Virdea

Why is it that literally every movie, game and story involves the hero starting out by killing anonymous henchmen, working his way up the hierarchy of badguys, knocking off lieutenants, the main baddies right-hand man before finally the main villain 

 

 Paradigmatic archetypal shorthand.

Early AR-15's were nasty because the projo was marginally stable in atmosphere, not because it was tumbling after it left the bore. People who believe it's coming out like some kind of methed up acrobat are also the first to claim the AR "shits where it eats" and that the AK/AKM will chamber and fire 7,62 NATO because "they was in da 'Nam".

You have to realize that at the gun range last year when I took my wife, a guy explained quite seriously that bullets spin the opposite direction when fired in Brazil because of "cory sails effects."  It was the reason, he explained, why guns in South American have their barrels installed upside down.

You can also have scientific magic if you want.

Macumba in Brazil have a cure rate of cancer of around 25%.  A warrior who is blessed by a priest has a lower bleed rate for minor wounds as his capillaries actually close.  I stand in front of students and tell them Kennedy was shot by a man in a bear suit and they all write it down, and half will answer that on a test.  Magic need not be magic.

But yes - one aspect of your adventures can be seeing what the world is like beyond the civilized lands.  And imagine treasure.  "ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis..."  Nordic steal swords were considered rare and deadly even when they were spread through the empire, and you find one in a tomb at Eborucom.  

Reminds me of the stupid things people tell me at the range, that the M16 is deadly because it tumbles in flight rather than spins.  Only the AK47 really tumbles, 

One question on the yaw.  The AK47 unlocking sequence does not occur after a pressure drop, but at high pressure when the bullet has a few centimeters of barrel to travel.  Now say some crazy guy cuts apart an AK to show its action, and that causes the unlock sequence to time right when the bullet leaves the barrel.  You could have a small force caused by recoil being applied to the bullet in the final milliseconds of its travel in the bore.  Would it be possible the yaw seen in this bullet is caused by the modification of the weapon?

As a historian, I doubt that Arthur existed in anything like what Chanson de Geste gives us - and the annalae are 2 centuries after him before he gets mentioned, only oral tradition gives us any clue and that is weak, but one could see a warrior rising from senior regimental leader to lead the Romanized Britons.  And it is interesting to note that whatever really happened, the United States itself has only lasted slightly longer than the longest window we have for Subulae Romana di Brittanae.  

Anyway you can have a Twilight 2000 roman legion stick, or a straight fantasy.  People of the 4th century had magic, horrible monsters, barbarians, and all the rest.

Ok, so here is the back story that can start us on defining our game.  Please excuse me if I go into scholar mode.

In 388 archeological evidence shows that Hadrian's wall is abandoned.  While traditional scholars place the date of the loss of the wall as 383 the presence of coins from 387 show that it was held for a few more years.  This tells me as a historian that our knowledge of what was going in in Britain is weak at best, and subject to exploitation by game designers.  We know some of our primary source is bogus, and here I include some of the attribution to Honorius, but we do also know that on the ground Roman paid legions are off the island by 400.  Welcome to the dark age, a time when nothing happened unless it was of interest to the Greek speaking world.

Chronica Gallica is our only true written window into what happens in Britain that is contemporary with the events, and it is quiet until 451 when it says "Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum rediguntur..."  This gives us to bits of evidence.  Britain existed as a unique entity and was no longer truly Roman.  De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae then provides our window directly after events, and it is a muddy mirror at best and in some ways over -relied on.

Archeological evidence though is intriguing.  From 400-500 there is a building boom in some Welch cities.  The buildings show advanced sophistication - running water, hot water, sewers, and under floor heat.  Although historians are now muddied by nationalism - the evidence is great that a Romanized kingdom existed for some 200 years in this region, and that the kingdom has largely been forgotten or subsumed by Saxon chroniclers in later years.  Despite existence of some primary source, this region rests in shadows until the time right after Charlemagne when educational reforms starts to send educated writers to the broader European hinterlands.

