New Russian OOB (or SPR OOB)

[DRG]

Remco, I do appreciate your input here. You've been around long enough to know that there is no way, no matter what we do, could we possibly keep everyone happy .

There's just too many ways of looking at these issues. I'm reminded of " In service" debates that have occurred in the past where someone digs up info that some weapons or vehicle was "introduced" at a certain date but no one really knows for certain if that was the date the first one rolled off the assembly line or was delivered to the depot or was delivered to the troops for familiarization or the first date it actually entered front line service. Little details like that are rarely available so it's a judgment call for introduction dates. A vehicle could be given to troops for the first time in October for example but unless it's a minor modification of an existing unit there is little chance it would enter full operational service right away and that is why so many in service dates are January and probably if the issue was really dug into most of those January in service dates are wrong but really.....so what ? It a game not a historical record and really how many "historical records" do NOT have someone saying they are wrong ? The same is true for weapons taken out of front line service. A lot of assumptions need to be made , were they sent immediately to the wreaking yard ? Were they warehoused and if so, how long and if they were warehoused what other use could they have but to be used as they were intended "just in case" a conflict arose. As you astutely noted........ the entire POINT of this game is to simulate combat that in most cases never occurred. Does this mean we should include every weapon that was tested but not developed ?? NO !!--- but occasionally things like this crop up where including them helps game play and therefore becomes a "design decision" by us.... the game designers.

We are criticised when we are too flexible and allow a certain amount of ' What if" and criticised when we aren't . That was my entire point of mentioning the "experimental " SP guns in the WW2 Russian OOB.

The "RPG-1 issue is really rather amusing under the circumstances. Someone, long in the past, dug up info that something called an "RPG-1" that may or may not have existed in the late 1940's and maybe it was a native Russian device or MAYBE it referred to captured panzerfaust stocks and MAYBE the "truth" was a little of both but it seemed like something WAS in existence and since this gave the Russian OOB an infantry AT device from the beginning of 1946 until a bit past the introduction of the RPG-2. It's seemed a fair compromise even though the info on it was sketchy but we did need something to fill the gap on the OOB and that served the purpose. Nobody... and I mean NOBODY at the time would have ever imagined the amount of time that would be wasted years later debating this issue. And this "issue" goes much deeper and is a bigger PITA than is obvious here. In the Russian MBT OOB this is one weapon slot and ONE unit to deal with if we do deal with it ( "RPG-1"s also exist in the MBT Polish and Czech OOB's and is a separate PITA to deal with ) the biggest problem is the WW2 Russian OOB where 10 units currently use an "RPG-1" and it's looking like they are going to find themselves carrying " something else" if I decide to pull the weapon out.

The entire issue is developing into a very a big headache over what is really a very trivial "error" . It's all so MUCH easer to deal with when all you have to do is change an OOB and not consider the impact those changes make on other parts of the game.

However, in some cases simple problems can cause big headaches and problems that appear less simple can turn out to have simple fixes and in this case the "fix" is somewhere in between and should keep almost everyone happy

Don