Logistics / Amphib/ Mechanization /Crypto

[Kaiser Kirk]

The point of this post is to share the partially formed ideas I currently have.
If there are 'hey GURPS has this system that works awesome' suggestions, bring em on.

The Tech table is inherited and then trimmed, and then when I wound up mod in '1912', something I try to make useful.

How to implement Logistics and Mechanization I have long had vague ideas regarding.
As folks advance in tech, they become more pressing.

This should not be like RISK where you pile a bunch of land points into a pile and then keep attacking until you run out..or capture their cards, flip em, and keep rolling....

So Logistics :
A tremendously underrated aspect of warfare is keeping the army supplied.

To do that, units on the front get supplies via transport corridors - typically rail, starting to be road.
This somewhat limits the amount of troops reasonably in action on the front line.

In days of yore, offenses were often shallow in depth as the burden of bringing up supplies clogged the transportation system and limited potential depth.
Advances in food storage, parallel columns, and capturing depots allowed more free range.

For overseas provinces, the port of entry also limits the number of units. Think of Normandy and the Mulberries, and the priority of capturing Cherbourg and Calais...with England just 30miles away.
Still, you had the advance throttled by lack of fuel and supplies.

So, big picture, I'm planning to formalize a system, falling back on a wargame metric of 'supply points'.
Logistics will cap the # of troops you can cram into 1 province.
Supply points will then drop off the further from your provinces you go.
Likewise you'll use up supply points in combat.

Tracking wise...I don't think it will be a big deal if I do it reasonably well.

This should have the side effect of keeping wars a little smaller and more limited.

We already have some aspects in place.
A Port Symbol allows occupation of an entire region (4x4) or 16 provinces. So a throughput of at least 16 supply, though maybe 32 (i.e. 2 land/province).
The furthest you can advance at baseline was to the edge of that region (4), and then 1 more....so the 5 province was the limit for the 1900 tech.
Developed provinces can support 2 land units..so 2 supply generated?
While Coastal provinces with IC indicate some harbors, and can support up to 4 away...so like 5 supply?

Likewise, Deployment points are already needed for adventures in places you don't own, or have insufficient IC.
That will continue, but they may start carrying a specified number of supply points, so that we can figure sieges.

Currently I'm thinking a land unit uses 1 SP / HY 'regular' and 2 SP/HY 'combat'. While a DP has either 1 or 2 SP base, and bonus with Tech levels.

Ultimately I'd like to see the ability to cut off and starve a province into submission- but on a long enough time frame the defender can react and send his navy, or otherwise rescue.

It's a concept I've had for a while, really need to get it down and specified.

Amphib
As designed, it was meant to discourage 'early wars', which Snip banned 1910-1912,
by limiting troops, which meant only lightly held places would be truly vulnerable.
Only later would folks research the 1910 and later techs and be able
to really take defended places.

My intent was, the advances in tech should not only allow more total troops, but more arriving 'abreast'. Bigger landings.
So more ability to land and start taking effect.

Likewise, the bigger shells in greater number should suppress the foe and allow landings to proceed 'better'.

'mechanization
How to integrate mechanization ... thankfully more a problem in the future than now.
this is another place having generic 'land units' can be annoying.

Right now, I am inclined to having a separate armor 'dice pool' used, focused on one opposing land unit.
Destroy it, and you 'breakthrough' and have a chance of bonus damage.

Of course, the defender would have armor dice too.


Crypto
What I have done in prior wars is made 'opposed rolls' where each side compared a 5d20 result, and if the higher was 2x the lower, the higher got some bonus info.
What I want to do is keep that, but add in scouting units as a tactical modifier - planes / armored cars/ cavalry/ what ever,
While at the strategic level add in a continuing war total, so that Side A, particularly with a tech advantage, may eventually 'crack' Side B's codes.

That may sound complicated, but in practice it's going down a checklist and using an on-line dice roller.

[The Rock Doctor]

You've actually run a land war without having this stuff in place, so I guess my first question is how these considerations played into resolving the Aztec/Roman to-do. 

My own view is that we've gone ten sim-years without defining these techs, so I'd argue we don't need them as stand-alone items.

Basic logistical considerations - stacking limits, ability to operate away from supply points - can be incorporated into the generic Land Unit tech.

Making mechanization work is going to be difficult since our map provinces don't in any way correlate to ease or difficulty of mobility or the presences of road infrastructure.

Crypto is pretty arcane, really, and doesn't play into ship design, fleet design, or colonization.  It's about as useful as a tech for professional versus conscripted troops or artisanal production to manufacturing lines.

[snip]

If I can remove enough dust from the memory banks, my original thoughts on those techs were along the lines of making them a multiplier in land combat. The idea being that these techs, along with the Army & Artillery Tech, allowed for land points to become more "efficient" compared to a standard version. Ideally, in the abstract, this was ment to provide a real effect to technological and doctrinal advance which would be expected from the major powers vs the minor ones and allow for improvements in effectiveness without needing to just pile on more points.