These people recreated the Roman army on a local basis, had forums, probably spoke latin and wrote down things..  They were surrounded by illiterate barbarians tribes which they made deals with, but were otherwise isolated from the rest of the world.  The world does not communicate as we might think back then - St. Patrick will do his work without much fanfare in the middle of this period but his importance will mot be recognized by Europe until the 8th century when learning returns to Europe.  

You literally have a blank canvas here where a great story could be told.

SAFN is a fine rifle.  Most are not in that good condition.

One question, by fall of the Roman Empire do you mean Sack of Byzantium 1453, or sack of Rome 410 - 560.

I think if you mean the western withdrawal phase of the Roman empire then I can help you work out a REAL cool story line for a historical model.  It means I have to bone up on my old Welsh though.

The final fall of Rome is also fascinating, but harder to sell to people who have never heard of an Ottoman except to assume it is a fancy French couch.

Your team:

A producer

A creative writer

A simulation person

A graphic designer

(if Computer, then a coder, if online, then a server op)

Here is an image from Crack in Time.

To get to the point where I could make that image I needed research into the historical weapon, a combat system and character system in order to create objective stats for the weapon, a copy of the weapon to take a picture of, then artistic skill to turn that image into a black outline.  For Crack in Time I answered the questions I posed you 14 months ago.  Note the card has a typo - at this point I am designing the cards, not the information in the card which is still being researched.

Thanks again for the help.

One issue is that we currently have two very different approaches being tried out at once.

Should X and I both reformat what we have, or is it possible for you to tell a priori which will work better?

Need more data.  

First I have to apologize because I actually teach a class where students authors, all seniors, publish a video or tabletop game.  Really publish I mean.  I tend to be a top sergeant about it.  Meaning that I get surly because for me this is a business, and I get paid 15-20 thousand dollars to help guide a design team through to its finish point.  For me this is not just a mind contest on a forum, but something that is actually possible that I am willing to invest my time on for free.  That said I am not worried if no one wants my input, no harm, no foul.  So if I seem serious about this subject it is because it is a great deal of work, and that work results in a great thing, a new game.

First, both of your models are flawed.  Not because you are wrong, you both have good ideas, but your simulation only comes once the game is set in its path.  Put the ideas in the bank for a second and lets do some questions.

1. What is the paradigm for the game.  We know RPG, but is it a computer/local, computer/server, printed, or eBook.

2. Who is our design team.  This is the people who will stay in the process from first to last.  

3. What skill sets does this team bring to the table.  

4. Finally, what is your game about.  One sentence everyone agrees on.  More than one sentence and you have to go back and try again.

(If we were in a company playing with OPM we would have to also do target audience and ROI, but no need to complicate things now)

In the case of a serious scenario sim, I agree, you are simulating a set of events.  You can "bias" to try and enhance the realism.

 

However that is not the case with Warthunder.  It's a vehicle simulator where you are facing opponents in numbers the real vehicle never saw.  (Me262's facing F86's for example. Yes, it happens.)

 

I know what you mean about the "maintaining the image" as well, but at that point can you call it a "historically accurate simulation" ? Eventually you chase all your customers off (Something Gaijin seems unusually apt at)

 

An aside-

 

 

the M-18 did not mount a gyrostabilizer. Just a scarily fast power traverse. (image related)- The handwheel to the far right is the manual elevation (very light and fast), then you see a knob on a lever, that's the manual firing lever. Then the pistol-grip of the power traverse, and the vertical crank off the manual traverse (two speed).

 

I did not know this.  I have been in four Hellcats in the US, all in movie use, and I actually spun the turret on one, and the turret was a shock at how accurate you could move it. I assumed its light feel was the gyro.  An here I mean when the M18 was moving I was able to not only keep a crosshair on a stationary target, but swing between two targets.  I wonder if the quality of the turret movement is related to weight of the turret?

