Red Factories CPP Poll

How would you spend 1CPP in RO CGII?

  • Buy OBA (80+ Btln Mtr or 70+).

    Votes: 15 40.5%
  • Buy a pre-reg hex for already purchased OBA.

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • Buy Forts and up Booby Trap level.

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • Upgrade SAN from a 5 to a 6.

    Votes: 12 32.4%
  • Save it for the next day.

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 1 2.7%

  • Total voters
    37

jrv

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with the probability of a 2D6 system, these 147 mortars all in play under the above circumstances only, will generate 3.8 critical hits per player turn, for a total of 6 game turns (12 player turns) or 45.6 critical hits
A MTR firing on the ATT gets a CH on a 2, 1/36ᵗʰ of the time. 147 * 1/36 = 4.083̅, not 3.8.

JR
 

witchbottles

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Um, double it for the 3 ROF.
look at my example. I factored out the 3 ROF being in the example, simply to illustrate how ridiculous it was to state that 147 different mortars all firing TH DR's with every player turn would never generate game effects other than "basically meaningless". so I took the worst possible case, every single mortar failing to maintain any ROF every single player turn.
 

Philippe D.

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I simply believe that when making decisions about probabilistic systems, like the fall of dice, analysis of the probabilities is a superior basis for making decisions than hiding the uncertainty by analysing the "expected" events.
"Expected events" is pure probabilistic speech. When you are computing expected values, you are doing nothing but probability analysis.

An expected value is just an average over a large number of trials. You can analyse in great detail the distribution of the number of occurrences (what are the chances of rolling SAN exactly once? exactly twice? and so on), but expectation will often be a good enough indicator, and is way easier to compute.
 

boylermaker

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OK, so I looked a little further into the utility of 50* mortars.

I am going to assume that only crits are useful, which is unfair to the mortars, as 2/+2 shots against units in roofless buildings will do stuff, but the math is much easier if I don't think about them.

A single mortar needs to make 36 TH rolls in order to get a critical hit. Let's use @witchbottles nifty trick of not taking ACQ (we can definitely do that), and also assume that we can put a +2 hindrance of smoke or debris between us and the target half the time (not sure how practicable this is). That means we only need to make 15 IFT rolls (all useless except the one). That's 51 rolls, or the following number of SAN activations:

SAN 2 = 0.5
SAN 3 = 0.9
SAN 4 = 1.4
SAN 5 = 1.9
SAN 6 = 2.4
SAN 7 = 2.8

Imagine mortars are the German's best weapon (at least, among those vulnerable to snipers). If that's the case, then the Russian's interest might be to dedicate his sniper to incapacitating their crews, i.e., using "2"'s to position the sniper where it is most likely to break or kill a mortar crew on a "1". At what SAN does the Russian win, i.e., is it likely that the sniper gets the crew before it lands its critical hit?

A lot of that depends on where the mortars are in the battlefield, of course. If you were able to put them up in the front lines surrounded by other units, then they might be effective no matter what. If you have them by themselves perched in a rear area, then my guess is that a SAN of 6 or 7 is enough for the Russians to win, but a 5 or less gives the Germans the upper hand.

Of course, that assumes that mortars are the German's best weapon. If something else is, then the Russian should ignore the mortars and use all those SANs to let him hunt whatever that thing is. He'll probably hit a 10-3 led death star less often than he would hit a mortar team, because the death star is more easy to surround with other units to distract the sniper, and the MMC he's leading will take some bullets for him. But on the other hand, a "2" sniper against a 10-3 is just as good as a "1" 50-67% of the time, and does you a heap of good even when it doesn't kill him outright.

So the question is, how many cracks at my death star are I comfortable giving the Russian sniper in order to get that critical hit with my mortar? I'm inclined to say somewhere in the 0.5-1.0 range. 1.5 (= 4 SAN) might even be doable if I thought the terrain was favorable (i.e., a lot of debris hexes to put sacrificial lamb halfsquads are near where my death star will be). This is higher than I originally thought, but not by a ton.
 

jrv

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If your TH is a 5 (7 reduced by two hindrances) in 36 attacks you should hit 10/36 * 36 = 10 IFT DRs, not 15. It doesn't make a big difference, but it is a bit of one.

Another use for the 6+1 leader: directing SW MTRs in Red Barricades to reduce their hits. If you can get a wounded 6+1 leader, so much the better. You should be able to do some Advance vs Difficult Terrain too to become CX. Oh, and use Spotted Fire even if you have LOS.

JR
 
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witchbottles

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If your TH is a 5 (7 reduced by two hindrances) in 36 attacks you should hit 10/36 * 36 = 10 IFT DRs, not 15. It doesn't make a big difference, but it is a bit of one.

Another use for the 6+1 leader: directing SW MTRs in Red Barricades to reduce their hits. If you can get a wounded 6+1 leader, so much the better. You should be able to do some Advance vs Difficult Terrain too to become CX. Oh, and use Spotted Fire even if you have LOS.

