SeaQueen
Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline
|
I think the game has fallen short of the original vision of allowing missions to run "hands-off," for long periods of time if that's what you're thinking. I'm actually okay with that, because it occupies a different unique niche. That being said, a skilled player can still use missions as a tool for handling hundreds of aircraft. I use missions extensively in my game play, although sometimes not the way I think they were originally intended. I can run a complex strike package of 70-100 aircraft easy. I think of it as simulating a mission, not the whole war, or even a substantial fraction of it. It's a 12-24 hour vignette, maybe a few days tops, in some cases, but generally speaking narrower scope is better than more broad.
I think to operate on a purely operational level, you're right, a lot of things would need to be heavily abstracted or handled automatically. In a DCA mission, for example, you'd only care about the CAP being filled, not so much about whether or not their shot doctrine is right, or whether it's a head or a stern shot. That'd be assumed away or abstracted. The important question is whether you can supply enough missiles, gas and engines to the squadrons filling that CAP so that they don't have to laydown and the CAP can be filled 24/7. There would be little or no manual weapons firing. The game would be about scheduling, timing and logistics. The smallest ground unit would be something like a brigade or a regiment, not a platoon or a section. Kill chains would be heavily abstracted. Weaponeering would be automatic. You'd frequently be less interested in the individual loadouts of aircraft and whether the loadouts they had were able to do the job.
It'd be a completely different game, really. It'd be more about defeating a nation over the course of months, and less about defeating a task force or striking a target set. You'd be worried about operational and strategic centers of gravity. The problem with these kinds of games is that they tend to be dominated by logistics and geography. Technological questions tend to get washed out. Technology drives tactics, not operational art. Most gizmos won't be the difference between winning and losing the war, but they are often the difference between winning and losing the battle.
I think sometimes people who try to use CMO/CMANO on this kind of high operational level, instead of high tactical, end up making the mistake that the operational level of warfare is just lots and lots of tactical, when in fact it's a whole different set of problems, ones which CMO/CMANO really isn't well suited for modeling or understanding.
I don't think the game is not consumable, but it is a niche. The best players are often people with a lot of real life experience in the subject matter they're interested in. You need to have a pretty robust understanding of radar, for example, in order to plan things like electronic warfare adequately. It's the kind of game best played calculator in hand. When people start with the game, I always advise them to start small, and learn about a small family of platforms they're interested in before broadening out. It's not a game you can just pick up and not study.
< Message edited by SeaQueen -- 3/13/2021 3:10:11 PM >
|
Printable Version
How to prevent wingman from speeding ahead to enemy air? - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread