RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theaters AAR

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> The Operational Art of War IV >> After Action Reports >> RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theaters AAR

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/21/2021 3:24:49 PM

LOK32MK

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You identified a problem with the 10 km/hex for this scenario. I thought the 10 km scale would open up the game and allow some more movement and a more dynamic game. I should have checked before I spent >100 hrs making the map.
At a divisional scale the red density lights are all over the place. Dividing units is one option - redoing the OOB at Brigade-regiment level is another.

(in reply to golden delicious)

Post #: 31

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/21/2021 5:15:29 PM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LOK32MK

You identified a problem with the 10 km/hex for this scenario. I thought the 10 km scale would open up the game and allow some more movement and a more dynamic game. I should have checked before I spent >100 hrs making the map.
At a divisional scale the red density lights are all over the place. Dividing units is one option - redoing the OOB at Brigade-regiment level is another.

Yes if you agree this is a problem I'd advise redoing the relevant parts of the OOB.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/21/2021 7:24:54 PM

Curtis Lemay

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But, how nice of me to devise the New Density Rules so that you at least have those red lights.

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My TOAW web site:

Bob Cross's TOAW Site

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/22/2021 12:00:58 AM

LOK32MK

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quote:

But, how nice of me to devise the New Density Rules so that you at least have those red lights.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/22/2021 8:08:51 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

But, how nice of me to devise the New Density Rules so that you at least have those red lights.

As I recall before it wasn't just the light missing but the penalty, wasn't it? That was pretty bizarro. Stack an AA company with a brigade and suddenly it's from nothing to red light.

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"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 35

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/30/2021 12:58:22 PM

LOK32MK

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Northern front: Warsaw Pact (WP) player continued the advance in Northern Norway with airborne and sea borne assaults. Capital ships from both sides have been sunk (more on naval combat below).
Central Front: WP player making very slow progress in northern Germany. Copenhagen occupied by WP airborne air mobile and amphibious units. Air assault units in rear areas of NATO are isolated and out of supply.
Southern front: WP airborne air mobile and amphibious units supported by naval units landed north and west of Istanbul. Initial Bulgarian army attacks against Edirne have been derailed by Greek counter-attacks.

OOB-unit density: I looked into splitting the Warsaw Pact OOB into brigades/regiments (most of NATO OOB is already in brigades except for Turkey and Greece). It would increase the number of units by a factor of 2 to 3.
I am not sure it's worth doing everywhere. If players don't want density penalties they can avoid stacking. On a map with low unit density, they will end up breaking up large units anyway. I might split only Category A divisions.

Naval OOB: I used a single unit per submarine and/or major surface unit (frigate, destroyer, cruiser etc.). But it seems very painful to move all these naval units around. I plan to consolidate 10-12 large ships into a single naval unit.

Naval Combat: Naval interdiction works very different from naval attack. 9 naval WP units were annihilated by a single NATO naval unit when they were intercepted. However, similar (almost identical) WP naval units annihilated a similar NATO naval unit when attacking.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 11/30/2021 2:52:09 PM

larryfulkerson

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Here's the front lines in T6. The Warsaw Pact is unstoppable so far.

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Post #: 37

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/3/2021 10:13:48 PM

larryfulkerson

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I'm not real sure what these TO's are supposed to do exactly but I'm hoping it's a good thing.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/6/2021 10:41:45 PM

larryfulkerson

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Here's a T8 view of the front lines so far. The fighting is starting to shape up much like I anticipated. The WP is pushing my units around and killing them. My units are disappearing faster than a Russian journalist.

More news: My R&D team has developed a three-legged chicken in an effort to make a chicken with more meat on it's bones. The problem with the third leg is that it has enabled the chicken to run a LOT faster. It was clocked at more than 30 km/h. I asked the team what it tastes like and the team chief said they don't really know. They haven't been able to catch one yet.

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< Message edited by larryfulkerson -- 12/6/2021 10:56:09 PM >

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/6/2021 11:03:22 PM

larryfulkerson

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Here's the TO's that I chose this turn. I'm not sure I want to use Chemical Weapons but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need them in future turns.

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Post #: 40

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/6/2021 11:42:30 PM

larryfulkerson

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Most of my planes are in reorg and a lot more are resting. I'm using 50% as the cutoff for whether or not to rest an aircraft unit. And the greatest majority of my aircraft are either in reorg or are resting. Out of the 249 aircraft units I have about 50 of them are flying. Part of the problem is that the WP gets to move first so they get to shoot first and the WP has a few SSM's with a tremendous range and if you do an airfield strike with one of those on a NATO airfield you'll kill some planes and drive the rest of them into reorg. And one of the favorite things for the WP to do is airfield strikes. And the next turn he can strike the airfield again and kill some more planes and leave the rest in reorg. So I hardly ever get a chance to strike back or move the planes to safety. This is a major problem for the scenario IMHO.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 1:09:27 AM

LOK32MK

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Larry makes a good point. The SSM airfield strikes are way too effective in TOAW (so are port strikes by ships btw). Sometimes they are only marginally effective with 1-2% aircraft losses, but sometimes they produce significant (10-20%) aircraft losses. Airfield strikes by bombers almost never result in such losses.
I tried to reproduce the OOB as accurately as possible, so I'd hate to arbitrarily remove SSM units from the OOB. The Warsaw Pact did have a lot of SSM brigades/regiments - a lot of them not very accurate.
There are several possible solutions to this problem: combine several SSM brigades/regiments with fewer missiles, reduce the number of SSMs in each unit etc. I am open to suggestions to what people think it's the best approach.

