Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

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Yakface
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Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

How accurate are the ground combat portions of the combat report. I ask because of this:
ORIGINAL: Yakface


AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR May 21, 42

Ground combat at Clark Field (79,76)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 94716 troops, 1755 guns, 629 vehicles, Assault Value = 2784

Defending force 43705 troops, 753 guns, 414 vehicles, Assault Value = 1376

Japanese adjusted assault: 3334

Allied adjusted defense: 2683

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 0

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), fatigue(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
7451 casualties reported
Squads: 46 destroyed, 760 disabled
Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 74 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 87 disabled
Guns lost 61 (5 destroyed, 56 disabled)
Vehicles lost 24 (2 destroyed, 22 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1570 casualties reported
Squads: 19 destroyed, 125 disabled
Non Combat: 50 destroyed, 51 disabled
Engineers: 35 destroyed, 9 disabled
Guns lost 36 (7 destroyed, 29 disabled)
Vehicles lost 38 (23 destroyed, 15 disabled)

Assaulting units:
18th Division
16th Division
Imperial Guards Division
8th Tank Regiment
38th Division
54th Division
2nd Tank Regiment
56th Division
48th Division
7th Tank Regiment
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
9th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
14th Army
8th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
20th Ind. Mtn Gun Battalion
10th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
1st Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
1st Hvy.Artillery Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
15th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
17th Medium Field Artillery Regiment

The next day another attack - with the same units
ORIGINAL: Yakface

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR May 22, 42

Ground combat at Clark Field (79,76)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 83355 troops, 1650 guns, 588 vehicles, Assault Value = 2584

Defending force 41916 troops, 747 guns, 394 vehicles, Assault Value = 1233

Japanese adjusted assault: 2146

Allied adjusted defense: 4402

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 0)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
4411 casualties reported
Squads: 17 destroyed, 342 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 32 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 73 disabled
Guns lost 34 (1 destroyed, 33 disabled)
Vehicles lost 18 (4 destroyed, 14 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
2264 casualties reported
Squads: 116 destroyed, 99 disabled
Non Combat: 25 destroyed, 61 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 65 (37 destroyed, 28 disabled)
Vehicles lost 16 (2 destroyed, 14 disabled)

Assaulting units:
56th Division
48th Division
8th Tank Regiment
18th Division
16th Division
38th Division
Imperial Guards Division
54th Division
2nd Tank Regiment
7th Tank Regiment
9th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
1st Hvy.Artillery Regiment
20th Ind. Mtn Gun Battalion
2nd Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
15th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
14th Army
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
2nd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
8th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
1st Medium Field Artillery Regiment
10th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
17th Medium Field Artillery Regiment


I've always found the combat reports to be fairly accurate - declared AV in the hex to be within a few points and the casualties announced leading to the same sort of drop in the next turns AV in hex - within 10 or 20%

However the combat on the 21st should have resulted in 800-850 AV drop if it is to be believed. The next attack came in with only a 200pt drop. I can believe some FOW but it seems to be over-reporting by a factor of 4.

Watching the replay the 18th division seemed to get a good whack in the first battle (down to 0 AV), but on the second day it was one of the least damaged.

I am wondering whether this is a sync issue? or is the result within FOW uncertainty? Would really appreciate the opinion of people who have played for a long time, with experience of these things.

EDIT added the missing unit to the first days attack as pointed out by witpqs
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

Oops - double post
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Jim D Burns
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Jim D Burns »

Look at your attacking force numbers, you are down by 10,000 men so 760 disablements sounds about right (760 * 12 = 9120). As to your AV, it sounds like a good 300+ were from the single division, the rest were probably spread out among the other units and then each unit recovered disablements a bit between turns. That said the inner working of the engine that displays AV is still a mystery to me after almost 10 years playing this engine since the UV days. If I had to guess I'd say its possible bad die rolls in the first attack deflated your AV and the second attack probably had fewer bad die rolls.

Jim
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

Hi Jim

Sorry - think I wasn't clear about what I was asking.

I'm the US in the fight (I left force composition as just noise).

It seems to me that the casualties inflicted on the Japanese from the first attack were either massively over-reported as there was a drop in raw AV of only approx 1/4 of what I would expect. Or, if FOW doesn't account for a 4x over report, maybe the whole combat report is wrong due to sync
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Jim D Burns
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Jim D Burns »

The fact he’s down 10,000+ men proves he did suffer over 700 disablements, so I think your report is pretty accurate. Also he lost over 1100 points in adjusted AV so disruption and fatigue is obviously much higher in the second fight. But the displayed AV figure may be subject to FOW, I don’t know, but I don’t think this is a sync bug issue.

It’s also very possible he didn’t attack with every unit shown. You’d need to check with your opponent and see. If he stood some units down in the first attack and then different units in the second that would explain the issue I’d say.

Reserve status could also explain things as I don't think reserve units get added until the adjusted AV phase after they make a die roll.

Jim
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witpqs
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by witpqs »

I have not made a detailed comparison, but simply cut and pasted the list of assaulting units in the first attack and the second attack, and pasted them into an editor that displays the number of lines. There were 22 units in the first attack, 23 units in the second attack. You must account for that in your calculations as well.
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I have not made a detailed comparison, but simply cut and pasted the list of assaulting units in the first attack and the second attack, and pasted them into an editor that displays the number of lines. There were 22 units in the first attack, 23 units in the second attack. You must account for that in your calculations as well.


