Japanese OOB omissions.

[chuckfourth]

Hello
Just defending a hill in Manchuko in Aug 39 and I noticed some oddities in the Japanese OOB. Firstly a lot of units seem to be missing. So I guess this is a bug report. For example in v 7 there used to be a "Infantry coy G" and a "Infantry coy H" and a "rifle platoon E". These are all now missing! Interestingly if I view the Japanese OOB in the bundled Mobhack for v 7, Mobhack doesnt pick up these formations either but you can pick them in the v7 games purchase screen! Secondly and I dont know if this is related, but inf coy F (formation 210) in v 7 used to have the indirect fire capable GL section (which is why it has a patrol added to spot for the mortars, though I would like to see a coy with the indirect fire GL and no extra patrol added as it would be a bit cheaper) In the latest version these have been replaced by direct fire GL versions (weapon 151 or 217 ). Surprisingly in the current version weapon 217 is only capable of direct fire when in Infantry Coy F but can fire indirect when in "Light Mortars" (formation 088).
Unfortuneately I have bought a regiment of coy F to defend my hill and now I find my carefully sighted GL's cant cover the dead ground as expected. As if it wasnt hard enough already.
I would greatly appreciate a change back to the indirect fire GL's in Infantry Coy F, or beter still in all Jap infantry coys.
Best regards Chuck.

[PatG]

I can't speak to the missing formations as I tend to cross attach sub-units to taste rather than buy pre-built company formations. The Japanese OOB is more obfuscated than most anyway.

As for the mortars, once again the designers have accommodated two opposing camps rather nicely. There was a long and acrimonious discussion on the yahoo lists on the matter. The basic split was between grenade chuckers such as the 2" and type 89's with limited sighting and the more advanced German 50 mm with proper sights etc. Lip service was given to the similarly equipped US 60 mm.

The up shot as I recall was the splitting of the mortars into organic direct fire support versions that use Z key fire to hit dead ground and mortars proper in independent teams that could be bought if players wished to use the indirect versions.

So if you want indirect Type 89's, don't buy them as part of a company, buy them separately and cross attach.

Oh and good luck with the masses of 1 pt Chinese armour.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Pat

PatG said:
I can't speak to the missing formations as I tend to cross attach sub-units to taste rather than buy pre-built company formations. The Japanese OOB is more obfuscated than most anyway.

Then dont, the missing units cant be built by cross attaching, otherwise I wouldnt have bothered posting.

PatG said:
As for the mortars, once again the designers have accommodated two opposing camps rather nicely. There was a long and acrimonious discussion on the yahoo lists on the matter. The basic split was between grenade chuckers such as the 2" and type 89's with limited sighting and the more advanced German 50 mm with proper sights etc. Lip service was given to the similarly equipped US 60 mm.

GL was clearly capable of and employed as an indirect fire mortar. there are 6 references to the use of the weapon in this article. In all 6 the weapon is being used in the indirect fire role.
http://www.history.army.mil/books/ww...a/chapter9.htm
Pat please read
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/okinawa/
in its entirety.

PatG said:
The up shot as I recall was the splitting of the mortars into organic direct fire support versions that use Z key fire to hit dead ground and mortars proper in independent teams that could be bought if players wished to use the indirect versions.

The upshot was that SPCAMO decided that GL was a mortar proper hence the creation of Formation 216 "Rifle Platoon C" containing an indirect fire GL, unit 193 "Type 89 GL" class 201 "Mortar Subclass B". Since then someone has substited this correct weapon with the direct fire only, unit 520 "GL section" class 64 "Medium infantry" I am assuming that this is a mistake same as losing the four formations.
All the Japanese Gls sould be class 201 the player then has a choice of direct or indirect mode fire rather than being forced to use indirect mode only, as cross attaching doesnt work

PatG said:
So if you want indirect Type 89's, don't buy them as part of a company, buy them separately and cross attach.

You cant buy them as part of a coy. The problem with cross attaching is this If I buy a 9 coy regiment of the old v 7 'inf coy f's that contain the required class 201 GLs then it costs 3618 points if I have to cross attach the Regiment now costs 4116. My direct fire GLs move at 7 and the cross attached indirect GLs only move at 6 and I still have all the unwanted indirect fire Gls because as they are part of the platoon I cant get rid of them.
please have a look at the structure of coy F before replying Pat.

PatG said:
Oh and good luck with the masses of 1 pt Chinese armour.

This says it all really, Russians Pat Russians.

My mistake when I say v 7.0 had the missing Jap units I mean v 7.1. The removed formations are Formation 217 "Rifle Platoon D", and Formation 218 "Rifle Platoon E" these make up Formations 211 and 212 "Infantry Co G" and "Infantry Co H" which no longer appear in the game. The Irony here Pat is that Infantry Co G is your much loved Jap light infantry.
Best Regards Chuck

[PatG]

Then dont, the missing units cant be built by cross attaching, otherwise I wouldnt have bothered posting.