I agree with Rocky, its best to handle these things in a more abstract way so that the focus can remain on the naval aspect, but I'm not sure folding the techs in is the best way to proceed as I think it does create some meaningful choice.

[TacCovert4]

Well, the only major land war was between Rome and I, and that was a war of equals for the most part in land tech.  I'd consider that if both parties are roughly equal, then things would work out as they did, which is initial moves and then a stalemate.

My thoughts are as follows:

Logistics - Determines the Depth of a thrust, aka the efficiency of the DP.  Presume that any territory with IC has at least a moderately developed road net and railroads and thus in a mobilized nature can support military operations through that territory unless it's been degraded by land, air, or naval bombardment operations.  Presume that any territory held for 1 full year has at least basic rail service and basic roads, even if there's no IC built yet, and can support military operations through that territory so long as there's 1 DP in the territory.....the DP in this case is functioning as engineers/logisticians to maintain roads and all that jazz in the absence of the civilian infrastructure of an IC.  1 DP supports 1 IC on forward operations.  The Logistics level will determine how FAR forward you can go into degraded territory or territory you don't control since it's determining the scope and nature of the assets in play.  And a wartime footing is different than the 90% unopposed 'taking' of lands from locals without military means of their own.  I'd say that Basic logistics allots a 2 territory advance, and every level after this allots 2 more territories of advance before the 'held for 1 year with 1 DP' rule kicks in.

Note - This is for a unit to be 'fully' in supply.  Naturally armored or cavalry, or armored cavalry thrusts could be done outside of supply, but I'd denote this as units who overreach the limits of their supply in a HY suffer a degradation to their combat performance.

Infantry Tech - Determines the Efficiency of LP against Land and Air forces in direct combat.

Mechanization - Modifies the efficiency of LP against land and air forces in direct Combat.  Also determines the SPEED of a thrust.  Unmechanized forces might only get a 2 territory advance in a 6 month timeframe, while each level of mechanization is a 2 territory improvement to the distance you can cover in a breakthrough in a 6 month timeframe.

As far as when dissimilar forces clash, that's when the modifiers start to seriously matter.  For instance, if a nation only has the 1905 Infantry tech and doesn't have a Mech tech, then they're going to suffer horribly outside of fortifications against a nation with 1915 mechanization as their only ways to defeat tanks are through the use of fortification-stuff like ditches and minefields, literally running up to tanks with satchel charges, or field artillery in direct fire roles (and their field artillery is kinda crap anyway).  I'd consider a 1905 tech LP versus a 1915 tech LP to have a minor disadvantage in offense and defense.  I'd consider a 1915 Infantry Only LP vs a 1915 Mech LP to have a minor disadvantage on the defensive and a major one on the offensive.  For practical purposes, the 1915 Infantry tech would provide a smattering of the proper equipment to deal with 1915 tanks and armored cars, but not in mass quantities.  But against the 1915 Mech tech, 1925 Infantry tech would be able to reverse that on the defensive as the HMGs and AT weapons would be good enough.

Basically, an army following solely the tech tree for Infantry would be able to defensively hold ground on a 1.5-1 basis against someone following Infantry and Mech trees, presuming their tech years are the same.  But they'd have a hell of a time attacking the same country's forces and wouldn't have the offensive depth compared to their foe. 

Amphibious Techs:  I'd consider this like Kirk said, that each bump in tech is increasing the volume that can be put ashore at once in a location.  For abstracting purposes, I'd say that it's 1 LP ashore per month for each 'invasion' that can be done.  So 1905 tech can put 3 LP ashore per month up to the 1/6, and 1910 can put 5 ashore per month up to the 1/3.  I might also call the 1905 the 'baseline' for un-fortified defenders vs attackers 1-1.  And give 1910 a buff to their attack against unfortified up to level 2 fortifications, and so forth.  Basically to hold a beach against a 1928 amphibious attack, you'd need to have 9 LP defending and level 6 coastal fortifications.

Air:  I've made mention of this before.  But I think that the way to run this in wartime is something along these lines:

Zepplin AP - Intelligence buff ashore and at sea, spotting.  Also an ASW asset to reduce effectiveness of submarines where Zepplins are operating.  Can be tasked with Interdiction or Strategic Bombing.  Interdiction attacks DP, Strategic Bombing attacks IC.

Fixed Wing AP - Can be used for Recce/Naval Patrol/ASW, Ground Support, Interdiction, or Strategic Bombing.  Any province with fixed-wing AP is automatically considered to put fighters up in defense of own units and infrastructure.  Ground Support is direct attacks against LP in support of ground troops, acts as a buff to friendly LP.  Interdiction puts fighters, fighter-bombers, and light bombers over the battlefield but attacks DP.  Strategic Bombing puts up strikes against target province IC, with escorts if the tech allows them at that range.

