Polish OOB2 corrections/suggestions (v.6)

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Pibwl

Maybe I wasn't clear enough,

Yeah "maybe"

Originally Posted by Pibwl

but I wrote, that in 7/40 - 10/40 there were no tanks in Polish units available, and in 11/40 - 3/44 Polish tanks were used for training only. So there was no armour in field. Crusaders were used for training yet longer, but I wanted to cut them when real tanks became available.
Michal

Then what does this mean ?

Crusader III - used from 9/42 until some 5/44 in the 1st Arm.Div. (now 4/42 - 4/43) (in training units used even longer ".........

since you have confirmed that there were NO polish armoured units in the field between that date I have to wonder why you said the Crusader III was used from 9/42 until some 5/44 in the 1st Arm.Div. .....if the 1st Arm.Div. only existed on paper as a training division

In one of these posts you say

Their structures and weapons should be examined deeply, but maybe next year

No Michael------- what has happened here this year is NEVER going to be repeated again. If you think I am going to start this all over again with you next year you are very much mistaken. After next release you have a problem with an OOB that takes 65 posts to get through you need to learn how to edit OOB's and submit them to the MODs section and if you issue complete notes and haven't decided to be " creative"....maybe we'll consider adding it to the master game but I am NOT going to wade through the pile of notes I've had to this year again. You want an OOB re-written you are going to be doing the work yourself ( that goes for the Finn as well ) You've made a very impressive tag team this year........ like a feeding frenzy of sharks ....totally out of control this year and if I had time to spot the trend earlier I would have posted this replay back in the summer when you both were just warming up. I have double+ the pages of notes to deal with I normally would and in a "normal" year I struggle to get everything done ...........so ..... if you want an OOB totally re-written.......after next release you are on your own.



Don

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by DRG

( that goes for the Finn as well ) You've made a very impressive tag team this year........ like a feeding frenzy of sharks ....totally out of control this year and if I had time to spot the trend earlier I would have posted this replay back in the summer when you both were just warming up. I have double+ the pages of notes to deal with I normally would and in a "normal" year I struggle to get everything done ...........so ..... if you want an OOB totally re-written.......after next release you are on your own.

Don

I have to object to that, Don. The corrections I suggested for the Finnish OOB hardly qualify as a "rewritten OOB". A large part of them were just small modifications like artillery range adjustments, since off-map arty ranges clearly did not follow the rules given in the Mobhack Guide. Others were stuff like AP penetration data adjustment based on data that the earlier people who worked on the OOB did not have. I suggested a few unit additions as well, but they were just that -- suggestions, nothing more, nothing less.

I could have done all that stuff to a corrected OOB myself, but you have specifically stated that full OOB mods have relatively little chance of ever getting to the game at this point. I thought it would be easier for you and better use of my time to post them as corrections and suggestions list for the official OOBs. For me personally it would be easier just to put make a modified OOB and post it on these forums and let you to sort it out, if you wish, but I wanted others to have the best chances of benefiting from the research I have done knowing that only a small number of people actually use player-contributed OOB mods.

Now, I do appreciate the fact that there has been a lot of stuff going on here since late summer and I have certainly contributed my fair share of that. But as promised, I will not contribute any new OOB stuff until you give the permission and next year I will try to be even more critical of what I post here.

[DRG]

Your "just small modifications" took up most of a week to track down spin off effects in other OOB's. The cumulative affect of all this enthusiasm for "error" correction is me working 12+ hour days just to try to get in front of it before Christmas. It's all well and good to say FH X should be 202 range not 206 but SOMEBODY ( me ) has to track all the other ones in any other OOB and since there has been such enthusiasm for "National naming" I can't just enter 152mm booglegun in to my search engine and expect to find them all because some may be named 15.2cm booglegun ( etc etc ) so they also have to be cross checked by range so one "simple" line can take an hour or more of time.