So I got all tooled up to help you guys design a game, and I even talked to a publisher about its release.  Is this a dead idea?

They did this to the M4 as well. Had the radiator horizontally mounted across the top of the engine. The current M41 still has some wacky "radiator".

 

More howlers in that M3 image are the locations of the fuel cell, and the munitions racks.  It's like they just threw parts in the hull and gave it a brisk shake.

 

The really stupid part is- They implemented the vehicles this way.

 

It was as if the people they paid to make test and approve the models could not be bothered to crack a book, of any kind, to proofcheck their work before introducing some ridiculous modelling such as that.

 

Eventually after many many bug reports they -kind of- fixed some of the really glaring bugs, but it's as if they literally have nobody checking the finished work before rubber-stamping it out the door.

 

The M-18, the model looks okay, but because of the 'cat's performance it quickly became a source for complaint because of how Gaijin cobbled it's ground forces terrain modelling (and their ridiculous maps/missions, and laughable damage modelling. All that aside-).

 

A vehicle that could do 50 MPH over flat terrain is going to win a countdown based capture the flag map far more effectively than a Tiger I or IS..

That's not the fault of the vehicle, that's crappy implementation and map design.

SO how does Gaijin address this?

 

Nerf the M-18. In numerous ways.

Brilliant!

 

No, let's not take a step back and try to fix the numerous glaring faults this vehicle presented with our game mechanics, instead let's ignore historical data and make the machine fit those ridiculous parameters. It's not as if anyone will notice! (Five + threads and hundreds of pages of posts, and still climbing..)

 

This is a company who's sole difference from Wargaming's offerings is this facade of "historical accuracy" , when in practice they are more than willing to claim "secret test documents" when beaten over the head with a copy of "Armored Thunderbolt" or "Sherman".  (Or actual A/C flight manuals.. Their flight model justifications for many soviet aircraft consist of a two sentence paragraph, usually "The aircraft displayed superb climb and performance tendencies", while doing things like introducing the P-38J with the flight parameters of the non turbo-supercharged Mod 322 then basically ignoring the bug reports for over a year).

 

Wargaming at least took the road of "Hey, it's a game, we'll keep em close but expect "balance".

 

Gaijin on the other hand made a huge deal of "historical accuracy" then fails to even crack a book to proof their models.   

First, do not feel I am defending Gaijin.  I am explaining why it happens, not condoning it.

The original war-games were designed so that Generals could learn to be Generals without spending the money to get the troops out into the field.  Accuracy was important, but there was an aspect of political accuracy.  Simulationists who worked with military gaming had pretty early on found that the Minie rifle was the death knell for offensive cavalry.  But Minie armed rifles were nerfed in table top exercises for many years in German high command.  When the Chassepot was adopted by the French the German war game masters assigned it a firepower rating of the Dreyse but the range of a Minie, which caused political howls among many Generals who soon discovered that cavalry got decimated by Chassepot armed units.  Likewise there was a political group who opposed use of steel in artillery, preferring brass, and they insisted that steel cannon be toned down and have several disadvantages applied to them.  So the M18, which by numbers should not be the most effective tank killer in the ETO, was in real life a monster.  Why?  Because the turning mechanism on a tank turret is a major factor when engaging fast vehicles, because the M18 had gyros which allowed quick pre and post move shots, and because in Europe few tank battles occurred at 2500 meters, most happened at 500 where the 76mm had a good chance of achieving an Mkill.  The M18 is less sexy than the Tiger, so making it the killer it was is unpopular.

Combine that with budget constraints that limit research time and you have money and pissed off customers as the main answer not to go for accuracy.

Actually Thach and Best turned in what is known as a super-optimal performance - NO amount of modeling would normally predict what happened in that event using any model which can be built.  That is what makes the actions of that day so amazing and the people involved heroes.  Which means Midway is a outlier.  

