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FAUXTON posted:I can't even imagine where a turret basket would make significant differences since you're training the crew without one. What are turret baskets/what are they for? My brain tells me a turret basket is a metal cage thingy around the back/sides of the turret and they're just used for storing random non-explosive supplies and poo poo that can go on the outside of the tank.
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Feb 4, 2015 08:48
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Slavvy posted:What are turret baskets/what are they for? My brain tells me a turret basket is a metal cage thingy around the back/sides of the turret and they're just used for storing random non-explosive supplies and poo poo that can go on the outside of the tank. It's basically a way the gunner can stay with the gun rather than have to turn on his feet to follow it. It could be a platform or a chair or webbing for all it matters, it just means the gunner doesn't have to leave the gun unless he's also being the loader. Even then, the concept could be expanded to include a rack of ammo but generally it would be supplemented by larger stores elsewhere in the tank.
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Feb 4, 2015 09:21
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So what happens normally? He has to shuffle around as the turret rotates? What happens to the commander in that situation?
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Feb 4, 2015 09:23
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Oh my God, look at this poo poo.
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Feb 4, 2015 11:33
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We need a giant  emote that has him wearing a Stahlhelm for that link. Holy poo poo.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:04
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Feb 4, 2015 12:15
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You can see a few more pages of the whole thing here, but my favourite part was probablyquote:Published by Lulu Publishing, 2013  It's like he really wanted to make a war game but without the boring "making a game" parts.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:17
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I'm the glaring lack of repair requirements, breakdown rates, accessibility to spare parts, ease of repair or construction constraints in that equation.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:26
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Also the Range of Action that only takes into account Road Range because of *reasons*
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Feb 4, 2015 12:27
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If this guy can pull this off for his next trick he should unveil the rules of psychohistory. He can't.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:36
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[spoiler]The germans win no matter what[/spioler]
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Feb 4, 2015 12:40
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That's what happens when you look at war from heroic perspective, I think. Winning it because you can make more tanks that might not be biggest killers, but are easy to replace, repair and maintain doesn't sound very cool, since logistics and supply trains aren't heroic, and it's an industrial scale human wave attack where tanks crews are viewed as more expendable than say Knight Commander Siegfried Of The Epischeheldenmordkamfwagen XII 'Blut Krieg'. Which is understandable, since the only people who like claim victory by throwing people in the meatgrinder are HFY assholes (though they also try to claim human ingenuity, too, because gently caress aliens, I guess).
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Feb 4, 2015 12:58
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Lulu.com Superstar Nigel Askey posted:Since the early 1980s, I have taken a keen interest in military history and military simulations, with a particular emphasis on WWII and ‘modern’ military campaigns. At the University of Sussex I was a founding member of the ‘war-gaming’ club: at that time sophisticated computer based military simulations were still in their infancy and most of the war games used traditional manual map based systems. Since then I have progressively built up my library of military history, with particular interest on the East Front during WWII. Dude can't even spell the name of the game company he consulted for right. It's Talonsoft. I know this because I spent more time playing The Operational Art of War during high school than I did talking to girls.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:01
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I read up toquote:Of the total of 20 500 Soviet tanks lost in 1941, approximately 2 300 were T-34s and over 900 were mostly KV heavy tanks.(7) Even if the T-34's loss ratio was better than seven for every German tank, it was still most likely in the region of four or five to one. Frankly, if 2 300 of any new Wehrmacht tank type had been lost within six months of its first deployment, even with a loss ratio of one to one (let alone 0.2-0.3 to one), then most WWII historians would have described the tank's combat record as an unmitigated diaster. And ... yeah.  He does realise that in the first year of the Tiger I's deployment, the Germans only built 78 of them, right?
