For God's sake, somebody spike those guns

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition

User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

ORIGINAL: paradigmblue


Alfred, I have immense respect for the level of knowledge you have of this game, and the fact that you share it with others.

However, when reading your posts, it is sometimes hard to concentrate on the information provided because the tone can be interpreted as condescending or adversarial. I hope you continue to respond to questions like these and help those of us that don't have as deep of an understanding of the game as you do. I know that it can be deeply frustrating when people don't understand what you're explaining to them the first time, and you have to explain it again. When writing those responses, please remember that it costs nothing to be kind.

I hope people will forgive a little annoyance on my part here, but what you say Paradigm has been pointed out to Alfred on numerous occasions to no noticeable effect
User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

However, in the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that I'm not above being an ar$e on occasion [:D]
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

I haven't been satisfied that your core question--how did supply end up at 30 after one day?--has been answered. Having some time this morning while watching the news from France I did a short test. Like all testbeds in the game you have to understand it might be directional, but can't fully reproduce the hundreds of variables in your game. Still, the results were interesting.

My main object was to see if I could reproduce your actual supply on hand performance seen in your original post.

Test:

1) I used a testbed game I have saved for these things. It is a Scen 1, latest beta. All Allied and Japanese forces in all three dimensions are stood down with no replacements or upgrades on. I only turn on the specific units I'm looking at. The load was in Head-to-Head mode. The initial measured move was 11/4/1942. 3-day turns were run for about a month prior to that in order to get air and LCUs into the proper hexes and in the proper replacement posture.

2) I positioned one Nate, 1 Ida, and 1 Lilly unit at Kaifeng. I moved in more than enough Av support. They were left to sit without flying while I got the Chinese into position.

3) I ordered the 91st, 3rd, 57th, and 76th Chinese Corps to the same hex shown in your initial post. This is NE of Sian on a yellow road. They had replacements off. By the time of the initial real move one had local Forts of 2, the other three had level 3. All from internal engineers. There were some disabled devices, and all had no disruption.

4) I ordered the 6th Base force, the same one you used, to Sian. I set replacements and upgrades to Yes. The unit was alone in the Sian base. I let turns run for about three weeks until the TOE was 100% filled out with all devices, including all AA lines. I then Move moded and walked the unit to the test hex. It arrived with the four infantry corps and I let it rest for three days. Replacements off, upgrades off. It began to dig local forts, but I did not note supply data on these days. At the end of three days it was at full TOE. 0 disruption. Fatigue 2. Experience 43.

Initial Supply: 163
Initial Supply Required: 161

5) I then ran seven 1-day turns. Air attacks were identical for the first five days. Altitude was lowered from 9000 to 1000 ft. for the last two. On every day animation showed AA fire. On every day the IJA flew, and on every day the CR showed only infantry corps being directly bombed. On no day did the succeeding day show the 6th BF with any disruption, any disabled devices, or any change in fatigue or morale. On the fourth day 1 level of local forts appeared and remained at that level through day 7.

6) Supply results:

Day 1:

Supply: 163
Supply Required: 161

Day 2:

Supply: 249
Supply Required: 241

Day 3:

Supply: 249
Supply Required: 241

Day 4: (fort level 1 appeared)

Supply: 265
Supply Required: 257

Day 5:

Supply 257
Supply Required: 177

Day 6: (air attack altitude to 1000 ft. 1 Lilly and 1 Ida destroyed, several damaged)

Supply 260
Supply Required: 257

Day 7: (air attack at 1000 ft. 1 Ida destroyed, several damaged)

Supply 266
Supply Required: 257

The final status of the infantry corps showed some disabled devices in each, some more than others. No disabled devices present in the 6th BF. Disruption, fatigue, and morale were the same as before the test.

Conclusion: I cannot come close to reproducing the supply behavior your one turn shows in your OP. I saw no supply consumption numbers anywhere close to what you saw when the next day showed 30 on hand. I'm still not claiming it's a bug. I am saying I don't understand the difference in our relative data.
The Moose
User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

I think I can explain why you are not seeing it.

The only way to tell what supplies have left a unit in the previous day is to make sure that it does not draw supply to replace any usage.

If you have the unit in a base or within 15 'supply point' range (3 points for a road hex, 5 for trail, 10 for clear etc) it will draw supplies every day and you will see no reduction.

