Army Tech Suggestions and Reserves Questions

[miketr]

For example the Germans fielded a max of 350 divisions +/- but as you point out size of divisions in terms of TOE let alone actual strength was all over the place.  The Germans fielded 12.5 million but by the end this included teens and old men wearing civilian clothes and just a arm band to identify them.  If we use our 25K per division we get roughly 500 divisions but again those were of all types.

I'm too lazy to look, but I would not be surprised that the 12.5 million figure is the total number of men fielded by the Germans in a period of 5 years (10 if the Spanish Civil war is included in those numbers).

1939-45, all 3 services.  Spanish civil war was only a few thousand Germans, the Italians sent entire divisions. 

Part of that number would be to replace part of that number that got killed and another part of that number would be to replace part of the number that was used to replace part of that number that got killed, etc.

Exactly, a big chunk of this was replacement, rather than expansion for new units but the Germans did both.

Also have no idea how well organized the teens and old men were when it comes to divisions of if they were just given a weapon and thrown at the enemy without any proper organization.

Volksgrenadier were the new replacement divisions raised in 1944 with lots of automatic weapons, they had good cores of vets and filled out from wherever they could get man power and standard training.  The Volkssturm raised in late 44 / early 45 had crap training beyond the most basic and were battalion level units.  The Volkssturm were last ditch militia raised in a final nihilist outburst of self destruction by the Nazis and their combat effectiveness was poor.  To represent such units is one of the reasons I wanted to add a combat effectiveness rating to the game but thats another issue. 

So long story short here, aircraft are undercosted relative to land units?

I'm not so sure about that.

I'll throw some simple figures against Mike's although all aircraft are not equal so it is not really correct. With the Combat Air Craft production share percentages Mike gave, I coupled the weight of a plane to it for each category.

Single = 3200 kg (Fw190A-8)
Twin = 9081 kg (Ju-88G-1)
Quad = 17005 kg (Fw-200)

Using those weights and your percentages, I end up with an average weight per plane of 5495 kg. Applying that to 90,000 planes, you will get 494,534,700 kg = ~486,699 tons of materials needed for all those planes. That would be equal to 487 BPs, which is about 54% of the BP number that Mike gave using (I assume) our rules. So based on those values, I would say that BP-wise planes are actually too expensive in Navalism. Although I do not have any monetary cost values, I would not be surprised if the 4.5 billion dollar cost Mike gave is too high as well for those 90,000 planes (but that I admit is pure speculation).

Still in the end it is just based on the values of one nation. If you are going to look at the US, Britain, Japan, Russia and Italy, you are going to end up with completely different numbers.

Therefore my conclusion regarding this matter: Whether right or wrong, just keep the costs of army and air units the way they are now. There are probably no right values and messing around with them may only make things more wrong than they already are.
[/quote]

Just beware as ,ost of these aircraft are going to use aluminum which had special manufacturing requirements.  I have always been warry of the BP concept being a 1 to 1 comparison of X amount of steel beyond for ships.

Lets have some more basic questions.

What do people think of the idea of aircraft having the attributes I suggested?

Air to Air Factor, Ground Support, Strategic, Naval and Range?  If we can have agreement on the WHAT we want them to do we can then debate the how and costs better.

Michael

[Walter]

1939-45, all 3 services. Spanish civil war was only a few thousand Germans, the Italians sent entire divisions.

Looking here...
http://spartacus-educational.com/2WWgermanA.htm
... it says that those ~12.5 million served in the army and not the other two services.

It also says that in 1939, Germany had 98 divisions and +1.5 million men so these units were created before the war started so should probably not be included in your figure of ~350 divisions and the costs because they were already created.

The Volkssturm were last ditch militia raised in a final nihilist outburst of self destruction by the Nazis and their combat effectiveness was poor.  To represent such units is one of the reasons I wanted to add a combat effectiveness rating to the game but thats another issue.

Yes, that is in the other thread which I never said anything about (although I probably should have).

Just beware as ,ost of these aircraft are going to use aluminum which had special manufacturing requirements.  I have always been warry of the BP concept being a 1 to 1 comparison of X amount of steel beyond for ships.

True, but with ships I would assume that the manufacturing requirements for 1880: Cast Iron would be quite different from the manufacturing requirements of 1915: All Imp. KC types. Still, the cost ratio for aircraft is $5 per BP and I feel that part of the extra $ cost would be because of the aluminium manufacturing requirements.

What do people think of the idea of aircraft having the attributes I suggested?