Given the forces available and the tactics used, Midway should have been a loss for the Americans. Japanese recon just happened to be weak in the one area it was needed to be strong, and two mistakes that the Japanese made are mistakes no war-gamer would ever make - throwing a first strike at Midway and then the arm and rearm fiasco.  

Look at it this way.  Early in my career I was present at a plane crash is Sioux City, Iowa (actually a hour late as I was about 50 miles away when we were notified it was coming in).  Our expert pilot, a Vietnam vet, took one look at the scar on the ground and new what happened, the pilot did not line up his approach right and did not properly account for crosswind, allowing a wing to stall and flip the plane into a million pieces.  The video footage some ANG guy took confirmed the expert opinion from the expert witness.  His expert opinion was based upon weighing best facts, and comparing what he saw with when he had seen for thirty odd years as a flyer.  

Only he was wrong.  When he found out what actually happened he said someone was making the story up, because it was impossible.  The pilots and one more guy had, when control had been lost to the plane, flown the aircraft using only the thrust controls.  CBS put twenty master pilots into the best state of the art simulators and simulated the same error.  The pilots had days to plan what they would do, and had the exact data to aid in their flying the simulator, and the best that any pilot did was lawn dart their plane four kilometers from the runway, most died in minutes of the loss of control as the three people could not work together well enough and stalled the airliner trying to make their first turn.  Scale RC simulations since then always ends up with lawn darts.  To this day the feat of those three pilots in bringing that airliner in is so impossible that it is never ever taught by most schools.  Complete loss of primary control is a fatal event.

I have to admit that my knowledge of engines is high school level, although I have been inside of many tanks for historical research, but my understanding having stood next to a Continental 600 series engine is that the whole series was radial and air cooled.

Now, I have seen enough historical conundrums to make me a believer in nearly anything being possible, but what function would two large water jackets have to serve on a radial engine?  Now, I know tea kettles would be hung by engines to provide a supply of hot water, could this merely represent the divisional tea production tank?

Edit: I suspect that their game engine has a radiator hit built into its tables and they do not desire to have Stuarts have a unique hit table.

I sold my first games at GenCon South and Suncoast Skirmishes in 1980 - the Battle of Leyte Gulf and Eclipse.  Both were laid out using an Apple II and had four pages of rules.  

Leyte Gulf required 8 players (which is why I only sold 100 copies) - 4 American and 4 Japanese, and was based on the theory that command disintegration or integration could affect the outcome of a major battle.  The goal of each player is to accumulate enough points to win the game individually.  Each player draws cards for motivations, and wins points for gaining their motivations which can include sinking enemy heavy units, sinking enemy light units, disrupting the landings / protecting the landings, avoiding having their own units sunk, keeping units from entering certain sea spaces or restricting enemy from those same spaces.  

Most game designers achieve balance by modifying the strength of units in a battle, so Jutland by Avalon Hill overestimated the throw weight of German ships, in many games ships like the Bismarck are given armor ratings many times that of the Nelsons, and at Midway American air units are FAR stronger than they were historically.  In my game though I was very careful to play the ships as they were - if the Japanese show themselves to American radar controlled battle line they will loose.  Where I balanced things was in the points awarded for different actions.  Idid this by playing the game and making a statistical record of the results of two players until two random players from 9 play-testers, all experienced war-gamers, would have a rough 50% to win no matter what side they drew.  Took 315 plays before the math stabilized.

Testing is expensive, and I spent more time testing my game than my profits ever paid back.  Now days game designers do not even release stable or complete games, the games are released in middle Beta and IF players stick then maybe the game will be completed.  But Internet noodles have ruined any chance to make the game accurate once it is released.  

German tanks were susceptible to gang tactics.  Lob enough 75mm at a Tiger tank and eventually you get a vision or mobility kills.  But evertime a Tiger succumbs to an American tank there are 10,000 posts online about how awful a game is. 

My religion forced me into teaching as it did law enforcement, at least part-time and sometimes full-time.  