Also - if Sian had supplies then it would supply that unit daily (IIRC). This happens even if you set the base to stockpile supplies. Units take precedence over the base toggle.

The fact you are not seeing any days in the red pretty much indicates that the unit is drawing supply daily as even at rest it will use some supply each day
User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

I only noticed what was happening in my game after Sian had been run completely out of supply........by the base units there using in great big lumps on airraids

To have any chance of replicating this, it would be best to get the units supply route up to the 40-50 pt range. Then it will only pull supply a couple of times per week.
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Yakface

I think I can explain why you are not seeing it.

The only way to tell what supplies have left a unit in the previous day is to make sure that it does not draw supply to replace any usage.

If you have the unit in a base or within 15 'supply point' range (3 points for a road hex, 5 for trail, 10 for clear etc) it will draw supplies every day and you will see no reduction.

Also - if Sian had supplies then it would supply that unit daily (IIRC). This happens even if you set the base to stockpile supplies. Units take precedence over the base toggle.

The fact you are not seeing any days in the red pretty much indicates that the unit is drawing supply daily as even at rest it will use some supply each day

Yes and no. Sian has supplies in my test, yes. But I saw no consumption figure day-to-day even close to your 271. And supplies should not flow up a yellow road every day.

Edit: Sian on the initial day has supply of 12,692 with Stockpiling On. Stockpiling does allow LCUs to pull supply, but it should not move every day.
The Moose
User avatar
Lokasenna
Posts: 9303
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2012 3:57 am
Location: Iowan in MD/DC

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Lokasenna »

I am not convinced that building forts in the woods consumes supply.
User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
ORIGINAL: Yakface

I think I can explain why you are not seeing it.

The only way to tell what supplies have left a unit in the previous day is to make sure that it does not draw supply to replace any usage.

If you have the unit in a base or within 15 'supply point' range (3 points for a road hex, 5 for trail, 10 for clear etc) it will draw supplies every day and you will see no reduction.

Also - if Sian had supplies then it would supply that unit daily (IIRC). This happens even if you set the base to stockpile supplies. Units take precedence over the base toggle.

The fact you are not seeing any days in the red pretty much indicates that the unit is drawing supply daily as even at rest it will use some supply each day

Yes and no. Sian has supplies in my test, yes. But I saw no consumption figure day-to-day even close to your 271. And supplies should not flow up a yellow road every day.

Edit: Sian on the initial day has supply of 12,692 with Stockpiling On. Stockpiling does allow LCUs to pull supply, but it should not move every day.

Sian produces around 200 supplies a day so may well be masking usage - then there's other bases.

The fact that you are seeing no red numbers any day indicates that the unit is certainly being resupplied every day. Even if not firing that unit would use 5-6t per day. That would at lease put it in the red on many days in your test. The fact it didn't means it must have drawn more supply each and every day, completely hiding the quantities it has used.

The only way to get an accurate picture is to get the supply chain length into the 40-50 range so that it only draws supplies a few times a week

Malagant
Posts: 372
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2004 1:30 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Malagant »

ORIGINAL: Yakface
ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
ORIGINAL: Yakface

I think I can explain why you are not seeing it.

The only way to tell what supplies have left a unit in the previous day is to make sure that it does not draw supply to replace any usage.

If you have the unit in a base or within 15 'supply point' range (3 points for a road hex, 5 for trail, 10 for clear etc) it will draw supplies every day and you will see no reduction.

Also - if Sian had supplies then it would supply that unit daily (IIRC). This happens even if you set the base to stockpile supplies. Units take precedence over the base toggle.

The fact you are not seeing any days in the red pretty much indicates that the unit is drawing supply daily as even at rest it will use some supply each day

Yes and no. Sian has supplies in my test, yes. But I saw no consumption figure day-to-day even close to your 271. And supplies should not flow up a yellow road every day.

Edit: Sian on the initial day has supply of 12,692 with Stockpiling On. Stockpiling does allow LCUs to pull supply, but it should not move every day.

Sian produces around 200 supplies a day so may well be masking usage - then there's other bases.

The fact that you are seeing no red numbers any day indicates that the unit is certainly being resupplied every day. Even if not firing that unit would use 5-6t per day. That would at lease put it in the red on many days in your test. The fact it didn't means it must have drawn more supply each and every day, completely hiding the quantities it has used.

