Anti-Air in ACOW

[roboczar]

I recently played a PBEM game with a friend of mine (Libya-Egypt 2000) and I noticed that when he attacked hexes in my rear, near my C&C, the SA-12's, SA-10's, and various other A-A didn't support the defense....at least not that I could tell. On the next turn I didn't see any reduction in supply in those units, and he claimed to never have seen the units in his battle reports.

Is A-A broken? I hope it's not as disastrous as that and there's something I missed. As far as I can tell, the forces were cooperative to the units under attack, and the A-A units were non-mobile.

EDIT: I should mention that this was A-A at range. Two or three hexes away, approx.

[Southern Dandy]

It has been noted by many players, you included, that AA and SAMs seem to do little, if nothing, to earn the supply they so eagerly consume. Some pretty thorough testing (not done by me, can't remember by whom and in which thread it was in) showed that AA and SAMs have about the same effect in terms of losses on attacking aircraft as historical when in a hex that is directly attacked....though they should be able to break up an attack, especially at smaller scales (but that's another issue altogether!).

Given your dilemma regarding your intended role for it as a support unit, I wonder a couple of things:

First, are AA and SAMs treated as supporting assets in the game engine (by this I mean, as artillery)?

Second, if so, were your AA and SAMs in a mobile deployment?

If the answer to my questions are yes, then your solution would be to entrench your AA and SAM units- then they would at least open fire, in theory.

I just don't know the answer to my first question....anyone?

John

[roboczar]

I should have specified that they were dug in when I said 'non-mobile'. I, too thought that they were supporting assets that required a combat stance, so I dug them all in on turn one.

This wouldn't be such a fantastically huge problem if it didn't allow my opponent to wreak havoc on my C&C with impunity. I *could* move my A-A into important hexes, but they would be abandoning all 'fixed' equipment...which means the SAM sites, I suspect. All that would leave me with is about 10 barely effective A-A halftracks.

I want to believe I'm just not using them correctly and that a huge portion of modern warfare has NOT been left out of the game.

EDIT: Well, okay. Maybe not HUGE, but if the equipment says it can attack hexes at range, it should do just that. :(

[roboczar]

I just did a test using the editor, where two generic jet fighter-bombers (common equipment) attack a single civilian unit adjacent to 10 SA-12 SAMs. Most of the time, nothing happens regardless of what stance the AA missiles have. There was *one* occasion where I mysteriously lost one aircraft bombarding the CIV unit. I can't explain why that happened, since the battle report didn't indicate the missiles coming to the defense.

Is there any way to view the inner workings of a battle? With all the numbers and all that?

[JMS]

I just did a test using the editor, where two generic jet fighter-bombers (common equipment) attack a single civilian unit adjacent to 10 SA-12 SAMs. Most of the time, nothing happens regardless of what stance the AA missiles have. There was *one* occasion where I mysteriously lost one aircraft bombarding the CIV unit. I can't explain why that happened, since the battle report didn't indicate the missiles coming to the defense.

Is there any way to view the inner workings of a battle? With all the numbers and all that?

Note that there is an ECM and a Communications check involved if the attack is not same hex. Check those levels.

[nemo]

Is there any way to view the inner workings of a battle? With all the numbers and all that?From the TOAW Help File, under 'Unsupported Features for power Users' :

"TOAW has a number of hidden features that can only be turned on by use of the command line. Most are only useful for scenario designers. Two: polog and toawlog, can be useful to players who might wish to “look under the hood” after a gaming session. The po_log.txt and toaw_log.txt files can be examined using any text editor that can load large files. It is not uncommon for the log files to exceed 10 MB in size.
To insert a command line parameter into a shortcut used to launch TOAW you will need to right click on the shortcut (details vary slightly depending upon which version of Windows you are using and how you have your shortcuts set up) and select “properties”. In the “target” field, enter a space after “exe”, followed by the command line switch you wish to use. Separate multiple switches by a space. If the target field appears within quotes, place your command line switch inside the quotes.