Air to Air Factor, Ground Support, Strategic, Naval and Range?  If we can have agreement on the WHAT we want them to do we can then debate the how and costs better.

Going all the way back to your initial post, I can agree with a tech for the navigation aids but not for the "Independent Area Bombing of cities", "Massed Area Bombing of cities" and "Logistical Infrastructure Attacks". I find it a bit ridiculous to need a tech for that. After all, we do not have a naval tech that determines whether or not we can bombard shore targets or a tech that determines whether or not our armies can use siege guns and what they can fire at and what they can fire with.

To other aspects. As I indicated, based on the German numbers (which is not quite the correct thing to do), I would say that we actually pay way too much for aircrafts so if we were just sticking to the current costs of aircraft for simplicity's sake, I would assume that the "Air to Air Factor, Ground Support, Strategic, Naval and Range" you mentioned would actually be included in the initial construction costs of the aircraft.

[miketr]

Going all the way back to your initial post, I can agree with a tech for the navigation aids but not for the "Independent Area Bombing of cities", "Massed Area Bombing of cities" and "Logistical Infrastructure Attacks". I find it a bit ridiculous to need a tech for that. After all, we do not have a naval tech that determines whether or not we can bombard shore targets or a tech that determines whether or not our armies can use siege guns and what they can fire at and what they can fire with.

I am suggesting having the following ratings for Aircraft
Air to Air
Ground Support
Strategic Bombing
Naval
Range

NOT the idea I made in the first post.

Michael

[Kaiser Kirk]

When considering aircraft, I don't think the raw weight of material is as relevant.
On a ship, much of that HQ product is relatively simple things like structural members, or hull plates, etc.  I would also hazard that the amount of waste from a ton of armor plate is less than from a ton of machined pistons.
On a plane, not only is the material from rarer ore requiring much more energy intensive to process, but I'm guessing the machining standards are a higher as an average.
So, while on a weight basis the planes are too expensive, I don't think that's a good measure.

I've read that the RAF put out a study concluding that 1 wing of bombers was equal in cost to a battleship over 20 years. Unfortunately I've never actually seen anything more. Somebody with greater search fu can go find it. Bah, where's Red Admiral when you need him ?

As for the Ratings ... I've had a similar idea but for individual aspects - speed / roll / wingloading / payload / armanent / range - techs like supercharger, self sealing tanks, etc would become available. Each tech level of airplane allows a certain # points in ratings. Up to the player to decide how each "model" will have them allocated, and then a std default model for those that don't want to. Actually figuring out how to do that.... um..

[Walter]

NOT the idea I made in the first post.

I just felt that I should mention it just in case you were thinking about bringing it up again.  :D

On a plane, not only is the material from rarer ore requiring much more energy intensive to process, but I'm guessing the machining standards are a higher as an average.
So, while on a weight basis the planes are too expensive, I don't think that's a good measure.

Actually right now we are at the very beginning of aviation so wood and canvas should actually be a lot simpler than any structural part of a warship.

If I have 1BP of armor plates, I have 1BP of armor plates and not a little bit less due to the fact that there is waste materials left. If I have 1BP of aircraft engine parts then I have 1BP of aircraft engine parts and not a little bit less due to the fact that there is waste materials left. Even if it is not a good measure (or the correct measure for that matter) to base it on the weight of planes, it is probably the simplest and easiest. And like I said, the cost ratio for aircraft is $5 per BP. The $4 you pay more for planes per BP compared to warships would most likely be due to the things you mentioned (rarer ore, more energy intensive).

I've read that the RAF put out a study concluding that 1 wing of bombers was equal in cost to a battleship over 20 years.

Being Dutch... does the 20 years apply to the battleship or the 1 wing of bombers or both? What about the cost? The cost of building it, operating it or both? That line looks pretty vague to me. ???

Bah, where's Red Admiral when you need him ?

Do we need him? He has caused a lot of headaches over at Wesworld and especially for snip with having to deal with the Italian mess. I doubt it would be a good idea to mention his name. :)

[Kaiser Kirk]

Walter-
Yes, RA could be difficult, but when it came to the RAF and aircraft in general he seemed to have an abundance of knowledge and resources.
He'd probably be able to speak to that RAF study. I've just ran across references to it several times over the years. My impression is its the cost of building and keeping in service those units over that time span.  I don't even know quite when it was, guessing mid 1930s, but having a detailed study on the cost of raising and maintaining bombers vs battleships would appear to be very on topic.
As for the BP, the discussion had added the weight of WWII german planes, not WWI biplanes.  The biplanes would indeed take less. Indeed, locally they harvested Sitka Spruce from 1919 until 1922 to fill a government contract for WWI biplanes. The contract may have left off a termination in case of peace clause... The number of planes built for WWI tends to leave me wondering what the final disposition of them all was.

