Night Disruption M44, etc.

[Ricky B]

Just to clarify, you mean night disruption, not fatigue, correct?

[raizer]

one thing about the german companies in KH43, is that the german player has the incredible flexibility to use companies or boost those counters up to 900 men sauron stacks that can scythe thru any russian unit with that firing mod. Now when you play companies, you use them as a screen and do your 2 hex safety dance-ivan cant dance but only one hex per turn. You pick the time and place to use your 900 men counters or 45+ tank counters and hit ivan but when you do your companies have to hold the line for a few turns and thats when the russians can put those companies into the red. But then again the germans can back off with superior mobility and rest refit and then rinse and repeat.

Still cant make any conclusions about the grand campaign, esp regarding the firing mod. I think its a must for normandy, minsk and probably a few others.

Indra and stephen are playing keith and I tough; slow and steady and they are approaching turn 49 where we quit as the russians. They have only lost one tank brigade to encirclement as to us losing about 5 by this time! It will be interesting to see what their 5 tank brigades in the North can do when they finally show up the next day. I wonder how the other Grand Campaign is doing? Havent heard anything....

[larsonney]

I wonder how the other Grand Campaign is doing? Havent heard anything....

Arkan & I have finished day 1 as the Russians...Harvey & witblitz held the line, even attacked in the center...shaping up to be very interesting!

Jon

[Volcano Man]

I am in the process of working the most recent updates into all the _Alt scenarios. Everyone take a deep breath and remain calm until then... ;)

Besides that, I have no idea what you mean by a night fatigue value in the PDT. Where is this night fatigue value? Are you instead talking about "Night Move Disruption"? if so, it has nothing to do with night fatigue, or day fatigue for that matter. Night Fatigue is taken from the Fatigue Recovery value, but Night Move Disruption is simply a % chance that a unit will get disrupted if it in non Strategic Movement during night turns. Thus, a value of 0 would mean there is 0% chance of Night Movement Disruption, which means that particular title is unchanged to what it was before (which is a safe choice). If someone wants to use this then they can easily turn it on in their own modded scenarios.

[Dog Soldier]

Strela,

Can the recovery number in the pdf be lowered even more to .75 or .5? It makes sense that both sides had low recovery rates. Maybe not using the same recovery rate for each side would help. Russian units were on the end of an increasingly long tether. Recovery of strength was not significant as no Russian force was replenished in Kh43 campaign that I have read.
German repair groups were hampered by the appalling weather conditions and lack of the correct parts cause widespread cannibalization of recovered vehicles. I read some where there could easily be three to four vehicles in an Axis repair depot servicing one vehicle with cannibalized parts. Certainly the Axis units should not be allowed to return to full strength in just a few days.
I like your approach to this tough problem of balance. The German commander should have to make choices of where to commit to a counter attack, knowing excessive losses should things go bad can not be easily recovered before the next engagement.

@raizer - Sauron stacks! LOL! Are they 10 feet tall with maces that sweep out entire ranks with one swing? I called them "snowplows" in testing. Put two of these large battalions on a road and cover their flanks. They will plow the road to grab that VP location. It is just a matter of time.... not too much time either. A rate of a km per hour is very possible.

Dog Soldier

[Strela]

Dog Soldier,

I am running tests now but at the moment believe it is full integer only. There is a second mechanism called replacements which does not take into effect morale but does take into account the local supply values.

This could be used to supplant the loss recovery for one side or even both if required?

Obviously this has most effect in a campaign and it is the longer scenarios I am concerned about.

The rule is as follows :

Replacements
In addition to the strength recovery described above, it is possible for certain organizations in the order of battle to receive replacements. When this is defined for an organization, then each unit eligible to recover strength as specified above can also receive a variable number of replacements based on a specified percentage of the unit’s full strength value. Quality does not affect the replacement rate, however, Isolated units and Disrupted units cannot receive replacements. Detached units received one-fourth the usual replacement rate available to them. When a unit has a Local Supply value of x, then the replacement rate is scaled according to the following:
• When x < 20, the replacement rate is 0.
• When 20 <= x <= 50, the replacement rate is scaled by (x – 20) / 30.

For example, a unit with a Local Supply value of 50 has the full replacement rate, but a unit with a Local Supply value of 30 only has 1/3 of the full replacement rate.

---

As far as QFM, this is set to on in line with the McNamara values.

To pick up on Raizer's 'Sauron' stacks (made me laugh as I watched LOTR on Bluray last weekend!), QFM maybe overkill as we made all German infantry battalions 4 companies to offset the German weakness when spread out to cover ground.