nodelay – Useful for debugging scenarios in computer vs. computer play mode, this option turns off many of the small timer controlled delays and animations in the game. The effect is most noticeable on faster machines.
noupdate - Useful for debugging scenarios in computer vs. computer play mode, this option turns off many of the screen updates in the game. The effect is most noticeable on slower machines. This option should not be used when playing the game, as some of the updates are necessary for normal play purposes. A combination of nodelay and noupdate can speed computer vs. computer scenario test dramatically.
nosound – Turn off all sound.
norandom – Turns off system time based initialization of the random number generator used in TOAW.
polog – Turns on the programmed opponent logging feature. This will generate a po_log.txt file in your game directory. The log file is a detailed record of programmed opponent decision making during a game.
toawlog – Turns on the general game logging feature. This will generate a toaw_log.txt file in your game directory. The log file is a detailed record of many game management functions, including loading and unloading of resources and combat resolution.
nointro – Turns the introductory cinematic off.
uberdude – Increases the amount of feedback from the event engine and other game functions for debug purposes. Many event engine actions that leave no trace in normal mode will fully document themselves in the news report if you use the uberdude switch. This can be used during normal play, but is really intended for scenario designer use. It has a tendency to clutter the news report and certain graphics areas with information that isn’t needed during normal play.
You should try for a combination of toawlog and uberdude to have every available number involved... and prepare lots of coffee before having a crack at the results ;)

Hope it helps.

[roboczar]

Wow! Thanks Nemo!

Great stuff there.

[roboczar]

First, are AA and SAMs treated as supporting assets in the game engine (by this I mean, as artillery)?
Well, I at least found out the answer to this one. AA does NOT require you to set a combat stance in order for it to support units in range. They will automatically support a defense, even though it's *not* displayed in the battle report, which it clearly should have been, since AA has its own report:

2nd Force 201st Formation, 5th Cadre bombards the target.
1st Force 201st Formation, 4th Cadre contributes anti-aircraft fire (198). However, in order to get any kind of result (a single kill), I had to group something like 100 SAMs in one hex to get a kill on every bombardment attempt on a hex at long range. I think the 1/2 'attack' rule might still apply, but still, that's a pretty bad result considering that things like SA-12's are feared for their superior single-shot hit probability. This also applies for things like 1910's equipment. I could fly a small number (10 or less) monoplane bombers (primitive) over to the target and I would lose one or two of them to supporting AA fire every time. If I attacked the SAM site directly, I would lose approximately double that (2-4). I think those monoplanes may have been made of low-observable composite materials....I'm not sure. :crosseye:

Anyway, I know this is an 'army' game, but air power matters in modern warfare and since Norm isn't working on TOAW anymore, it's kinda sad that things just aren't working correctly.

Bleh.

EDIT: All unit proficiencies, supply, and readiness were all at maximum for these tests to reduce ambiguity.

[jlbetin]

Well, I at least found out the answer to this one. AA does NOT require you to set a combat stance in order for it to support units in range. They will automatically support a defense, even though it's *not* displayed in the battle report, which it clearly should have been, since AA has its own report:

However, in order to get any kind of result (a single kill), I had to group something like 100 SAMs in one hex to get a kill on every bombardment attempt on a hex at long range. I think the 1/2 'attack' rule might still apply, but still, that's a pretty bad result considering that things like SA-12's are feared for their superior single-shot hit probability. This also applies for things like 1910's equipment. I could fly a small number (10 or less) monoplane bombers (primitive) over to the target and I would lose one or two of them to supporting AA fire every time. If I attacked the SAM site directly, I would lose approximately double that (2-4). I think those monoplanes may have been made of low-observable composite materials....I'm not sure. :crosseye:

Anyway, I know this is an 'army' game, but air power matters in modern warfare and since Norm isn't working on TOAW anymore, it's kinda sad that things just aren't working correctly.

Bleh.

EDIT: All unit proficiencies, supply, and readiness were all at maximum for these tests to reduce ambiguity.

In the editor your can too define the "skill" level of guided weapons by default it is 20 you can increase it a lot -> 90%. In the scenario I work on, the testings shown counter attacks of SAM against air attacks and it counts for morale check

Now think of hundrerds of planes attacking a AA btn managing only 30 sams, will result be what you expect ?

Der WanderFlak

[roboczar]

In the editor your can too define the "skill" level of guided weapons by default it is 20 you can increase it a lot -> 90%. In the scenario I work on, the testings shown counter attacks of SAM against air attacks and it counts for morale check
Now that I did not know. I'll try testing that to see if I can get better results.

Thank you very much for the information, jbetin!