Maginot Line Fortifications

[sturmovik]

I was recently doing some research on the Maginot Line and I realized there was an opportunity for several new weapons and units to be added to SPWW2. I have done some preliminary work on these units and I wanted to submit them to the forum.

First are a few new new weapons. The best reference (use Google Translate if necessary) is here, but you can Google additional ones.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%..._Ligne_Maginot

I have added the following weapons

Mortier de 50mm modèle 1935 - This is a small breach loading mortar present in most bunkers and all of the Type A light MG cupolas. I basically copied the 45mm Italian mortar and set the range to 700m.

7.5mm FM 24/29D - Port firing version of the standard FM 24/29 LMG. I am assuming it will have the same characteristics as a light TMG.

7.5mm twin MAC 31. - The Maginot Line employed a unique form of MAC 31 tank gun in a twin mounting. These weapons also had water cooling for sustained firing so I upped the kill to 14 from the standard TMG model.

37mm AC37 - Fortress version of the 37mm L53 gun. Rename only.

47mm AC47 - Fortress version of the 47mm L50/53 gun. Rename of the SA37, but available from 1934 in appropriate casemates.

Next are the series of Maginot Line cupolas (called cloches in French). These are the iconic steel domes that graced the major Maginot Line casemates.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%...C3%A9quipement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot...moured_cloches

You can get detailed info on their armour here.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8ea...Turret&f=false

The original versions were made from 20cm thick cast steel on all sides and the top, but the gun/vision ports did form a weakness. Here is what I did for each type. Because only the "turret" of the cloches were exposed and the bases set on concrete I uniformly set all of the hull armour values to 50.

GFM Type A - This is the most numerous cloche that was used for general observation and local defence. It was armed with an FM24/29D and by 1940 all had also been fitted with a Mle 1935 50mm mortar. For the floating block firing and vision ports I gave a TF rating of 5.

GFM Type B - These were a later model of the type A with 5cm uparmour on the side and 10cm on the roof. They also had more effective ball mount gun ports instead of the floating block ports of the type A and so I raised the TF value to 8.

AM - Same armour as the GFM A, they mounted a 25L72 gun and MAC 31 on a common mount.

JM - Same armour as the GFM A, they mounted a twin MAC 31.

LG - Mounted a 50mm mortar on the roof with no vision or gun ports. I set the turret armour to a uniform 20, reduced top armour to 8.

Each cloche had a direct phone line to carious fire control centers so this should count as a radio % of 90.

Oh, if you think that 20cm armour ratings will make the choches too tough to attack...that's the point.

Moving on to the turrets if you review that book I liked earlier it confirms that the armour on the sides and roof were a uniform 30cm. I adjusted the TF armour to match the amount drilled away for the weapons ports. For the large mounts I chose 15 for the 75 and 20 for the mortars due to the very high barrel angle. The 75mm, 81mm and 135mm twin turrets were already in SPWW2, but I added a few others that were missed.

Tourelle FM - Twin MAC 31 turret. Due to the openings for the guns and sights I set the TF armour to 10.

Tourelle AM - Mixed weapons turret. Two paired mountings of 25L72 guns and MAC 31 guns. TF rating of 8 due to large gun ports. Second model with an additional 50mm mortar.

Tourelle STG - These were small independent steel MG turrets mounted on a base. Weapon was an FM14 Hotchkiss. Some were on a steel tube base, others were on a larger concrete blockhouse base. Armour was 3-4cm.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourell...A9montable_STG

Finally perhaps the most delicate issue, Maginot Line casemates. I noticed that most of the ones included followed the standard formula which differed from what was present in the line. A few, like the 47mm AT and 75mm FG were unique to line forts and the details did not match what was present.

First of all, in the major Maginot casemates FM14 Hotchkiss guns were not used, only the single/twin MAC 31's and FM24/29D's. Line casemates were also the only location where the AC37/47 and 75mm field guns were installed. Smaller blockhouses and pillboxes counld mount 25L78 guns as well as 13.2mm Hotchkiss HMGs. Most of these were set up for flanking fire against tanks.

The large casemates had many feet of concrete on the roofs which should warrant a high armour rating. Also, the direction opposite the guns often faced the enemy and had similarly thick walls and additional earth protection. Sides and front walls appear to be about 2-4 feet thick with the gun ports around 4-5cm of steel. Still I don't know RHA to concrete conversions so I haven't firmed up the thicknesses yet.