In the US the biggest problem with education is both the Republicans and Democrats are right, but since neither can admit that education cannot progress forward anymore.  Also educators themselves muck everything up because they want to keep their jobs.  

The fastest growing areas of education for well paying jobs is communication, engineering, health care, computer tech and biotech.  The problem with each of these fields is that each can be taught poorly and result in a practitioner who is unable to make a living in the field.  75% of the graduates of communication programs will be unable to hold a position in the field of communication.  Of the 25% remaining they will have very clear and precise skills in either Public Relations and Advertising (writing and math intensive) or digital media (photography, coding, filmmaking, and sound).  

Many colleges, acting like consumer product companies, are looking for the light programs.  So you are getting Engineering Arts degrees, an engineering degree that lacks science and math requirements.  This is simply taking the students you have and giving them what you can in hopes maybe they will find some way to live on it.  Of course for 30% of our student body college is just a place to hang out before their parents wealth makes them independent until they die.

I am an advocate of the slow removal of universities from public funding, truth in advertising degree programs, and a strict diet for the university system removing all frills from the education process, and a complete revamping of degree certifications, plus a similar tracking system for high school students into votech and college high schools, with opportunities for students to retract when they are adults after life experiences prepare them for education better..  The university is, bar none, the place where the western world was created and the scientific revolution birthed, and we are letting it go.

Just look at how Wargaming and Gaijin are handling it now...

How are they?

https://gfycat.com/MellowRegularBaldeagle

 

Interesting seeing the guts of an AK like that.

I agree, but that is just a bit too much moving metal near my face, and I have seen a AK break a rod before.

Yes, you see this with the modeling of the Hellcat in most games.  In real life the Hellcat was only defeated 80 times by other tanks (mines and infantry weapons did another 80 or so).  There are more than a dozen AARs where M18 platoons took 5 to 1 against Panthers, Tigers, and MkIVs including Arracourt and Noville.

Play an M18 platoon in ASL or CM and you basically will get killed by a single MKIV, even if you use realistic tactics.  Your MkIV is impervious to the 76mm at unrealistically long ranges, and even though its turret cannot spin fast enough to rack a hit on the M18 few games will simulate this.  

The Field Marshall is an example, more than any other allied leader, of a soldier who went into WW2 spooked.  The experience of Great Britain in the Great War is not enviable, and this caused a considerable amount of alternate history writing in the 1920s and 30s, but Montgomery knew that the British had fought dumb at 3rd Ypres, and although the official British history often refers to this battle as a great offensive victory Montgomery saw that the British strategy of throwing men into an enemy line that would not fail could ruin the war effort.  He was one of the people who called Haig "Butcher Haig" behind his back, and after the war when the British command declared Haig to be a war hero Montgomery never could swallow that.  he also knew that his two comrades, Wavell who had served on GHQ in the Great War, and Auchinleck had been handed raw deals by Churchill for failure to exhibit what some might call "cautious aggression," which meant for Churchill throwing every last crumb you have into whatever pet project Churchill had and never saying you were defeated by a superior enemy,

So Montgomery, who had every possibility of being just as good as Wavell, was a lap dog when he landed at Normandy, ready to snarl or curl up as his master commanded, and very concerned lest his master say a harsh word.  American Generals had a significant advantage in having Eisenhower in the chain of command, which assured they could tend things without as much interference, unless they ran foul of Harry Hopkins.  

The massive losses of tanks by the British had more to do with keeping Churchill in statistics than any failure of tactics.  Churchill had been taught in WW2 that an advance cost x men per meter taken.  He wanted to see those meters taken, and if you lost x*5 men he expected to see x5 meters taken.  He was also told a tank was worth 100 men, so it was cheaper to keep Churchill handy to get a bunch of tanks blow up, especially since they lacked enough fuel in the first place, than it was to simply use tanks and infantry in their most effected manner.  The failure at Market Garden becomes more understandable once the logic Churchill operated on is understood.

