Mayan Storyline War

[The Rock Doctor]

Ah.  I did not realize those orders had been requested.

Alright, well, I'll post some news item that summarizes what the Union's doing in March, then.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Yes,
Intelligence updates went out to the Aztecs/Mayans/Japanese,
and I requested orders by Thursday Night.
I got most of them, and started questioning details.
I got the final detail this morning, though one important question
remained unanswered.

[Kaiser Kirk]

More mechanics stuff :


Observations :
The aerial system was meant to replicate the horrendous attrition that real life air units suffered, and it does that very well.
The 'air support' aspect seems to work reasonably for now.

This does create the unrealistic situation that both sides will run out of aircraft halfway through the 6 month Turn.  In history, new airframes and fresh pilots were rushed into the air.  Countries spent huge sums to produce aircraft.
 
Here, we will just run out of planes. Which is expensive, and seems unrealistic.
Plus the difference between 1918 and 1915 planes is not really shining through.   That is by design, as the rules actually  put very small bonuses (2.5%) to differentiate the tech levels, but snip later said 10%. 

For April onwards, I think I will reduce the squadron damage from 2d20+Tech to 1d20+Tech.
With 2d20, the average is 21, and so a 1914 vs 1918 is a 11% difference. Which was close to Snip's goal.
However, some planes should survive the 6 month turn...so 1 d20 +Tech will slow the rate of attrition.
I may also institute a 'repair' rule, so damaged squadrons rebuild automatically.

Land Combat :

At the end of February, the NE province had fallen.
This left the NW and South Provinces.

Conceptually, that meant there were 2 basic fronts – the NW force, and the Central/South Force.
Costa Rica has a central mountain spine, which has to be held or else the NW force would be cut off.
So most of their 'push' is to from the North to break the Japanese line or from the East try to cut off the retreat of the NW force by pushing through the mountains.

The game is like RISK- no terrain, but I like trying to interject some reality.
There are a lot of rivers and hills in the NE province. So it would take time to move through it and set up depots allowing you to push further. So the Mayans will spend March having their Pioneers repair infrastructure in the NE province, before they can push South.

"Dugin"
Dug in troops- there for >6months, get +2 D20, for 7D20 base.
Fox is more interested in the troops staying alive than doing great damage.
So this turn I changed the 'Dug in' to +1 D20 (prepared firing positions) and 1 "Dugin" hit.
If the attacker hit the Dugin, no damage was taken.
That worked very much in Fox's favor this time, saving ...4? Units.
Forts have been working similar – 1 damage die and 1 Fort Hit, and have been saving his units.
While that is far more than the rules provide for, a 1% bonus for $1 & 1 BP is silly.
Scaled over a region, forts are now quite efficient.

"Mountains''
The geography of Costa Rica has a central spine of a mountain range.
This game doesn't really really have topography except 'harsh' which is generally cold or hot or jungle.
The game also doesn't have specialist mountain troops, or anything of that granularity.

So what I did was remove the mechanization bonus, and the artillery die.
That meant the Mayans got 4D20 for their infantry, while the Japanese got 4D20 for Infantry, +1D20 for 'prepared fire' from "Dugin", and 1 "Dugin" hit – which saved 3 regiments.

[The Rock Doctor]

My recollection of WW1 is that the difference between 1915 and 1918 aircraft was profound and that a fight betweeen them would be murderously one-sided.

Otherwise, good show of the reports and the explantory posts.

[TacCovert4]

My recollection of WW1 is that the difference between 1915 and 1918 aircraft was profound and that a fight betweeen them would be murderously one-sided.

Otherwise, good show of the reports and the explantory posts.

Good show agreed. 

On the aircraft,  it would seem to be a 30% increase in altitude,  a 20mph speed increase,  and a faster climb rate.

Generally speaking,  more modern aircraft would "boom and zoom" on older ones.   In a turning fight the difference wouldn't be as pronounced,  but I would agree that 1918 fighters would have a noticeable performance boost which would increase as the pilots learned how to maximize their advantages.

[Kaiser Kirk]

My recollection of WW1 is that the difference between 1915 and 1918 aircraft was profound and that a fight betweeen them would be murderously one-sided.

Otherwise, good show of the reports and the explantory posts.

Good show agreed. 

On the aircraft,  it would seem to be a 30% increase in altitude,  a 20mph speed increase,  and a faster climb rate.

Generally speaking,  more modern aircraft would "boom and zoom" on older ones.   In a turning fight the difference wouldn't be as pronounced,  but I would agree that 1918 fighters would have a noticeable performance boost which would increase as the pilots learned how to maximize their advantages.