The only way to get an accurate picture is to get the supply chain length into the 40-50 range so that it only draws supplies a few times a week



Could you do a Hot Seat playing both sides and 'surround' a unit to test consumption?
"La Garde meurt, elle ne se rend pas!"
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

OK, last post. Dog-with-a-bone time here. Fortunately I had three episodes of the "The Newsroom" to re-watch.

This is as close as I can get. Somebody great with the editor could do a mini-custom testbed. That person is not me.

I first tried to eliminate the too-much supply floating around problem by moving scores of LCUs into Chinese cities, turning on all replacements/upgrades, turning on all Stockpiling, and turning on all base infrastructure to burn supply. I got Sian to 80, and Yenen to 1049, but supply still flowed from far away in the next set of trials.

So I went all medieval. I ordered every Chinese LCU in every city to walk to Mandalay. Also most in the bush who were blocking roads. I had Japan take every single city in China all the way to Paoshan. I took Sian last. The very same set-up was in place in the same hex. The same IJN aircraft, but all started and stayed at 1000ft. to get max supply burn on AA. There should have been no way for re-supply to flow to that hex.

I was simply trying to isolate the combat effects on the 6th BF of six days of equivalent bombing. Local forts started at level 3 and did not increase. Six engineer devices were in the 6th BF; if they use supply for local forts as Alfred states they did so every turn and the effects should even out.

Turn 1:

Supply: 184
Supply Required: 161

Turn 2:

Supply: 172
Supply Required: 209 (Red)


Turn 3:

Supply: 159
Supply Required: 225 (Red)

Turn 4

Supply: 139
Supply Required: 241 (Red)

Turn 5

Supply: 112
Supply Required: 241 (Red)

Turn 6

Supply: 100
Supply Required: 241 (Red)

At the end of the run 1 Support device was disabled, nothing else. Morale, Fatigue and Experience had not changed from Turn 1. Forts still at 3. No strikes in this run were directly on the 6th BF. All were targeted at the infantry corps at 1000 ft. AA animation was seen each turn. The IJN bombers took losses but flew every day.

Conclusion: I still can't force a 271 supply point loss in one day. Nothing close. The supply burn above looks very reasonable to me given the number of AA devices firing. All three types were in range at 1000ft.

I continue to not understand the OP results shown or the 30 supply at the beginning of Day 2.
The Moose
Alfred
Posts: 6683
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 7:56 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Alfred »

Bullwinkle,
 
With those test beds, you really have no chance of replicating the OP experience.
 
1.  You are flying far fewer aircraft units and aggregate planes.
 
(a)  The OP had 3 raids.  You don't say how many you had but at most you could only have had two raids
(b)  The OP had an aggregate of 109 aircraft from 4 different IJA bomber units.  You appear to have only 2 different IJA bomber units with presumably at best only 50% of the OP aircraft flying
 
2.  Only when you flew at 1k did the IJA suffer any casualties.  OTOH, the OP inflicted more casualties on the IJA @ 10k.  At 1k, all your flak guns had a chance to inflict damage whereas at 10k only the 4x90mm could inflict damage.
 
 
These two points strongly suggest that the OP put up a much more intensive flak barrage and for a longer period than you did.  A stronger and lengthier flak barrage is indicative that more shots were expended.  The more shots expended means a greater run down of the on hand organic supply stock.  Further support for the OP firing more shots is seen in (a) your much smaller incremental increase in required supplies on the following days, and (b) being subsequently in the red re organic supply, that also impacted upon flak performance.  The fact is that it is not obvious to the player just how many shots are fired by a unit and that has a direct impact on the consumption of supplies.
 
3.  What you see the following morning re disabled devices and fatigue is not determinative of what was the actual outcome of combat.  With sufficient organic supply on hand, plus adequate support personal, the end of turn auto logistics phase can bring everything back as new for human inspection first thing next morning.  Your first test had sufficient organic supply so there is no evidence that any disabled devices/fatigue suffered was not automatically addressed.  Whereas in your second test, with a shortage of organic supply you started to see some disablement next morning.  Whether that second test result was due to the shortage of organic supply and therefore insufficient supply which could be expended on "repairs", it is impossible to say with certainty but it is strongly suggestive.
 