The Theater Options are explained in the briefing. Basically, both players have the option to activate or attack most neutral countries. However, once one player has selected a Theater Option to attack a neutral country e.g., the Warsaw Pact player attacks Austria there is no reason for the NATO player to activate the same country (Austria). It's already activated.
I will make sure all Theater Options are removed for both players once a neutral country has been attacked or activated.

(in reply to larryfulkerson)

Post #: 42

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 5:07:52 AM

larryfulkerson

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So um........hey you guys...I think I found another problem with this scenario. The CD guns don't seem to want to target ships within it's range. And I can't change it to "T" status for some reason. I can't tell if there's a yellow band across the bottom of the unit or not.

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< Message edited by larryfulkerson -- 12/7/2021 5:08:07 AM >

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 8:21:49 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

So um........hey you guys...I think I found another problem with this scenario. The CD guns don't seem to want to target ships within it's range. And I can't change it to "T" status for some reason. I can't tell if there's a yellow band across the bottom of the unit or not.

Could be a "fixed artillery" instead of "coast artillery" icon- that would prevent it attacking units at sea. The formation report seems to suggest the formation isn't in garrison status (yellow band), I think it's the unit icon again preventing a deployment status change. In any case if it has the right icon the status shouldn't matter.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 44

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 10:58:54 AM

LOK32MK

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The units have the correct icon - coastal artillery, not fixed artillery. I changed it to the other coastal artillery icon to avoid confusion.
I am not sure why they cannot be changed it to "T" status, but I've seen the same issue in other scenarios. I will deploy them in F mode and hopefully that will solve the issue.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 11:59:47 AM

cathar1244

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LOK32MK

Larry makes a good point. The SSM airfield strikes are way too effective in TOAW (so are port strikes by ships btw). Sometimes they are only marginally effective with 1-2% aircraft losses, but sometimes they produce significant (10-20%) aircraft losses. Airfield strikes by bombers almost never result in such losses.
I tried to reproduce the OOB as accurately as possible, so I'd hate to arbitrarily remove SSM units from the OOB. The Warsaw Pact did have a lot of SSM brigades/regiments - a lot of them not very accurate.
There are several possible solutions to this problem: combine several SSM brigades/regiments with fewer missiles, reduce the number of SSMs in each unit etc. I am open to suggestions to what people think it's the best approach.

The Theater Options are explained in the briefing. Basically, both players have the option to activate or attack most neutral countries. However, once one player has selected a Theater Option to attack a neutral country e.g., the Warsaw Pact player attacks Austria there is no reason for the NATO player to activate the same country (Austria). It's already activated.
I will make sure all Theater Options are removed for both players once a neutral country has been attacked or activated.

Hard to tell without looking at the specific equipment.

The equipment file could be modified to reduce the AP value of the SSM units.

The SSM units could be placed into several dedication formations with lower formation proficiency to force them to reorg more an not be as available.

-Break, new topic: coastal artillery-

Look at the equipment used and ensure it has the correct settings (anti shipping is set in FLAG3 values). If all else fails, look at a scenario in which coastal artillery works and examine the characteristics of the equipment used.

Cheers

(in reply to LOK32MK)

Post #: 46

RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 3:14:56 PM

LOK32MK

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Coastal Artillery:
The unit in question contains "standard" equipment: light coastal ASM (see screenshot).
The unit in the equipment file has the correct flag:
<ITEM_555>
<NAME>Light Coastal ASM</NAME>
<COUNTRY>Common equipment</COUNTRY>
<EQUIP1>264</EQUIP1>
<EQUIP2>372</EQUIP2>
<AT>0</AT>
<AP>120</AP>
<AA>0</AA>
<DF>10</DF>
<ARTY_RNG>20</ARTY_RNG>
<EARLY_RNG>0</EARLY_RNG>
<SAM_RNG>0</SAM_RNG>
<NUKE>0</NUKE>
<VOL>0</VOL>
<WEIGHT>0</WEIGHT>
<SHELL_W>0</SHELL_W>
<ARMOR>0</ARMOR>
<FLAG0>128</FLAG0>
<FLAG1>32</FLAG1>
<FLAG2>0</FLAG2>
<FLAG3>34</FLAG3>
<FLAG4>0</FLAG4>
<FLAG5>0</FLAG5>
<FLAG6>0</FLAG6>
<FLAG7>0</FLAG7>
</ITEM_555>
I will test the scenario now that I changed the deployment to "F".

