plus planes

after about the 4th day i could manage about 30-50 soldiers hit ...

for ijn night time fleet bombardment is def the way

after losing to many betty's and sally's etc... with averages of 60-100 bombers

you will eventually lose them to ops' or flak even at 13k + alt

the thing is ...you dont want to lose the pilots with exp more than the planes .....will need later on

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Post #: 45

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/11/2005 11:56:03 PM

dpstafford

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quote:

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
Sorry, I do not attack with just an engineer unit. I usually use 1 engineer and 1-2 divisions per attack. That allows me to, if I have enough units there, to round robin the attacks every turn.

You are still "gaming" the system - reducing the forts on the cheap. And this tactic is supposed to be addressed in the next version.

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Post #: 46

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 12:53:26 AM

2ndACR

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I know that one is gamey. But if I could get decent artillery casualties the regular way, I would.

My game with Pzb is the only one I have seen yet where normal bombardments are brutal all the way around.

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Post #: 47

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 1:02:15 AM

Mike Scholl

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The game makes the same basic mistake a lot of games do. It assumes "Bigger is Better", which is
not generally the case in bombardments. Bigger naval shells were designed to pierce thicker armor,
not to kill more infantry per acre. When the air force is going after soft targets on the ground today,
they don't use a 2,000 lb laser guided SAP bomb..., they use a Cluster Munition. 1,000 two-lb bombs!

Heavy naval ordnance is useful for breaking things that are well protected. And in situations where it
remain on station and register it's fire it's quite useful for support. But it is not (except incidently) an
anti-personnel weapon. And certainly not in the manner in which the game handles "bombardment"
missions. The damage from these is quite out of proportion with that achieved in real life. 30-40 minutes
of area fire would put some holes in runways, might hit a parked plane or two, put holes in peoples tents
and buildings, and keep everyone awake. They were depressing..., but overall the real damage wasn't
that great. The Cactus Air Force was virtually always up and flying the next morning. The game allows
the bombarding force an awful lot of Night Movement (too much in my opinion), and makes this the most
effective "bang for a buck" in the game (also erroneous)---so players are abusing it. Why not? You get
the damage of conducting a 12 hour "shoot" with ground and air spotters, delivered in a few moments on
the fly and in relative safety from air attack. Every BB Admiral's dream. But mostly a pipedream as potrayed
in the game.

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Post #: 48

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 1:14:17 AM

moses

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There should be some way for two large forces to actually fight a little bit in situations where they are somewhat evenly matched. What we have now is a bombardment attack which is of no value against a large enemy force. Alternativily you have the deliberate attack which is suicidal when attacking an equal force in good defensive terrain.

Not that you should be able to defeat an equal enemy force but you should have some way to inflict casualties. An extreme example is my game with WITP_DUDE where we both have large armies in Chungking. We bombard each turn with insignificant effect. But for either of us to deliberate attack would cause massive casualties. So for 3 or 4 months the two largest armies on the map sit unable to inflict any losses.

Basically it would be nice in these situations to be able to at least exchange blows. So I understand 2nd ACR's view.

Clearly there is a problem that allowing one small unit to deliberate attack causes the bombarding units to get a massive increase in effectiveness. But I'm hoping that as they work on fixing that problem they keep in mind that there should be some way for units to fight which doesn't result in massive losses.

< Message edited by moses -- 2/11/2005 5:28:03 PM >

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Post #: 49

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 1:50:16 AM

Nikademus

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If the bombardment force is using AP shells, they are only going to waste their taxpayer's money...thats a given. One of the reasons the two Kongo's were chosen to bombard Lunga, (besides being more expendible and faster) was because the special anti-personell shells created were in 14inch shell size. (Yamato could have used HE but they would have been less effective vs the specialty anti-personell shells)

The initial bombardment did cause a tremendous deal of damage but it mostly fell on the airfield, destroying and damaging the exposed aircraft but leaving the infantry perimeter intact. It is arguable that had the perimeter line been the actual target and if enough shells fell on target, the carnage could have been deadly...at the very least the disruption and shock attack would have been substantial. However using that same example, the airfield would have suffered less or no damage as a result.

If the game makes any "mistakes" its in that it is ultimately a game of mathematics and formula. If you base a certain sized TF's effectivness based on a historical template, its only natural that adding more (or less) numbers to that base value will produce a linear scale of damage. Developers can 'muck' up things a bit by introducing random checks and variables that can raise or lower damage in the process. WitP does attempt to do this to a degree. The only thing missing IMO, is that there's no roll for complete or near complete failures for either air or sea bombardment. What that means is that if you take a certain # of aircraft (such as the uber-muscled B-17) or a certain number of warships and set them to ground bombard, you can via the math, expect a certain level of casualties. It would be nice if occasionally you get zilch.....such things did happen. The 2nd Lunga bombardment was a failure....most of the shells fell on the "Boneyard" which the Japanese had mis-id'd as an important target. Many an airattack has failed to score any serious hits as well.

< Message edited by Nikademus -- 2/11/2005 11:51:21 PM >

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 1:55:00 AM

pasternakski

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
the carnage could have been deadly

Don't wax flowery, Nik.