Anyway, the "Heavy Casemates" with the thick roofs and rears came in flavours of 47mm AT + Twin MGs, Twin MGs, 75mm FG and there were also some 81 and 135 mortar ones scattered about in the alpine region. All of these would have a few FM24/29D's thrown in for good measure.

The lighter "blockhaus"es would have a more uniform 2-4' of concrete protection all around and would sport a 25L78 and some combination of dual/single MAC31 and FM24/29D's.

Finally there were you standard model of pillboxes that would best be modeled by the existing SPWW2 type of pillbox.

Ok, here are some things I need help with.

One thing I noticed was that all of the heavy arty was used for fire support in the surrounding areas so all of the emplacements with mortars or 75's need to be able to appear as artillery support. If the code does not handle this with them set as bunkers or fortifications they should be changed to arty types because they were designed for support, not direct fire.

For the turrets and cloches I need advice on crew levels. Each turret only had 2 guys actually under steel, but there was a larger crew down the ladder so what is the best figure to use?

As I mentioned I need some final advice on the armour ratings for the concrete casemates and blockhouses.

Anyway, let me know what you think and I can make a standard 3.5 OOB available with just these changes.

[Mobhack]

Like armoured trains, these are super-specialised things of no real utility in a game of tactical warfare. Especially since the Maginot forts were not actually engaged in reality, so more of a "what-if". Bunkers and forts are simply representative elements in SP.

By all means, feel free to produce your own specialised OOB with these add-ons for players interested in such. See the armoured train set OOBs already somewhere in here for an example.

Cheers
Andy

[sturmovik]

But the OOBs already include some Maginot line turrets and the Belgian OOBs include Eban Emael units and those were only involved in a single engagement. The Maginot line was subjected to a concentrated attack by Army Group C. If you don't want to include the small cloches that is one thing, but the OOBs should at least round out the compliment of revolving turrets and some of the anti-tank casemates. These are much more useful for creating real world scenarios than the plethora of prototype and experimental tanks that currently inhabit the OOBs.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by sturmovik

But the OOBs already include some Maginot line turrets and the Belgian OOBs include Eban Emael units and those were only involved in a single engagement. The Maginot line was subjected to a concentrated attack by Army Group C. If you don't want to include the small cloches that is one thing, but the OOBs should at least round out the compliment of revolving turrets and some of the anti-tank casemates. These are much more useful for creating real world scenarios than the plethora of prototype and experimental tanks that currently inhabit the OOBs.

The units we have we inherited from the original game I think. They suffice as representative units for the few people who conceivably might want to make such a scenario (they are X3 radio code so not used in generated battles). I don't think there actually is such a scenario anyway.

This is a game of tactical ground warfare - and the end users are thus interested in tactical units, and not a what-if slogging match scenario. Our end user base is much more interested in what-ifs about possible tanks etc as used in regular battle. Hence Maus, etc...

So those things really have little relevance for the stock OOBS. But if you really do want to make your own modified OOB with such items then by all means feel free to make and post it for those who might download it.

Cheers
Andy

[sturmovik]

I already do make my own OOBs and have made them available for over a decade now. I guess I was being naive in thinking that the official game developers folks might be interested in some of the units I had created (despite the fact that many of my additions magically appear in the regular OBs soon after).

It find it a little pretentious speaking for what your "user base" is looking for, especially since the game already provides much of which I am suggesting (German coastal defense guns anyone?). Because the French OOB has a lot of empty space the opportunity cost of Maginot Line support is nil so I am finding your hostility downright perplexing.

The line was directly engaged by both Army Group C in 1940 and again by Patton's 3rd Army in 1944 against German defenders. The efficacy of fixed fortifications against the panzer armies is one of the more interesting questions of the war that I would think your "user base" would wish to explore. Perhaps you should withhold judgment until after additional elements of the community can weigh in.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by sturmovik

I already do make my own OOBs and have made them available for over a decade now. I guess I was being naive in thinking that the official game developers folks might be interested in some of the units I had created (despite the fact that many of my additions magically appear in the regular OBs soon after).

