Thanks, fixed it.
So with these tools it should be possible to start putting together equipment lists and formation templates.
For example:
The M1 Abrams tank - various versions exist, that doesn't matter for Aurora. It would be a Heavy Vehicle with Heavy Anti-Vehicle and Crew Served Anti-Infantry weapons.
There shouldn't be more than one type of conventional. I don't think transdimensional railgun rounds would be any less effective against modern armor than WW2 armor.
There is nothing preventing you from shoving 999 500 light personal weapon equipped infantry onto a 4M headquarters unit and call that a guard force.
Come to think of it, all the various unit design systems could be fun standalone apps.
Conventional tech is something you will leave behind as fast as possible even on a Conventional start there's really no point to it.I disagree. One reason to move away from Conventional tech ASAP is that there is little reason to stick to it. However, with multiple player races starting on Earth, each modelled after a real nation or power bloc, little granularity would be useful. Yes, it would be a very niche case, but if it is simple and quick for Steve to add in, then yes please, it would satisfy me and others who exclusive do Conventional starts and focus on early tech stuff as much as possible.
Something as simple as a repeatable, stacking "+20% to Conventional Armour/Ground Unit Strength" tech line -- like Empire Economy has now -- would make me happy.
I think you're putting the horse before the cart.
Artillery Battery
2 M7 Bradley FIST-V
5 supply vehicles
8 infantry: light bombardment (there are 8 towed 105mm guns, I can't think of a better way to describe them)
Recon Company
1 M7 Bradley FIST-V
1 infantry: light bombardment (this is a 60mm mortar towed by a jeep and its crew)
48 infantry: personal weapons
6 infantry: light personal weapons (snipers and scouts)
1 supply vehicle
Their job isn't to do assault, their job is find the enemy, pick off stragglers, pressure the enemy by being a constant hard to find and defend against threat and to call the guys with actual assault weapons (like the rest of the company) to perform the assaults while they make the lives of anybody trying to coordinate the defense short.Yes, I am fully aware of the real world reasons why infantry and recon companies have snipers in them. Aurora, however, does not model any of that. So the choice is between modeling snipers and scouts separately from regular infantry with LPW or not. I initially chose to have them separate and equipped with LPW because they lack the support weapons that regular infantry have, which I assume are built into the "personal weapons" but not into the "light personal weapons" since two such categories exist. But in the end, it's a really minuscule thing either way and it probably won't hurt anyone's immersion whether they are separate with LPW or folded into the regular infantry with PW.
If anyone wants some 20th century layouts for fun/role-play value, http://www.niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm has some great information on a variety of countries, though it is a little hard to navigate around.Might be useful, I intend to make my next game WWII themed, I don't know how historically accurate I will go though.
Well, you better tell that to the US Army then, because the official TO&E for a Recon Company assigns a Humvee to the mortar squad. ;D
But seriously, yes a 60mm mortar is man-portable, just like an 81mm mortar is, and a .50 cal / 12.7mm machine gun is or a SPIKE ATGM or an Igla or many other weapon systems. Man-portable in this context means that you can deploy and transport the weapon short distances by muscle power. It doesn't mean that the weapon is so light that it requires no other transportation methods. Outside of special circumstances, all modern militaries use vehicles for transportation as much as possible. It makes operational mobility far better and saves stamina for actual combat situations.
(https://i.imgur.com/ln19Lf0.png)
It's the Israeli knock-off but you get the idea. Especially as these formations are Generic NATO/Western ones. The point is that the vehicle is not armed with the mortar, hence why I'm using infantry: light bombardment instead.
[hr
... nothing worse than getting stuck with the 50 cal receiver while your mate carries the barrel
I can't seem to find any reliable company level TO&E for other Russian and Chinese formations, so for them it might just be best to use the equivalent NATO ones.
Steve, is the stuff I've made useful or would you like it to be in a different layout or format? Would it help if I made a list of currently active brigade level formations around the world? Or is there something else we can do to help with this part of the project?
Russian formations -these are valid for the mid-2000s after the big reorganizations that happened in the 1990s. If someone has access to more up-to-date organizations, please share.
Putting in companies later when I find a reliable company level TO&E
At work I have been doing some coding using JSON files to read complex hand histories for poker hands into a C# structure (which has been fun because in my job I don't get to be hands-on as often as I would like). This might be a good format for the type of open-ended constructs that ground formations entail. I could come up with a suitable JSON file format that players can create and Aurora can read straight into unit classes and formation templates.