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CV and Combat Modeling

 
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CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 6:53:27 PM   
Ascended

 

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Status: offline 		tl;dr: the tactical (not merely "technical") level dominates operational outcomes; Operational level games need to abstract the tactical level in fairly high resolution for accurate operational results to occur.

I don't normally play war strategy games.

Don't get me wrong, I love strategy and there are lots of neat things about strategy games set in warfare. A good deal of estimating what you can get "away with" and what you'll be punished for trying makes up the strategy aspect, for me at least.

There is some initial period when anyone will be learning what constitutes the basics of handling armies, but once the do's and don't's of keeping supply lines intact and concentration of force in the right sectors are figured out, there usually isn't a whole heck of a lot left beyond moving the chits around properly.

I haven't got the impression that how you organize your forces is that important. If you took a German mechanized infantry battalion, just the troops and their organic mortar support, and put it up against something like a Soviet infantry company with a T-26 company, you'd invariably get a German victory or else something close. Why? Because the game isn't smart enough to think about the tactical problem. It looks at the general combat value of the T-26 company, which is invariably low, and in addition the Russians have less infantry and poorer quality troops. It seems to make sense to the game that the German veteran halftrack/infantry teams should win.

But in reality, the Germans would face a tactical problem that couldn't be resolved so easily. The Russian infantry doesn't need to be any good, it just needs to be *there*, for the German battalion to need dismounts to hunt them out of their holes. No experience or numerical advantage is going to change that - Russian infantry once gone to ground are a tactical problem that needs to be resolved with corresponding infantry work.

And since the Russians are backed by tanks which the Germans of the time can't handle with halftracks and infantry, in a tactical sense, they should be in heaps of trouble. They should find that as they advance their superior infantry to deal with Soviet infantry foxing it out, T-26 tanks make for powerful obstacles. In WW1 turrets and other reinforced structures - especially those sporting HE firing cannon - are serious tactical problems that can't be resolved by overloading with infantry, or in many cases even with artillery support.

A tankless German unit attacking the albeit numerically inferior and inexperienced Russian unit should find itself in the same trouble.

Yet regularly I find in strategy games situations like this are glossed over, especially during the early war period, while unit experience level and aggregated combat values -- which aren't contextually smart -- take a whole level of the gameplay off the table.

How will War in the East be different?




< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/6/2010 8:40:22 PM >
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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 7:09:16 PM   
Flaviusx


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Status: offline 		How you organize your armies is supremely important in this game, but the organizational challenges are at the operational, not tactical level. It takes a good year for the Soviet Union to straighten out its leadership and command and control issues.

It takes nearly two years to get the mark 2 Red Army into play, the one with tank and shock armies, tank, mech, and rifle corps, and artillery divisions.

For a good example of how the Wehrmacht still has a significant edge on the Red Army going into 1942, check out the Fall Blau AAR published in the Wargamer recently.

I myself wrote up a 1943 AAR on these forums that should give you some idea of what the late war Red Army looks like.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 7:50:54 PM   
Ascended

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

the organizational challenges are at the operational, not tactical level. It takes a good year for the Soviet Union to straighten out its leadership and command and control issues.


Ok, but the basic units I'm seeing in the previews are between regimental and corps size. Those are the basic units of operations, not tactics. IOW - the tactical capability is given by the representation of the unit counter. The player takes it at face value. Player skill subs in for operational moves, while computer abstraction subs in for tactical moves.

It is how the computer is abstracting the tactical side that I am concerned with. Obviously if there is something missing or fudged in the tactical abstraction, what happens operationally or what units are capable of doing in the hands of the player will be changed accordingly.

What happens operationally, the movement and supply of divisions, has to do with how the player commands and maneuvers his formations. The inputs to what the formations can actually do (Combat Value, Movement Allowance, etc.) are tactical and don't depend on player skill. Yet tactical realities often dominate operational wishes or plans in real life, in wargames they often get glossed over, allowing for some strange stuff (like my OP example.)