I agree that the performance boost needs to be larger.

All these things - the 1% boost for a land fort, the 2.5% for the tech level differences, which Snip boosted to 10% - these are things I inherited.
I consider my 'job' to make the Rules we mutually follow work as best possible.... and when they don't adjust to better fit reality.
So the Forts are working as 1d20 Artillery, and 1 "hit" of absorption - hit a fort instead of a regiment, do no damage. Saved 3 IJA units so far.

The planes...RL attrition was tremendous, but need to tinker to make it 'work' better here.
Right now the randomness of 2D20 is far outstripping the tech difference of 4 pts.
Dropping it to 1D20 + Tech will increase that effective Tech level difference, and mean more wounded squadrons that fight on.
Next step is to give 10pts "repair" to wounded squadrons between fights to mimic replacements trickling in.

[Kaiser Kirk]

So the 'April' turn is taking a while.

I have resolved most things, and I trying to resolve one fight, and there may be another later.

However, I've been writing a commentary as I go.

Commentary :
I am finding this is substantially more complex than the prior wars.
Not just the 3 players, but also Submarines and air assets add additional search resources, there's two coasts, and 5 different naval theaters (Costa Rica Pacific/Carrib, Gulf of Azteca, Straits of Florida, and Eastern Carribean), and the land war has even split into two parts – a mountain slog in the coastal portion of the NW province, and the Costa Rican front).  Trying to resolve 12+ scenarios is certainly pushing the limit.

Particularly difficult was trying to figure out how to account for units out in search areas being ordered to make for a point and figuring their arrival time and then locations at various times of the month.
"Time on station" or "loiter time" became very important as to what units might be in a given area to see / react at a given time.

That turned out to be terribly complex and I don't want to do that part again.  This turn took way to much time to process. Battles are one thing to burn time on, but tracking fuel states and patrol ratios to figure out when units can arrive where and how long they can stay?  I think I will need to something done in some wargames where escorts/raiders are assigned to a job for the 'turn' and can't be reassigned.

On-board supplies and Destroyer fuel states became a vital issue in that. Generally I figure that a cruiser would be good for 3-4 weeks at sea, but most destroyers only have about 2 weeks of fuel at cruise, and really weren't meant to be at sea for months. Even so, their ranges are working mostly out to 10-15 days at cruise. One additional consideration is that if there is battle, one can burn through a day or two's fuel in an hour. 


The undefined nature of Points are continuing to cause issues.
To some extent I've dealt with that by...defining them..more or less..
If I know how big the land unit is, I can figure the number of ships to send it, and how long it takes to load and unload those ship. Likewise by defining air points, I have a rough idea of how many planes might appear in an airstrike.

For air units, their multi-task nature means they can do multiple things, but  that also means attrition in a fighter battle also depletes your bomber and reconnaissance assets  -....technically they are just different expressions of an air point.

Then there's the range aspect. The planes can't cover entire regions, in some cases not even the full province next door. So if you don't want to engage, you can just hide your Air points out of range.
There is no reason why a zeppelin can't fly 1000 miles, but an Air Point can't be transferred that way., so conceptually there's Zeppelins that moved, but that can't translate to bombers/fighters/non zeppelins....but, got to remember that air point really isn't there.

Zeppelins : For Air Points characterized as 'Zeppelin' I expect there are 4 medium Zeppelins, plus a diminished number of Fighters/Scouts/Bombers.  For Air Points not termed that way, I expect full squadrons of Fighters/Scouts/bombers.  BUT..Zeppelins can go places other aircraft can't.
No Aztec plane can cover the Mayan bases, but Aztec Zeppelins CAN...with mild risk. AA and high flying planes do offer some peril.  Phosporus rounds were in use by 1916 (end of 1915 tech) . Given the low numbers, they are better at point search and tailing, but still useful for area searches.
1915 Zeppelins are Q-class
1918 Zeppelins are V-Class
1922 Zeppelins will be Shenandoah class

Traditionally, units are not eliminated in combat. They take casualties, people are wounded, equipment is damaged, formations scatter. But given time, they repair and regain strength.  So I'm planning on adding :
"Rest and replacement"

Units not actively engaged in combat can regain 10 hits per subunit.
Subunits that have been destroyed are not eligible.

Units engaged in combat regain 5 hits per subunit.
Subunits that have been destroyed are not eligible.

I track unit damage in Excel, so fairly easy to start a new month with 'replacements' adjustments.

I will stress – there isn't a lot of point to take them out of line, as long as they exist they do damage and act as a target. But it does allow some healing if the pressure isn't kept on, and means 'nuisance' damage  will need to be substantial not to be overcome by replacements.