I must admit that I've never heard of "sturmovik" till I looked at your website link. Not seen that page before, personally.

As to any "plagiarism" - been there, got the mug and T-shirt etc. I (and Pascal Ode) produced SP1, and SP2 OOBs back before 2000. And some other guy turned up later with his own WW2 set, with a lot of units etc looking rather like mine & pascal's.

There are only so many units in WW2, and the consensus amongst wargamers will tend to eventually converge.

It find it a little pretentious speaking for what your "user base" is looking for, especially since the game already provides much of which I am suggesting (German coastal defense guns anyone?). Because the French OOB has a lot of empty space the opportunity cost of Maginot Line support is nil so I am finding your hostility downright perplexing.

We used to have an "OOB team" of volunteers, and that was when a lot of trash appeared in there. Plenty of them had thier own "bright ideas". Don and I have taken the OOBS back, and a lot of the work has been in rectifying many of these "bright ideas" and standardising the database.

Several of these guys went hog wild on weird and wonderful fortifications amongst other things, like (say) 99 different Brandenberger units where 1 or 2 representative elements would have done, "colonial" troops and so on and so forth.

Maginot type turrets were there in the original OOBS as far as I recall, and we simply inherited them. Only change was to make the turrets rotate when we fixed the code to allow forts to do so. But the scope of this game system remains the same - forts and bunkers are really only to be field fortifications as met in regular battle. So these "specials" are X3 radio codes, and therefore only met if in a designed scenario or if your human opponent decides to buy such. (Which he likely will not, as a little puff of smoke negates an expensive immobile fort.)

Somebody may have made a scenario at some point using the things, but I have no knowledge of any such. Therefore we can infer the lack of interest in fort-busting scenarios.

As to any code changes to make forts able to fire indirect - that is not going to happen. We already have artillery to do that job. All a scenario designer need do is edit an existing off-map arty unit and rename it as "Fort XXX" should he so desire. Plus it would need a new fort class, and all values in a unit class byte type are already used.

By all means, if you want to have your own OOB with lots of different specialist Maginot fort units, then feel free to make such and offer it up. But it will be your mod, and you can have the pleasure of maintaining it and entering into any support discussions with the end users.

The line was directly engaged by both Army Group C in 1940 and again by Patton's 3rd Army in 1944 against German defenders. The efficacy of fixed fortifications against the panzer armies is one of the more interesting questions of the war that I would think your "user base" would wish to explore. Perhaps you should withhold judgment until after additional elements of the community can weigh in.

For an SP type scenario, any fort icon would really do the trick for representing such. The process would be the same even with some "speciality" forts added. Smoke the forts off, stonk with arty, and assault the suppressed surviving forts with engineers. Rinse and repeat till end game.

I think most end users tend to avoid such slug-fest scenarios and would rather concentrate on those involving some element of manoeuvre.

But as you say - perhaps there are some folks out there who desire the addition of several new Maginot forts to the French OOB. Maybe they will chime in?.

Cheers
Andy

[DRG]

Interesting, four posts in and already giving us attitude. Perfect, I can see how long this is going to last.

First, Andy has now said, TWICE, you are free to create and post any custom OOB you produce but apparently that's just not good enough. You NEED your ideas included or we're being "hostile" when all Andy did was point out why he didn't think much of this needed to be added because despite what you may think about how "pretentious" we might be about what we think might be needed in the game I will remind you we have been doing this now since January 1998 so what we think the game needs carries more than just a little weight

"These are much more useful for creating real world scenarios than the plethora of prototype and experimental tanks experimental tanks that currently inhabit the OOBs

"Plethora" - (n.) - an overabundance, an excess

Given there are 12,055 units in the game and only 53 of them are "prototype and/or experimental" found in the 33 main OOBs meaning there are roughly 1/4 of 1% of the total units you have a strange understanding of the word "Plethora"

So it WAS "naive" of you to think replying in the manner you did in these last couple of posts was going to help make your point with us. Keep it up and I promise you will join the very short list of people banished from this forum.

Don

[sturmovik]

I'm sorry but what am I to think when I explicitly post about how I have been releasing my own set of OB*s since the late 90's and I wanted to contribute to the community and as soon as I post the fruits of a good deal of research I get blown off. All I knew was that the game has 15 types of colonial border guards, but for some reason Maginot line fortifications were just unnecessary. You can call me thin skinned, but when someone kicks a good deal of work to the curb without much of an explanation or nugget of constructive criticism I see that as a little rude.

