My preference is not to have a point system -- moreover, if a point
system exists, I generally ignore it. Of course, having 30 years of experience
in wargaming (along with a degree in history and a long interest in military
affairs past, present, and projected) probably makes me a "seasoned" gamer who
doesn't care about the illusion of even fights.
In fact, all of that seasoning reminds me that nobody should ever want to be
in a fair fight; if you have to be in a fight, you should want overwhelming
superiority so that you can just pound the crap out of your opponent with
minimal losses. If you find that you're actually in a fair fight, it means
that both you and the enemy have screwed up at the strategic level.
Well, I'm probably outside the main target demographic anyway, so take that
perspective for what it's worth. Still, I held that perspective, and, more
important, appreciated and enjoyed it, even
back when I was pimply-faced punk putting together scenarios for
Sniper!, Firefight!, and Dungeons & Dragons.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lIf you are a buuly
or a coward in gaming, over powering your opponent is fun. In a campain your
placement of troops can create battles like that. It's then tactics that shows
the battle. A feild of M1 Abrems versus Mk VII females isn't a battle, it's
simply a slaughter and little fun for a true gamer on either side. Points
provide some means of providing a challange for the players and testing
skills. P.S. You have the company of Mk VII females against the company of
Challanger MBT.
> "Glenn M. Goffin" <gmgoffin@yahoo.com> wrote:
My preference is not to have a point system -- moreover, if a point
system exists, I generally ignore it. Of course, having 30 years of experience
in wargaming (along with a degree in history and a long interest in military
affairs past, present, and projected) probably makes me a "seasoned" gamer who
doesn't care about the illusion of even fights.
In fact, all of that seasoning reminds me that nobody should ever want to be
in a fair fight; if you have to be in a fight, you should want overwhelming
superiority so that you can just pound the crap out of your opponent with
minimal losses. If you find that you're actually in a fair fight, it means
that both you and the enemy have screwed up at the strategic level.
Well, I'm probably outside the main target demographic anyway, so take that
perspective for what it's worth. Still, I held that perspective, and, more
important, appreciated and enjoyed it, even
back when I was pimply-faced punk putting together scenarios for
Sniper!, Firefight!, and Dungeons & Dragons.
--Glenn
> If you find that you're
I've played in several games run by a GM who believes that all even
engagements are examples of intelligence failures by both sides. Since he
strives to give the players an even fight, he habitually lies to or hamstrings
both sides. I frequently leave the table wondering "How the heck was I
supposed to plan something when I was flying in blind to the true situation?"
Both sides leave the game feeling they were doomed to failure, or that player
strategy played no role in the game.
Sometimes secrecy, surprises and intelligence failures make the game far less
fun.
> In fact, all of that seasoning reminds me that nobody should ever
So you have the All Blacks play your local Under-13s, win 99-nil, and
think you've done something clever?
And expect the losers to get some enjoyment out of it? And come back next
week?
I despair sometimes...
> So you have the All Blacks play your local Under-13s, win 99-nil, and
Yes. If you're fighting a war, you HAVE done something clever.
Obviously fighting a war GAME is not the same, since you want it to be even
enough to be fun for both sides...but you want to have it simulate a combat
situation, so both sides should have some idea that they might win.
Historically, of course, we can say things like "In the actual battle, the
French lost five ships, so if you lose less than that, you've done better than
the real admiral." So perhaps a way to handle that would be to play it the
first time and call that the "historical" result.
> On 11/4/06, McCarthy, Tom (xwave) <Tom.McCarthy@xwave.com> wrote:
Since
> he strives to give the players an even fight, he habitually lies to or
It's also bleedin' unrealistic, at least in the extremes that most GMs of this
school want to take it to.
If you have no usable information, then the best response when you discover
that fact is to withdraw your forces from the table, and go out for a beer.
Eventually he'll get the point.
Even if it isn't a fair fight, setting realistic goals and providing the
players with the information needed to achieve those goals is a requirement
for an enjoyable scenario. Full stop, no quibbling.
Example:
If you put a recon troop up against an armored battalion, and tell the recon
troop that he's facing another recon troop with the mission to engage them and
force them out of the valley, then you are a retard who needs to be slapped.