In a simulation of war, like an operational wargame being done to predict results of matchups and moves in real life, it is important that all of the inputs that makes up what the unit counter is by the time it reaches the player's fingertips are accurate. If only organizational deficiencies at the division level (and below) are reflected in the CV, for example, while significant tactical order of battle issues (such as given in my OP example) are not, you get unrealistic results.

This plagues all the strategy games, it's not something I expect would be particular to War in the East. I suspect it is easier to understand and probably easier to model something like inflexibility into a chit by lowering it's combat value and movement allowance, but it is much harder to recognize (and teach the computer to recognize) tactical complexities which *are the cornerstones of operational results*.

So you get this problem, where the player essentially doesn't need to know anymore what goes into his formation, he only needs to move the formations around and know their total combat values. The combat values, or the battles that take place during the operations (i.e., player decisions) have nothing to do with reality.

The game is the thing in itself, in a "WW2 theme wrapping". It's actual basis in WW2 reality becomes only thematic.

In many strategy games based on WW2 for the PC the problem manifests itself as a stacking problem. Players can achieve unrealistic success by simply stacking up, if not in a tile/hex than in a sector. Whereas, in actual WW2 operational history, tactical problems dominate even operational "stacking" by a great deal. It had nothing to do with organizational problems, but tactical problems presented at the level of companies and battalions holding up entire divisions, or tank formations being stripped of their infantry support early on (often by just outrunning them.)

Do those ever get reflected in war strategy games on the PC? No. Some basic strategic problems do get attention -- industry outputs, major supply routing and pocketing, and a kind of abstract technological modifier. But operations almost always reduce to stacking CV, because tactical problems are simply not there.

< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/5/2010 8:01:37 PM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 7:59:50 PM   
Flaviusx


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Status: offline 		Well, yes and no. You can get by to a large extent just making reference to aggregate combat values.

And then every once in a while weird and unexpected things happen that bear no apparent relation to CVs. Yet they make sense once you dig in deeper. Terrain for example. You don't want to drive panzers into swamps or cities, no matter how strong they look or how weak that rifle division appears. Then there's fatigue. And leadership. And having too many units attached to a headquarters and overloading it.

That said, this isn't a tactical game, and while the combat engine does a reasonable job simulating things at the tactical level, the focus is operational. There's an unavoidable degree of abstraction involved here given the scale of the game.



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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:07:36 PM   
Ascended

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Terrain for example. You don't want to drive panzers into swamps or cities, no matter how strong they look or how weak that rifle division appears.


Most PC strategy games get that, with defensive modifiers. But are the tanks being penalized because of a relationship to an enemy weapon that is effective in urban areas, or merely punished for being in an urban area - regardless of the enemy that occupies it?

Take a rifle division in 1940 in a city. A smaller infantry formation with a tank battalion in support would have no trouble with it. The city terrain isn't a problem. Why? Because infantry anti-tank capability in 1940 is almost nhil, and the urban terrain actually helps the tanks by allowing their infantry to keep close and in good cover while the enemy is ratted out.

The same formation attacking in more open terrain would have a much harder time due to the escorting infantry lacking cover and concealment, even though the enemy formation is tankless -- because the enemy artillery can now work to it's full ability, while their infantry is immune from the tanks at most moderate ranges because they simply can't be seen.

But if a tank heavy "unit counter" *always* dominates open ground an infantry *always* dominates cities, you are leaving the simulation of what happened in WW2 and entering "WW2 themed game" territory.

Getting these things right is what I'm waiting for a game to do. It may not be something that is reasonably easy for a game to code, I don't know. But I was wondering if War in the East might be "that" game.

< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/6/2010 1:48:14 AM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:18:37 PM   
randallw

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ascended

I haven't got the impression that how you organize your forces is that important. If you took a German mechanized infantry battalion, just the troops and their organic mortar support, and put it up against something like a Soviet infantry company with a T-26 company, you'd invariably get a German victory or else something close. Why? Because the game isn't smart enough to think about the tactical problem. It looks at the general combat value of the T-26 company, which is invariably low, and in addition the Russians have less infantry and poorer quality troops. It seems to make sense to the game that the German veteran halftrack/infantry teams should win.



I believe games try to have some unit 'quality' which would perhaps factor in some ability for a unit to figure out how it handles the battle.

My basic perception of the Germans is that they did not use the term 'mechanized' for their units too much; infantry with halftracks would be motorized, and units with some, but not full armor, would be a PzG outfit. I am assuming this German mech battalion would just be infantry with halftracks and their battalion supporting arms. In a game like TOAW if the Germans were given the addition of surprise there would be a shock factor, and that could give them some semi superhuman ability to shove a tank unit back in open ground. Hopefully that won't happen much here.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:26:59 PM   
Flaviusx


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Status: offline 		The game does allow battalion sized attachments to larger formations (divisions for the Germans and corps for the Soviets) and these have an effect all out of proportion to their raw CVs in dealing with urban combat.

Well fortified infantry can be a bear to root out even in open terrain. So it's not just a question of driving tanks around open terrain and having your way. You can, in fact, model Kursk in this game and we have done so sufficiently well that most of our German playtesters avoid trying to do a Citadel in that scenario.

Likewise, I've found as the Soviets that well dug in German infantry even in the Ukraine is tough to shift. It's the artillery divisions that keep the Soviets advancing in the face of German fort spam. Check out the 43 AAR for more details.





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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:27:11 PM   
Ascended

 

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Status: offline 		Yeah, or huge supply bonuses. (WiR) Or "Creatures of the winter" type bonuses. (Again, WiR)

Operational science, to me, has to do with setting up tactical engagements that will either defeat the enemy tactical formation or aid in the defeat of tactical formations elsewhere. That means that choosing the forces that meet: what, where, and when, *is* operational art. If it comes down to stacking CV, who cares anymore about what exactly is in your formation. Make sure your CV is higher than the enemy and press go. Abstract modifiers don't change that play mechanic much. They're blunt instruments that help nudge the game towards desired results but don't really involve the player's own input.

The original TOAW had exactly this problem, although I've heard it got patched up and fixed to some degree.

It's a difficult and perennial problem with strategy games, for sure.

< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/5/2010 8:30:02 PM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:30:35 PM   
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Status: offline 		Two of the things I don't think you are taking into consideration is tactical doctrine and quality of troops. In 41-42 German troops were very high quality where as the Soviets weren't German training was light years beyond the Soviets and this does mean alot. Untrained or poorly trained troops tend to panic and rout much easier regardless of of their defensive positions and this is exactly what the soviet troops did early in the war.

Some unit types are better in specific terrains than others. This is just as true today as it was for WW2. It is still a bad idea for infantry to try to take on armor in open terrain and for armor to fight in urban settings, just look at Iraq and Afghanistan today. This is not a WW2 theme but a law of the battlefield.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:32:24 PM   
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Status: offline 		And German infantry didn't have much a problem dealing with Soviet armored formations in 1941 & most of 1942 - their tactics were awful, the lack of radios in every tank hurt & training was slim to begin with.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 8:40:20 PM   
Redmarkus5


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Status: offline 		Hi Ascended.

My view is that your observations are entirely valid and that if the game was attempting to model Battalion or lower-level combat, yours would be a fully justified critique. However, where I disagree is in the implied observation that abstraction is a negative feature of strategy games. For myself, I judge a military strategy game in the ways listed below, none of which relates to the detailed tactical realities, and I see abstraction as sensible and essential:

1. Are the decisions I am making truly 'strategic/operational'? I.e. am I playing as OKH/OKW/STAVKA etc. or am I involved in a click-fest at Company-level?
2. Are the general outcomes of the game (a siege of Leningrad starting in '41, a Soviet winter counter-offensive in front of Moscow, etc.) believable and representative of what actually occurred.
3. If I am able to adapt history by making radically different decisions, does the Computer opponent, or a human one, make reasonable and believable choices of its, his or her own?

