Frame 1 Results - Miracle of Dunkirk

[Kurt]

Actually Bob, the 30 point number is my bad because the orders said 30pt but upon re-reading was 30 PT-Boats... However it does explicitily describe the value of them as 15 points each...

I don't know what the 'value' of the other AXIS targets was... But what I do know is that the hard points numbers say that AXIS lost the frame...

And really, what else is there?  Axis could have made up the difference by hitting the PT's, but failed to...  Dunkirk was an evacuation mission, if you didn't stop the evacuation then you didn't accomplish the goal.  Historically speaking that was the intent.

Total air to air kills really wasn't supposed to be a factor...  And if it was then scoring should have been set up to accomplish that.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by skernsk
Well, truth be told I figured that if I posted the points as they were I would be roasted alive by the players.

I don't understand why you thought that second guessing the system would be best.

We were given instructions on how to win the frame and we acheived it.  If the axis got a whole boat load of kills, or knocked down their other targets... It doesn't matter.. scoring was weighted onto the PT boats because we were modeling the evacuation...   The Axis goal was to stop it, the Allied goal was to evacuate.

In the frame, as in real life the Allies evacuated France successfully and in the scoring rules that you laid out, we won.

Changing that win is dubious.

[ramzey]

who cares about score? fun factor was great

[Dantoo]

The multiple task concept and associated scoring system were developed over time to spread out the players and make the CO's think about strategy.  As a CO you are required to provide the resources to comply with the tasking you are given.  If you don't comply with the requirements you should not be rewarded.

You should not be rewarded because you are depriving some players of a chance at "fun".  How much fun did the pt guys have?  I can tell you it was no fun at all to be swarmed by dozens of planes that shouldn't even have been where they were.  NO I did not have fun.  I did however do my best to do so.

I and no doubt more than a few others work hard in scenarios for the simple joy of "immersion".  If squad ops was just a 100v100 furball it would be non-immersive and pointless.  I wouldn't be there and I wouldn't be upset enough by the parent post here to type out these replies.  It's way better than that.

Part of the role of CM's is to be impartial and follow the conventions and rules, both published and unpublished,  that  structure these events.  That structure has the confidence of the great majority of participants.  To simply unilaterally tear down what others have built up, and undermine the basis of the best thing that AH offers is vandalism.  I presume that there will be a CM's meeting where this will be sorted out.  I've put my piece more than a little forcefully and I accept too harshly.  I apologise sincerely for personal hurt.  You may draw some measure of the upset and hurt I felt from the original post, by the strength of my reply.

[ghostdancer]

Okay, guys step back a bit here please.

First off the event is about having fun. I think a lot of people did have that even if they felt the numbers were stacked against them. I know my squad did and at the end it was 7 of us versus 30 LW coming after the last destroyer. We still knocked down 5 enemy before we were all put down.

Next skernsk has asked me to review the raw logs. The parser logs are still new and I have always trusted the raw CM logs over the parser logs for making a decision.

I am in the process of doing that and will supply him with results. However, I will say right now that the kills in the raw logs are a lot closer than the parser logs. The reason why is that the RAF killed one of their own and the LW killed 4 of their own.

The allies losted 76 enemy planes to friendly fire and enemy action. The LW lost 62 planes to friendly fire and enemy action. Remember the JU87s and 110s were worthy 15 points and the fighters of both side were worth 10 points.

Even that asside the LW only bagged 14 more planes than the allies. The air to air fighting was very competitive and hotly contested.

[ghostdancer]

As for objectives remember that you can think of the objectives as 1/3rd, 1/3rd, and 1/3rd. The town is not anywhere near as equal or hard to take down as a the fleet or the PTs.

Which is why skernsk valued the town at 1/3ed the point value of the fleet.

The overall objectives of the event is for the LW to prevent the British army to escaping to england.

The LW wiped out the Royal Navy fleet of 1 CA and 4 destroyers. They did not stop the fleet of smaller ships (unarmed PTs) from completely escaping with no losses. By the posted point system the 1 CA and 4 destoyers (which did have the ability to defend themselves with their auto guns) were worth 300 points. The PTs (who could not defend themselves) were worth 420 points. The town was worth 100 points.

So by skernsk's posted first scoring method the PTs are worth the equivalent of the fleet and the town. Now skernsk and others do have some questions about how much the PTs should really be worth. Plus, how to handle the question if 25 PTs up or 35 PTs up because assigned a fixed point value per boat really gives you a wide margin on how much the PTs are worth in the frame (375 to 525 points) depend on how many the Allied CiC tries to up and how many do up which ends up being a wild card in the frame with unpredictable results.

That is being discussed on how to handle for frame 2.

[Dantoo]

Edited: Jumped in before your second post.  

Do us a favour look at the whole frame - the orders - who did what and why - and then review the scoring system if you have to.  Just parsing the logs for score data won't elaborate why things unfolded as they did.

