Suggestion: the workings of the factory

[joe98]

The best games are those that are easy to play and hard to master. With that in mind my suggestion for the factory:

Each turn the player receives production points. The player opens the factory and there is a list of items:

Infantry
Armour
Air force
Navy
Commanders

Each turn the player allocates his points among the 5 items as he sees fit.

Each item has a sub menu. In the developer??™s comments elsewhere, armour for example comes in 6 levels of technology:

Panzer 1
Panzer 2
Panzer 3
Panzer 4
Panzer 5 - Panther
Panzer 6 ??“ Tiger

In the armour sub-menu, the player allocates his armour points among the 6 categories.

In the other categories, there doesn??™t need to be 6 levels of technology. There might be 2 or 3 or 4. Whatever the developers feel, is most appropriate.

Once the orders are complete, the products spit out of the factory at a given interval, say 6 months after placing the order.

Of course there needs to be a stopper of some kind to stop the Tiger tank appearing in 1941.

The Panzer 1 is the cheapest of the lot. The player should be able to choose his mix of armour. He could for example have lots of Panzer 1s and very few of the others or what ever mix he sees fit.

Once the points have been spent, the player ought to be able to go to a calendar and see what dates the various units will appear.

The player should then be allowed to go back in and tweak, then check the calendar again until he gets the right mix. Ultimately he hits a button stating he has finished allocating points for that turn.

The next step is to go in and tweak orders he placed in previous turns. By tweaking such orders, they return to the front of the que. Those orders might have been due to arrive in 4 months but because they have been tweaked, they return to the back of the que and will now arrive in 6 months instead.

[SMK-at-work]

Remember that some resources might not be relevant to some units - so manpower is required for everything, but heavy engineering isn't as necessary for infantry as it is for armour or battleships.

Also I think that perhaps better technology should not always be more expensive than cheaper technology - the classic case is, IIRC, the Panther, which costs pretty much the same as a Pz-IV.

costs decreased massively throughout the war - a T34 cost 270,000 roubles in 1941, but only 135000 by the end of production of the 76mm version. the 85mm version started at 164000 and ended at 142000. I read somewhere recently of a soviet a/c factory that halved the manhours required to build one of their fighters over a period of a couple of years.

SC2 does this OK with a "Production technology" tech that lowers teh costs of buildign units as the same time as the costs of increasing tech rise, so you can quite easily gett good tech cheap.

What was important a lot of the time was the cost and down time of changing production - so the LaGG-3 was kept in production long after it was obsolescent, ditto the 2 pounder, the Me-109, the Pz-IV, etc.

Russian light tanks were kept in production becuse the factories that made them were incapable of producing T34's, being former tractor and truck plants - hence the longevity of the T70 - nothing to do with any combat capability!

I'd like to see costs and downtime modeled better rather than just being able to upgrade units or production at the flick of a switch.

[honvedseg]

Competing designs and business dealings had at least as much to do with military hardware production as actual combat effectiveness. The US M4 Sherman tank was a decent design when it came out, but was seriously outclassed by nearly everything on the battlefield by '45. We still cranked out tens of thousands more. The large locomotive works and foundries where the major components were made had a sizable investment in tooling and machinery, and weren't in any hurry to change the design. Hearings were held after the war as to why we continued to produce an obsolete tank for an additional two years, but nothing ever came of it. We still continued to produce them, and used them in the Korean War as well.

The old and venerable PzKw. Mk.IV was kept in production until the end of the war, not because of its effectiveness or cost, but because it got much better fuel economy than the Panther. The pressure exerted by companies such as Krupp to keep the design in production may also have influenced the decision.

BTW, the initial Russian tanks would be mostly either the BT-7 or T-26. The T-34 was in production by the time Russia entered the war, but was not deployed in any numbers until later. The earlier series of tanks constitiuted the bulk of their armored forces until after the Barbarossa invasion, and the German advance on Moscow, by which time most of the earlier models had been destroyed.

Also, Germany actually had a "Panzer V" in 1939. It was NOT a Panther, but a "land battleship", similar in concept to the two huge Russian multi-turreted models (T-28? and T-?). Only two or three were built, IIRC, and propaganda photos were released showing their "participation" in the invasion of Norway. They proved as ineffective as the Russian giants. Later, when the Germans ran up against the Russian T-34 and needed something as a suitable counter, the Panther was rushed onto the drawing board, and the old Pz.V number recycled.

[SMK-at-work]

Over 1100 T34's had been produced by Barbarossa - not all were with units of course, but it is still a large number - the Russian Battlefield says that 832 were with hte various western Military districts on 1 June 1941, and maybe 967 by 22 june.

On 26 june various russian units made attacks around Dubno - the 4 mechanised Cosrps involved had a strength of over 2156 tanks, of which 181 were T34's and 150 were KV-1's.

Only 1000 were actually employed - the others having broken down or still being in transit, training or having been lost, but almot all the T34's and KV's were in the northern arm of the assault, which numbered 300 total.

so they were encountered from the very first week of the campaign and in some numbers, but tactical deficiencies minimised their effectiveness.