[miketr]

A slight tangent.

Below is an combat system for land.

Once per month combat occurs in a province for each side.  Once turn order is set for the war it stays that way and never changes.  If units end action in province with enemy units they MUST attack. 

A d10 is used.

Die roll modifiers -1 if defender is in mountains or entrenched. 
+1 if attacker has air supremacy.
+1 if attacker has special units (armor / siege artillery / mountain troops in mountains / etc)

Armor table maybe used if attacker has twice armor factors of defender.

R result means defender retreats
A result means if defender retreats and this occurs the attacker may ADVANCE into another near by province, IE a break through has occurred.
Numbers are percentage losses for a side.  Keep in mind that for say 5:1 odds and attacker gets a 10 A result they loose 10% of their total force involved in the battle so in absolute terms compared the defender the losses are still going to be fairly high.

I am next going to put up an air combat table and then do an example 6 month campaign.  I will try to do that on Monday.

Michael

				Infantry Assault Table
				Attacker Loss
Die Roll	1:2	1:1	3:2	2:1	3:1	4:1	5:1	7:1	10:1
0	50	40	30	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	5 A
1	45	35	25	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	5 A
2	40	30	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	2.5 A
3	35	25	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	2.5 A
4	30	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	1 A
5	25	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	1 A
6	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	1 A
7	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	1 A
8	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A
9	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A
10	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A
11	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A
12	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A	1 A
				Defender Loss
Die Roll	1:2	1:1	3:2	2:1	3:1	4:1	5:1	7:1	10:1
0	5	10	12.5	17.5	22.5	30	45	60 R	100
1	7.5	10	15	20	22.5	35	50	70 R	100
2	7.5	12.5	15	20	25	40	55 R	80 R	100
3	10	12.5	17.5	22.5	30	45	60 R	90 R	100
4	10	15	17.5	22.5	35	50 R	70 R	100	100
5	12.5	15	20	25	40	55 R	80 R	100	100
6	12.5	17.5	20	30	45 R	60 R	90 R	100	100
7	15	17.5	22.5	35	50 R	70 R	100	100	100
8	15	20	22.5	40 R	55 R	80 R	100	100	100
9	17.5	20	25	45 R	60 R	90 R	100	100	100
10	17.5	22.5	30 R	50 R	70 R	100	100	100	100
11	20	22.5	35 R	55 R	80 R	100	100	100	100
12	20	25 R	40 R	60 R	90 R	100	100	100	100

				Armor Assault Table
				Attacker Loss
Die Roll	1:2	1:1	3:2	2:1	3:1	4:1	5:1	6:1	7:1
0	35	25	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	2.5 A
1	30	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	2.5
2	25	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	1 A
3	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	1 A
4	22.5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	1 A
5	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A
6	20	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A
7	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A
8	17.5	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A
9	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A	1 A
10	15	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A	1 A
11	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5 A	1 A	1 A	1 A	1 A
12	12.5 A	10 A	7.5 A	5 A	2.5	1 A	1 A	1 A	1 A
				Defender Loss
Die Roll	1:2	1:1	3:2	2:1	3:1	4:1	5:1	6:1	7:1
0	5	10	12.5	17.5	22.5	30	45	60 R	100
1	7.5	10	15	20	22.5	35	50	70 R	100
2	7.5	12.5	15	20	25	40	55 R	80 R	100
3	10	12.5	17.5	22.5	30	45	60 R	90 R	100
4	10	15	17.5	22.5	35	50 R	70 R	100	100
5	12.5	15	20	25	40	55 R	80 R	100	100
6	12.5	17.5	20	30	45 R	60 R	90 R	100	100
7	15	17.5	22.5	35	50 R	70 R	100	100	100
8	15	20	22.5	40 R	55 R	80 R	100	100	100
9	17.5	20	25	45 R	60 R	90 R	100	100	100
10	17.5	22.5	30 R	50 R	70 R	100	100	100	100
11	20	22.5	35 R	55 R	80 R	100	100	100	100
12	20	25 R	40 R	60 R	90 R	100	100	100	100

[Darman]

A slight tangent.

Below is an combat system for land.
-snipped-

We have one option for a land combat system that is currently being explored by the mods (at least, that's my most recent understanding), shoot me a PM and I can send you some links.  I'll gladly exchange ideas.  It looks good though