4.  Your first test did show a spike of 18 required supplies after reaching level 1 forts.  That is consistent with 18 engineer points being expended that day.  For the second test, you simply did not have a long enough time frame to move from level 3 (when the bombing commenced) to level 4 fortifications.  It takes longer to build fortifications as one goes along the curve, and that speed is negatively impacted by a shortage of on hand organic supply.  But there is a simple logic in play here.  Why would the construction of forts in a base consume supply but the same undertaking out in the field not consume supplies.
 
Alfred
User avatar
zuluhour
Posts: 5244
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:16 pm
Location: Maryland

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by zuluhour »

I don't normally like to chime in on these points, but one thing seems to stick out a lot with supply. The hint is, it is points not tons. It really is a big hint.
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Bullwinkle,

With those test beds, you really have no chance of replicating the OP experience.

1.  You are flying far fewer aircraft units and aggregate planes.

(a)  The OP had 3 raids.  You don't say how many you had but at most you could only have had two raids
(b)  The OP had an aggregate of 109 aircraft from 4 different IJA bomber units.  You appear to have only 2 different IJA bomber units with presumably at best only 50% of the OP aircraft flying

2.  Only when you flew at 1k did the IJA suffer any casualties.  OTOH, the OP inflicted more casualties on the IJA @ 10k.  At 1k, all your flak guns had a chance to inflict damage whereas at 10k only the 4x90mm could inflict damage.


These two points strongly suggest that the OP put up a much more intensive flak barrage and for a longer period than you did.  A stronger and lengthier flak barrage is indicative that more shots were expended.  The more shots expended means a greater run down of the on hand organic supply stock.  Further support for the OP firing more shots is seen in (a) your much smaller incremental increase in required supplies on the following days, and (b) being subsequently in the red re organic supply, that also impacted upon flak performance.  The fact is that it is not obvious to the player just how many shots are fired by a unit and that has a direct impact on the consumption of supplies.

3.  What you see the following morning re disabled devices and fatigue is not determinative of what was the actual outcome of combat.  With sufficient organic supply on hand, plus adequate support personal, the end of turn auto logistics phase can bring everything back as new for human inspection first thing next morning.  Your first test had sufficient organic supply so there is no evidence that any disabled devices/fatigue suffered was not automatically addressed.  Whereas in your second test, with a shortage of organic supply you started to see some disablement next morning.  Whether that second test result was due to the shortage of organic supply and therefore insufficient supply which could be expended on "repairs", it is impossible to say with certainty but it is strongly suggestive.

4.  Your first test did show a spike of 18 required supplies after reaching level 1 forts.  That is consistent with 18 engineer points being expended that day.  For the second test, you simply did not have a long enough time frame to move from level 3 (when the bombing commenced) to level 4 fortifications.  It takes longer to build fortifications as one goes along the curve, and that speed is negatively impacted by a shortage of on hand organic supply.  But there is a simple logic in play here.  Why would the construction of forts in a base consume supply but the same undertaking out in the field not consume supplies.

Alfred

Fine.

New test. Same "clean China" map. Moved more planes to origin base.



Image
Attachments
planes3.jpg
planes3.jpg (209.12 KiB) Viewed 74 times
The Moose
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Bullwinkle,

With those test beds, you really have no chance of replicating the OP experience.

1.  You are flying far fewer aircraft units and aggregate planes.

(a)  The OP had 3 raids.  You don't say how many you had but at most you could only have had two raids
(b)  The OP had an aggregate of 109 aircraft from 4 different IJA bomber units.  You appear to have only 2 different IJA bomber units with presumably at best only 50% of the OP aircraft flying

2.  Only when you flew at 1k did the IJA suffer any casualties.  OTOH, the OP inflicted more casualties on the IJA @ 10k.  At 1k, all your flak guns had a chance to inflict damage whereas at 10k only the 4x90mm could inflict damage.


These two points strongly suggest that the OP put up a much more intensive flak barrage and for a longer period than you did.  A stronger and lengthier flak barrage is indicative that more shots were expended.  The more shots expended means a greater run down of the on hand organic supply stock.  Further support for the OP firing more shots is seen in (a) your much smaller incremental increase in required supplies on the following days, and (b) being subsequently in the red re organic supply, that also impacted upon flak performance.  The fact is that it is not obvious to the player just how many shots are fired by a unit and that has a direct impact on the consumption of supplies.