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Feb 4, 2015 13:36
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Also, what does it really say about a tank if loads of them are destroyed after they are caught in giant pockets and surrounded because of overall strategic and doctrinal failure? I'm just preaching to the choir. This guy is even more stupid than a wehraboo, he has just dressed his stupidity up with numbers.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:39
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Fangz posted:I read up to There's also the fact that the bulk of those tanks were lost in mass encirclements where they had x miles worth of fuel and the frontline was x+y miles away.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:39
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Alchenar posted:There's also the fact that the bulk of those tanks were lost in mass encirclements where they had x miles worth of fuel and the frontline was x+y miles away. But you see, an ideal tank would not get encircled, because an ideal tank would never leave the drawing board, thus attaining a loss ratio of 1:Infinity.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:41
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Yeah you see guys, if the T-34 had been a better tank, the soviets wouldn't have been encircled at all 
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Feb 4, 2015 13:43
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In fairness it does seem like the maths he goes into to describe armour effectiveness would be helpful in assigning values to a grand-tactical/operational level wargame.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:03
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Alchenar posted:In fairness it does seem like the maths he goes into to describe armour effectiveness would be helpful in assigning values to a grand-tactical/operational level wargame. Then again, not many of those take in training time, easy of repair and stuff like that as discrete measures. I'm sure Gary Grisby is working on something, tho.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:13
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Alchenar posted:In fairness it does seem like the maths he goes into to describe armour effectiveness would be helpful in assigning values to a grand-tactical/operational level wargame. No, it's bullshit. It's the standard wargamer's fallacy, that going into massive amounts of technical details would magically solve the real design issues of (a) how do we make the game fun, and (b) how do we allow the game to produce historically representative results. That just doesn't work, and stuff like War in the East exemplifies that failure. There the entire war is modelled down to the *individual squad level*, but fails dramatically to produce historical results, thus requiring immense fudge factors to bring things in line with reality. What you really want to do is simplify. Decide on the core interactions that matter to you (say, in early barbarossa a nazi unit should be able to easily brush aside an equivalently sized but unprepared soviet unit) and make sure it works out. Not gently caress around assigning points values to individual machine guns.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:34
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Slavvy posted:So what happens normally? He has to shuffle around as the turret rotates? What happens to the commander in that situation? They sit in the chairs that rotate with the turret. They also aren't stuck messing with the turret when they're refilling the ammo rack which is in the floor and not the sponsons because sponson ammo racks are asking for fire to knock out your tanks. Also, simple mechanics designed to create historical decisions and results nearly always work way better. Complex ones designed to represent every factor don't represent every factor and weigh the existing ones wrong invariably, and the two are in opposition to each other. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 14:35
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And then PFC Fuckknuckles puts part of the engine together wrong during routine maintenance and the whole thing catches fire and is a total loss and all those fancy numbers are rendered meaningless because HISTORY IS NOT ANSWERABLE TO A SET OF EQUATIONS. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 14:39
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FAUXTON posted:I can't even imagine where a turret basket would make significant differences since you're training the crew without one. The difference can be quite detrimental. The Soviets saw how well a turret basket worked in the Stuart, went "what is this dumb poo poo?" And proceeded to not use one. Slavvy posted:What are turret baskets/what are they for? My brain tells me a turret basket is a metal cage thingy around the back/sides of the turret and they're just used for storing random non-explosive supplies and poo poo that can go on the outside of the tank. The important part is the rotating floor, which follows the turret. This way, the loader can work while standing and turn with the gun. It's quite easy to make a sitting crewman track the gun (just give him a rotating chair), but a loader needs more room to work, so he has to stand. A turret basket is not necessarily an improvement. If your ammunition is stored on the floor (the safest place to put it), the loader can't get to it unless the turret basket is positioned at a very specific angle. Soviet trials of American and German tanks make notes that when the ready rack is emptied, the loader needs the help of the driver or radio operator to retrieve additional ammunition. Additionally, a turret basket limits the available height of the fighting compartment, and space inside a tank is precious enough as it is. To summarize, a turret basket can be good, but not a +5 bonus to crew effectiveness like this guy thinks.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:41
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Fangz posted:No, it's bullshit. It's the standard wargamer's fallacy, that going into massive amounts of technical details would magically solve the real design issues of (a) how do we make the game fun, and (b) how do we allow the game to produce historically representative results. That just doesn't work, and stuff like War in the East exemplifies that failure. There the entire war is modelled down to the *individual squad level*, but fails dramatically to produce historical results, thus requiring immense fudge factors to bring things in line with reality.  Start of the Case Yellow scenario for Unconditional Surrender Not having to do factor counting while still having results that approximate history (of course, all wargames aren't completely historical, because otherwise it would completely miss the point of wargames in the first place).
