I know there are some people with experience and knowledge of how these things are in real life so I thought (with Swingkid's acceptance) to ask for your insights on a subject we discussed here: http://lockoncampaign.com:8811/board/index.php?a=topic&t=61

If you didn't know SK is working (at least if you all threaten to stop breathing or something like that until he finishes the campaign) on a dynamic campaign engine for Lock on and he's interested in certain information about how things are supposed to work in a real conflict. Read the thread from the link above for a better idea of what he's planning.

One of the issues is how much of a role would supply play in the setting. Should there be lots of visible supply-related objects appearing on the map most of the time? Trucks running supply to front lines (AFAIK trains are unfortunately a no-go at the moment)? Would CAS aircraft be expected to be tasked to patrol enemy supply lines or find and attack supply units as targets of opportunity?

The numbers for the conflict are about 60000 people(everyone included, I think), some 400 tanks and limited NATO vs Rus airpower (I don't have exact numbers on these). The quoted numbers are totals with both sides added together. The area for ground combat is Abkhazia, a relatively small area on the Lock on map and I guess most of the units would be concentrated there.

So what would the supply for that kind of an operation look like from the air? My guesstimation is that the operation would be visible and vehicles running from supply zones to the front lines would be seen and need protection, especially wherever there would be large scale troop movements. Swinkid seems to have a thing for realism so any information from people who would know something about these things or tips on good sources of information would be appreciated. It won't hurt to show some interest and appreciation for his work if you think he deserves some.

Just some opinions as I have no idea of the patrticlars of your campaign engine.

From my own experience (25 years Army-just retired all in combat arms so my technical knowledge of REMF activities is correspondngly liminted, it was more my job to disrupt said activities than conduct them) the rear areas are constanly in motion with convoys and immense amount of traffic to the point that no server could ever possibly track it all.

There's of course the oft quoted axiom that for every soldier actual involved in infantry operations there are ten more supporting him with combat support, combat servce support etc. (depending on the army YMMV) Not including Corp and Army support assetts your typical army division has in itself thousands of vehicles.

Perhaps one way to implement it in a manageable fashion would be to have supply nodes tracked by the campaign between bases in the deep rear and to combat service support areas (i.e. FARPS) up at the front. Then the engine could just have convoys running back and forth between them. From FARPS up to bns at the front further convoys could normally be in motion though they would remain well outside of direct fire range.

Then the campaign could generate misisons where air assetts would patrol kill boxes and could attack anything wihin them. This way you'd always have some targets somewhere down there.

The destruction of supply nodes (bases, FARPS, etc) could either drriectly impact the number or performace of combat forces available for action at the front or simply be assigned point values towards campaign victory. Likewise the elimination of supply convoys could degrade the nodes or combat unit effectiveness.

So for instance you have a bn fighting at the front w/ 30 vehilces. If they are not supplied (say once a day for game purposes), then their numbers decrease (say 30% ineffective per day?).

Regarding the protection of the rear areas. depends how detailed you want to get. Part of the combat support functions hould be setting up a tactical air defence network (and CAP) in the rear. Depending on the level of threat back these (insurgents? fluid front) you may not have the assetts to porvide large escorts for all you supply convoys though they would be armed sufficicently to provide for some of their own defense. The rule of thumb should be that the farther back the less heavily armed, the closer to the front the more heavily armed to include avenger units and russian equivalents.


A well implemented persistent dynamic campiagn server for LOMAC would be a GREAT thing. Keep up the good work.

Los

Absolutely. In Vietnam US aircraft constantly patrolled and attacked targets on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. North Vietnam got smart and started moving things at night, at which point US airpower effectiveness in that regime was reduced. That didn't stop US planes from bombing the Trail blindly in the middle of the night, though. It was that important.

I agree that a dynamic campaign would be extremely important for Lock on. However, the campaign is SwingKid's, not mine. I'm trying to help out as much as I can and one way is to gather information of real world scenarios so I decided to ask here. If you want to know more check out the link in the first post, it's a lengthy conversation where SwingKid explains a lot of details of his vision. One of the things we discussed was the role of supply and how visible it should be in the missions. I suggest you check out the link if you're interested in a dynamic campaign. Also if you know more people who could help with the details let them know.

wow - this sounds fantastic!

sure hope it sees the light of day...

Supply in a flight sim can take several forms ---(1) added targets (2) moving targets and (3) effect on the battle

As for numbers 1 and 2 it is not possible to add significant numbers of moving targets without adversely effecting the FPS. This can be easily seen by adding your own ground units in your own missions. I would not expect adding hundreds of ground units to continue to give good fps and most folks would not want to use them for that reason.

