Helping Test New Danube Front Update

[Compass Rose]

Any one interested in helping test the new Danube Front update before it is officially released, can do so over at Rich's SDC forum which can be found here:

http://hpssims.com.c7.previewyoursite.co...#post32945

[JDR Dragoon]

- Added new Forced Bridge Crossing Rule which allows units to force a bridge crossing against enemy ZOC (see Users Manual under Movement).

- Increased Engineer digging in bonus from 2x to 3x.

-Added new Bunker and Mine Prob Parameter Data Values and allowing
non-bridge engineer units to construct Bunkers.

- Added new Night Move Disruption parameter data value which determines probability of night movement by non-rail and non-travel or non-road movement units causing Disruption.

- Change so that Interdiction attacks have twice the chance of Disruption
and can cause the loss of up to half the movement allowance in movement points.

- Added Optional Rule for delayed reporting of enemy Disruption.

W00000tttttt!!!!! Xmas is coming early this year!

I notice that several faults in the OOB still stands uncorrected though, but surely that is fixeable :)

[Compass Rose]

The more guys we having helping to check out these updates, the quicker they can be finalized which means we can start testing the next title, that much quicker.

[Aaron]

Hey isnt there only a patch right before a new release........

[-72-]

Not necessarily... they also have to do the updates in order for HPS to offer titles available for direct download.

[JDR Dragoon]

Suggested corrections to the NATO parts of the OOB. Some of these are definite musts, others are more points of debate (for instance: should the US Army have more B quality units?)

NATO in general:

-A lot of the LandJut OOB (part of Northag), especially the danish parts, are plain wrong. See this old thread for details:

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...741&page=1


-Quite a lot of the german Territorialheer units has errors (most of it not currently used in the stock scenarios, but still), most of them stemming from an overuse of Isby and Kamps Armies of NATOs Central Front, which contains some outdated information (and some plain wrong).

-The austrian OOB in general could probably benefit from a once-over with regard to equipment and unit naming. But most of it is fundamentally correct imho.

Country specific

There are some specific errors in the otherwise excellent Bundeswehr OOB:

-The reconnaisance battalions. Again Isby and Kamps is to blame (the information here is outdated and reflects Heeresstruktur 3, which was not in effect in 1985). A reconnaisance battalion (mid 1980s vintage under Heeresstruktur 4) should have: 2xcompanies of 13 Leopard 1s each, a mixed company of 7 Leopard 1s and 8 Luchs Scout Cars, an infantry company (3 MILAN ATGMS, 1 pr. platoon) mounted in Fuchs wheeled APCs. Apart from this there is a further 1 Leopard 1 and 2 more Luchs at battalion HQ, plus 9 GSR equipped vehicles (might be Luchs, but possibly older Schützenpanzer kurz). How best to represent this is of course an open question, since there are several possible options open here.

-Many german divisions (1 Panzer, 11 Pzg, 4 Pzg, 5 Panzer, 2 Pzg, 12 Panzer) only have 1 divisional level Jäger battalion, where they should have two. Their quality is also quite high (B), despite the fact that they were pure mobilization units.

-The exception here is the 1. Mountain Division, which unlike the others also has its divisional security battalion present (called 88. GjBtl in the game). Why is this the only german division to have this unit?

-The german corps engineer brigades all need to be reworked (again modelled in game on the Heeresstruktur 3 model as presented in Isby and Kamps).

-The same is true for the Corps level Airmobile paratroop brigades (numbered 25-26-27) which are also structured after Heeresstruktur 3 (as per Isby and Kamps). In Heeresstruktur 4 each battalion would have 4 companies (2 infantry companies with some MILAN ATGMs, 2 AT-companies with a smattering of TOW ATGM and 20mm Autocannons). In addition there would be a 4th (reserve) battalion with just 3 infantry companies and no AT companies.

-Letting units that are not 100% manned in peacetime (such as the Heimatschutzbrigades assigned to the 6 Pzg and II Ge Korps) start as understrenght is a bad decision imho, especially since this model isn´t used for other mobilization units, since the games loss-replacement routine doesn´t really reflect the mobilization process very well. A better design choise would be to delay those units with a large reserve component from being relased from their "Fixed" status.

-Each brigade had a reconnaisance platoon of 8 Luchs scoutcars, but this unit might be too weak and pointless to include (as a platoon it exerts no ZOC, and I notice that similar WAPA units do not have their regimental level recon either).

-Each brigade also has an engineer company mounted in Fuchs wheeled APCs (some of the older ones might have had M113s still), this unit isn´t represented either.

-The 1st battalion in each brigade would have been a mized unit (1 tank, 2 infantry companies in Pzg brigades, the opposite in panzer brigades) instead of a uniform one as it currently is.