I'm also in a minority in thinking there was nothing particularly wrong with the Sherman. Later marks with the 76mm were every bit battleworthy in 1945, better than the T34-85 in all significant respects and substantially better than the P-IV also. the 75mm gun was kept perhaps a year too long, but that's about it for it's supposed obsolescence IMO.

It was a medium tank, and to compare it to a 45 ton panther that has almost 50% more weight is ridiculous.

A history of the various Pzkw-V and VI multi-turert types is at http://www.achtungpanzer.com/neu.htm

[IainMcNeil]

I'm not so convinced by the Sherman. I've heard lots of stories of the crew bailing out as soon as they met enemy tanks as it was far safer outside than in, as they were reknowned for brewing up.

[honvedseg]

The M4 Sherman developed a nasty reputation as a fireball waiting to happen. Mechanically, they were extremely reliable, and decently armored. The difficulty arose when something managed to get through their thick hides. Gasoline fueled, and with ammunition stowage along the inside of both the hull and turret sides, plus fuel lines highly vulnerable to exploding mines, they quickly received the nick-names of "Ronson" (a popular brand of lighter at the time) by the allies, and "Tommy cooker" from their opponents. The 75mm medium-velocity gun was inadequate against late war axis armor, although it was highly effective as an infantry support weapon. If these had served in support of a true tank-killer MBT, they would have been perfectly suited to the secondary role, but such was not the case. No US heavy tank was fielded in time to see active service in Europe, and the upgunned 76mm armed M4A3E8 variants remained a minority element among the shorter-barreled masses. The Germans quickly learned to concentrate fire on the "well endowed" models, resulting in a number of interesting makeshift attempts by "Easy 8" crews to hide or camouflage the last couple feet of gun barrel.

1100 T-34s is roughly a single month's production by mid-war standards. The vast majority of the Russian tanks at the onset of the Barbarossa offensive were BT-5 and BT-7 models, T-26, T-60, and various other light tanks, along with a small number of KV-I and even smaller number of KV-II heavy tanks, with the first several hundred of the T-34 series making up no more than a few percent of the total. I would really hesitate to depict the early-war Soviet tank as a T-34. The light and fast BT-7, which the German infantry nick-named the "Mickey Mouse" for the twin circular hatches which were commonly seen standing wide open on the abandoned vehicles, was probably the most numerous at the time. These odd machines were based on a modified US Christie suspension system, but designed with removable tracks so they could be driven on their road wheels over improved roads to save on track wear. Other tanks of the time typically needed to replace the tracks after only 1000-1500 km of travel, due to rapid wear at the hinge pins. Funny, when you consider how few improved roads there were in Russia.

[SMK-at-work]

Yes Shermans did get a reputaion for burning - one that was linked to ammo and had nothign to do with gasoline - virtually all German tanks had Gasoline engines too, and while Diesel is harder to ignite an explosion of an AT round inside a tank is uausally plenty ejough to set it going and it does a lot more damage and is much harder to put out when it is burning!

Ammunition explosion problems with Shermans were almost completely solved by the intruduction of "wet" storage in 1944 - that is the ammo was stored in 2-walled containers inside the tank and there was water between the 2 walls - any penetration immediately dowsed teh ammo in water!

Shermans came with a number of engines, and in both diesel and petrol fueled varieties mainly to spread the manufacturing load so they could be made by as many places as possible.

Shermans sent to the Soviet Untion were all Diesel for supply simplicity, and hte Soviets preferred them to T34's of all types - eg see http://www.iremember.ru/tankers/loza/loza1.html - note that this guy praises Sherman ammo for NOT blowing up when he expected it to like T34 ammo!!

BT's could be driven over any roads on wheels in order to save the tracks!!

Certainly 1100 tanks isn't a vast amount, but it is certainly a significant number when you consider that the Germans went into Barbarossa with a total of 4300.

[xtiaan72]

But what would have happened to the Russians if all they had was Shermans?......Leibenstromm!!!! Or at least a longer and more brutal war. If that is possible. After all, American tanks did not win the war. Maybe they helped out a "bit". American air power to a much greater degree. But I think we can all agree that the Russians took it right in the kisser. How many more men would they have lost if all they had was a bunch of death trap Sh*tcan Shermans?

Thus the all important debate on how tech is dealt with looms large, If Commander is going to have variable outcomes and replayability. But the boys from Slithirine and Firepower seem like they are on it. So I can't wait to see how they deal with it. I'm so curious, I would flip for a beta or a pre-release demo.

[SMK-at-work]

Only if all they had was the 5000 or so Shermans actually sent - had they had 100,000 Shermans replacing all the T34's, T70's etc then it's more likely that the Paris Pact of Peaceful European Soviets would be setting teh standard exams in Russian for half the world!!

[xtiaan72]

Ahhhhh the all important docrine of quantity over quality......Sounds a bit like my dating docrine back in college