Chaning attachments

[JonS1]

Our feeling is the Corps Attachment Rules are complex enough as they are when you consider that things are all kept track of in lists. And there are some Huges OOBs like France 40 which would be quite unmanagle at this level of detail.

True, but that's only because the chosen UI for this is extraordinarily inelegant.

If units to be re-attached were selected on the main map, and the reattachment wiondoww bought up from there, and units could only re-attach horizontally within it's current chain of command, or attach 'up' or 'down' one level, and only valid 'target' attachment points were displayed, then the 'list' would be more than manageable.

For example, lets consider the classic threes.
* An army group has three armies
* each of those armies has three corps
* each of those corps has three divisions
* each of those divisions has three regiments
* Each regiment has has three bns.

Thats a total of
1 x Army Group
3 x Armies
9 x Corps
27 x Divisions
81 x Regts
243 x bns

A full list of divs regts and bns would be utterly unweildy. So don't do that, instread look at it the other way round.

Each bn can reattach to one of the three regts in it's division, or 'up' to division HQ. So its list is a total of four long. Each regt can reattach to one of the three divisions in its corps or up to the corps HQ, so its list has a total of four entries also. Each division can attach to any of the Corps in its army or up to its Army (four total) and each corps can switch between armies or shift up to Army Group. Armys ... well, they're stuck in the one army group. There is nothing unweildy or unmanageable about a list that has four entries.

Granted, over time the nice 'threes' organisation would break down as units are switched between HQs - and indeed it you kept bumping bns up to, say, Army level it could then attach 'up' to Army Group or 'down' to Corps ... the list is still only four entries long.

Concentrating multiple HQs at a given level would cause the lists to grow longer (eg, have five Corps in a single Army, or four Regts in a single Division), but not unmanageably so. And if you - as a player - do manage to cram all the regiments in the army group into a single division, well, the resulting confusion serves you right ;)

Semi-independant units at Division, Corps, and Army levels (usually things like engineers, A-Tk, artillery, recon, etc) fit in with schema quite elegantly as they could attach 'up' or 'down' just like any other unit.

An even simpler scehma is to only allow attaching up or down one level per day, with no horizontal attachments allowed. That would greatly limit the number of entries in the list, and also priovide a mild dis-incentive to moving units around willy nilly. For example, to move a bn from one regt to another in the same division would require going 'up' to division on the first day, then 'down' to the next regiment on the second day.

Various combinations of the above could be used to reflect more or less flexible command arrangements. For example, the Germans might be allowed one shift up, down or horizontally per unit/HQ per day. The Western Allies might be allowed two shifts up or down per day, but no horizontal movement. The Russians might be allowed just one shift up or down per day. Etc. Ideally, the degree of flexibility in reattaching would be settable in scenario parameters.

[JonS1]

I know you can move divisions between corps ...

Actually, I think any unit or HQ that is connected directly to a Corps level can be re-attached to any otehr corps. Certainly, this generally means Divisions, but any independant bdes or regts attached to corps (example: British and Canadian Army Tank Bdes) or even battalions (example: corps engineers or artillery) can be crossed to another Corps HQ.

If we look at the stock N44 OoB, the Germans have no units at army level - everything is farmed out to Corps HQs, which means that everything can be shunted between the various Corps. The Allies, OTOH, have numerous units attached at Army level, which are stranded there for the duration. I assume this is supposed to model some kind of perceived inflexibility in the US/UK command and control arrangements. If it is, it's a very blunt way of doing so.

[Liquid_Sky]

Guess that reflects the months and months of planning that went into the invasion. I think its a bit much to assume that you can rearrange the army as you see fit on the fly, the second you hit the beach.

The Germans, OTOH, are forced to improvise as their units drive onto the map into whatever chaos the allies are inflicting.

[JonS1]

Maybe, but the fact remains that the Allies *did* rearrange, and in some quite significant ways. Allocating and reallocating various units of 79th Armd Div is an obvious example, as is the way 1st and 4th SS Bdes ended up under 6th AB Div. Too there is the deleberate flexibility the US Army gave itself with a plethora of independant tank and A-Tk bns. At a higher level, the 11th Armd Div, to take one example, re-organised itself during the campaign into two 'square' bdes, each of two inf and two armd bns.