If you put a recon troop up against an armored battalion, provide the recon
troop with adequate artillery support, and tell him that his objective is to
slow the armored battalion down and identify the main body's axis of advance,
then you are putting together a reasonable scenario which may not be
"balanced" but which has achievable mission objectives.
BUT: If you put a recon troop up against an armored battalion that he thinks
is a recon troop, then when he finds out otherwise, reports it up higher, and
gets told his new objective is to get the hell off the board with 75% of his
vehicles moving under their own power, and here's an artillery battery or two
for support, then it's a short scenario but a fair one.
From: "McCarthy, Tom (xwave)" <Tom.McCarthy@xwave.com>
> I've played in several games run by a GM who believes that all even
Since
> he strives to give the players an even fight, he habitually lies to or
This not only makes for some rather silly and frustrating games, but it also
isn't even historically true for the most part. Although at the tactical
squad level it could be argued that most fights are one-sided, most
decisive battles in history have involved fighting forces where the victor
didn't
really have much, if any, advantage over the vanquished.
The Americans had three fleet carriers to the Japanese's four at Midway, and
won. The Americans had two fleet carriers to the Japanese's two in the Coral
Sea, and won. The Greeks were ludicrously outnumbered by the Persians at
Marathon, and
won. Alexander the Great was outnumbered by Darius III at both Issus and
Gaugemala, and won. The Scots under William Wallace were somewhat outnumbered
by the English at Stirling Bridge, and won; the comparison was similar against
Edward I at
Falkirk, and they lost. When they fought under Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn
against Edward II, they were outnumbered again and won.
Most serious battles don't have a gross advantage for one side over the other.
The ones that do where someone just rolls over the other are the
ones you never hear about. Wargames are generally designed to simulate or
recreate the battles that you _do_ actually hear about.
E
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lLet me add Little
Bighorn One side was led by an enept leader against a supperior force in
numbers, weapons, and intell. Who won that fight. Most battles that are lost
and remembered are done so to invoke emotions, other wise mistakes of realy
bad battles are forgotten by the overall winner if it makes them look foolish.
> Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
From: "McCarthy, Tom (xwave)"
> I've played in several games run by a GM who believes that all even
This not only makes for some rather silly and frustrating games, but it also
isn't even historically true for the most part. Although at the tactical
squad level it could be argued that most fights are one-sided, most
decisive battles in history have involved fighting forces where the victor
didn't
really have much, if any, advantage over the vanquished.
The Americans had three fleet carriers to the Japanese's four at Midway, and
won. The Americans had two fleet carriers to the Japanese's two in the Coral
Sea, and won. The Greeks were ludicrously outnumbered by the Persians at
Marathon, and
won. Alexander the Great was outnumbered by Darius III at both Issus and
Gaugemala, and won. The Scots under William Wallace were somewhat outnumbered
by the English at Stirling Bridge, and won; the comparison was similar against
Edward I at
Falkirk, and they lost. When they fought under Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn
against Edward II, they were outnumbered again and won.
Most serious battles don't have a gross advantage for one side over the other.
The ones that do where someone just rolls over the other are the ones you
never hear about. Wargames are generally designed to simulate or
recreate the battles that you _do_ actually hear about.
E
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOkay, let me amend
this.
When battles that are lost because one side was vastly underpowered and got
run over get remembered, it's because it pissed off the people who lost that
particular battle but won the overall war. And even then, nobody usually
remembers it other than that particular people.
E
[quoted original message omitted]
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
> On Nov 4, 2006, at 5:43 PM, Eric Foley wrote:
> Okay, let me amend this.
I'm sure Stalingrad was remembered by many Germans.
Damo
> On 11/4/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> The Greeks were ludicrously outnumbered by the Persians at Marathon,
In both those cases, the "points cost" of the two sides were a lot
closer than it looks--the Persians went for bucket-loads of garbage
troops intended to swamp the opposition by sheer numbers. Every one of the
Greek line infantry was wearing an expensive hoplite panoply.