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Feb 4, 2015 14:43
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Fangz posted:No, it's bullshit. It's the standard wargamer's fallacy, that going into massive amounts of technical details would magically solve the real design issues of (a) how do we make the game fun, and (b) how do we allow the game to produce historically representative results. That just doesn't work, and stuff like War in the East exemplifies that failure. There the entire war is modelled down to the *individual squad level*, but fails dramatically to produce historical results, thus requiring immense fudge factors to bring things in line with reality. I was thinking of Command Ops as an example. Company strength units rolling around as abstract clouds in a certain area with an abstracted amount of firepower and protection. It works really well but the abstracted numbers have to be derived from somewhere. e: I am very much in favour of abstraction, but it's a sliding scale that works in proportion to how high 'up' your wargame's perspective is. e2: the theme of your game also matters. A short game about a particular historic campaign can get away with 'hard' balance rules for each side in order to establish balance and flavour (Decisive Campaigns does this extremely well), a longer game that's supposed to be about changing history on a grander scale needs balance to be emergent from lower factors in order to remain coherent. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 14:51
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I think we're getting away from the point that yeah, all those crazy formulas and number values per machine gun are useful for designing a wargame, because all games are at some level abstractions of real events (an obvious example being that knights weren't limited to L-shaped movements in real life like in chess). But that's not what the guy is using them for. He's using them for what is, allegedly, a serious work of historical writing. That's stupid and batshit and I hate him for it. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 14:54
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Tekopo posted:Simplification can often lead to more realistic and historical results. My favourite example of this isn't a wargame in the traditional sense, but a Cold War game: Twilight Struggle. It becomes a very organic version of the Cold War, and it even adapts to the players' level of competence in a historical way. There's a DEFCON tracker that gets worse the more aggressive actions you take, and from certain events, and it's possible to lose the game by going to DEFCON 1 and causing a nuclear war. The more experienced you are at the game, the less likely you are to cause a nuclear war since you know the mechanics and the cards so well. So a game between newbies is likely to end in an Oops Apocalypse, while a game between experienced players is likely to only finish by end-game scoring. In other words, the mechanics have you walk a tightrope at DEFCON 2 constantly and you have very little room to slip up - until the late game (modeling the 1970s-1980s, especially the late 1980s), when card events prompt the players to reduce tensions! The core mechanic aside playing cards for events or action points is the world map where you spread influence points, and the game system also leads to plausible situations like Israel either getting wiped out very early in the game, or remaining an American bastion in the Middle East throughout it. Similarly, it's possible for the Berlin crisis to cause a nuclear war by increasing tensions or kick American influence out of West Germany, but only in the early stage of the game. Later on, events conspire to give the American player the chance to kick the Soviet Union out of East Germany.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:16
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On like a macro level does anyone give a gently caress if the T34-M1941 was worse than the Pz.III Ausf. L if the Reds ended up fuckin mopping the floor with the the Germans in the end? OK, let's take the guy's argument at face value for fun - the T34 sucked huge dicks. So what? Why does this matter to anyone who cares about how wars are fought and won beyond the tactical level? edit: holy moly I went on the Pz.III wiki page and found this thing: quote:Tauchpanzer III - Some tanks were converted to amphibious tanks for Operation Sea Lion. Unusually, they were designed to be able to stay underwater rather than to float. The idea was that they would be launched near to the invasion shore and then drive to dry land on the sea bottom. The tank was waterproofed, the exhaust was fitted with a one-way valve and air intake was through a hose.   