When I play chess, the ultimate strategy game of all, I don't complain because the Knights are abstracted cavalry that can only make a hook, or because the Rooks are towers that move, yet I do see principles or war reflected in the game. When I play WiTP or (one day soon!) WiTE I look for a pleasing mix of history, abstraction and multi-dimensional chess that conveys a sense of what might have happened and the corresponding decision making required, within the constraints of existing computer technology. I can only afford a PC, after all... :)

Having said all that, the ultimate game for me would be one in which each battle at the strategic level created an opportunity to select either 'resolve by abstraction' or 'go to Panzer Command Ostfront', etc. Then we could resolve battles between infantry and T26s realistically and the results would be fed back into the campaign. Maybe that's the next step...?

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 9:10:46 PM   
ComradeP

 

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Status: offline 		Experience is not everything, Germans with much higher experience than the Soviet forces opposing them can still take hundreds of losses for no reason I can discern aside from a random fate of war and possibly it being challenging difficulty, but that doesn't really explain thousands of casualties. You can't say "I have an on-counter CV of 45 and the defending unit has an on-counter of 1, so it will be blown away". That's not how it works, as even in such a case the defending unit can prove to be difficult to dislodge.

Sometimes, an attack goes really right and you suffer less than a dozen casualties and sometimes some sturdy isolated/cut off units with morale over 50 inflict thousands of casualties on you in a single turn and refuse to surrender until they've retreated a large number of times/have no available hex to retreat to that isn't in your ZOC. There are many unpredictable things, just like in a real war, and some can be truly annoying as you can't really plan for them, but WitE is more realistic than other games in that regard I'd say.

If you launch a hasty attack with 3 Panzer divisions into a swamp hex held by a single ready Rifle division, it will fail. Add a single infantry division and the Soviets will usually implode instantly. Launching a hasty attack against a city with mobile forces isn't going to work either, which does mean that contrary to earlier AAR's, taking Minsk and Riga on turn 1 is, in difficulty, tricky to impossible in the latest versions depending on how many forces you're launching hasty attacks with.

The main problem for the Germans later in the war is that even a truly excellent attack still results in fairly high losses to your side, so they're not sustainable. There isn't always a clear difference in losses between, say, a 4:1 attack and a 300000:1 attack (when the defending unit implodes).

< Message edited by ComradeP -- 12/5/2010 9:12:05 PM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/5/2010 9:23:19 PM   
Tzar007


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Status: offline 		That's an interesting discussion. Although I understand what Ascended means in terms of tactical factors, I am of the opinion that unless you are playing a tactical game (which War in the East will not be), the tactical factors pointed by Ascended are relatively irrelevant. Theoretically, yes, a German mechanized battalion might indeed be stuck for a while trying to get through a Soviet infantry company with a T-26 company. But that won't happen everytime for all meeting engagements of a German mech battalion against a Soviet inf + a T-26 company. In fact, most of the time, especially early in the Eastern front war, the Germans will go through such opponents rather easily without losing too much time. This is the result a sound operational game should model, as long as sometimes, an odd result where the Soviets stop the Germans may arrive when other specific factors such as terrain, morale or supply status may come to influence the basic outcome.

I would also add that ultimately, at least for me, a wargame has to be fun. Don't get me wrong: I want realism, I am not looking for an arcade shooting style of game. But I am ready to part with some modeling realism or details if the wargame is fun and challenging to play, and succeeds in modeling realistically enough the historical and plausible results of the conflict it covers.

In operational terms, War in the East looks sufficiently detailed for me, and my expectations are that historical and plausible results should be attained with it. In that sense, fine tactical abstractions are of less importance.