3.  What you see the following morning re disabled devices and fatigue is not determinative of what was the actual outcome of combat.  With sufficient organic supply on hand, plus adequate support personal, the end of turn auto logistics phase can bring everything back as new for human inspection first thing next morning.  Your first test had sufficient organic supply so there is no evidence that any disabled devices/fatigue suffered was not automatically addressed.  Whereas in your second test, with a shortage of organic supply you started to see some disablement next morning.  Whether that second test result was due to the shortage of organic supply and therefore insufficient supply which could be expended on "repairs", it is impossible to say with certainty but it is strongly suggestive.

4.  Your first test did show a spike of 18 required supplies after reaching level 1 forts.  That is consistent with 18 engineer points being expended that day.  For the second test, you simply did not have a long enough time frame to move from level 3 (when the bombing commenced) to level 4 fortifications.  It takes longer to build fortifications as one goes along the curve, and that speed is negatively impacted by a shortage of on hand organic supply.  But there is a simple logic in play here.  Why would the construction of forts in a base consume supply but the same undertaking out in the field not consume supplies.

Alfred

The time it took to move planes to the origin base after buying them out with PPs, and let them rest from the repositioning, ran down organic supply in the target LCUs. I have no trouble believing this is also due to the 6 engineer devices building local forts. But that factor has been constant.

I ran four turns. As I said, supply started low, but the point is the delta between turn #1 and #2. In the OP's post it was 271 points. Here it is much less.

Turn 1

Supply: 79
Supply Required: 257 (Red)

Turn 2

Supply: 23
Supply Required: 254 (Red)

Turn 3

Supply: 0
Supply Required: 252 (Red)

Turn 4

Supply: 0
Supply Required: 204 (Red)

On no day did less than three raids fly. On one day four did. Infantry corps were bombed in every case. The 6th BF was not bombed directly. After Turn 4 1 squad of .303 AA was disabled, 1 squad of Support, and two squads of Infantry.

The point I'm trying to make, and the OP was as well, is taking all the factors--engineers, recovery of disablement, recovery of fatigue, etc.--he saw a 271 point supply reduction, and here, with more attacking planes, I saw a 56 point reduction. All the pointing to to other factors doesn't get away from that. My AA didn't eat supply at nearly the rate his did.
The Moose
tiemanjw
Posts: 606
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2008 2:15 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by tiemanjw »

Ok, I tried a few tests myself here. A little different setup though. I wanted to make sure the unit would not get any supplies from the outside. Also, since in my game China is a lost cause, I'm personally more interested in seeing what I can do to a Japanese unit. So my set up was:
take Coral Sea scenario, modify it to add several bomber groups and an HQa to Noumea. A Japanese BF was placed on one of the tiny islands near by. No base (not even a dot base). The BF consisted of:
10 75mm T88 AA Guns
24 Av support
12/36 Engineers (run with both to see how much additional supply was sucked)
22 support
1 sound detector
2 observer squads

The unit starts with 300 supplies in all tests.

For the first test, a control.
12 Engineers
Turn - supplies (on hand, not supplies required)
1-300
2-295
3-290
4-285

so it looks like 5 supplies a day, while sitting idle.

Test 2
12 Engineers, 1 x 12 B25 group ordered to ground attack, 6kft. 1 PBY Sqdn on recon
1-300
2-131
3-48
4-27
5-6
7-0

In each phase, all 12 B25s flew. Note that this is not a linear decline in supplies. Rather, the best curve fit is a log fit, though it is not perfect (R^2=.9412). This makes some sense as the manual hints that under supplied units conserve supplies. Section 15.0 says
While supplies are
actually consumed as used, without adequate supplies on hand to meet the expected needs,
units instinctively begin to curtail operations in order to stretch out the available supplies.
I think we are seeing this in action.

Anyhow, moving on.
an abbreviated re-run of test 2
and a short re-run:
1-300
2-206
3-111

so less effect. Similar order of magnitude, but it appears there are die rolls involved here.

test 3
7 x 12 B24 groups ordered to attack
turn-supplies-(A/C in attack 1, A/C in attack 2...)
1-300
2-26-(33,27,6)
3-0-(35,18,9,9)

so supplies drop faster when attacked by more A/C and / or more waves. The drop is too quick to get any kind of trend line.