The semi-fixed OoB only makes sense if you think that a good game is like a movie, in which you are merely an observer along for the ride. If you think that the player - who is after all taking the role of supreme commander (Eisenhower, or Rommel/Rundstedt) - should be able to restructure his forces as he sees fit, then I don't think it makes a lot of sense.

[Liquid_Sky]

I am not sure now what it is you want to do. The role of the HQ in PzC is to allow help a unit stay in supply, replace losses and help remove disruption.

In order to 'attach' or 'rearrange' all I do is stack the different units together. As for the power of a supreme commander...not sure how often Ike decided to move regiments around, or even SHAEF. I suppose it would have made Rommels life a bit easier if he could have just attached the 21st armour's panzers to the 711th div on the beach.

Anyways, its not that I wouldnt welcome that sort of power, its just I can think of way to many ways to abuse it, that wouldnt reflect kindly on history. And Glen makes a good point that you can simulate you what you want, without a lot of work being done to the game engine.

BTW Independant units under a Corp can cooperate with any of its Divisions' units.....not sure if the army ones do...have to check that..just have to make sure its within the 30some odd hexes of the HQ's range.

[JonS1]

In order to 'attach' or 'rearrange' all I do is stack the different units together.

That's not attaching. That's stacking. Paper and cards had more elegant systems 30 years ago. I'd like to think that gaming technology has advanced a little in the meantime.

As for the power of a supreme commander...not sure how often Ike decided to move regiments around, or even SHAEF.

Not sure, huh? Well, when you find out, hows about you let us know? Oh, and don't forget that in addition to being Ike, you are also Bradley, Montgommery, Hodges, Patton, Dempsey, Crerar, and all the others, right down through corps and division to regt/bde/kg level.

Let us know how often they moved units around.

I suppose it would have made Rommels life a bit easier if he could have just attached the 21st armour's panzers to the 711th div on the beach.

Sure, because everyone just loves a dopey example that makes an irrelevant point.

I can think of way to many ways to abuse it

Of course you can. Anyone [deleted] can think of ways to abuse it. That's why you make it generally unattractive. Real military formations don't reconfigure themselves willy-nilly for a reason, and that reason is generally increased confusion and loss of cohesion.

So, how do you reflect that? You do it by making it slow to move units around - only one level per day, and only allowing movement within their current command chain, etc. You can also add fatigue and/or disruption. You could also include maximum attachment quantities (4 sub-units for a regt/bde, 12 for a Division, 20 for a corps, etc, with the attachment quantities edit-able in the OoB editor, and linked to quality level). That way, if you want to abuse it go for it, but you'll suffer the consequences.

Get the cost-benefit ratio in the right ball park, and abuse will go away.

that wouldnt reflect kindly on history.

Well, given that - at the moment - we can't do what the commanders actually did with their units, that's kind of a weak argument. It's made even weaker if you think that a game should be reasonably 'open', rather than running like a movie script.

And Glen makes a good point that you can simulate you what you want, without a lot of work being done to the game engine.

Perhaps, but surely the point of having a computer game is having the computer do the book keeping for you. What's the point of having a dog, and doing the barking yourself?

Also, there is the issue of the game's Combined Organisation Penalty. At the moment, I am being penalised for doing the kind of thing that should be normal.

By the way, I think the COP is a Good Thing™ to have in the game. The problem is that - with the highly restricted re-attachment rules - there is no way to avoid it, other than using a-historic tactics. That is a Bad Thing™.

[Glenn Saunders]

I suppose it would have made Rommels life a bit easier if he could have just attached the 21st armour's panzers to the 711th div on the beach.

Sure, because everyone just loves a dopey example that makes an irrelevant point.

I don't think that was the intention here - I think what it does do however is show that whatever we would do has to be

a) easy - at least not too complex
b) Has to work and not allow players to do strange things and create problems for the game that don't already occur.

So often we've created rules only to find that players find ways to use the rules to do things which we hadn't intended or thought of. AT Guns Units and HQs to dig second line defense trenches is a good example.

Glenn