However ---- bombing targets such as power plants and any other important infrastructure could be programmed to deplete or hinder the enemys capabilities in a truly dynamic campaign such as the one in Falcon 4. That would certainly add to the realism and afford the player the ability to contribute to his sides war effort with bombing missions --in other words his bombing missions would actually be doing something toward winning the campaign other than just taking out an eye candy target.

But with LOMACs lack of a dynamic campaign destroying the enemys infrastructure would have no effect ---nice bomb explosion but nothing else.

So unless LOMAC does get a dynamic campaign then the only thing left to do is to program in some moving supply vehicles and let the fps suffer as they most likely will.

This is sounding real good!

grmcle, the whole idea is that there is going to be a dynamic campaign, SwingKid is working on it. He already has a system that can create missions for Lock on automatically. I don't know exactly what he's working on at the moment, but I don't think he has the actual campaign logistics engine yet. AFAIK the destruction of single buildings can be tracked.

I don't think that every one of the thousands of supply vehicles should appear on the map, I would settle on a few representative ones. Their number could also be adjusted according to available computing power.

AndyHill, I suggest you look at Lowengren's DCG *( http://www.lowengrin.com ) for IL2.

I've been using the DCG to create a web based online war campaign ( http://www.forgottenskies.com ) for IL2 community.

DCG handles resupply, frontline movement, etc...

It uses a combination of static objects and moving objects. When certain moving objects, such as a convoy or ship reach a location where a static object was previously destroyed, that static object is 'resupplied' meaning that next mission that static object will 'return'.

Additionally, he uses a 'wagon8' object - which is a fuel tanker - these are at airbases, etc... - these represent oil supplies. By destroying the enemies oil supply it reduces the ability for the moving objects to actually move.

These are just a few examples.

As far a a few representing many - that is typically how it would work. There is no way in these games that we could run these missions if they get too many objects in one mission. Another concept used is the idea of 'troops' - ie. when a 'tank' moves into an enemy city - that city has 'x' amount of troops. For each mission that tank sits in the city, the troops diminish 'x' amount.

I can talk via PM or email to explain in details - I've worked with this for awhile now and the more I learn of it - the more I'm impressed with it's underlying well-thought out system.

"But with LOMACs lack of a dynamic campaign destroying the enemys infrastructure would have no effect ---nice bomb explosion but nothing else.
"

Not sure if this can happen in Lomac, but in Il2, we would place a wagon8 object inside a building. When you destroyed the building it would destroy the wagon8.

This way, you would see in the log that a wagon8 was destroyed at x/y location - which would tell you a building was destroyed.

To further this, in the latest version of Il2, you could 'mark' these building with 'smoke columns' - signifying it's a factory that is 'bombable'.

Works quite well.

You might also want to have SwingKid look at "Scorched Earth" (for IL2) as an example of a "web-based" campaign tool. The guys at RAF74 are working this and they are grapling with the "resupply" function right now also.

I've played lots of DCG missions and I think it's brilliant. I think there's a lot to learn from DCG, but at least the first version of SwingKid's campaign is going to be somewhat smaller in scale. From a few things he has said I've concluded that he's at least going to try to make individual buildings targettable.

One of the strengths Swingkid's campaign has over DCG could well be the strategic scale representation of the war. Go check out the site, you can download ver0.4 of his previous campaign engine. It's not much more than a concept prototype, but if you take a look at the strategic campaign screen and read about what SwingKid wants to do with it you might like it.

I think the latest news about the 1.11 patch was fantastic concerning the dynamic campaign.

Swingkid is definitely on to something. I've d/l'ed every version and they keep getting better. Hopefully he'll continue to work on it. You never know, ED may purchase his work. Stranger things have happened. I'm part of a mod team that's about to release a tactical mod on the Crytek (FarCry) engine and a couple of our script monkeys are now under contract w/Crytek for the next patch.

Stranger things have happened.

Ok a couple of new issues. First, what kind of differences are there between western and eastern supply logistics? Would they look pretty much the same from the air? How would NATO defend its supplies in a situation where they couldn't guarantee complete air dominance above them?

From what I remember (also being combat arms for 7 years), moving supplies are moved along routes which are secured by static Air Defense and Military Police and also moving defenses which moved with the convoy. It all depends on the threat of the conflict, such as Iraq has no air or armor threat, but has technicals, roadside bombs, and ambushes. In a "normal" Army vs. Army, it would be more conventional as I mentioned above, but maybe some of our active duty military people can expand on the form of protection without giving away doctrine.