I have seen me work a full day and only get the equivalent of one page of work done because every item ate up 20X the time to sort out than it did to write down,

The Finn OOB has been through the hands of more Finns than I ever expected to have to deal with and I have no doubt you won't be the last. Michals tearing another Poles OOB apart....... one I thought was in excellent shape ( ditto the Finn ). I doubt there is a unit in that OOB now that hasn't had some effect to it even if it's just a photo or a weapon tweaked and I'm MAYBE 1/3 the way through. I've started work on other OOBs for a few days just for a change of scenery and because I was starting to get a *bit* pi$$ed off about the whole process

You may think you offered a few "suggestions" but anything that any other OOB could use has to be checked as well or I ended up with more error reports down the road and I had thought by now I would be able to cruise through a game work season and actually be able to start thinking about adding something new to the game but that idea went out the window a month ago. Between WW2 and MBT I have 249 pages of "errors" and "suggestions" and I am just past halfway through them and that is only because I get up in the morning and work 12+ hours then start again the next day. Some "retirement"

The problem with people making their own changes is they only do one OOB and we end up right back to the problem we started with and most years I end up with 100 or so pages but this year...... this year has just totally spun out of control with WW2 ( do you guys ever actually play the game or just troll through the OOB's for something to do ? ) and there's also a major rewrite going on with an OOB in MBT as well but that has been farmed out and I hope it's going to turn out well. What I do know is there will be a huge number of re-issued scenarios but those always get done last, after I have locked down the OOB's and that's a half weeks worth of work

Don

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by DRG

since there has been such enthusiasm for "National naming" I can't just enter 152mm booglegun in to my search engine and expect to find them all because some may be named 15.2cm booglegun ( etc etc ) so they also have to be cross checked by range so one "simple" line can take an hour or more of time.

The Finn OOB has been through the hands of more Finns than I ever expected to have to deal with and I have no doubt you won't be the last. Michals tearing another Poles OOB apart....... one I thought was in excellent shape ( ditto the Finn ).

You may think you offered a few "suggestions" but anything that any other OOB could use has to be checked as well or I ended up with more error reports down the road and I had thought by now I would be able to cruise through a game work season and actually be able to start thinking about adding something new to the game but that idea went out the window a month ago. Between WW2 and MBT I have 249 pages of "errors" and "suggestions" and I am just past halfway through them and that is only because I get up in the morning and work 12+ hours then start again the next day. Some "retirement"

The problem with people making their own changes is they only do one OOB and we end up right back to the problem we started with and most years I end up with 100 or so pages but this year...... this year has just totally spun out of control with WW2 ( do you guys ever actually play the game or just troll through the OOB's for something to do ? )

Don

I don't know who originally thought about using national names for weapons and units, but since they are already used, I thought they should be used consistently and correctly whenever possible. The genie is already out of the bottle, so to say, and the only way to fix it would be to eradicate all national naming in all OOBs so that everything is named according to the country of origin. I have actually nothing against such a move, personally, as long as it doesn't mean going back to completely generic SP1 style naming. In many ways using the original name would be easier for the players as well.

As for the Finnish OOB, it actually was in pretty good shape as far as the things most people care about were, namely tanks and infantry. Artillery does not interest people so much and that's where the "errors" mostly lied. On the other hand I have a special interest in artillery and AAA stuff. Then some of the corrections were based on data that the earlier Finns probably did not have, since Jaeger Platoon site did not have it yet. There's stuff there that isn't available in any secondary sources, or if it was, the books are long out of print.

Still, if I had known how much stress this would put on you, I would have been more critical of what I post here. I have a great respect for the fact that you still update this game after more than 10 years, and yes, I do play it, although admittedly I would have time to play it more, if I didn't care about the OOB stuff at all.

[DRG]

Here's an example of information that while accurate, has only limited game application

Weapon 103 203mm H 17 Hwtz: max. range only 11,200 meters (201).

It had been 209. A gun with a range of 11,200 meters would be 12,248 yards and that would only translate to 202 and the ONLY time any of that is of any use to the game is when there is off map counter battery fire and that whole routine is a simple abstraction because that's all it needs to be. Where did 209 come from ? I have no idea. It could have been a bad source, it could have been a cut and paste error, it could have been a number of things but when things like that are reported the only way to prevent " Hey what's up with this ?. The Rurristani gun has 8 more range then the Fredonia version" is if I track them all down and that takes time when one is named 143mm H-23 and another is named 14.3cm H/23 and another is named 5.6in M1923. That's only a slight exaggeration and that's just the way it is and why I have tricks to find things but that depends mainly on the info in each OOB being more or less the same kind of wrong.