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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 1:29:46 AM   
Ascended

 

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quote:


When I play chess, the ultimate strategy game of all, I don't complain because the Knights are abstracted cavalry that can only make a hook, or because the Rooks are towers that move, yet I do see principles or war reflected in the game. When I play WiTP or (one day soon!) WiTE I look for a pleasing mix of history, abstraction and multi-dimensional chess that conveys a sense of what might have happened and the corresponding decision making required, within the constraints of existing computer technology. I can only afford a PC, after all... :)


You got it. I guess my question is more about what WitE might be doing to raise the bar on that, in terms of making the game side line up more with a simulation of the battles they're based upon. That said, we accept the limitations we've got. And when we play Chess we know it's not a simulation, but a game based on theme, and appreciate it for what it is. (Arguably, it is more precisely because it is NOT a simulation... a whole other discussion.)

Yeah I think I do share your views.

Ultimately if somehow you could make the battle results come from something as detailed as a resolution of a battle in PzC:O but without it being mandatory that the player actually does the battle ("ZIP!" mode pls!) that would be fantastic.

I think it would also add a great deal to the operational side of the game. If you look at an operation like Mars, you see that on the map the force strengths were higher for the Soviets and the planning was excellent, the units arguably even better, yet in reports like you get from Glantz's research suggest that tactical problems underlay the failure of the operation. They are often little tactical things, like a single village that wouldn't fall, holding up entire divisions and complicating timetables for deployment. Or, a tank brigade stripped of it's (supposed) supporting infantry divisions becoming a lawn ornament at the side of a railroad line. An operational objective achieved, that meant literally nothing.

< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/6/2010 1:40:57 AM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 1:36:21 AM   
Ascended

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Tzar007
unless you are playing a tactical game (which War in the East will not be), the tactical factors pointed by Ascended are relatively irrelevant.


In any given strategy game that's correct.

In war, the General's only wish it were that simple.

Look at the Winter War or the aforementioned Operation Mars in some detail and it's extremely revealing how operational plans crumble, bend or break on tactical nuance. Or, conversely, they succeed getting the units on their operational objectives, but tactical factors make it irrelevant.

Nothing stands out quite in my mind so much as the image of 6 Tank Corp's brigades achieving their objectives through an early steamroller, and then sitting astride those operational goals while *nothing happened* as a result. The Germans moved back into the steamrollered positions overnight, counterattacking isolated brigades here and there but mostly skulking back into position.

The next day the tanks sat behind the lines they crushed the day before, utterly useless steel. They had supply, they even attempted some action, but ultimately they had put themselves in tactical pickle without combined arms while the Germans did exactly the opposite, making the most of the tactical situation in an operational nightmare (regiments being rolled over by entire tank corps) and came off relatively unscathed.

To play that out, rather than just have it aggregated into a supply and control number, might even be a nice middle ground between fully generated tactical battles in Panzer Command and dice rolls.



< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/6/2010 1:44:04 AM >

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 1:57:11 AM   
Ascended

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Neal_MLC
Two of the things I don't think you are taking into consideration is tactical doctrine and quality of troops. In 41-42 German troops were very high quality where as the Soviets weren't German training was light years beyond the Soviets and this does mean alot. Untrained or poorly trained troops tend to panic and rout much easier regardless of of their defensive positions and this is exactly what the soviet troops did early in the war.


Not so much. I can count on these things being factored in to the game, because they are well known and easy to abstract.

What I fear is that they will *dominate* over other factors, like those mentioned in the thread, which because they are harder to understand and harder to simulate or teach a computer to resolve, will either just not exist or end up being aggregated into an abstraction, a number, like combat value, and hence drop the whole layer out of the player experience.

Make sense?

It's a thing strategy game designers have been aware of I think, for a while, because I do see things being done to try to mitigate the issue of stacking combat power. I saw TOAW updated with armor tables (lol) at one point, for example. I understand what Kroger is trying to do there, and he understands PC Strategy Games more than I do.

One operational level game that is unique in this regard is Dangerous Waters. Has it's limitations, but for the most part what you do operationally (which fleets I move, when, where, what I include in them, what formations I use, how fast they move) is resolved tactically (sonar detection, maneuver for firing solutions/TMA, weapon choice, weapon use and employment, evasion, etc.)