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "john tailby" <John_Tailby@xtra.co.nz>
> In just about all the later ww2 campaigns the allies had overwhelming
> defeat the enemy without taking massive losses
Well, yes... but this is all stuff that happened in the later stages of the
war after earlier battles like the Battle of Britain crippling the Luftwaffe,
Stalingrad squandering away Germany's best window of opportunity to bring
about the Soviet Union's collapse, and Kursk's hamstringing of the bulk of
Germany's remaining ability to launch any further effective offensives in the
east. By the time Bagration and particularly Normandy
happened, Germany was already pretty much a broken nation fighting to the
bitter end in a war that had already been decided by previous battles where
most of their best fighting forces were destroyed.
> Actually wargames strive for fairness to try and make it enjoyable for
> both sides. Some people get enjoyment out of wargaming hopeless
> If you give both player similar objectives, typically kill the enemy,
Well, that's basically it. If you're going to fight a one-off battle,
then sure, you need to have relatively similar point totals, in order to
simulate the kinds of battles that happen in wars that are truly in contest.
However, there are examples like Dunkirk, the Bismarck sinking, and the like
where one side does indeed have a relatively limited chance to win and the
real objectives had little to do with "kill the enemy" on the part of the
losing side. If you're going to make the players play with uneven sides,
whoever's got the inferior side needs to have orders that involve something
other than "kill the enemy" that are achievable with the inferior materiel.
> Wargames also tend to remove any strategic element from the games both
> sides line up in a roughly linear formation within heavy weapons range
> with enough models to cover the table from side to side. The choice
I don't know. One of the more memorable FT games I've ever played was at a con
where I directed two other players against another team of opposing players,
where we were playing a scenario where our opponents had to evacuate a secret
research team that my side had discovered holed up on a strategically
vulnerable frontier planet. I had somewhat superior mobile forces, while the
opponent had a fairly powerful (but limited aim) "reflex gun" that was on one
particular point on the planet. They had to evacuate something like three
shuttles full of research scientists (which were allowed to dock on ships that
didn't have fighter bays) and get them off the board. They took a strategy of
having their heavy elements try to charge us while the lighter ships evacuated
the scientists; I took a strategy of
having a pair of cruiser squadrons (directed by each of my co-players)
fly pincer movements around the far side of the planet from our arrival point
while I took the capital ships straight up the middle. Their heavy elements,
which were a little weaker than mine in the first place, came at us way, way
too fast and wound up flying clean off the table after their
first pass and were unable to return, which left mine completely free to
neutralize the "reflex gun" and assist the cruiser pincers in annihilating the
units evacuating the scientists. Not much linear going, and all because we had
a real objective we were fighting over.
Also would've made a fairly good anime or science fiction show if somebody had
been so inclined.:P
E
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
> On 11/4/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> In both those cases, the "points cost" of the two sides were a lot
Yeah, this is largely true. In a way, the Greeks against the Persians were
probably the best example of quality defeating quantity -- as opposed to
the Napoleonic French against the Russians or the Germans against the Soviets
in WW2, where the opposite occured.
E
> On 11/5/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
I'm going to dispute at least the latter point.
The Soviets were light-years ahead of the Germans in both strategic
thinking and fighting at the operational level. They also tended to have
better equipment in the most vital categories (tanks, assault
guns, individual weapons, close support aircraft). Most (90%+) of the
German Army was fighting with equipment no better than their fathers
carried into Russia in 1914, other than the MG 34/42 family.
The myth of the mighty ubermensch fighting with sophisticated tanks and
fighters against hordes of subhumans who choked their racial
superiors with their blood is born from the post-war
self-justifications of the Nazi generals, and was lapped up by their
racist adherants after the war. It is myth, not fact.
The Soviets never outnumbered the Germans by more than 2:1 across the front.
What happened was that they would ruthlessly concentrate all resources (tanks,
planes, artillery, troops) at the decisive point, smash through the pathetic
German defenders from some line infantry division (or Romanians, or Italians),
and make the stunts of some scratch 'fire brigade force' (which was generally
diverted into counterattacking against a feint) utterly irrelevant. The
Soviets fought smart, the Germans didn't, and that is all Clio wrote.
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
> On 11/5/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> I'm going to dispute at least the latter point.