Nice ad hominem.

Re: Light Mortar accuracy

Hi James
Yes I think that is how most players play them. Really they are best
used as the "centrepiece" of a coy defensive position, If you have
say just an inf coy being assaulted by a infantry battalion then
these little fellows can actually make quite a difference. Once
armour is introduced, or in a mobile battle they are much harder to
employ.
Regards Chuck.

--- In [email protected], "hogrider18" <bikerjay@f...> wrote:
> Hay Chuck, When I have had German support troops I always turned
> off their 5cm mortar's and ONLY use them when I could DIRECTLY
> target an enemy unit. They seem to do well against troops moving
> in the open, and can help suppress dug in troops enough for other
> squads to rush in for a close assault. At one time I used them like
> arty using a spotter to fire them, but they had such a limited
> range and accuracy that I stopped doing that.
> biker

Cake and eat it.....

This is just one post of an entire acrimonious thread where the whole direct/indirect mortar problem was discussed in depth. The results of that horse flaying exercise are known. If "...most players..." don't have a problem playing them direct fire only then there isn't a problem - for most players.

This says it all really, Russians Pat Russians.

You said nothing about Russians though the '39 date is a bit of hint. So if it's Russians, you really are screwed. Good luck.

[DRG]

chuckfourth said:
My mistake when I say v 7.0 had the missing Jap units I mean v 7.1. The removed formations are Formation 217 "Rifle Platoon D", and Formation 218 "Rifle Platoon E" these make up Formations 211 and 212 "Infantry Co G" and "Infantry Co H" which no longer appear in the game. Best Regards Chuck

Yes, those formations are only in dos v701. The only explanation we can come up with was there was a big gap in time between v701 being released and work starting on winspww2v1 with all of that time in between working on getting both games converted to windows and MBT released first and when the work started on cleaning up the Japanese OOB for WinSPWW2v1 we inadvertently used a V7 copy of the OOB as a starting point instead of a v701copy and that is why those formations are missing. They are now back in and will appear in the next patch. The GL, however, stays a GL integrated into an infantry squad. This was done with a number of OOB's using weapons like that and it's not going to change.

Don

[chuckfourth]

Hi DRG
Im not sure if you mean the direct fire or indirect fire GLs are staying in the Infantry platoon.
I would like to point out that If the dead (out of LOS) ground is due to differences in terrain height then you can't Z fire into it. If you search the reference I supplied for 'knee mortar'
http://www.history.army.mil/books/ww...a/chapter9.htm
you will find that this is exactly what they were used for on Okinawa. Leaving them direct fire means you cant do this. ie supress/kill the enemy in (topographic) dead ground. This I think undervalues the weapon.
I realise I have said this before but making them indirect fire allows the user to choose direct or indirect fire as appropriate.
It also means that the weapon can be fired at the enemy from behind cover (out of enemy LOS) which is the correct use of a (this) mortar.
Lastly the Jap inf coy already has plenty of direct fire weapons, modeling the GL as indirect fire creates a much more interesting unit. The only one in the game with such a strong indirect fire capability on the platoon level.
Modelling the Jap GL as direct fire I think misses an oportunity to greatly improve the play quality of the game.
It Gives the Japs an ability to hit American infantry without exposing themselves to fire from the inevitable Shermans and LVTs.
Apologies for the annoyance Best Regards Chuck.

[Mobhack]

Read Don's post - the last sentence.

A member of the now-gone OOB design team tried this once. Result was hundreds of little tiddly mortar icons on the AI's baseline. AI does not move mortars. 10-hex range is less than useless, even in the defence, with likely 3 move delay to bring down indirect fire, and the AI rarely fires mortars direct if it has LOS but will plot for indirect.

You have been told before that tiddly mortars are sometimes available in the artillery page for some armies (e.g. a 2 inch section) or you can Mobhack your own for human-only use (the AI has fits with them).

There will be no rifle platoons with silly little tiddly-mortars inside of the rifle platoons. Tiddly mortars and grenade dischargers are DF weapons in the rifle sections in the SP series games.

I have used the 2 inch mortar as well, so I know how useless the things are in reality.

Cheers
Andy

[chuckfourth]

Hi Andy
Fair enough, Knee mortars stay direct fire, its your game after all. But one can only wonder why. Having a close look at your post It seems that all you concerns are easily fixed, perhaps I can help you?

Mobhack said: A member of the now-gone OOB design team tried this once. Result was hundreds of little tiddly mortar icons on the AI's baseline.--- AI does not move mortars. the AI rarely fires mortars direct if it has LOS but will plot for indirect.

How about this for a solution,
Replace all the direct fire knee mortar (Gl's) sections in each japanese infantry platoon with indirect fire weapons. Remove all these formations from the AI picklist. For the AI create some direct fire Gl platoons and use these to build coys, these direct fire formations need not be available or visible to the human player. So... AI no longer has any problems, Human Players can now choose wether to use the knee mortar direct or indirect instead of being forced to use them direct.