Pretty neat stuff.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 3:52:34 AM   
Flaviusx


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Status: offline 		Ascended, ultimately, you are going to have to try the game and determine for yourself if it meets your goals. This sounds like a matter of taste to me and no amount of discussion or argument from those of us who have played the game will convince you. You will either like it or not.



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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 5:35:54 AM   
malfid

 

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Status: offline 		From the sounds of it, Ascended, you're looking for CMBB/PzC:O type tactical combat in an operational level wargame.

Here are a few issues to consider, though I think Flaviusx has already surmised my stance adequately:

1) This sort of game would necessitate the development of a brand new combat engine with a completely different emphasis. It would require thousands of manhours in actual development, many thousands more in testing and would be enormously resource intensive. This is a base 'logistical' thing, yes, but it's a valid concern for a relatively small developer. Something would have to give.

2) You better have a very specific scale in mind. At what level are you looking to run your tactical simulation? Company? Battalion? Regiment? Brigade? Division? If you attack a single hex with, hypothetically, nine Rifle Corps, are you going to spend a thousand hours tactically simulating scores of company/battalion level actions? Or will you zip through most of them, running maybe one such encounter for a taste of the tactical?

Which brings us to 3): If you're going to zip through most actions (i.e. automate the simulation), what is the point? Your tactical battles - victory or defeat - will result in such minute strategic differences that they would be novelties, barely affecting gameplay, otherwise. Is it worth investing in a wholly new engine? Why not just play CMBB PzC:O and 'pretend', instead? Think about it. On any given turn, as the Soviet player, you might see a 100,000 battlefield casualties (far more at the beginning of the war). That's a 100 of the largest scale CMBB scenarios. Every turn. For 225 turns. Even just clicking 'Zip' 22,500 times doesn't appeal, to be honest.

Just food for thought, however nutritionally poor.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 12:01:23 PM   
wodin


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Status: offline 		^^well said...

Sounds like he wants a tactical game with an operational over view...like Close combat....

I love tactical games...I enjoy some operational games and I don't like grand strategy games....from the AAR's on here this is an operational game that has more details in the combat resolution than any other operational game out there...most have steps (how abstract is that)...this takes into account every single weapon...you can't ask or expect any more than that from an operational game.

As I see it a Tacical game is putting you in the seat of a company or battalion commander....an operational game you have the seat of a General upto Field Marshal or who ever is in charge of the armed forces...for Grand Strategy your the countries leader and all government posts...so this is an operational game which means that tactical side is done by others you just give the orders. The actual tactical battle will be played in your imagination.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 12:32:26 PM   
dobeln

 

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Status: offline 		"Because the game isn't smart enough to think about the tactical problem."

Depends on how highly you set the bar for getting to "enough". I´d guess (without playing it, mind you) this game will be better than most comparable ones in this regard, as it models both terrain, troop quality and condition, and the individual fighting units (squads, AFV:s, etc.) and their characteristics, much like TOAW, etc.

My impression from reading about the game has been that, like later versions of TOAW, the game will factor in armor values (I.e. take the infantry vs. T-26 problem into account), etc. - hence the combat performance of two units with identical CV could be very different, depending on the conditions of the combat.

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RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 12:41:45 PM   
dobeln

 

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Status: offline 		From the manual, should be enlightening:

"Each ground element has attributes of speed, size and armour, which is zero for all ground elements except for AFV and other combat vehicles. Ground elements are equipped with devices that represent the actual weapons they would fire (or throw/emplace for devices such as grenades and satchel charges) during combat.

For AFV and combat vehicles, the equipped devices are considered part of the vehicle and may have their rate of fire modified to reflect the restrictions of operating the device inside the vehicle. The men that are part of the AFV or combat vehicle ground element are inside the vehicle operating it and employing the equipped devices. For other types of ground elements, the men employ the equipped devices directly, whether the device is a 150mm Howitzer or a hand grenade.