Argh - I chopped off the last unit on the list. It was the same units attacking, went through and matched one against the other. Here's the full list for the second attack

56th Division
48th Division
8th Tank Regiment
18th Division
16th Division
38th Division
Imperial Guards Division
54th Division
2nd Tank Regiment
7th Tank Regiment
9th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
1st Hvy.Artillery Regiment
20th Ind. Mtn Gun Battalion
2nd Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
15th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
14th Army
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
2nd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
8th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
1st Medium Field Artillery Regiment
10th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
17th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

And here's the list for the first attack

18th Division
16th Division
Imperial Guards Division
8th Tank Regiment
38th Division
54th Division
2nd Tank Regiment
56th Division
48th Division
7th Tank Regiment
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
9th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
14th Army
8th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
20th Ind. Mtn Gun Battalion
10th Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
1st Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
1st Hvy.Artillery Regiment
2nd Mortar Battalion
15th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion
17th Medium Field Artillery Regiment

The only thing that has changed between the 21st and the 22nd May is the order
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witpqs
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by witpqs »

OK.

Jim's explanation sounds pretty good to me. Keep in mind that as units take beatings their morale should be pressured to go down, and that will make them recover more slowly. I imagine if he is attacking that he's got some good units and leaders. They are going to be pretty resilient.

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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

Morale, leaders etc all affect the adjusted assault value in combat. What is concerning me here is the raw value in the hex

It's the figure that starts at 2784 and falls 200 pts to only 2584 in the second attack. My understanding is that this number is includes everything in the hex even if it is not actually involved in combat (you still see the total number when only the artillery in the hex bombards, for example) and is broadly speaking the figure that basically a sum total of everything that has an assault value etc.

The disablement of squads, combat eng, tanks etc should directly lower this number (as far as I understand it) and since the attacks are directly after each other there is no significant time for those squads to recover.

So, I think there are really only three possibilities

1 The casualties didn't happen and are just over-reported in the combat replay 2 They should have happened (something close) and didn't because the Japanese player had sync problems
3. They didn't happen and shouldn't have becuase the sync issue is my (Allied) end
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witpqs
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by witpqs »

What you are missing is the fact that unit and leader stats also affect how quickly a unit recovers disabled squads. Repair of disabled squads right after a big hit tends to be quite large for good stat units with good stat leaders. It does seem to slow down after that. No idea what the actual formula is.
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by crsutton »

But yes, the reports are not 100% accurate. Sometimes I look at my own units afterwards and the losses are only about half of what the report says. However the report is a clear indication that the Japanese suffered a major loss. That is the casualty report is usually proportional. Also remember that the odds are there only to give you a rule of thumb. The engine is complex and not an old board game that uses odds. Nor do AV matter as much as we would think. Devices are just as important. Things such as tanks and artillery impact the battle quite a lot. But what I see is roughly an equal attack that pulled a rough initial roll for the attacker. The follow up attack went much better and given the situation as the attacks wear on they will show better results. It is a pretty good design and this is pretty much how set piece battles worked. The side with the best supply and numbers usually comes out on top.
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

ORIGINAL: crsutton

But yes, the reports are not 100% accurate. Sometimes I look at my own units afterwards and the losses are only about half of what the report says. However the report is a clear indication that the Japanese suffered a major loss. That is the casualty report is usually proportional. Also remember that the odds are there only to give you a rule of thumb. The engine is complex and not an old board game that uses odds. Nor do AV matter as much as we would think. Devices are just as important. Things such as tanks and artillery impact the battle quite a lot. But what I see is roughly an equal attack that pulled a rough initial roll for the attacker. The follow up attack went much better and given the situation as the attacks wear on they will show better results. It is a pretty good design and this is pretty much how set piece battles worked. The side with the best supply and numbers usually comes out on top.

Yes, they're good points. But it's not the odds that are the issue, or the effectiveness of the next days attack or why with a 1:1 result Japan suffered more casualties than in a 1:2 result. All of that I am comfortable with.

It's how the Japanese raw AV numbers change from day 1 to day 2 vs casualties the Japanese suffered in the first attack that is concerning.

In my experience the raw AV figure is very accurate, if it says there are x AV in the hex, then that is pretty much what is there. The FOW bit is what I am asking about. Is it possible for that part to be out by a factor of 4+ on reported casualties. Like I said above in my experience that doesn't happen. Raw AV goes down very closely with the combat reports. When it appears that 800-900 elements with an AV (so not artillery or non-combat devices) are disabled, the result has alawys been something similar to the raw AV, looking for others experiences with how casualties affect that raw AV number
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witpqs
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by witpqs »

A lot of AV recovers even between combat and the next orders phase. Many times you see that you suffered X disablements but when you look at the turn you see only X-Y squads disabled.
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Yakface
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RE: Is this just massive over-reporting or is there a problem

Post by Yakface »

I thought I'd do some analysis of the reliability of combat reports to get some hard figures. Posted it here: tm.asp?m=3794176
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