I am reading the thread at Ross' boards about the discussion you and SK are having. Allow me to brainfart just a bit. I don't want to interfere in discussion there, so I will post it here, unless you would rather it go there

On the supply level, each level of unit has it's own supply. Platoons are resupplied by the company, which is resupplied by battalion, to brigade, to division, and so forth. That would be so much traffic, it would bog the system to a stand still. On the American side, why not take out some levels of that supply and only model the Battalion and Division (G4) level supply. That way you have factories, power plants, shipping, and road convoy's effect division level supplies and road convoy's and supply points effecting battalions. This takes out Platoon and company (which you could model company level, rather then Battalion if you chose to), and also brigade and corps level supply. Yet it still allows all those things which in reality would effect supply, to actually effect supply. Does that make sense? I can enter that conversation but would only do so if invited as you guys are really having a good conversation.

EDIT: Keeping in mind that the higher up the level of command you go, the more of a Network of supply points that each level of supply has. i.e. Division and Corps level will be a network of supply like ships, factories, ports, supply warehouses, etc. The lower in the supply chain, the more one location you get, such as Battalion will have food hear, ammo there, fuel over there. Down to company level it is dispersed from the company trains directly to those doing the fighting. So the higher up the supply command, the less likely hitting one supply point will effect the combat readiness of the entire command that supply point supplies.

EDIT 2: In reading further between the difference between a low intensity and a high intensity conflict, the problem of command levels and locations and supply levels and location would solve either ones requirements by not trying to replicate each level of commands HQ or Supply. That would work for a WW3 type scenario or a limited conflict.

I just read what SK said about HQ's also. These too have a unit level criteria which must be taken into consideration. These HQ's flow down from the White House, all the way down to Company Level command posts. In theater HQ's can be from Corps level to Division level and flow down from there. (Central Command is in Florida and covers the Middle East, as an example). I would think that Corps (way behind the lines), Division (much closer but still behind enough for effective C&C, and Battalion or Company level CP's should be modelled. If there is only a pocket like the Pusan Perimeter, then maybe start at Division HQ and and then model Battalion or Company HQ. The more territory, the more levels of HQ can be in the theater. Again, making sense here?

It's a public board and I wouldn't mind anyone with useful information dropping in. It's swingkid's show, however and I can only guess what he would think of it but my guess is he wouldn't mind. You can also join my breath holding -campaign to get the SW2 campaign released sooner.

BTW, in an army with about 200 tanks and tens of thousands of men how many supply units would you guesstimate to appear in the immediate vicinity of the front lines (let's say some 20-30 miles), including supply, medical care and transport for all the units in the front line?

Guessing as to the makeup of the Logistics units, bases, and vehicles is impossible unless you take into account the infastructure available and the structure of the units. (Division, Brigade, Battallion, Company, Task Force, Brigade Combat Team etc.)

The bigger the unit, the more networked the logistics and support gets. Depending on the levels of logistics you have for the unit level that are chosen to model within the the campaign, would dictate how you come about the structure of the support units. The key is not representing the numbers to realistic numbers....you COULD NOT possibly do that on any computer today.....but to represent an entity that makes it believable and can have an impact i.e. one maverick taking out one truck would make a battalion have no resupply would suck, where as having 5-6 supply trucks and 5-6 fuel tankers would represent that resupply convoy, taking into account that these trucks are not the only resupply assets as you wouldn't want one convoy being taken out, effect a complete units supply network, however if you take out 2 supply trucks and 2 fuel tankers, that would devestate a company level. So really the other key is having a finite, yet resuppliable number of trucks/transports/ships/etc to recreate the supply and logistics.

Part of my daydreaming in the thread was about having several simulated tasks every day in addition to the ones that appear in the mission the player flies. This way even if the player knocked out all the supply units in the mission others would follow later on in the day (and might get knocked out by a simulated fighter). This way when the player hit the supply units that appeared only in representative numbers he would know that 1) he made a dent in the enemy supply and 2) he didn't completely cut the supply.

The thing with numbers is that as you may have noticed we have somewhat of a disagreement with Swingkid, with me saying that the amount of supply necessary for that kind of an army in a direct contact with the enemy would be simply impossible to hide. I think Swingkid's opinion is more on the lines that it could be a hidden effort, since in real conflicts there have been difficulties locating enemy units.