-The 3rd company of each Pzg battalion in a Pzg Brigade (except 22 Pzg brig.) would have had M113 APCs instead of Marder IFVs. They had more ATGMs to compensate for this though, so it might not warrant much of a change in unit stats.

-Nothing (apart from Isby and Kamps) suggests that the german II Korps had an antitank company numbered 260. This seems anothe relic from out of date Heeresstruktur 3 information, where each german paratroop brigade had dedicated brigade level AT companies. In any event, if the unit did exist, it would belong to paratroop brigade 26 (a part of III korps), not II Korps.


British:

-The british 1st Infantry Brigade (the UKMF, part of LandJut) should only have a single Tank squadron, not an entire battalion. There were talks of enlarging the tank contingent to a battalion when moreChieftains were freed up as Challenger entered service, but this definitely wasn´t in 1985, and I do not know if this was even realized before the Cold War ended.

-Most british Chieftains didn´t get Thermal Imaging sights before the late 1980s.

-FV 102 Striker equipped ATGM units should probably have Thermal Sights (introduced by the mid-1980s).

-British bridge engineer units are still represented as vehicles, unlike practically all other OOBs. Is this intentional?

-The Territorial army units generally seems to be very highly rated at a uniform C morale, which is better than some nations regulars and better than most nations reservists. This seems somewhat high for a "SWAT" unit (SWAT = Some weekends and Tuesdays).

-There is a duplicate D squadron 23 SAS in the UK Special warfare Forces section.


Belgium:

-The 10th Mech Brigade (res) is missing its tank Battalion (8. Lanciers, Leopard 1 equipped, reserve unit).

-Belgian reconnaisance units also utilized the Striker ATGM vehicles, like their british counterparts.



France:

-The Force d´Action d´Rapide is missing a Corps HQ, thus making it impossible to reattach its divisions to other Corps.

-HOT equipped VAB APCs would likely have had Thermal Sights (introduced by mid-1980s).



United States:

-The US army is a mix of about 33% B quality to 66% C quality. This seems somewhat low compared to both the british and german armies (almost uniform B, with about a 10% leavening of A aquality units as well). But this is a judgement call, not a "must do".

-The number of attack helicopters at Corps level (both V and VII) seems rather high (I see that numbers here are again taken from Isby and Kamps). In fact it would seem, that they are overstrenght by almost 100%.

-The SETAF battalion directly under CENTAG usually arrives well outside command range and rarely gets C&C established due to the distance to CENTAG HQ. A solution might be to give it its own btn HQ or make it subservient to some kind of administrative "holding" Corps HQ, thus allowing it to change its line of command to another Corps. In addition, this unit also has an artillery battery that is classed as both "towed" and "helicopter", thus rendering it unable to fire and useless.

[-72-]

Typically these updates are only concerned with if the engine changes work, and not with adjusting scenarios or OOBs; fwiw that sort of thing generally gets left to users to adjust if they want.

[JDR Dragoon]

Typically, yes. But I know that at least FG85 saw OOB changes between versions as better research became possible. And some of these changes are very easy to implement (essentially just changing the values of a unit). Others are harder, because they add or delete units, thus necessitating scenario rework as well (should the Force Action d´Rapide have a Corps HQ? It sure makes the game easier to play when you can reassign its units, but it is more of a "nice" rather than a "need"). Others still are open questions that are a matter of debate and opinion (like the quality rating of US units). Besides, if they are willing to fix the map in order to remove a non-existing bridge, why not the OOBs? Some of these OOB glitches are conspiring to make certain stock scenarios nigh-on unplayable, so why not do something about them?

[-72-]

Besides, if they are willing to fix the map in order to remove a non-existing bridge, why not the OOBs?

The main reason (and it is not limited to any single title), is that changing the OOBs would potentially break many more scenarios than it fixes (meaning that all of the stock scenarios would then have to be looked at again).

By 'break', I mean that in the sense that the programming would have issues if it were to call units that did not exist any longer, and probably would result in messages such as 'Error Reading File'. 'Break' in the sense that I read that you are meaning, is more about scenario tweaking, and play balance.

Some of these OOB glitches are conspiring to make certain stock scenarios nigh-on unplayable, so why not do something about them?

That is something that you would need to ask JTS directly, however my take on it is that is something that they leave up to their individual scenario designers; in a significant amount of situations some scenario designers have moved on and modifying OOBs and scenarios are not something that they have the time to do. Sometimes it happens, but many times unfortunately, it doesn't.

[JDR Dragoon]

Changing the values of a unit will not "break" anything. Deleting units, however will, if you delete them from the OOBs before deleting them from the scenario(s) first. Adding units to an OOB won´t do anything, apart from making more units available (but the scenarios will of course have to be opened up and modified, but this has also been done before with other titles). I know this from experience.

But you are of course absolutely right in highlighting, that this kind of tweaking should not be undertaken lightly.