 I would like to see a definitive statement from the CM's, if possible, that retrospective changes to the rules won't happen like this again.  Clearly it causes angst.  It's not needed.   Detracts from some wonderful work by selfless people giving up their time and energy so the rest of us can have a bit of fun.

[ghostdancer]

Next, everyone watch your tone especially about making comments about Skernsk. I won't tolerate bashing at all.

To answer another question .. if the allies had not up the minimum number of PTs they would have been severely penalized.

Finally, skernsk took a look at the logs did the math and thought there was some mistake and that the logs did not match up with what actually happened. Skernsk has previously been a CM for the FSO team (back in 2000 and 2001) however, we did not have as exacting logs then as we do now and this is his first go at using them and interpreting things by them.

As I said he has asked me to go through also since I have more experience with them and actually parsing out the stastical information.

I still going through them.

I will say from what I am seeing it was very close frame. Air to air was virtual tie do to the fact that the JU87s and 110s are worth more than fighters and the RAF actually fought quite well through the first 2/3rds of the frame. The last third of the frame they were overwhelmed and the LW dominated.

The goals of the event is to simulate the evacuation. The British got a significant part of their troops home via the PTs in the first part of the frame where they were able to hold their own to a large extent.

The LW were able to take out the naval task force in mid to late frame. The town was also wiped out by the LW. However, do realize that in World War II  air attacks on ground units could disrupt them hinder them but in most circumstances it did not destroy them. It took combined operations to accomplish that.

During the battle of Normandy Montgomery's drive on Caen tried to use a massive carpet bombing against German troops to clear his way and wipe out the defenders. It did disrupt the germans, it did kills some, it did wreck their heavy equipment but quite a few survived and provided extremely dogged defense that still slowed Montgomery down to a crawl.

This is why the town is not worth near the points of the fleet or the PTs.

[ghostdancer]

Why, well right now the numbers on the air battle are correct but what was missed is that the LW and RAF shot down some of their own. If you just look at the stats you see that the LW shot down 79 planes. Four of those were there own.

The RAF shot down 59 planes, 1 of those were there own.

Actually losses were 76 allied planes lost (not 79) and 62 LW planes lost (not 59). Basically what this really means is that the air battle was a virtual draw.

By skernsk point system it was 710 ot the allies and 705 to the LW.

The fleet was put down and the town killed.

The issue skernsk and I are talking about are the PTs and their actuall value as an objective. Even still keeping in place his original point system it looks like things were a draw.

If we go with the 28 PTs being worth 420 points. The allies only have 25 points more than the axis. Looking over his notes and reasoning and the problems of having a fixed objective having a wide possible range for a value (375 to 525) .. well this is what he and I think has mucked things up and makes it hard for both sides to plan.

So lets for the sake arguement say the PT flotilla is worth 375 points and instead of each PT being worth 15 points instead it is a percentage. Kill half of the PTs and you got 50% of the 375 and so on.

If the PT flottilla is worth 375 points then the LW are up by 20 points over the RAF.

Once again basically a draw.

But at first glance you go the LW bagged 79 planes versus 59 well it looks like the air battle turned out different than it was.

Remember even in the real war perception can be very different than reality when you do analysis of the facts.

[ghostdancer]

We are doing a full review. Don't worry about it and it simply boils down to doing some analysis of the events (full AAR), determining what really happened, and then basing the results on that.

Part is the raw parsers logs (which are a pain to work with and can take a bit of getting used to), and reviewing what happened from several sources, etc.

From my perspective (just defending the fleet) it felt to me like the RAF took a beating. I didn't know the PTs got away clean. I also felt like we lost the air war personally .. comes from trying to stop 30 in bound enemy there at the end on the last destroyer with only 7 planes.

It is only after I started digging that I saw that the RAF held up well through over half of the frame (we were competitive) but that finally numbers (as they always do) and decent flying, group tactics, etc., battle field coordinatiojn allowed the LW to dominate the late part of the frame.

[ghostdancer]

Btw, all this stuff aside .. I had fun. It was intense! Our original fleet defense was a blast.

Our last stand against the horde of luftwobbies in their leather underwear was something I will never forget. Bobbing and weaving all about .. LW planes everywhere and firing. Sling .303s into anybody who crossed my path and there were a lot of those since we were bunched up and most of the LW planes were tnb with us (bet your glad we don't have 4 20mm cannons otherwise quite a few more LW planes would died from snap shots at 100 yards).

It was definitely fun no matter the point scores and results.

[Kurt]

Even being in the PT fleet my squad had fun... We used the time to tell jokes and be stupid basically.  We were expecting to get murdered and were surprised when that didn't unfold.  We went in there expecting it to be a suicide mission.

Once we were in the air we headed out to the fleet to defend and, Ghost, you're not kidding about that air war over the carrier... That was probably one of the hottest fights in the history of FSO.  What I saw was RAF fighters really dominating as far as tactic, but being under-gunned we just couldn't get the knock-downs on the LW.  It feels like it takes 3000 rounds of .303 to get a stucka to blow smoke.