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Feb 4, 2015 15:17
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Antti posted:The more experienced you are at the game, the less likely you are to cause a nuclear war since you know the mechanics and the cards so well. So a game between newbies is likely to end in an Oops Apocalypse, while a game between experienced players is likely to only finish by end-game scoring. In other words, the mechanics have you walk a tightrope at DEFCON 2 constantly and you have very little room to slip up - until the late game (modeling the 1970s-1980s, especially the late 1980s), when card events prompt the players to reduce tensions! Or they'll realize they've lost the game anyway and nuke the world as a last gently caress you. (Rumda  )
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Feb 4, 2015 15:23
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Now did they only convert a few because Sea Lion was canceled, or because the tank crews gave a big unanimous "gently caress THAT." Cause that's what I would've said.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:24
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:On like a macro level does anyone give a gently caress if the T34-M1941 was worse than the Pz.III Ausf. L if the Reds ended up fuckin mopping the floor with the the Germans in the end? OK, let's take the guy's argument at face value for fun - the T34 sucked huge dicks. So what? Why does this matter to anyone who cares about how wars are fought and won beyond the tactical level?
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Feb 4, 2015 15:28
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Arrath posted:Now did they only convert a few because Sea Lion was canceled, or because the tank crews gave a big unanimous "gently caress THAT." Cause that's what I would've said. The whole plan was really fanciful, probably an attempt to gain negotiating power.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:33
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Arrath posted:Now did they only convert a few because Sea Lion was canceled, or because the tank crews gave a big unanimous "gently caress THAT." Cause that's what I would've said. They converted about 200 or so Panzer IIIs and IVs. Actually, the same ideas did work out for river crossings for both the Wehrmacht and the Allies and IIRC the Brits used a similar idea to get their Churchills ashore during Dieppe. Magni fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 15:45
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Arrath posted:Now did they only convert a few because Sea Lion was canceled, or because the tank crews gave a big unanimous "gently caress THAT." Cause that's what I would've said. poo poo, DD tank drivers had it bad enough and they at least had a shot of bailing out if the thing started to swamp.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:54
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Magni posted:They converted about 200 or so Panzer IIIs and IVs. The tanks for Dieppe were delivered by LCT, and almost all other amphibious tank designs were either external flotation (larger tanks with conversions) or internal flotation for purpose-built amphibious tanks (T-37 etc).
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Feb 4, 2015 16:00
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Tekopo posted:It's in his 'MILITARY MYTHS' section, where he tries to counter the myth that that the T-34 was The Best Tank in the War(tm). Can't see a section about the Panther though, bizarre... The best tank in the war is definitely the one that was fully operational in the spot where you needed a tank so like "best tank in the war" probably switched a few hundred times an hour.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:02
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:poo poo, DD tank drivers had it bad enough and they at least had a shot of bailing out if the thing started to swamp. Yeah I was thinking if I'm going to be trapped in a metal box I'd rather nominally be on the surface for a time and have a chance to open a hatch and get out. Not so much when you're already on the bottom. It does sound like a sensible method for crossing rivers, at the least it seems like checking the waterproofing and attaching the hose would take less time than fitting the flotation screens that a DD tank requires. Reading the dieppe article they did get some tanks on shore so it works in ocean conditions but drat, it gives me the heebie jeebies. E: Okay so maybe the Dieppe tanks didn't crawl along the bottom. The article surely didn't mention how they were delivered.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:05
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:poo poo, DD tank drivers had it bad enough and they at least had a shot of bailing out if the thing started to swamp. Snorkeling devices are a standard feature on many modern MBT's, actually. Leopard 2:  T-72:  The main difference is that Tauchpanzer could wade at a depth of 15 meters. I think you could still swim out of water that deep if something went wrong. On the plus side, when protected by so much water the worst that could happen is that your snorkel gets damaged, which is a lot smaller target for coastal artillery than a DD.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:08
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 The technical details of tanks and planes and whatnot are important, but they're no more or less important than lots and lots and lots of other factors. Also these tank dweebs are lightweights compared to plane nerds. edit - goddammit well at least my snorkel tank picture was different and the snorkel far more impressive
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Feb 4, 2015 16:09
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