Large (20mm or greater) direct fire devices may have a positive modifier that increases the accuracy of the device to reflect both a more stable firing platform and superior optics. Each device in turn is rated for range, accuracy, rate of fire, ability to affect different types of targets (air, personnel, vehicles), and ability to penetrate armour."

(in reply to dobeln)
Post #: 21
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 1:49:02 PM   
ComradeP

 

Posts: 7192
Joined: 9/17/2009
Status: offline 		You can watch battles more or less blow by blow, but that will take forever if it's a big one so personally I switch the detail to the lowest level, as I'm only interested in losses and which side wins, as those are basically the only things that matter from an operational/strategic perspective, the tactical perspective of squad X hurting squad Y is nice to have around for those preferring detail, but largely irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

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(in reply to dobeln)
Post #: 22
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 3:25:36 PM   
Tzar007


Posts: 772
Joined: 2/7/2004
From: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Status: offline 		Ascended, have you taken a look at Command Ops: Battles for the Bulge ? It is one of my favorite operational wargames (the command and control model is so ingenious and realistic), but the tactical details are very detailed too. It has one of the finest wargame engines of all. Might be close to what you're looking for.

(in reply to ComradeP)
Post #: 23
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 8:37:13 PM   
Ascended

 

Posts: 40
Joined: 12/5/2010
Status: offline 		tl;dr: the tactical (not merely "technical") level dominates operational outcomes; Operational level games need to abstract the tactical level in fairly high resolution for accurate operational results to occur.

quote:

Command Ops: Battles for the Bulge


I played Highway to the Reich and Airborne Assault, they were both good, but definitely tactical level games.

I think there is some confusion about what I'm getting at in my posts, sorry for that. Essentially I want an operational level game -- division and regimental unit scales -- with a combat resolution system smart enough to compare the terrain and the units to create an outcome that is close to what would happen if you simmed it all out in a game like CO:BftB or PzC:O.

I'm not offering suggestions on how to do this. I could help a programmer understand all the inputs so that he/she could know what things need to be considered.

One of the biggest issues would be spotting and detection and order of resolution.

Something like:

Combat Team A,
Infantry Heavy, light equipment, low experience, high morale
T-26 Coy, dug in & keyholed <-- note that keyholing would have to be a variable and something set in player doctrine, because it has an enormous effect on how the company itself performs.
120mm mortar battery, good experience and morale, direct support

Combat Team B
Mounted Infantry Battalion, Halftracks. High Experience, High Morale. Attacking
PzJgI Coy overwatching
105mm arty battery in support

The engine would need to first determine what the contact will be. It can either be done by player input on formation of march or else knowledge of doctrine.

Likely, Halftracks with infantry are ambushed from a flank by T-26 and then obliterated by mortar fire.

Remaining Halftrack/Infantry squads don't have information on exact location of the enemy, so they need to dismount and press infantry forward.

PzJg I are not useful because they haven't got spots.

Infantry move forward to get spots, and are subject to combat by all of the Soviet elements. (They can all hurt the German infantry in this case.)

PzJg I again ignored because they don't get spots, T-26's are keyholed.

Enemy infantry locations disclosed by combat.

105mm gets to fire on enemy infantry, plus any direct fire from escorting halftracks.

Player doctrine choice determines aggression of PzJg I's -- do they move up to fire on keyholed enemy armor or hang back to stay safe from enemy infantry? (Otherwise, a set doctrine decided by the programmer.)

Notice that already we have two exchanges of combat based on tactical circumstances that have excluded part of the German total CV.

Command Ops would be able to do represent all this because it uses the building blocks of each team as the basic elements.

For an operational level or strategic level game, somehow we need to put the process being gamed out in a game like Command Ops under the hood of the battle resolution.

I think it could be done, or at least improved upon from what we have now.