Mobhack said: 10-hex range is less than useless, even in the defence, with likely 3 move delay to bring down indirect fire

I guess that as you seem to think these weapons are contemptable then you probably dont use them. They are in fact very useful on indirect mode (and of course their range is 13 hexes not 10) If you buy a FO the delay is 2 or so, if you use z fire or preregister the delay is 0. Actually these weapons should get a delay of 0 in the bombardment screen not 3 which is obviously too long. They are very useful in the defence, If you have any sort of barrier to make the advancing enemy pause like the other 3 sections in the platoon, mines, wire or dragons teeth, a stream, rough terrain, built up area etc then they can be used to great effect, as the ememy bunches up in order to swarm you. They are also very handy for forcing tank riders to dismount all of which can be done from behind cover without taking any casualties.

Mobhack said: You have been told before that tiddly mortars are sometimes available in the artillery page for some armies (e.g. a 2 inch section)

Ok for gamey players that arnt concerned with historically accurate formations, not so good for everyone else. If you buy the indirect fire "light mortars" to give a platoon indirect fire you end up with a platoon with 3 GL sections instead of 1 and an unwanted scout team your platoon has grown from 4 to basically 7 sections. In a 4 platoon coy you end up with 4 extra sections and 2 unwanted scout "sections" and so on, large infantry formations soon become grossly inflated, unwieldly and way too expensive.

Mobhack said: or you can Mobhack your own for human-only use (the AI has fits with them).

I can indeed but I am posting to point out an 'easily fixed' error in your OOB's. ie you have an indirect fire weapon incorrectly modeled as a direct fire weapon. As I already said the AI neednt use indirect fire mortars.

Mobhack said: There will be no rifle platoons with silly little tiddly-mortars inside of the rifle platoons. Tiddly mortars and grenade dischargers are DF weapons in the rifle sections in the SP series games.

Well I dont know what you mean by grenades dischargers but knee mortars are mortars, knee mortars were usually operated by a three man crew
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_mortar
they were employed as mortars and have several times the range of rifle grenades, there is no comparison.
Just because something was modeled wrong in the past doesnt mean it has to be modeled wrong in the present. There are plenty of other OOB errors that have been picked up and fixed.

Mobhack said: I have used the 2 inch mortar as well, so I know how useless the things are in reality.

Please read the references to knee mortars in this article
http://www.history.army.mil/books/ww...a/chapter9.htm
they are far from useless. Perhaps the uselessness of the 2 inch has something to do with the operator? The knee mortar is held at 45 degrees and a screw adjusted to change range, not whats done with the 2 inch. the knee mortar fires a bomb about the same as a grenade so I guess grenades are also silly little tiddly- explosive then? bet a lot of dead marines would disagree with you anyway.
also of interest
http://members.shaw.ca/nambuworld/t89pix.htm
Anyway just because they are silly little tiddly-mortars is no excuse to model them incorrectly. They are mortars, removing their ability to hit a target from behind cover and removing there ability to search out the enemy in dead ground is simply wrong.
Bottom line is it makes a big difference to jap OOB to have the mortars modeled indirect simply because there are so many of them. There indirect capability is extremely useful in the low vis jungle and in the various Island defences the Japs undertook.
As a playbalance issue Japanese platoons could take out LVTs with this weapon, A very good reason to leave them on the beach, in game LVTs are happy to roam about everywhere becaust the Knee mortar hasnt got its indirect fire capability.
Best regards Chuck.

[Mobhack]

Chuck

If you have the need for indirect fire G/L as light mortars - then use formation #88 "light mortars".

Cheers
Andy

[DRG]

chuckfourth said:
Well I dont know what you mean by grenades dischargers but knee mortars are mortars,

Chuck, it's not a true mortar. Even your much vaunted Wikipedia article describes it as a Grenade Discharger and the "Nambu World" webpage refers to it as a Grenade Discharger or Grenade Launcher and it ALSO says

Type 89 covered the gap between the range a hand grenade could be thrown and the range of a true mortar

and never actually refers to it AS a "mortar" except as it's nickname "knee mortar"

Now go and read the information provided in the link in the Wiki article LINK . Once the page loads look under "Infantry support weapons"

The most basic support weapon available in the average rifle platoon was the 50mm grenade launcher, erroneously known to the Americans as the "knee mortar." In reality it was hardly a mortar at all, more akin to the American M79 grenade-launcher (40mm) of Vietnam era fame, at least in terms of its lightness and general handiness. Unlike the later US weapon, however, the Japanese Type 89 grenade launcher was not shoulder-fired, but rather was meant to be braced against the ground when shooting

It was a game design decision to do this. So sorry you disagree but as you say "its your game after all". Yes, it is and we provide everyone with the tools to change anything they don't like or disagre with.

You have a history of sarcasm and abuse to anyone who disagrees with you and this last post is no exception.Take this as a warning it will not be tolerated any longer.

Don