> The Soviets were light-years ahead of the Germans in both strategic
Well, I've got a pretty simple observation on this: the Soviets' political
leadership eventually figured out to get the hell out of the generals' way,
and the Germans' didn't. The Soviets were hurt very badly by the fact that
most of their officers who had any brains in the European Soviet Union got
purged before the invasion of Poland, which was a lot of why the Soviets
fought like idiots in Finland and early in the war against the Germans. After
the Finland war Stalin realized that he'd kind of fucked up his own armies
over petty politics and started to reorganize in early 1941. They weren't
finished reorganizing by the time the Germans came in the summer, and the
Germans went in and cleaned their clocks early on. Eventually, Zhukov and his
ilk figured out how to run things and Hitler kept interfering and
micromanaging his generals' efforts, and after that point, yeah, the
Soviets generally had a pretty good handle on things.
> They also tended to
The Germans got beat on a lot of fronts with logistics and equipment issues,
yes. The Germans didn't take the time to plan how they were going to fight in
the Russian climate (especially but not limited to the winters). However, the
tanks and aircraft the Soviets had in the early phases of the war were simply
terrible and obsolete. Something like 10% of the entire
Soviet air force got destroyed on the ground in the first day, serviceability
was awful, and so on. The Soviets had about six times as
many tanks as the Germans did at the beginning of the invasion and about the
same ratio of aircraft, and still didn't establish air superiority until
1943 and didn't get an effective tank corps until about the same time.
However, it _is_ true that once the Soviets got their act together on
the tactical front, they also got their act together on the logistical and
equipment front, and their equipment in the later part of the war was probably
as good or better than what the Germans had left.
> The myth of the mighty ubermensch fighting with sophisticated tanks
> The Soviets never outnumbered the Germans by more than 2:1 across the
The estimates I'm aware of, of German military deaths in the war on all fronts
were about 5.5 million; Soviet military losses totaled between 8.7 and 10
million, depending on who you asked. Yes, most of the German military dead
were on the eastern front, but even if you assume the Soviets were responsible
for every single German military man killed that's still a
kill ratio approaching two to one. Pile on the 10-20 or so million
civilian deaths and add up how many of those were in the line of fire because
they got conscripted into "people's militias" or forced labor against the
German offensive and it gets that much more disgusting.
I'm not sure which part of those kill ratios is "fighting smart". Yes, they
did fight smarter on some level but they also did it by having absolutely no
concern for how many bodies they piled up along the way, and the numbers
pretty well back it up.
E
> On 11/5/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> > They also tended to
Yeah, old Joe wasn't planning on fighting the Nazis for another couple years.
BFD. The fact of the matter is that in 18 months, after relocating their
entire industrial base hundreds of miles east, they outproduced the Germans,
and their entire production was quality equipment, unlike the Germans who had
at several points 5 or 6 models of medium tank in production at the same time,
practically none for a production run of more than 2,000 or so. There's no
excuse to change your tank models so quickly that you hit the 'M' model of a
line in less than 5 years.
For the vast majority of the war, the Soviets had better equipment. You're
quibbling about the edges. Further, the majority of the German fighter
strength was in the West by 1943, and a significant number of
the better tanks also went West in 1944-45. Baffling, but there it
is.
> The estimates I'm aware of, of German military deaths in the war on
If they were in people's militias or labor battalions, then they were
military deaths. The 10-20 million civilians are those shot, tortured
to death, starved, or killed by exposure when those heros of the German Volk
in the Whermacht kicked them out into the winter.
> I'm not sure which part of those kill ratios is "fighting smart".
Yes, they
> did fight smarter on some level but they also did it by having
Given that those deaths were, after 1943, largely racked up conducting
deliberate attacks, that's a damn good death ratio. Real Life is a little more
complicated than a nice, clean gaming table.
You also have to consider the 5 million Germans captured by the Soviets, the
200K killed and 1 million captured from the forces the Germans raised on
Soviet soil from Soviet citizens, 81K Romanians captured and 500K killed,
100,000 Hungarians KIA, 500,000 Hungarians captured, 32,000 Italians killed,
and 70,000 Italians captured. It's a little more complicated when you take
that into account.
According to Rűdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten
Weltkrieg. Oldenbourg 2000, the Germans suffered 3.1 million
KIA/MIA on the Eastern Front, plus 3.3 million troops captured by the
Soviets.
For those playing along at home, that's a total of 3,528,000 KIA/MIA
suffered by the Axis, and 5,450,000 captured by the Soviets.
Compared to Vadim Erlikman, Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik.