The US and Great Britain each lost around 10,000 tanks and SPAT in Europe, total of around 20,000 vehicles.  The Germans lost around 4000 actual tanks, but also lost 75,000 other armored vehicles which included STUG, SPAT 1/2 track, and 1/2 Track weapon carriers.  They also lost 90,000 AT guns.  Be careful when someone tells you the allies lost 5 to 1 tanks, in reality the Germans lost 4 armored vehicles for every armored vehicle lost by the allies and it took 12 or more AT guns in the field to generate a tank kill.

A shocking number of people have no idea what they are.  I've had my MAS 49 called "A Garand" (or Garand Copy) by a lot of people.

I cannot knock the Garand, it is a great rifle, but the MAS 49 and the 49/56 are examples of what the best heavy rifle can be.  

1. Quick release scope mount on every weapon - no drilling the receiver.  In the 49/56 a full GL with sights on each rifle.

2. Shorter receiver and less bulk without loosing barrel length.

3. Strippers, individual rounds, or change magazines.

4. The 10 round mags have never seemed to be a problem for capacity for me and they do not hang up on clothing.  

5. The clip on the magazine is an amazing device as I find myself clipping the thing to my lapel where it is very handy.

6. There are three known problems with the MAS rifle, but if yours does not have them it will be ultimately reliable.

7. If you are a reloader the 7.5 is a very easy round to reload for.

If I come across the image, I'll try and post it.. Basically (IIRC) the stab control box had some trimming pots that could be bumped out of adjustment,  and that a lot of folks would not bother to retrim, (or maybe paint quick align marks) to help get the thing back on track if this occured.

 

I have a relative who was in M4's in the 50's and he never mentioned mechanical issues or fragility with the stab, so take that for what it's worth.

I think you are right about the pots.  I fired a M4 at the testing range with other writers a few years back and its Gyro was operational.  According to the owner of the tank the gyro was adjusted in bore sighting the weapon and would be repaired by a company engineer every few months.

Many tank gunners from WW2 never mention the stab not because it was disconnected by them, but because it simply was so easy to use no one bothered to consider it any more than they consider a foam eye piece on the sight.  It did have to be turned on and engaged from neutral, but its adjustments were simple and part of bore sighting.

Look through the Combat Mission game forums, one of the first big forums for gamers on line, from the late 1990s and you will discover that the US tank suffers from a PR problem originating from model designers in the 1950s and made worse by the American tank hating designers of Squad Leader.  The result was a lot of bad press on the US tanks that was made up.  

There are dozens of threads in the Combat Mission forum about how US soldiers derived no benefit from the gyrostabilizer in their tanks and often disconnected them.  The comments will say that crews were not even trained in their use.  All of which is bollocks.

The tank gyro was invented by a guy named Clinton Hanna and was installed on every US tank.  It could not be removed without changing the mount, although it could be operated in a neutral mode where it would not affect tank barrel position.  The gyro required no training as it was only on, or off.  If it was on then it kept the current cradle location of the canon no matter how the tank moved on the vertical axis.  The gyro was mentioned numerous times by German staff as a significant quality issue that the faced with German armor.

The main advantage that they gave was in quicker first round firing times when a tanks came to a halt, and the ability to fire one or two rounds accurate when they tried to escape.  This advantage meant that US tank guns were nearly twice as accurate in its first shots before and after a move than German.    To counteract that argument you need to get rid of the historical gyro, so you have to make the crews too stupid to use it, or make it, or such good armorers that they disconnect it.  There is on evidence this ever happened in any number of events.

At the same time you have to give German tanks every advantage.  German optics were between 1 and 3% sharper at 500meters that US, so you make up a German optics advantage and give German tanks a +10% to hit, or else the MkIV is at a disadvantage to the M4.

I could use a laugh, you're okay.

By the way, if anyone has a great idea for an ebook and wants help laying it out and selling it, I think I have the measure of those things now.