Now that said, we had this rule in place during play testing and though we saw superman like abilities, well manuevered Soviet armour / cav could upset the German apple cart.

I would suggest people turn off QFM if they have strong objections to German units scything down Russians but I actually believe the recovery rates for the Germans is the bigger issue here and as mentioned previously need to be toned down....

[Ricky B]

Regarding replacement and recovery settings, I think a 1% recovery rate is okay even with the higher tank strenghts - once the units get to the last 5 tanks or so, they will only be recovering one every 10 turns or so, on average - and less as it gets even closer to full strength. That seems as reasonable as possible. But I would suggest staying away from a replacement rate for the Germans, since it is based on full strength, so even at a replacement of 1, if the unit is at the full level, if it has a full strength of 17, it will still be getting a tank every 5 turns or so all the way up to full strength. The Soviets, on the other hand, could probably use the replacement rate, for any tank units that manage to survive. Historically, the Soviets did push new tanks to the front in a few cases - I don't recall the numbers but Popov's group got a large number at one point in the fighting, which was important to their continued ability to fight as the group had lost most of its tanks by that time.

Just my thoughts on that, David.

Rick

[Volcano Man]

I am running tests now but at the moment believe it is full integer only. There is a second mechanism called replacements which does not take into effect morale but does take into account the local supply values.

Correct. Replacement value is a non floating point value (no decimal place).

This could be used to supplant the loss recovery for one side or even both if required?

Actually, I was going to suggest this to you. If you are trying to have one side get a certain amount of strength for a certain unit, or types of units, then a combination of recovery AND replacements is the way to go (or use only replacements). I have a great deal of experience with the replacement feature since it was born from F14 and the need to have every side except the British get higher strength returns, so if you have any questions with it -- email me. :)

FWIW, I actually used replacement and recovery in N44_Alt. I did that because I felt that title is unique (or should be unique). Specifically, I had the US forces and German forces and British armor get replacements (something like 2%), and also I had British infantry rely ONLY on recovery which also was something like 1%. This was done because of how the British were hurting on manpower at the time. What happens in the game is that everything except British infantry gets 1% recovery + 2% replacements, while the British infantry are outpaced with only 1% recovery. It forces a situation where the British infantry can be dwindled away if not careful.

Perhaps an approach like this is what you are looking for. Be warned though, enacting replacements in the OOB is tricky and time consuming. Better to ask if you are unsure how it works as I might be able to save you some frustration. :eek1:

Re: QFM

I agree that QFM is one of those tricky rules that some people like and some dislike. However, for the most part, the Germans usually need QFM to allow them to split into company sub units and operate effectively. Naturally if they can stay combined then they will do great work cutting through the Reds, but if recovery and/or replacements are correct, then they will eventually run out of steam in that task and still have to rely on company formations to hold the flanks. This is all generalities of course, but I agree with Strela, if you think QFM is not your cup o' tea than you can always turn it off.

[Strela]

This is why I love this forum - there is a wealth of information and experience!

Rick, point well made regarding the difference between replacements and recovery settings.

Ed, I will send you a seperate mail with a few ideas very soon. I was hoping I could put a replacement value at the highest level of the OB, but I am reading in your note that it has to be in every formation....

That said, I think my big issue is using full TOE strength as a starting point. That is allowing units to build up significantly quicker than was historical due to the way the algorithms work.

The way replacements works is actually ideal for the current project I am working on as there is a real stress on supply, but that would still require TOE's to be changed so that larger than life units don't appear.

One final question on loss recovery - I am assuming if you have three companies combined into a single battalion each company rolls for loss recovery as compared to the battalion rolling once. Anyone definitively know?

David

[Volcano Man]

One final question on loss recovery - I am assuming if you have three companies combined into a single battalion each company rolls for loss recovery as compared to the battalion rolling once. Anyone definitively know?

Good question. I am not sure about this myself -- what you describe sounds correct, but it may depend on whether or not the unit is combined into one at the time (probably not thought). In the grand scheme of things it is probably the same thing though.

In regards to replacements, yes, you could apply one value to the entire side at the highest level, but I would only do that if you are fine with everything getting the same amount of replacements. You only want to get nit picky and put replacements on every formation if you want different levels of replacements (or you want some units to not get replacements altogether).

I am by no means an expert in anything, but I thought you might want to customize the replacement rates for individual units. If you want to do that then it does get tricky and I offered to help in order to save your sanity since I had "been there and done that". ;) If you want to keep things simple then sanity retained!