Question about Ukraine OOB...

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Ukraine has too many options, most of the equipment they have is just starting to get operational.

Well then you should have no trouble providing hard data with sources we can cross-check to support your idea

If we don't include something we get complaints..... we get them when we do put in rare types too. Everything in there was put in because info existed that supported adding it even if there were only a handful in a shop somewhere that does not mean they were not used

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DRG

Well then you should have no trouble providing hard data with sources we can cross-check to support your idea

If we don't include something we get complaints..... we get them when we do put in rare types too. Everything in there was put in because info existed that supported adding it even if there were only a handful in a shop somewhere that does not mean they were not used

Sources are unclear what is happening. So far they used a handful of Bradley, leopard etc in combat all of which were lost to mines and its not clear what operational capacity they have.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-wi...tance-package/

Servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be trained to operate with Bradley in Germany.

That was in January, if training takes a reasonable amount of time then maybe they will be ready in 2024?

The timelines given for training on everything are very brief. I heard that they are supposed to be operating f 16s right now and other reports say 2025.

For "long campaign" purposes having large Bradley and Abrams forces in Ukraine seems like a 2024-25 thing, all they have seen so far is some minefield losses.

Just as a comparison, in North Africa rommel had 5 Stugs out of thousands of tanks. Nobody includes the Stug in Africa campaign scenarios because they were less than 1% of the force.

We can have a policy where a unit has to be at least 1% of the active forces of an army for it to be in the game, or have seen meaningful combat experience, so we're not including all the minor equipment and prototypes as is the normal practice with any OOB.

https://www.army-technology.com/news...rmany/?cf-view

Using the marder as an example, they received 20 in March and the article implies 10 per month starting in July. Considering Ukraine has thousands of infantry vehicles the marders may not make up 1% the force even now. Buying two "mechanized rifle co" of marders is more than their entire army has.

Then the British and other IFVs might be even less.

[DRG]

simple DON'T BUY THEM IF YOU THINK DOING SO UPSETS WHATEVER YOU THINK IS "CORRECT"

They are in the OOB because they are in country and in many cases more rare vehicles are given a rare rating for the AI but the human player can decide on his own if he wants them or not......it's call " free choice"

Since you know so much about the percentages it will be easy for you to do so

The game is set up so the people who care about minutia like " is there enough of these to even make up a platoon ?" can decide what to buy and those that don't can just play the game and if they use too much of something that is rare it's a "what if" battle because 99% are "what if " anyway.

[Karagin]

Question I have is how much of the "rare" number percentage stuff does the AI pick once it starts picking from that stuff?

I am tracking that players can freely choose to pick what they want or don't want or mod the OOB to remove things they don't want in there.

[DRG]

How the AI picks things can be convoluted and depends on if they are rare ( radio code ending in 1 ) or common ( radio code ending in 2 ) or radio code ending in zero which is more or less " average

BUT

The AI tends to pick from the bottom of the list up and there are randoms built into everything in the game to stop it from being predictable but does seem if the AI finds too many rare units in a row it can sometimes just decide to pick one anyway and in the Ukraine OOB for example, the "western" armour is generally near the end of the list and the Russian origin units are more near the front

BUT

The picker may go all the way up one time then work it's way down or it may pick from the bottom of the list. We sometimes have had to make things rare near the end of the list just to keep the AI from buying it too often

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DRG

How the AI picks things can be convoluted and depends on if they are rare ( radio code ending in 1 ) or common ( radio code ending in 2 ) or radio code ending in zero which is more or less " average

BUT

The AI tends to pick from the bottom of the list up and there are randoms built into everything in the game to stop it from being predictable but does seem if the AI finds too many rare units in a row it can sometimes just decide to pick one anyway and in the Ukraine OOB for example, the "western" armour is generally near the end of the list and the Russian origin units are more near the front

BUT

The picker may go all the way up one time then work it's way down or it may pick from the bottom of the list. We sometimes have had to make things rare near the end of the list just to keep the AI from buying it too often

If we apply this logic consistently that 10-20 vehicles of a type is enough to count as a real amount then this would change a lot of OOB.

Israel has Pereh ATGM. America has the BAe Nyala and a bunch of minor foreign vehicles. When you get into ammo types there's arguably a lot of different stuff that isn't represented. STAFF rounds, tungsten vs steel projectiles, etc.

But I understand if in this one case it's okay for Ukraine to have marders, which to my awareness it has not used.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Mustang

But I understand if in this one case it's okay for Ukraine to have marders, which to my awareness it has not used.

Forbes reports they have as part of the 82nd Brigade. Your 10-20 min vehicle idea is not going to be applied

Nothing is going to change in the OOB unless someone proves without a doubt that the vehicle was never in Ukraine and that kind of info might take a while to come to light.

In the meantime don't use it if you don't think you should

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DRG

Forbes reports they have as part of the 82nd Brigade. Your 10-20 min vehicle idea is not going to be applied

Nothing is going to change in the OOB unless someone proves without a doubt that the vehicle was never in Ukraine and that kind of info might take a while to come to light.

In the meantime don't use it if you don't think you should

Understood. The one thing I would add to the OOB is the large partisan and irregular forces on both sides, if you have to add anything to the OOB it would be the irregular forces first.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Mustang

The one thing I would add to the OOB is the large partisan and irregular forces on both sides, if you have to add anything to the OOB it would be the irregular forces first.

They are really only of use in scenarios and they can easily be created by the scenario designer from existing units in either the main two OOB's or the Red or Green OOB. Both Red and Green have "rebel" formations that can be used for that renamed

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DRG

They are really only of use in scenarios and they can easily be created by the scenario designer from existing units in either the main two OOB's or the Red or Green OOB. Both Red and Green have "rebel" formations that can be used for that renamed

Got it. I agree that the OOBs should just contain tanks and primary combat forces, I'm just saying that if someone insists on there being "not enough units" then you can just tell them that.

The real case where this would be an issue is if America goes to war with Mexico like Republicans are asking. Huge variety of technicals and nonstandard equipment. How would you model a Mexican cartel? It's not even a green OOB, it would be more like a Somalia or Mujahideen OOB.

Point is there needs to be a threshold of how many units something has for it to be included in an OOB, adding things that aren't yet operationally capable like Ukraine APCs is stretching it.

The Sherman E8 is a technical. Already in SP1 the units were vaguely defined. Jumbo Sherman's were built one off when the factory decided to add armor to a tank, it's not a specific model.

Likewise Ukraine apparently has a upgraded Bradley that takes 122mm hits. This kind or stuff has to be decided case by case and its best to just leave the OOB as it is which is already very generous and just say you only include MBTs and important vehicles.

And if someone decides to build a Mexican drug war scenario or other irregular conflicts I don't think the OOB should be changed, the game already has enough units that can represent whatever there is going to be. If any OOB is missing anything it's going to be partisan infantry and stuff that isn't supposed to be there, all the important equipment is already there, actually too much of it.