This of course also only applies when you have supply routes.

The last bit is I have received SeeKrieg V, which I ordered before the war, but only recently showed up. It seems substantively more complex, so I don't have time quickly learn and implement it, so I will be borrowing from it as I go.

Overall It's still interesting, it happens to fall in a timeframe where I can can spare some time, but is teaching me lessons about things I should done prewar. Which actually some I had planned, but that time got filled.  Trying to fit this in among the other things on my weekend To-Do list is ....interesting.

[snip]

As always, your efforts are apricated.

[Jefgte]

... On-board supplies and Destroyer fuel states became a vital issue in that. Generally I figure that a cruiser would be good for 3-4 weeks at sea, but most destroyers only have about 2 weeks of fuel at cruise, and really weren't meant to be at sea for months. Even so, their ranges are working mostly out to 10-15 days at cruise. One additional consideration is that if there is battle, one can burn through a day or two's fuel in an hour.
...

All fleets have supply ships.
Just incorporate them into the fleets.

As always, your efforts are apricated.

Yes, thanks for your time & work.
;)

[Kaiser Kirk]

All fleets have supply ships.
Just incorporate them into the fleets.

Commentary :
I did take supply ships, as well as some bulk freighters along.
Supply ships : The 6 supply ships assigned Puerto Barrios are 1920tons each, and if I count all the coal and other supplies as "Fleet Support" per the rules they add up to 5850tons, which supports 58,500 tons. They could be used as destroyer tenders, but have no where near sufficient tonnage to resupply the fleet as whole.
I will point out that at 975 tons potential 'fleet support' each one can not support even 1 battleship. The Fleet supply on one ship needs to exceed the tonnage of the ship being supported. So one supply ship could handle 9,750 - or a large cruiser, but not do much for a 11000+ BB,

Coaling : From everything I've read, including an account of the 'Great White Fleet' trying it, recoaling at sea was not practical, and no one did it. They did manage to move some bags underway,at very low speed- but as a demonstration, not a practical effort. Real recoaling took finding calmer waters – a bay, a lagoon, the lee of a point, sheltered by an island, etc. And then some recoaling could be done.

Underway oiling was a big real for the Americans in part due to this. As the British had such a network of bases, not as big a deal for them.

I roll each time a torpedo hits a net. 25% chance for an 18" and 33% for a 21".  Given the number of times that's happened, some should have gotten through, but they haven't. A false illustration.

SK5 is both helpful, by having rules for other situations, but is complex. But in some ways, not complex enough as for many situations it really doesn't address the tech ranges involved. Anyhow it gives me a place to start.

[The Rock Doctor]

Martinique is an event that will provoke some Union thinking...

[Kaiser Kirk]

It was interesting.
The Parthians meant to do far more coastal defenses,
but ..well I never have enough BP.

But part of what I've been spending on is craft I can
use as picket vessels so my fleets don't get surprised in port.
However had the Mayans decided to tilt at Parthian Trinidad,
the results may have been painful for me.

As for Martinique.
There are 6 coast defense points there, 2 air points, and enough things to say "Naval Base".
So it had robust defenses per the draft rules.

On the one hand, that's only a heavy cruiser in investment - $8 and 8BP,
on the other hand it's permanently tied to a fixed point, and mostly it can only
effect out to the horizon - the air points give a little more reach. 
The investment in the island's defenses were not effecting the war previously.

The island terrain had a fair amount to do with things, as it's large enough for things
to be off the coast. I use google maps and wind up taking a guess as to good spots for Batteries.
For the 240mm, I used the circle tool to decide where they would be to give coverage of the island,
and the southern one also could cover the LOS to the naval base in the NE part of the harbor.

Logi's Ballistics tool has a field for height of the gun axis, but the effect on penetration
was far less than I expected.  I did a quick calculation using cosine, and realized that
at ~14-16000m distance, adding 100m in firing height is a tiny difference in angle.
Perhaps I should have let the ships get closer, but they were nearing position to bombard,
and didn't need to get much further in than that.

[The Rock Doctor]

6 BP is a big investment...

[Desertfox]

Its definitely affecting how Japanese approach coastal defense. MTBs are proving worthless and subs and aircraft not much better.

[TacCovert4]

Eh, aircraft need numbers.   For 1923 I thought mine did well there.  I chose to hold the mtbs back because they'd get slaughtered I the daylight.   

Overall I'll probably invest in more fortifications,  as 10fp takes it into some serious returns with heavy guns and more guns and concrete.