Military Effectiveness

[miketr]

Just to split this off from the other thread.  I do think we should have something for this to represent troop quality.

In General Terms this is how I see things.

Germany
France
Russia / Austria (A case could be made that Russia is better than Austria but I chuck that up to how bad the Austrians Leadership was)
Italy

Unknown where British fit into this as have they done the reforms from Boer War?  So best case they are better than Germany worst case they are no lower than France.

US Army was small and underpaid, I would say that they are some place between France and Russia.

Ottoman Empire they got thumped repeatedly for oh... the last 200 years but game history has them having a reform so... equal to Russia / Austria? 
China and Japan?  I don't know...  China my get reaction is bottom of the heap.  Japan...  Was a WAG I would say better than Russia but perhaps not as good as France? 

Michael

[snip]

Just and FYI, I moved this out from the sub-forum where the current AH bits are being planned out. Subject originated there.

Anyway, it was the original intention to have troop quality be a modifier included in combat calculations. I dont recall droping that part out, but we sort of disconnected on finishing that system.

[Darman]

There has been no Boer War, to the best of my understanding. 

[Darman]

Correction, I may have said there was a war, but the first Boer War ends in essentially a stalemate.  There was no second Boer War, and thus the major reforms took place after that.  To reflect the out-of-date notions of many of the British Army cavalry officers all my English cavalry units are 1 tech behind the infantry. 

[miketr]

The suggestion I made is for there to be an army effectiveness statistic for each nation.  Range to be between 1 and 100, its a percentage system.  Your troops get whatever your effectiveness is as a modifier to your combat strength in combat. 

Nation X with a 1895 Corps has a base of 10 but their military effectiveness is 55% so that corps only has a combat rating of 5.5.

IE 10 x .55 = 5.5.

Moderates can add values depending on circumstances.

Michael

[snip]

Im not sure we would go to quite that extreme. For one, it makes game balance a lot harder. Should such a modifying factor come into play, its influence will not be super large.

[The Rock Doctor]

I'm assuming the Ottomans had a degree of luck on their side during the war with the Austrians; I think it's still generally reasonable to assume they are approximately in-line with Russia or Austria.

From the "How-To-Do-It" perspective:  During the N3 days, I borrowed GDW's "Proficiency" system from their Third World War board game series.  Units were assigned a proficiency value based on their training/compentency/professionalism/unit integrity:

-->9:  The best of the best, such as the British Royal Marines and some Israeli brigades
-->8:  British Army of the Rhine, USMC; French special forces
-->7:  US/French/German units; Soviet special forces and "Shock" units
-->6:  US National Guard, Italian army
-->5:  Soviet second-tier units, Greek Army
-->4:  Iraqi army, German landwehr, Austrian territorials, Soviet reservists
-->3:  Saudi army, Iranian Revolutionary Guard
-->2:  Large militias like the Iranian Tudeh

When calculating battle odds, you didn't just compare attack and defence factors; for every two levels of difference in proficiency, the odds shifted once toward the more proficient side.

I'd suggest that we could simply find some numerical factor to represent this "How Good Are They" factor, and apply it against either the maintenance or purchase cost of an army unit.  A unit with Mike's 55% example might have the same gear and manpower as a unit with 100%, but they'd have only 55% of the upkeep cost.  On the other hand, lack of training, live-fire exercises, and profressional soldier rates would mean they had only 55% of the combat effectiveness.

[miketr]

If we want it to be at all realistic then it needs to be that big.  If you are thinking of only adding a say a 20% bump or the like then don't bother IMO.

Look at it this way in WW1 and WW2 the Germans carried the weight of the bulk of the fighting for their respective alliances and in terms of raw numbers of troops involved OVERALL, more than a little hand waving here, it was 2 to 1 against the Germans.  Yet it took 4 and 6 years for the rest of the industrialized planet to club them to death. 

A more modern example look at the various Arab Israeli Wars or 1st Gulf War the Arab troops despite have top of the line gear suffered hugely one sided defeats.  There were various reasons as to why these defeats occurs but in general terms the IDF and later the Western Coalition vs. Iraq just were way more effective than the troops they faced.  In same cases it was like martian invaders in terms of the difference. 