It might seem like a lot of work for nothing, but as pointed out above, in operations historically these are by far the largest kind of influences on the success or failure of operational plans. Not supply (more strategic), not experience levels (often overwhelmed by numbers, quickly), not numerical superiority (tactical hangups 'clog' numerical odds OR neutralize them -- see 6 TC, first two days of Op Mars.), not technology... (terrain mitigates -- again, tactically.)

Etc.

Nuff said I guess. I'm glad it was an interesting idea.


< Message edited by Ascended -- 12/6/2010 8:39:50 PM >

(in reply to Tzar007)
Post #: 24
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/6/2010 9:05:16 PM   
paullus99


Posts: 1985
Joined: 1/23/2002
Status: offline 		Something as specific as that might run one a Cray Supercomputer, but definitely not on modern PC processors. You're talking about gaming hundreds or perhaps even thousands of individual engagements, down to the company level (on a front that at its peak had over 10 million men in the front lines) with expectations of determining doctrine, terrain, fire and response, etc.

It isn't going to happen anytime soon - you may (may is a loose term here) build some framework of programming, but there is no way you'd ever have the processing power to do it on this type of level - anytime soon.

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(in reply to Ascended)
Post #: 25
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/7/2010 9:28:28 AM   
dobeln

 

Posts: 311
Joined: 3/28/2005
Status: offline
quote:



Etc.


I think what you will get in this game is a "light" version of this, with single squads and weapons platforms being modeled engaging each other in every engagement, modified by factors like morale, supply, terrain.

Still, you won´t get the very detailed combat simulation that you lay out in your post, that´s just too computationally expensive at the moment. But hey, one day...

(in reply to Ascended)
Post #: 26
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/7/2010 9:28:38 AM   
wodin


Posts: 10762
Joined: 4/20/2003
From: England
Status: offline 		Ascended...what you want is a dream game that all of us would pounce on straight away...trouble is the we are limited by our tech so unti then you have to use your imagination and if results aren't exactly how they should be blame it on a useless subordinate.

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(in reply to paullus99)
Post #: 27
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/7/2010 12:19:05 PM   
jimbo12

 

Posts: 33
Joined: 11/12/2007
Status: offline 		I have read this string twice and have come to the conclusion that very reasonable answers have been given to a highly intelligent but totally unrealistic expectation. I just went out to pick up my cray computer so I can Mod every soldier, standing behind every tree ready to sneek up behind every tank on the East front. Sorry, I understand the answers. I just don't get the question!

Jimbo

(in reply to wodin)
Post #: 28
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/7/2010 1:31:23 PM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: wodin

Ascended...what you want is a dream game that all of us would pounce on straight away...


Not quite everyone. I, for one, have zero interest in the tactical end of things and almost always hit the autoresolve button in games that include both a strategic and tactical element.

In a game this size, resolving all the tactical actions manually would be incredibly tedious. Plainly, mileage does vary.



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(in reply to wodin)
Post #: 29
RE: CV and Combat Modeling - 12/7/2010 4:32:21 PM   
paullus99


Posts: 1985
Joined: 1/23/2002
Status: offline 		I don't believe he's asking for a manual resolution on the tactical level, he just wants the computer to take into account the tactics, doctrine, experience level, and terrain down to the company/battalion level (I'm assuming it would auto-resolve, in this hypothetical scenario).

The main problem is just the processing power necessary to do that. You might get away with it in theory on current high-end machines, but you also might be talking a couple of days or a week to actually crunch all of the available numbers (or longer). You would probably need something like a research system (like they use to resolve out large-scale climate modeling or planetary system development), to be able to get this done in anything like what we would experience using the existing system on the average machine today.

Not to say that it isn't the logical next (or next, next) step in wargamming development, because the more details the resolution gets, the better results you will have as well, it just flies in the face of what is currently available.

I think the idea has merit and perhaps our kids will be playing that type of game when they get close to our respective ages. We'll just have to see. Good question though.

_____________________________

Never Underestimate the Power of a Small Tactical Nuclear Weapon...

(in reply to Flaviusx)
Post #: 30
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