Moscow 2004 which says the Soviets took 7.6 million
military KIA/MIA and had 5,200,000 captured by the Nazis, of whom 2.6
million died.
Furthermore, since the Soviet won, they liberated the remaining 2.6 million
POWs, rather than depending on the good will of their conquerer to return
them.
The whole "no concern" for casualties is a myth. The Soviets were extremely
pragmatic about casualties, but no more so than US Marines in the Pacific or
Georgie Patton's Third Army. Oddly enough, that attitude produces far better
results (and in the long run, lower casualties) than a cautious, conservative,
ineffective
Montgomery-style obsession with casualties. What the Soviets did have
was fewer resources to deal with the casualties that did occour. It's one of
the downsides of fighting a war of survival against a genocidal monstrosity
that had already overrun most of Europe and wished to not only defeat, but
depopulate Russia.
> On Nov 5, 2006, at 9:33 AM, John Atkinson wrote:
> Compared to Vadim Erlikman, Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke:
In my reading the only constant regarding Soviet casualties during WW2 is
their variance. They are all estimates...best guesses, etc. As time goes on
the estimates are getting better but still far from the truth. Their
population suffered tremendously (both fighters and civilians).
Damo
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
> On 11/5/06, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> fight
> Yeah, old Joe wasn't planning on fighting the Nazis for another couple
> For the vast majority of the war, the Soviets had better equipment.
And 18 months into the invasion was still in 1943, which is still almost
half the total time they were fighting. And at this point, basically all the
major Allies were outproducing the Germans, for a few different reasons.
One is that Germany was playing a guns-and-butter game throughout the
war and never really put its entire industrial strength into it. A second is
that after 1943, the western Allies had begun bombing every
war-producing
factory they could find from the British isles -- American B-17s by day,
British Lancasters by night. It's not that difficult to fathom why the Germans
put most of their fighter strength in the west by this time, because the
Soviets just weren't hitting as hard on strategic bombing as the British and
the Americans did; they put most of their air power into tactical support
aircraft which, while very, very effective at their assigned roles, wasn't
visibly hitting at the home front the way the western guys were.
> The estimates I'm aware of, of German military deaths in the war on
> If they were in people's militias or labor battalions, then they were
Or because they were conscripted to dig ditches, joined partisans who fought a
guerrilla war behind German lines, and so on. I'm not sure if the
military deaths includes all of these or not -- the military deaths may
only be including people who were part of the regular Soviet armed forces.
Although yes, a lot of people died just out of plain siege warfare in places
like Leningrad and Moscow.
> According to Rűdiger Overmans, Deutsche militärische Verluste im
> Furthermore, since the Soviet won, they liberated the remaining 2.6
Presumably, yes.
> The whole "no concern" for casualties is a myth. The Soviets were
As compared to what the western Allies took, there was a fair amount of meat
grinding going on in the eastern front. While it is true that the Soviets bore
the brunt of the defeat of the Germans in World War II, and perhaps
that the western Allies don't give them nearly enough credit in the history
books for doing so. Nonetheless, for all that "pragmatism" you're attributing
to Patton as opposed to the "cautious, conservative, ineffective
Montgomery-style obsession with casualties", the UK and the US both took
400,000 military dead in the war, give or take 20k. That's the US total for
the war, fighting both Germany and Japan, btw. The French lost about 200,000,
the Poles another 400,000 military dead (and about 5 million civilians). If
I'm missing anyone major, let me know, but I'm still getting
a total of about 1.4 million non-Soviet Allies KIA against about 2.4
million Germans. Compared to that, I'm perfectly willing to take your figures
for 7.6 million Soviet KIA against about 3.5 million Axis.
Do the math. 12:7 kill ratio in the western Allies' favor as opposed to
under 1:2 for the Soviets. The western perception that the Soviets were
perfectly willing to throw however many warm bodies into the meat grinder that
it took seems perfectly justified to me in that light. And frankly, I'm not
sure where you're getting the part where you're saying that they had
fewer resources to deal with the casualties that occured -- their 1939
population was a little over twice Germany's, and ultimately they lost about
the same percentages of their population that the Germans did.
> It's
For what it's worth, there's a certain amount of historical room to question
whether or not Hitler actually managed to kill more Russians than Stalin
himself did.
E