Enemy AP numbers/tech level and Infantry tech level factor into degradation of AP in the battlespace (the naval side will be a bit more hands on).

[The Rock Doctor]

Again, measuring capabilities by "provinces per turn" doesn't make sense when our base map has wildly differently sized provinces - of which the largest are often the least hospitable, developed, or accessible.

[TacCovert4]

I agree.  I was being more representative than absolute as far as the ratios.  Probably have to be some variation of 'miles' in play unfortunately.

[Kaiser Kirk]

-  Appreciate comments, it's why I threw this up.

-  Actually I didn't run the land war. Rome and the Aztec agreed to do a story format, much like the 2nd Japanese-Chinese conflict.  However, how I would handle a single envelopment move in the great plains was a matter of some consideration on my part.  The low tech level, and the desire of the players to tell the story meant I didn't need an answer.

-  We could ditch these... but since folks have already invested in them, it seems a tad late. Plus they do reflect real world limitations.

-  The "advantage" given for land points by tech is already specified in the rules....hmm no it's not anymore. The bits on forts are still there. I could swear it USED to be 3%, must have gotten
    trimmed pregame.   

-  It would be fairly easy to convert Armor/Art them to simply multiplying the "Land Point" dice as Snip indicates. Anyhow, I particularly want terrain to matter as well as tech, and that could be worked in at that point.

-  Armor - what tac described is a bit where I was thinking, but with an initial 'breakthrough' roll. Many armored attacks failed to get sufficient depth. However, it could be kept simple as a multiplier, terrain & tech depending.

-  Amphib- that's what I was trying to indicate by 'width'. The greater the tech, the more you can land per wave, so the more get off the beach.

-  As a side note, the use of % differences also terribly complicated coming up with a combat system in the first place, because not many are based on %. But that's how the forts...and I could swear the land point tech was.

-  As a note - In terms of focusing on Naval - agreed.   The Generic points was to keep the focus on naval combat. I'm not looking to change that.

-  I will say though, that the battle of the Caicos was part of what highlighted the need (and a potential great plains end run) for supply.
A major part of naval supremacy is controlling the sea lines of communication. You sever the foes supply lines, and you have flexibility to apply a mass attack to any weak area you choose,
making it extremely hard to defend all point equally at once.
Further, it's very hard to assess the effectiveness of a blockade if you have no way of knowing if and when it would work - or how many ships need to get through to unload, taking how many weeks - to offset the blockade.

- Back to the the design with the LP/DP/AP system, there will not be separate armored units, apparently everything is a mixed-arm 'legion' or something. Likewise with Zeppelins vs. anyother, they are all air points, what they are called is style.  Apparently we have many many more aircraft than pilots, so if it's time to fly the fighter, they get in that, if the bomber...that.

-  Air - the lack of air point differentiation means subdividing it between the two doesn't work.  Plus the points are assigned Regions (16 provinces), so air attacks anywhere in the region are met by the opposing air units.  As for strategic bombing, I honestly doubt players can afford the build points to field 1000 bomber streams, and maintain them through the attrition. Without POL nodes to attack, en masse, repeatedly, the effectiveness would be very limited.

- Provinces/ Miles : yeah, I'm aware of that one. On the plus side Urban/Mountains tend to be small, plains large. So I can live with Provinces...but with a terrain mod. Amazon Jungle, even if large should not be the same as Nebraska.

[Desertfox]

While crypto might be arcane it is absolutely war changing. See Room 40 in WWI at Jutland or USN Intelligence at Midway. So far I might be the only to actually invest resources into it, but we should have a way to integrate it into the combat system used.

[TacCovert4]

While crypto might be arcane it is absolutely war changing. See Room 40 in WWI at Jutland or USN Intelligence at Midway. So far I might be the only to actually invest resources into it, but we should have a way to integrate it into the combat system used.

Well, it did factor in the Caicos War.  IIRC Snip was getting information out of me at least for a while, I got a report that my naval codes were potentially compromised at one point.  I think that it should factor at times when there's a disparity in tech.

But yes, the Caicos war is why I'm currently investing in it.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Crypto has been figured into the various conflicts, and the current system gives information bonuses or failures, but pretty much on a monthly basis.  Tech differences would modify the dice rolls.
I've got it written out in my files, but off the top of my head 3:2 success is mild information, while 2:1 is major/very specific.

What I think I should do going forward is having two sets of rolls - one a monthly success/fail- tactical, the other a cumulative- strategic.
That way a small advantage in crypto would add up over time, allowing codes to be actually cracked and that information reacted on. 

Parthia, like many, is working on this tech.