Right now if Germany takes on France and Russia without a big shift Germany is going to loose and loose badly.  The number of troops is hugely against it and you need a fairly big weighting factor to make up that difference. 

Michael

[snip]

The problem is mike, even tho we can guesstimate approximate ratings for the start how do we handle them shifting? How do we now accommodate the shift from nations now needed huge armies to make up for there quality defecentcy? For better or worse this is a game and needs to have some sort of balance. Was RL a balanced affair, no. Can we do something to slightly randomize the quality of troops, yes. But for the sake of balance we cannot throw the default numbers totally out the window.

[miketr]

To handle shifting them we need a system.

Most nations have the armies they can afford not what they want / need. 

I am not suggesting randomization of troop quality, that would be worse than now.  Military attaches would attend army maneuvers and everyone had at least some idea of how bad or good each other was.  There was a tendency to over estimate the Russians and Austrians for example.

I will think on it.

If the mods don't want to deal with that is your choice and I will drop it.  I am not suggesting a change would be quick or easy just that it would make things more realistic. 

Michael

[Tanthalas]

*checks his Coffee* nope I havnt been drinking yet, and im the only one here so noone sliped anything into it...

all that said, I actualy find I agree with mike on this one (seriously ME infavor of somthing MORE COMPLEX mark it on your Calender people this isnt very Common).  As mike said in WW1 Germany realy was that much better than well virtualy anyone else in the world, Accept ofcourse US Marines (Come on you knew I had to go there)

[miketr]

I understand where the mods are coming from we don't want to turn this into some type of half baked version of Advanced Squad Leader but I would like a little more detail than say...  RISK.  There is a happy medium, hopefully. 

Michael

[snip]

Im looking into a system right now that would tie this into the status of the unit (Reserve, Active, Mobilized) and the amount of time the unit has been there. The idea is that it introduces a variable that does not require all sorts of new rules to deal with. My though is this, seeing as our techs tend to keeping large reserves, why not make some sort of reward for keeping troops active or mobilized? Creates the sort of flavor you are looking for, makes there be a choice of the correct rout as opposed to the rules dictating one (do I want a smaller army that is higher trained or a larger one with lots of reserves?), and keeps money in the equation without adding more crap into the reports. It looks like this for now, but note this does not necessarily apply to newly created units the first turn after they finish (yadayadayada green troops).

Reserves: Given the nature of reserves, it is presumed that they have less training time then active units. If the units are ordered into combat without being moved up to Active status, they will only function at 50% of there effective value. In addition, it takes time to come to the same level of training therefor, for the first 2 turns (one year) after moving to active status, they will only function at 75% of there effective value. A reserve unit seeing combat gains no additional benefit and a unit transitioning to Reserve looses any benefit it may have had.

Active: Seeing as this is the baseline, units here are considered to be 100% effective at all times that they are not under transition.  Active units seeing combat may gain 5% additional effectiveness per turn up to a cap of 120%. They keep this bonus effectiveness until they are upgraded or repaired.

Mobilized: Keeping a mobilized force has benefits. Mobilized units function at 125% effectiveness. It takes two turns (one year) for a unit transitioning from Active status to gain this benefit. During the transition, the unit functions at 115% effectiveness. Mobilized units seeing combat may gain 5% additional effectiveness per turn up to a cap of 145%. They keep this bonus effectiveness until they are upgraded or repaired.

[miketr]

My suggestion on how to handle military effectiveness.

1) Reduce current cost of military units in terms of up keep by some number.  Let's say by 1/3, so that upkeep of a 1895 Infantry Corps is now 0.4 / 0.2 / 0.04.

2) We add in a new cost, military effectiveness upkeep.  To keep your units at steady state, you need to pay 50% of your units upkeep.  (OOC Funny how this results in no change in costs over all... ;) )

3) For every multiple of 50% of the new upkeep cost you pay above the amount you pay in #2 your military effectiveness goes up by 1% one year later. No more than a 5% in a single year.

4) We come up with some method to handle what happens if you increase size of your army or if you under pay.

This is just a quick response, numbers can be moved as people think best.  What I really think we should do is junk the entire current army upkeep costs and come up with new numbers but I have been saying something like this since back to N3 so this is nothing new on my end.

Michael

[snip]

Creates more bookwork then necessary IMO.