On the SSM issue:
I will probably remove several SSM bdes/regiments and consolidate the rest into a just a few SSM units. Hopefully that would limit the number of airfield attacks.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/7/2021 6:37:22 PM

larryfulkerson

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quote:

'I will test the scenario now that I changed the deployment to "F".'

I fail to see how just changing the CD gun's status to "F" will somehow allow it to target ships. I never got an "attack" cursor when hovering over the enemy ship stack. Changing the status to "F" gives the CD guns a dug-in mode and "F" is one of the modes that allows shooting by the unit. But will it?

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/8/2021 11:01:07 AM

cathar1244

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quote:

I fail to see how just changing the CD gun's status to "F" will somehow allow it to target ships. I never got an "attack" cursor when hovering over the enemy ship stack. Changing the status to "F" gives the CD guns a dug-in mode and "F" is one of the modes that allows shooting by the unit. But will it?

Larry, it was a good catch on your part.

The equipment in question is actually a generic "light coastal anti ship missile". I don't think that should make a difference, but I would have to compare the equipment description to a CD gun in a scenario where the CD guns work as intended to be sure.

I looked at some fixed gun descriptions. The difference was that they were marked for anti-ship capability, but were not flagged as "anti ship only" -- which the generic "light coastal ASM" equipment is. In the equipment, this distinction is made in FLAG3, which equals "2" for the fixed guns and "34" for the coastal ASM equipment.

Not sure if this is the root of the problem, but it may point to a need to test the modern equipment for naval and air action to see if it performs as expected.

Another thing I wonder about is if the scenario EW settings or other global settings could somehow inhibit the coastal missiles from firing. I would think such effects would occur in combat resolution, not during the target selection phase made by a player.

Cheers

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/8/2021 12:27:17 PM

LOK32MK

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Coastal Guns bug fixed. I think the issue was the garrison mode of the formation.
The Coastal Guns now fire on naval units.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/8/2021 3:52:14 PM

coachi

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Can you send me updated version of game

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/8/2021 8:41:51 PM

LOK32MK

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Give me a few more days to fix some of the bugs we found, and I will be happy to send it to you.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/14/2021 8:25:56 PM

LOK32MK

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Quick update: After some discussion we decided to stop play-testing this version and fix all the bugs we found. As soon as I finish the new version, I will post it on a website for people to download.
The issue of the WP airfield strikes has been resolved by limiting the range of the long-range Warsaw Pact SSMs units (mostly long-range Scud SSMs) to about the same range as the NATO Lance SSM units (15 hexes vs. 13). A couple of Warsaw Pact SSM units near Moscow kept their original range to counterbalance the Pershing II and GLCM NATO/US units. The NATO (and WP player) would have to keep its aircraft away from the front to avoid airfield strikes.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 12/15/2021 6:34:44 AM

larryfulkerson

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quote:

ORIGINAL: LOK32MK

Quick update: After some discussion we decided to stop play-testing this version and fix all the bugs we found. As soon as I finish the new version, I will post it on a website for people to download.
The issue of the WP airfield strikes has been resolved by limiting the range of the long-range Warsaw Pact SSMs units (mostly long-range Scud SSMs) to about the same range as the NATO Lance SSM units (15 hexes vs. 13). A couple of Warsaw Pact SSM units near Moscow kept their original range to counterbalance the Pershing II and GLCM NATO/US units. The NATO (and WP player) would have to keep its aircraft away from the front to avoid airfield strikes.

Actually that shouldn't be detramental to the scenario's gameplay simply because the range on most of the NATO aircraft is generally generous. Some NATO aircraft can reach most of the map from England. As soon as the new version is out I intend to do a cut and paste of the aircraft of both sides and post it so that anybody can peruse it as need be, especially me to get a better idea of what NATO is up against, since the Warsaw Pact has a greater number of aircraft than NATO but the quality of the NATO aircraft usually trumps whatever the Soviets are fielding, generally speaking. I'm curious to see what difference it might make to set the aircraft on a single-dot stance versus setting all the aircraft on "ignore losses". I suppose it really depends on the proficiency of each side compairatively speaking.

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 2/14/2022 3:25:01 PM

LOK32MK

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for anyone who was following or interested in this scenario AAR. I updated the scenario based on the feedback from Larry during our playtesting.
The updated version and other scenarios can be found here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5145183

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 2/14/2022 4:36:53 PM

coachi

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Is there a po. Would like to learn it first

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RE: 1988 Global War Game Western and Southwestern Theat... - 2/14/2022 4:41:02 PM

LOK32MK

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I am afraid the scenario is for PBEM. The PO will not work well, and I did not optimize for the PO. If you want to get a feel for the scenario, I recommend play in hot seat or play test it with a friend.

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