Anyhow, I think I mentioned at the beginning of this thread that my squad had a lot of fun, and I like the idea for the mission.  But I'm unhappy to find out that Sker wanted to just flip the results like that.

If you're putting in the time on the logs, thats great news.  And that makes a lot more sense to me.

With regard to keeping a measured tone with regard to the CM staff, I think I did.  I tried to keep my thoughts anchored to the event, and not a slam of the people running it.  If anyone felt otherwise, I apologize.  I know you all work hard and you do it for free.  But that doesn't mean I'm always going to agree with your methods.

In closing, I said last week that I thought a Dunkirk scenario would be fun and interesting and I think that it definitely was.  Once you work out the scoring bugs it will be even better.

[MAG1C]

This thread demonstrates some of the problems of trying to adapt a historic  incident to a "game".   While historic events are fun to recreate in a simulation, some liberties must be taken in the interest of balance to make it a winable game for both teams.

Records of aircraft loses from Dunkirk are difficult to reconcile, in part due to different accounting methods, but Luftwaffe aircraft loses during the Dunkirk evacuation were 92 (including 29 Bf 109E, 8 Bf 110C/D, bombers and 10 JU-87s during 3,815 sorties) while RAF loses were 106 (48 Spitfires, 49 Hurricanes and 9 Defiant/Blenheims in 1,764 sorties).*   Based on these numbers, the fighter kills on Friday night were balanced in the right direction.

Then, of course, one has to remember that the primary historic measure of success of the real Operation Dynamo was the successful evacuation of so many troops.   IMHO the person who designed this event was very clever in adapting PT boats to simulate the evacuation in what is basically an aircraft simulation game.  The weighting of points to PT boats, ships, aircraft and towns placed a planning requirement on the COs of the Luftwaffe and RAF teams to consider the importance of the evacuation fleet as well as the RN and made the event more than a gigantic furball.  

For this reason I think it would be a mistake to "re-score" frame 1.  The COs made their plans based on the known scoring elements and I don't see why the results should be changed.   After the next two frames the entire event could be better evaluated to determine if victory conditions and points need to be changed for a future event.

I played on the RAF team and "died" in my Hurricane.  I enjoyed the historic aspect of the event and had a lot of fun.  I wouldn't mind playing in more squad night events based on early war conditions (the Battle of France, Invasion of Burma, etc.)

- MAG1C

* Page37 "Luftwaffe Fighter Aces" by Mike  Spick

[JB42]

The only imbalance it appears is the PT boats. I say this for two reasons. First, a tightly grouped flotilla of 30 PTs with the armament they have in AH doesn't nearly simulte what the troop carriers of that time were actually armed with. Second. if I have to fly 50 miles to Dunkirk then the PT boats ahoud have to drive 20 miles across the channel. My impression over country channel was most PTs were home or near home before an capability to attack them ever reached the coast.

[navajoboy]

Originally posted by Hornet33
What makes FSO fun is the strategy involved. The well thought out and executed plan that brings victory to your side. 3 frames to get the score in your sides favor. The scoring system works just fine. The fact that the Axis lost this frame has people pissed off and the fact that you decided to toss the score out the window and give the Axis the victory has even more people pissed off. I flew for the Axis but we failed to achive all our objectives. WE LOST!!!! I'm not afraid to say it. They won fair and square. Their PT boats survived and that saved them 420 points. We pissed our stukas away and that cost us. Declaring the Allies the winner is the right thing to do.

BBQBOB mention to me that there was an argument about the last fso. Now i see what is going on.
first of all this mission wasn't flawed from the beginning. It was simple. i ordered 10 .. yes 10 stukas for the lamb slaughter....  so 10 stukas should have been lost..  the other 20 stukas were to head to the cv and destroy it. . which looks like that part happen.

second.. the 109s and 110 were suppose to go straight to the pt spawn points. now im not sure what happen here.  i would like to see film of this. In the end i was expecting 3/3 for the axis and an easy win. Now i know there is usually some misunderstanding in orders... but for the axis not to find the pt boats is rather bothersome. this tells me that certain orders weren't followed or someone made a mistake on the map.  either way, i do see that the plans were 66% sucessful.  


My main goal was to get the target with the most points.
here was the list of points given to me.

Spitfire Mk I   10points each
Hurricane MK I   10points each
PT Boat                   10points each
Allied Fleet   300 points if completely destroyed
Dunkirk (A48)   100 points if completely destroyed

as you can tell i wasnt expecting 30 pt boats. i was expecting more like 10 or 15 at most.  

In the end, its up to the frame creator to make the decision on victory. if we dont deserve the victory, that is fine with me. I just hope that FSO doesn't become all "political" and thoughtless like MA has become.  

thanks to all those axis whom participated..
navajo24