I always saw the SP franchise as a great WW2 battle sim that strove for accuracy by attempting to include every single possible type of unit that would enable the community to create scenarios of battles of unparalleled accuracy. If the actions carried out by the old OOB team to capture every single type of unit is now seen as a mistake I would suggest that you edit the sticky to discourage people from posting solicitations for new units.

BTW Andy's a great guy and we used to talk quite a bit about 10 years ago (I won't hold it against him if he doesn't remember me). I know that you're the ones maintaining the game now, but it would still behoove you not to act like it's some sort of closed shop / old boys club (unless you want it to be). I've been editing OB's for just as long as you have, but when I thought I had found a niche where I could actually contribute something I get talked down to like a n00b and told to get stuffed.

Anyway, I think I got the answer I was looking for in Andy's last reply. Here, perhaps I can suggest a reboot of this conversation.

Andy:

"Great ideas, but unfortunately we've discovered that the explosion of units in previous versions of the game negatively impacted non-scenario gameplay so we are really not looking to add any more niche or non-core units to future releases of the game."

Me:

"I'm sorry to hear that. I guess 15 types of Brandenburgers can get a little confusing when playing campaigns or head to head. Let me know if you ever need any of the information I've gathered."

[DRG]

Originally Posted by sturmovik

Anyway, I think I got the answer I was looking for in Andy's last reply. Here, perhaps I can suggest a reboot of this conversation.

Andy:

"Great ideas, but unfortunately we've discovered that the explosion of units in previous versions of the game negatively impacted non-scenario gameplay so we are really not looking to add any more niche or non-core units to future releases of the game."

Me:

"I'm sorry to hear that. I guess 15 types of Brandenburgers can get a little confusing when playing campaigns or head to head. Let me know if you ever need any of the information I've gathered."

Mike, Please do pay attention to this. I realise this was an attempt to "make nice" but if you are going to "quote" someone make sure it is a real quote and not made up to suit your own purposes as at no time did Andy ever say these were "great ideas". Had he thought they were "great ideas" he would have said so and the whole exchange would have gone differently than it has to date. What he DID say was

.......those things really have little relevance for the stock OOBS. But if you really do want to make your own modified OOB with such items then by all means feel free to make and post it for those who might download it.

and

By all means, if you want to have your own OOB with lots of different specialist Maginot fort units, then feel free to make such and offer it up. But it will be your mod, and you can have the pleasure of maintaining it and entering into any support discussions with the end users.

And nobody but you thinks those were "hostile" comments.

I have no issue with you or anyone else requesting changes or additions. That's what we've been doing all these years. The latest "to-do" list of potential changes or fixes we need to investigate for SPWW2 is 32 pages long and the one for MBT is over double that. This year we are lucky because usually those lists are longer. The 2007 patch upgrades for both games took up well over 1000 man hours of our time and the one in 2008 was only a bit less and this follows the pattern set all the way back to SP2WW2 in 1998 and most of that work is squeezed into the winter months. Last year the MBT list was over 120 printed pages long so what we do is a bit more involved than just tweaking other peoples OOB's .

If you think there are OOB errors report them and they will go on the list. If we think they are justified they will be fixed. If not they won't but we won't be getting into endless debates about it because we really don't have the time and lost the inclination to debate things like this some time ago. That said, every report DOES get looked at no matter who reports it

Don

[francoisD]

just a minor general comment without taking one side of the argument

just to tell that, as a german in 1942 in its first LC, i never played a defensive battle. but i truly dream of them, and hope they will soon come.

indeed i am very eager to build strong defenses and ambushes.

if it is true that you can destroy fortifications with smoke and engineers teams, as i do now, you are slowed down, and time is a factor in this game. moreover, if you can do this quite easily vs the ai, i do think that a human player would be more clever. i imagine that the defensive player could use its own artillery on the bunker, if surrounded by smoke, to hamper any incoming opponents...

if an attacker looses many turns to destroy a few fortifications, this is nothing but excellent for the defenser...

of course the attacker can decide to move around, but he may very well fall in nasty ambushes;-)