Last night I spent 3 hours sorting though one short error report that had me checking the HEpen for every gun in SPWW2 and finding far more non "standard" number than the original complaint suggested there may be and that has generated a note to run the same check on SPMBT where there are 3x more OOB's to be wrong and I figure it may have taken 5 minutes to issue an error report ( and it's valid otherwise I would have just ignored it ) and that spun into 3 hours work in one game and I hope it won't turn into 9 hours work in the other but .......... BUT........... most of this will never really impact game play to any degree that battles are won and lost because an artillery unit has one less HEPen than it should. But it is an error I want eliminated because one day I hope to get to a point where OOB work isn't all I do between October and March. This year was the games "Katrina"

Minor point but in MOBHack help this.....

Each kilometre over 10km adds "1" to the range.
•10km - 11.4km = 201
•11.5 - 12.4 = 202
•12.5 - 13.4 = 203

should read ( and will with the next patch )

Each kilometre over 10km adds "1" to the range.
•9.5 km - 10.4km = 200
•10.5 - 11.4 = 201
•11.5 - 12.4 = 202
•12.5 - 13.4 = 203


Don

[Pibwl]

Originally Posted by DRG

since you have confirmed that there were NO polish armoured units in the field between that date I have to wonder why you said the Crusader III was used from 9/42 until some 5/44 in the 1st Arm.Div. .....if the 1st Arm.Div. only existed on paper as a training division

I thought it was simple: the division was formed around 1942 and until a deployment in France 1944 it trained in the UK, using mostly Crusaders (it didn't exist on paper only). It's your decision, but we have examples of tank units existing even though their country did not fight with tanks at the moment - and we have also prototypes in some oobs, which also didn't fight, and are only an option to a player. I believe, that training tanks should be available, in one, simple formation pattern, for those, who'd like to play purely hypothetical battles. Should we delete also infantry in periods, when the Polish army didn't actually fight on any front?


I'm sorry that I wasted your time - and wasted mine, trying to rework large, but in many places inaccurate (and in several - seriously inaccurate) Polish OOB. I confess, that by the way I've also indicated minor issues, that I've spotted, to make it more perfect. I thought, that this year I started early enough...

A proposal about me correcting an OOB with complete notes is interesting - but we all wish it was earlier...

Michal

[DRG]

Where did I say you wasted my time ? I'm trying to get this mess sorted out so I don't have to go though phase 2 next year. You are the one telling me the units that we put in to fill gaps weren't used....... OK, expect gaps then

What you should have done is contacted Blazej and worked with him to correct it , his name IS on the OOB and I would expect there would be few communication problems. I would have happily accepted an OOB from him as he's been down that road with me before, but I'm already too deep for that now


Don

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Pibwl

408 CKM wz.25 Pl - it should be original 8mm wz.14 Hotchkiss rather (there were still 2600 wz.14 in 1939 and only 1200 of wz.25, half of them as TMGs).

Weapon #121 should have kill=5 like weapon #100 and should be named 8mm wz.25 HMG (or MMG - though in Poland all were classified as "heavy"). BTW, kill 7 of wz.28 MMG is not justified.

Michal........perhaps you could explain why on one hand you are telling me that unit 408 should be the " original 8mm wz.14 Hotchkiss " then in the next line tell me to change weapon 121 to 8mm wz.25 HMG when unit 408 is the only unit weapon 121 is used in ?

[Pibwl]

I must have done it in case wz.25 MMG isn't removed - or I didn't check the users, only indicated what's wrong with this weapon...

edit: I probably made a mistake - it should be naturally 8mm wz.14, not wz.25. Sorry.

Unfortunately, the issue of Hotchkisses MMG in 1939 isn't well researched (and only in March there is announced a new book on the subject). What is sure is, that:
1) Hotchkiss was least popular MMG in 1939 (after wz.30 and Maxim wz.08), used probably only by some of second line Obrona Narodowa units and some militia,
2) wz.25 was less popular, than wz.14 (apart from TMG use).

BTW: the only #690 Renault NC-27 was armed with #12 37mm wz.18 L21, not TMG (ammo load like FT-17?).

Michal

[Pibwl]

I've managed to find a decent photo of Polish pre-war 81mm mortar.

Current photo pm30563 shows probably a British one, judging from helmets, although it's hard to say. If you don't find it useful, skip it.