JR
using spotted fire will lower the 3 ROF
 

witchbottles

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If your TH is a 5 (7 reduced by two hindrances) in 36 attacks you should hit 10/36 * 36 = 10 IFT DRs, not 15. It doesn't make a big difference, but it is a bit of one.

Another use for the 6+1 leader: directing SW MTRs in Red Barricades to reduce their hits. If you can get a wounded 6+1 leader, so much the better. You should be able to do some Advance vs Difficult Terrain too to become CX. Oh, and use Spotted Fire even if you have LOS.

JR
and advancing fire vs Prep fire helps here.
 

witchbottles

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OK, so I looked a little further into the utility of 50* mortars.

I am going to assume that only crits are useful, which is unfair to the mortars, as 2/+2 shots against units in roofless buildings will do stuff, but the math is much easier if I don't think about them.

A single mortar needs to make 36 TH rolls in order to get a critical hit. Let's use @witchbottles nifty trick of not taking ACQ (we can definitely do that), and also assume that we can put a +2 hindrance of smoke or debris between us and the target half the time (not sure how practicable this is). That means we only need to make 15 IFT rolls (all useless except the one). That's 51 rolls, or the following number of SAN activations:

SAN 2 = 0.5
SAN 3 = 0.9
SAN 4 = 1.4
SAN 5 = 1.9
SAN 6 = 2.4
SAN 7 = 2.8

Imagine mortars are the German's best weapon (at least, among those vulnerable to snipers). If that's the case, then the Russian's interest might be to dedicate his sniper to incapacitating their crews, i.e., using "2"'s to position the sniper where it is most likely to break or kill a mortar crew on a "1". At what SAN does the Russian win, i.e., is it likely that the sniper gets the crew before it lands its critical hit?

A lot of that depends on where the mortars are in the battlefield, of course. If you were able to put them up in the front lines surrounded by other units, then they might be effective no matter what. If you have them by themselves perched in a rear area, then my guess is that a SAN of 6 or 7 is enough for the Russians to win, but a 5 or less gives the Germans the upper hand.

Of course, that assumes that mortars are the German's best weapon. If something else is, then the Russian should ignore the mortars and use all those SANs to let him hunt whatever that thing is. He'll probably hit a 10-3 led death star less often than he would hit a mortar team, because the death star is more easy to surround with other units to distract the sniper, and the MMC he's leading will take some bullets for him. But on the other hand, a "2" sniper against a 10-3 is just as good as a "1" 50-67% of the time, and does you a heap of good even when it doesn't kill him outright.

So the question is, how many cracks at my death star are I comfortable giving the Russian sniper in order to get that critical hit with my mortar? I'm inclined to say somewhere in the 0.5-1.0 range. 1.5 (= 4 SAN) might even be doable if I thought the terrain was favorable (i.e., a lot of debris hexes to put sacrificial lamb halfsquads are near where my death star will be). This is higher than I originally thought, but not by a ton.
if its VotG- park a AAHT with a malf MA nearby to protect your death star, I guarantee he will never be in +3 building TEM.
 

boylermaker

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If your TH is a 5 (7 reduced by two hindrances) in 36 attacks you should hit 10/36 * 36 = 10 IFT DRs, not 15.
Correct. Recall that I only assumed you could get a +2 hindrance half the time. Waiting to fire them in the advancing fire phase makes things look a lot better in a narrow sense, as my analysis is ROF-independent. On the other hand, it lowers the effectiveness of your mortars.
 

xenovin

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This is all great theory to understand probability but I played guards counterattack with SAN 6 and I think the sniper activates three times! Granted RF will have many more DRs but no guarantee you will get a high number of snipers. Art is (mostly) predictable and controlled by the player so preferred over random events.
 

johnl

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If they're my 147 MTRs I will get 1 CH per turn and roll 10-12 on the result. If they're my opponents 147 MTRs he will get 74 CHs per turn and roll 2-4 on the results.
 

jrv

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If they're my 147 MTRs I will get 1 CH per turn and roll 10-12 on the result. If they're my opponents 147 MTRs he will get 74 CHs per turn and roll 2-4 on the results.
With a 50mm MTR against +3 TEM terrain, a CH effects DR of twelve is a NMC and an effects DR of eleven or ten is a 1MC. If you manage the same against a fortified stone building, a twelve or eleven is a 1MC and a ten is a 2MC. Nice shooting!

JR
 

jfardette

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Surprised there isn’t more love for upping the forts and booby traps. All that +3 terrain makes for a lot of TCs, and who doesn’t enjoy watching your enemy fail to advance into that vacant building that had the HIP/fort combo and spend some quality time playing in the street? Think of all the new swear words you could learn, especially with an opponent who speaks another language?
 
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