The remaining tests add 24 additional Eng squads to the base unit for a total of 36.

For the first test, I tried to do a baseline... but I left the PBYs on recon by accident. This is interesting:
1-300
2-221
3-153
4-148

This surprised me... why would 24 extra eng draw this many more supplies? Oh, right... I left the PBYs on recon. Doh! It seems that the base force is firing at the PBYs (no surprise here... we know they do that). But it seems like they are shooting an awfully lot at a handful of A/C. My sense is, that if anything is broken (and I'm not yet convinced it is), that this may be it. It also MAY be the difference between what the moose and yak are seeing. Yakface, do you know if your opponent is sending recon over this area at all?

moving on again. This time the real baseline with 36 Eng
1-300
2-294
3-288
4-282

So, those extra 24 squads draw an extra supply a day. Because of possible rounding errors, I can't say for sure if that means the involuntary fort building is costing any supply. That said, it is either costing no supply or very little supply - so if it is a supply vampire, it is not much of one.


A few notes on the testing:
I only put the one base force at the location. All bombing was ground bombing from 6k ft. Since the unit was alone, it was the one targeted in the bombing, and suffered casualties... between 0 and 10 squads disabled according to the CR. I did not control for this in my quick test.

Some parting thoughts:
It appears that what Yakface sees can be duplicated (with the above caveats). However, I'm still not convinced this is a bug. I would expect a large supply increase in combat. I would further not want a unit to be able to store a full months worth of combat stores that moved organically with the unit (which would happen if the supply required number scaled 100% with supplies used) as it would make extended behind the lines operations possible without need for a logistical tail. It would also suck in all supply from an area and cause other units to starve while some got really fat.
If there is a problem though, it may be in the firing at recon (and possibly search) aircraft.
Another thought / observation is that a fat unit is going to act fat. Units appear to make a good attempt to conserve supply when the unit supplies are low - however, the unit does not appear to take into account the local supply situation outside the unit. It doesn't matter if it can't draw any more supplies, if its got it - it will flaunt it. I don't know if there is a way to selectively starve a unit - if there is, this could be a possible solution.



User avatar
Yakface
Posts: 846
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:43 am

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yakface »

Bullwinkle, Tiejman – firstly, thanks for running some tests on this.

I was hoping to get round to it this weekend and will add them (if the other half has no plans for me) to the pot. The more data points, the better.

Bullwinkle, even the 56t drop you saw is well outside expected usage based on supplies required figure and may be artificially reduced because the unit started with few supplies in the way Tiejman has noted in his post.

This I found particularly interesting, and also very worrying:
ORIGINAL: tiemanj
The remaining tests add 24 additional Eng squads to the base unit for a total of 36.
For the first test, I tried to do a baseline... but I left the PBYs on recon by accident. This is interesting:
1-300
2-221
3-153
4-148

This surprised me... why would 24 extra eng draw this many more supplies? Oh, right... I left the PBYs on recon. Doh! It seems that the base force is firing at the PBYs (no surprise here... we know they do that). But it seems like they are shooting an awfully lot at a handful of A/C. My sense is, that if anything is broken (and I'm not yet convinced it is), that this may be it. It also MAY be the difference between what the moose and yak are seeing. Yakface, do you know if your opponent is sending recon over this area at all?

In answer to your question, yes the stack is subject to recon. From memory, I think it is being flown over about 4 times per day (2 aircraft in each phase).

Looking at your figures, for the ‘just recon’ test, the unit in question used 74t the first day and then 63t the next above the control usage of 5t/day. The final is back to 5t - back to basic rate – wonder if recon was grounded that day.

It is early days in terms of testing, so I don’t want to put more weight on it than justified. However *if* this is consistent for other situations then it’s pretty serious drain on supply, especially in China. I have roughly 14 heavy AA equipped units at 5 locations under constant recon. Even if the supply drain was only 30t per unit above the basic ‘supplies required’ figure, that would still be 420t per day, around 12.5kt per month (10%-ish of a relatively intact China supply production) and that's not even shooting at bombers, just taking a pop at some recon planes. 12.5kt/month is a figure that in most circumstances won’t matter in India or Oz, but in the supply-knife-edge environment of China, it would be really bad news.

