CPQ 7 is already out--one month early!!, and I am trying to finish up CPQ 8 after a bout of eye surgery (good excuse for not getting everything done on time!) on this 16th day of December, 1994. This issue is a preemptive strike on the subject dear to many CDII players-the long-debated and sought tournament system.
Peter Dickerson sent the system in from Northern Ireland. It takes up space--a total of 10 lists--but it allows players to deal with such things as differences in morale and training in such a way that the players determine the sides.
If players like the system, I can see us doing 1940-41 lists, 44-45 lists, and lists from the different modern periods.
SECRETS OF THE AGES REVEALED!!!
One of the most requested items form CDII players is Frank's secret formula for determining the value of units.
For the first time, here in CPQ are the actual formulas that Frank uses!!!
Armor: Basis in cm after calculations for slope equal armor value.
30 degree slope is equal to a x1.5 multiplier.
60 degree slope is equal to x2 multiplier.
Penetration: Value in cm -5.
Movement: Max speed in miles per hour times 2=road speed.
UPCOMING ITEMS
Push 'em back, push 'em back, waaaaay back. The lineup stays the same--but things are one issue further off.
CPQ 9: Red Storm Rising: The Bathtub version of World War III based on the Wilderness Game run by the CITW back in 1988.
CPQ 10: The Race to Messina: A scaled-down version of the campaign in Sicily in 1943, designed to allow players to compete with each other in that the commanders of the US 7th Army will also command the German-Italian forces facing the British 8th Army, and the commanders of the British 8th Army will command the Germans facing the Americans.
CPQ 11: "Normal" CPQ: If such a beast exists!
CPQ 12: Arab-Israeli War of 1973: Tentative.
THE ANSWER TO LAST ISSUE'S QUESTION
QUESTION: What is the farthest inland that a target has ever been hit by US Navy battleship guns fired in combat?
ANSWER: This is actually a trick question (don't you just hate trick questions?). The answer is approximately 310 kilometers (194 miles) inland, and the targets were Longuyon and Mangiennes, France.
Between October 23 and November 11, 1918, United States Naval Railway Batteries 3, 4, and 5 fired a total of 197 rounds of 14 inch at railway yards and aerodromes in these towns. The guns were fired from Thierville, France, a firing range of 38,580 yards (almost 22 miles).
Had the armistice not been signed on November 11, Batteries 1 and 2 would have begun firing on targets in Alsace-Lorraine, about 422 kilometers (264 miles) inland.
Each battery consisted of one 14-inch 50-caliber naval rifle mounted on a self-contained train carrying its own ammunition, barracks, etc. The guns were true battleship guns; they came from the spares used to support USS New Mexico, Mississippi, Idaho, Tennessee, and California (BB 40-44, respectively).
THIS ISSUE'S QUESTION
QUESTION: Who wrote the following passages?
- "I certainly don't see any stars in prospect for me but one can always try. Sometimes I think I don't try as hard as I ought but probably I do... I would give a lot to have you consol [ sic] me and tell me that I amounted to a lot even when I know I don't."
"I don't feel that I am doing my best some way. I never do. If I ever do feel that I am earning my pay I may really begin to get somewhere."
DIGITAL DAVE'S POSITION REPORT
Well, here we are again with some more white space to fill up, and I'm just the guy for the job.
Greg has requested that I "blow my own horn" this issue, but I'm not sure that I'll actually get around to that. We'll just see what happens.
First, a few additional points on the magic "secret formulae" Greg presented. First of all, the real secret that no one wants you to know about secret formulae is that they are only as good as the data on which they are based, and in a lot of cases these things are rated "by guess and by golly," and I should know, as Frank isn't the only guy with a smoke and min-ors kit who gets to rate these things.
For modern vehicles we scarcely ever have actual armor thickness to crank into an equation with or without slope, so Greg's presentation works mostly just for WWII era vehicles. For modern vehicles we use armor basis in RHA, or "rolled homogeneous (steel) armor." This is the standard method for rating armor equivalency, and allows for different materials hardness, slope, etc., and rates them all as if they were a vertical plate of the aforementioned RHA. Naturally these figures are very hard to come by for contemporary vehicles, so judgement calls are inevitable.
Also, the penetration formula Greg presented is valid only for kinetic energy rounds, and again, in this case, you have to know at what range that penetration occurs and then work forwards and back to get its penetration across its full envelope. This penetration is typically given for 2000 meters/yards, but not always, more's the pity.
Greg did not mention the formula for HEAT rounds, and this is a less precise science as CD uses a radically different (though attractive) system for rating their performance which is less easy to get a good handle on, given the multiplicative range of 1 D 10. When Combined Arms was produced, acheivable HEAT performance occupied a narrower band, which worked better with the multiplicative system. However, weapons that came into service after CA was published have penetrative performance well outside the range of the CA values, plus the additional complication of determining pure penetration of tandem warheads vs. the antireactive armor effects of tandem warheads. For more on this kidney stone, see page 7.
That's funny, for road speed I always use kph times 1.25.
By the way, did you know that the insignia on the Armor 21 ad at the end of this issue is that of a real (although unofficial) US Army organization? It is the proud emblem of the Advanced Watfighting Working Group at Fort Knox.
Oh well, horns will wait until next time. Honk, honk!
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© Copyright 1995 by Greg Novak.
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