The problem with hitting the infantry in the lines would have been initial targeting and spotting. I doubt that the outcome of the ensuing land battles would have been changed.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 2:21:29 AM

denisonh

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The biggest problem in most of the calculations in all aspects of WitP is the linear scaling of effects.

That is where the unhistorical elements of a 6 BB bombardment groups inflict damage that is out of the realm of reality.

Most analysis of effects has a limit where the model holds true to historical results. Much like any regression model, outside the limits of the data used to make the model, the predicted values fail to represnt reality (i.e. the 6 BB night bombardment run - not many examples IIRC).

Combat modeling is difficult because the variance of results and limited data points to model effects. The linear assumption is a big one.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 2:48:20 AM

Andy Mac

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I have had 30,000 casualties in one night from a single 6 BB gp.

two days later 200,000 infantry surrndered because they were all disrupted from the BB's.

It really pissed me off as 30,000 casualties seemed excessive...

I just look forward to Allied BB's doing the same later in the war.

Andy

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 3:02:20 AM

tsimmonds

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Naval bombardment in WitP appears to have been designed to allow players to reproduce The Bombardment (Kurita's October 13-14 visit to Henderson Field). The problem is that this bombardment was exceptional; a result lying in a far more moderate range should be the rule.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 5:00:04 AM

denisonh

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Too true, scaling outcomes on a linear scale from a single significant instance is dangerous.

I think that the effects on ground troops at the location are way overdone. But the equations codified are linear and encourage players to put 8,10,12 BBs in a group and simply decimate a hex, much as Andy Mac has outlined.

Looking at daytime bombardments with more ships later in the war by the Alles obviousloy did not have this effect lends credence to doubts about the resolution of bombardment as a whole.

quote:

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Naval bombardment in WitP appears to have been designed to allow players to reproduce The Bombardment (Kurita's October 13-14 visit to Henderson Field). The problem is that this bombardment was exceptional; a result lying in a far more moderate range should be the rule.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 6:13:55 AM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
the carnage could have been deadly

Don't wax flowery, Nik.

The problem with hitting the infantry in the lines would have been initial targeting and spotting. I doubt that the outcome of the ensuing land battles would have been changed.

I wasn't suggesting it would have. For one it would have required a timing and coordination that the Japanese army found virtually impossible to do because of the terrain and their horrible logistical situation. I was just stating that if they'd had Yamato's fire control team scope out a few good sections of the perimeter and provided that data to the gunners about the battleships, those anti-p. heavy shells might have caused alot harm. The defenders were dug in but the fortifications were not of the same caliber as the hardened and dug in types seen on Okinawa and Tarawa. Hitting the airfield was the easier and more practical target though given the coordination issue not to mention that the attackers would have only been able to hit a small portion of the infantry perimeter.

Straight enough for ya?

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 6:24:18 AM

pasternakski

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
Straight enough for ya?

Right on it, bro.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 9:37:47 AM

Mike Scholl

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Nikademus. Those "special HE" rounds that the Japanese made a batch of in 1942
were not "Anti-personel" rounds. They were an attempt at a High Explosive Incindiary
round to increase damage to A/C. Marines weren't sinking the IJN's ships, it was the
A/C they hoped to destroy. And they didn't work very well in practice (about as successful as those "special 18.1" AAA rounds" for the Yamato were in 1945).

The game produces some rediculous combat results in bombardments. Rationalizing
them doesn't help. The game uses the mission profile of a middle of the night, high
speed, shoot and scoot, operation----but the damage profile is more representative
of a week-long deliberate bombardment.

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RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/12/2005 10:16:53 AM

BlackVoid

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Please try bombardments on Lunga with the historical forces Japan used. I think the results will be pretty close.

Japan screwed up strategy by using insufficient force at Guadalcanal. Also Guadalcanal was at extreme range for Japanese AC and this limited their recon effectiveness. Japanese officers were pretty upset by high command which restricted the force employed at Guadalcanal. The result: defeat. Most real word examples that are brought up here are results of a totally screwed up strategy: Japan comitting to piecemeal attacks at extreme range. Japan had no good intel on Guadalcanal, they employed insufficient force.

More BBs can hit a larger area - there is no point in aiming 6 BBs to the same area, so linear damage seems right.

The extreme high ground casualties should be toned down, especially against high fort levels, but I do not see a problem otherwise with bombardments.

Have multiple bases operational nearby and it will be impossible to hit all of them. If you have just one large base, the enemy can concentrate superior force and crush it. This is how it works and this is right. Think about what the enemy can do and make your strategy accordingly. Do not base your strategy on Japan screwing up (like they did IRL) and you should be OK.

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Post #: 59

RE: Bombardment efficency - 2/13/2005 12:48:33 AM

moses

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Here's an interesting bombardment. The Chinese bombard and kill nothing. But they take casualties.

This is why I think there must be some kind of odds calculation here somehow.

Ground combat at Kaifeng

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 35600 troops, 267 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 20764 troops, 240 guns, 7 vehicles

Allied ground losses:
49 casualties reported
Guns lost 11

< Message edited by moses -- 2/12/2005 4:49:26 PM >

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