There are a lot of ‘if’s’ and ‘would’s’ in there because I think much more testing is required.
User avatar
Bullwinkle58
Posts: 11297
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:47 pm

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

Yes, excellent tests. In most ways better than mine.

As tiemanj said, two major differences though. You and I had several infantry corps co-located in the hex and in my tests in only one test run and one turn in that run was the BF directly targeted. The code wants to bomb either infantry type, larger units, or something else that makes it beeline onto the corps. So the BF in my test almost never got direct hits, lost devices to disablement, or took direct supply hits. Thus no repair of devices, and probably less fatigue and disruption to repair inter-turn.

Second, our BF has three AA device lines: a .303 MG, a 12.7 gun, and the bigger gun, which I think is the 75mm here (too early to go look.) So each firing pass eats 3x the supply as one. I flew at 1000ft. so all three device lines would be in range every turn.

I had no recon. I suspect this is key, as tiemanj says. Did not think of that. And Japan players in my PBEM experience flood China with recon. They have a lot to use right away in the game design. I would not expect the code to be sophisticated enough to choose to ignore recon flights, nor would I expect it to asses chances of re-supply. The supply models are hairy enough as it is. But recon is a very, very low-risk flight for the attacker, and if it eats AA-based supply that could be used by a supply-focused attacker.

Regardless of how "stretchy" the actual supply usage is in the various test set-ups, this whole exercise has been eye-opening to me on how much supply is consumed in the minor, day-to-day air ops of the average PBEM. I tend to focus on the ground combat numbers in LCU stacks and don't have time to dig into the hundreds of air strikes in the average game month. Three days ago if you'd asked me how much supply operating three pretty ineffective AA device lines costs I would have been off by a lot.
The Moose
User avatar
zuluhour
Posts: 5244
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:16 pm
Location: Maryland

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by zuluhour »

" there are die rolls involved here." [8D] 
User avatar
Yaab
Posts: 5041
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2011 2:09 pm
Location: Poland

RE: For God's sake, somebody spike those guns - or how 12 AAA pieces are losing me China

Post by Yaab »

I am resurrecting this thread to add my two cents.

The AA supply consumption can be easily tested in the Guadalcanal scenario. Playing as the Japs against Allied AI, you can be 100% sure that a pack of B-17s will drop bombs on Lunga on turn 1. So I set Lunga to stockpile its supplies. All adjacent bases also stockpile supplies to prevent automatic supply movement among the bases. Lunga starts with 1000 supplies.

There are four Jap units on Lunga. I put the two eng units with AAMGs on Rest, while the SNLF units are set on Combat posture. Both SNLFs have a total of 6 heavy DP guns that can shoot at the bombers. The units are not constructing anything. All units require 339 supplies, so 30 supplies should be consumed per day by idle units.

I am playing with FOW ON, so combat report will tell you how much supply was destroyed.

I ran four tests, with 8-12 x B-17s bombing from 15,000 feet. Every time there were flak bursts in the combat animations.

There were no Allied recon flights over Lunga.

Here is the situation on turn 2:

Test 1: 796 supplies left. 1 airbase hit, 1 runway hit.

Test 2: 689 supplies left. 1 airbase hit, 2 runway hits.

Test 3: 715 supplies left. No hits.

Test 4: 671 supplies left. 3 airbase hits, 5 runway hits (two waves of bombers)

CONCLUSION: On average, 300 supplies were consumed on Lunga during one turn. You could have argued that airbase/runway hits consume supplies and the consumption is not reported in the combat report, but test 3 proves otherwise. You could argue that units under fire somehow consume 1000% more supplies then usually, but how exactly do they do it? Are they having a SPAM orgy in an air raid shelter? Are they setting fire to their ammo dumps because of some nervous breakdown? Let's assume the AA guns are the real culprits here. With 300 supplies consumed by 6 DP guns this amounts to 50 supplies expended per gun per turn. Now, how do you defend and resupply Pacific bases with the supply consumption like this, especially if you play Japs? It is hopeless.

When I played the Guadalcanal scenario earlier, I was always perplexed by the poor supply situation on Lunga. Now I know the SNLFs should have left their DP guns in Rabaul. This folly had cost the Japs the loss of the Guadalcanal campaign, and subsequently, the whole war. The horror, the horror!




Post Reply

Return to “War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition”