The Tactical Wargamer

Player Typing

2011-11-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

There is a need in certain quarters to categorize game players, whether it is to gather demographics for advertising, or to attempt to predict future sales, or to better enable fellow gamers to talk to one another. MOVES Magazine printed an article in 1975, breaking down board wargamers into the following:
The Military Establishment
The Military Historians
The Military Buffs
The Avengers
The Social Wargamers
The Mathematicians
The Supercompetitors
The Accidental Converts
The Shut-Ins
The Limited Interest Minority
The Wishful Thinkers
The Reluctant Gift-Receivers
The Elite Capitalists
The Reluctant Opponents

The categories, author Phil Kosnett admitted, overlapped. What he didn't admit in print was that the piece was probably meant as much as humorous filler as a serious attempt to define the wargaming community. As with all good humour, there was much truth in his descriptions. I recall turning a friend of the family into a Reluctant Opponent in a game of Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora during a stay at his home. I think most of my early Squad Leader opponents were probably Reluctant Opponents, come to think of it.1

Twenty-five years later, Curt Schilling described the Advanced Squad Leader community as "cliques", breaking them down as "Competitor. Simulator. Historian. Socializer. Many of you may have seen wargaming broken down like this before."2

Somewhere during the intervening quarter century, however, it became possible to introduce a new dynamic into the mix; that of the Experiential Wargamer. The introduction of tactical level wargames, first person shooters, and legitimate solitaire gaming all helped develop that new category.

Early Roots and Shameful Pursuits

The first board wargames were intended to portray operational level clashes where the gamer filled the role of a general in command of an army group, army or corps commander. Tactical-level games didn't arrive on the scene until later - though miniature players had been recreating low-level tactical battles for decades by the time PanzerBlitz hit the scene in 1970. The "dirty little secret" among wargamers, however, was that the majority of gamers had always played solo. SPI began surveying its customers in the late 1960s with reader feedback cards and found in excess of 50 percent of those surveyed played alone - before the invention of board wargames specifically designed for solo play. "In the 1990s, the number of games played solitaire exceeds sixty percent."3 SPI recognized this phenomenon early on; in the very first issue of their "house organ", MOVES Magazine, they published a "how to" article on maximizing solitaire play.4

As the focus of wargames decreased in scope, however, the ability to picture one's self in the role of the commanders increased. It became possible to become personally involved in the events on the game board. It had been possible to picture yourself as the generalissimo of the Red Army in Tactics II, of course, but it was still a somewhat abstract experience to push entire divisions from square to square.

You Command The Action

In 1977, Squad Leader not only put the player into the role of a company commander, in charge of 100 or so men engaged in desperate battle, but with a unique Campaign Game and a set of blank "leader" counters, permitted the player to lend his own name and personality to the proceedings. For the first time, the 1/2-inch cardboard square represented one person - the player - and his skill at arms would have repercussions not just in the current game, but in a series of games, with the ability to rise in rank and ability.

Playing for Experience

What the Squad Leader campaign game permitted was the creation of another category of "casual" game player - the Experiential Player. Like the other categories that have been created (and none of these are set in stone, as they are creations of convenience for the specific purposes of those that create them) they freely overlap. They can be the bane of the Serious Competitor who wants to play him, or the Stolid Historian who wants to debate him. He might even be highly sought after by the Crass Commercialist who wants to sell extra historical modules to him because he knows he can "hook" him based on new "flavours" alone.

What the Experiential Player could do was actually relive some of the excitement the ad copy on the back of the box promised, which proclaimed "YOU are the Squad Leader." The game became less a function of calculating the chance of a 2:1 odds attack with three regiments at Quatre Bras, and more about whether or not he had the guts to order his last five men into close combat against that tank around the next block. Imagination became part of the game. The following was recently posted in an ASL-themed blog, and illustrates the imaginative approach still taken to Squad Leader's offspring:
If there's one hallmark that makes a good wargame it's the narrative generated from the game. This is something you're just not going to get out of a Euro like Agricola or Puerto Rico or whatever. For example, take the case of the Cursed MMG.
Early in the game, around turn 2, the Russians who would have been manning a MMG...ran off after taking fire. They left a perfectly good support weapon lying around and in the next rally phase I rolled a SIX -- what the HELL?! Pick the damn thing up you scrubs!
I should have known then that the MMG was cursed. Slick with the blood of the Russian who last held it, the MMG was to be an albatross on the neck of every German squad who managed to pick it up... By game's end, its bad mojo extended into the full hex and even squads who didn't pick it up were gunned down...5
Rise of the Individual

While SPI recognized early on the proclivity to play games solitaire, it did not result in a great number of solitaire titles, and of those released, success has been mixed. Games like Iwo Jima and B-17: Queen of the Skies were mainly exercises in dice rolling. Tokyo Express received greater attention, and the title most germaine to this article, Ambush!, was perhaps the most successful, spawning several sequels, including three follow-ups, a companion game with sequel, a two-player version, and a tank-based variant as well as a number of third-party variants and scenarios. Ambush! was perhaps the most intense expression of the notion that players sat down with wargames solely for the Experience - that is to say, to engage their imagination and to indulge in escapism, rather than emphasis on the other often-cited historical, educational or competitive aspects to wargaming which had often been used to "legitimize" the hobby in the early days when escapism was really not possible given the limited physical components and interactivity of the games themselves. Not coincidentally, Ambush! was a man-to-man level game, with each game piece representing a single soldier, and the player was given free reign to name each member of his squad as he saw fit. Like the SL Campaign Game, each "character" had the opportunity to advance in skills, rank and ability over time as the player campaigned his squad through several missions.

The rise of role playing games in the early 1970s must surely have had an impact on legitimizing how wargamers approached the experience also. The first military themed RPG was published in 1979 - SPI once again led the way, with Commando - followed by almost a dozen other titles in the 1980s, none of which came anywhere close to the popularity of the fantasy or science fiction RPGs. But it may have been a simple matter of technology.

In 1992 Wolfenstein 3D was released and began appearing on home computers; it popularized the First Person Shooter genre, had a tinge of history to it (there were "Nazis" in an underground cavern and the Horst Wesel song was accurate, if not slightly offensive to the sensitive), and there was no need to pull out cardboard pieces and paper maps. By 1997, Muzzle Velocity was offering something much more historical - accurate 3D models of historical equipment in camouflage paint jobs, first person tank crew and infantryman views, the ability to switch between the 3D world and a 2D map; not all that remarkable, given that M-1 Tank Platoon had done many of the same things in 1989, but with vector graphics and without the infantry. The games weren't about counting firepower factors, they were about being there on the battlefield and experiencing it. Just like role playing games, first person shooters and 3D battle games were letting wargamers set foot in other worlds.

Knocked out Sherman tank in Muzzle Velocity (1997)
Trends

The focus on solitaire play and on individual achievement/campaign play would seem to have been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the fantasy and role playing worlds. Real militaries emphasize teamwork and the necessity to work together to overcome obstacles. Basic training is an ordeal that takes weeks to accomplish. Divisions are commanded not by single commanders, but by staffs of officers trained in administration and logistics who wrestle with problems well beyond the ken of the uninitiated. The trend in military gaming is towards games such as Brothers in Arms which, while touting its "realism" because it occasionally asks the player to maneuver riflemen to a flanking position, still manages to ignore most of the realities of modern combat, specifically but not restricted to the complexities of command and control.

In actual fact, first person shooters are so unlike military practice, they are usually not considered "wargames"; but a new category has slipped in - "tactical shooters." These are man-to-man games set in the first person with a level of realism and fidelity superior to the "first person shooters." The differences are apparent; tactical shooters have no "health packs" or ability to magically heal, for one. Operation Flashpoint and Armed Assault have been assigned to this category. They also claim to have actual restrictions on command and control, in both single- and multi-player mode. Kill ratios are way down in the tactical shooters, and just seeing the enemy is a real accomplishment - as it usually is in real life.

As the games increase in scale, to squad- and platoon- level, the level of abstraction also increases, to simulate command and control problems and various types of "friction." The Experiential Player becomes drawn out of the game, and makes decisions not just for one person, but represents in reality a syndicate of commanders. It's possible to lose one's self in the experience, but it doesn't become the entire point of the game. An example is the initial iteration of Combat Mission where watching the 3D "movie" is necessary to plan strategy each turn. Another is in ASL, where smaller "narratives" get naturally built around individual vignettes, as we saw illustrated above with the Russian MMG.

Bartles

Video gamers who play MMORPGs (massively Multiplayer online role playing games, which tend to be fantasy-themed in nature) have their own breakdown, for which there is even a test, the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, which rates players on their responses to questions which measure four basic personality "types" - Explorer, Achiever, Socializer, and Killer. The test examines the primary motivations by comparing two situations and weighing them against each other - would you rather find a pot of gold, or make a new friend, etc. The test weighs each respondent in the four categories with a percentage - you may find you are 100% explorer, but still 13% killer and 40% achiever, as there is definitely some overlap in the categories. Is it scientific? Probably not.

My Final Word

At the most basic level, every wargamer is an Experiential Player, given that the point of playing a game is to have fun or be entertained. The point of the article is to describe a player who plays for escapism above all else. Anyone who has fired up Panzer Commander just to maneuver the camera around one of the maps will relate to him. So will anyone who has used a map editor to recreate their own childhood neighbourhood.

My Question To You

To whom should any of this really matter?

1. Kosnett, Phil "What is a Wargamer?" Moves Magazine (Issue Nr. 19 Feb-Mar 1975)
2. Schilling, Kurt "Can You Ever Be Sure? Historical Research and ASL" (ASL Journal 2)
3. Dunnigan, James F. Wargames Handbook, Third Edition (Writers Club Press, Lincoln, NE, 2000) p.304 ISBN 0-595-15546-4
4. Richardson, Jay "Solitaire Wargaming" Moves Magazine (Issue Nr. 1 Feb 1972)
5. http://triplepbf.blogspot.com/2009/0...ays-start.html

Age Old Wargaming Questions as they relate to Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy

2011-09-28T18:11:00.001-06:00

The latest entry in the tactical wargamer's PC library, if he is interested in 20th Century ground warfare, is most likely Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. A demo is available at this link for those not yet familiar with the game. The various Wikipedia entries describe the history of the game, and you can find find some screenshots at videogamegeek. Anyone who has followed the game series since the first title can't help but be a student of the various changes - not just in feature sets, but in game design philosophies that have driven the publishers. Certainly, they have been the subject of much discussion, both on the official forums and elsewhere.

Definitions

It is sometimes useful to take a step back and define meanings of words and phrases that come up in conversation. As one spends more time navigating sites devoted to wargames - and even that word can be a loaded one, as not everyone agrees that Combat Mission, in its current form, represents their idea of a "wargame" in something other than a strict dictionary definition - one finds many of the same themes being repeated.

What is more interesting is to find out that those same conversations and words have been repeated for decades now. All fields of human endeavour often show a proclivity to repeat patterns of behaviour, and it seems that wargame design - and I'll use the term "wargame" because I believe it still applies to Combat Mission - is one of them.

My case in point is an article I recently uncovered in an issue of Campaign Magazine from 1978.

Simulation vs. Gamesmanship

In an article in Issue 87 of Campaign, Len Kanterman and Doug Bonforte had this to say:

Campaign Number 87
...Dr. J.E. Pournelle touched on one of the controversies facing game designers (in a recent article): simulation versus gamesmanship, otherwise known as Realism versus Playability. This was a big subject several years back...Since then, the philosophy of simulation has been largely adopted in game designs, due primarily to the phenomenal rise of Jim Dunnigan's Strategy & Tactics organization...Unfortunately, S&T's attempt to present historical information through its games has resulted in games that are difficult to play and not very enjoyable. While not all S&T games are difficult...even (the less difficult ones) lack something. This "something" is harder to put your finger on, but can be called for lack of a better word, flavor. S&T games lack the excitement, drama, and challenge the old Avalon Hill games had. Their rules may duplicate the mode of warfare at the time, but don't capture the "feeling" of the historical era.

Without a doubt, this article could not be mistaken for anything but an opinion piece. I've no idea if the opinion of the authors was widely shared or not. It does draw parallels to conversations currently taking place in the CM communities.

For the record, the official stance of the publisher was stated on release in this forum announcement (emphasis below in original):

Before you, our favorite Refresh Monkeys™, get your little paws on the Demo, I wanted to say a few words about the pending release of the Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy.

What we're about to release is a GAME. It is something to be played with and enjoyed, hopefully for longer than the time to download/install Yes, it's also a serious simulation, but that's merely a means of providing a more enjoyable gaming environment. After all, if this wasn't about having fun then how many of us would be interested in it?

It is also important to remember that we're not releasing "the perfect wargame", or even "the perfect game". There are no such things, therefore by definition there will be issues to raise here on this Forum. It's important to keep this in mind as we start in with the discussions that dissect and reduce a massive game down to a few bits and pieces for a particular topic of discussion. It's all too easy to get so wrapped up with the minutia and have that detract from enjoying the fullness of what the game has to offer. In all cases let's remember to keep criticism constructive, respectful, and within reason. It's important because that sort of feedback opens the door to improvements, while the opposite is harmful.

The announcement reads as an interesting mix of rededication to the original Battlefront Manifesto and almost an appeal for mercy. The orginal manifesto is still available from an internet archive. The quote from it below is from April 2001.1

Our strategy is twofold. First, we outflank the Retail distribution problem with technology: the Internet. It’s cheap, totally within our control, and is without the artificial pressures of The Industry. We can do this because we don’t have to to sell hundreds of thousands of units each and every 6 months just to stay in business. Therefore, we don’t have to produce games that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Battlefront.com is about enjoyable, intelligent gaming, not Hollywood budgets, hype, and mass-market insanity. The only limit is the interest of all you wargamers out there, and we’re one of the few companies who think your interest matters!

The complementary half of the plan is community building. We want Battlefront.com to become a haven where wargamers come to discover and discuss games, military history, favorite strategies, feedback, you name it. It will also be a place - perhaps the only place - on the internet or anywhere else where you can buy first-rate wargames that haven’t “sold out” and become watered-down, thin gruel for the twitch crowd.

Relationships with "Gamers"

It is not unreasonable to take the developer/publisher at their word, and examine Combat Mission in its intended guise, as a game, though Battlefront splits the difference by their own words and tells us it is "also" a "serious simulation." Conversations, going back decades now, have popularly put the two notions in opposition to each other. But most telling in the pre-release announcement above was the plea for mercy - perhaps not so much a plea, as an announcement within an announcement that conversations about the direction of future changes would take a different tone. Which seems to be at odds with that original manifesto.

It matters, because there are some gamers who believe this interaction between gamer and publisher is crucial. Again from the article in 1978:

To revitalize wargaming out of the simulation doldrums it is presently in, game designing must be made a more dynamic proposal. As anyone who's ever tried designing a game knows, it's never really finished. There are always a few more "finishing touches" that can be added. Instead of being limited to the designers and a few playtesters, this process should be opened up to all gamers. If designers explain how games were designed, players can begin treating rules as something less than gospel truth. The player is now a passive partner in game design. He can only accept what is offered to him, and he has no real foundation for correcting what he doesn't like.

These words were written with respect to hex and cardboard games, but they are obviously applicable to hard-coded computer games. No one would doubt there is more to be done with Battlefront's CMX2 game engine. No one would suggest the engine itself should be literally "opened up to all gamers" to tinker with, but certainly a deeper understanding of how and why things work - beyond the purely mechanical of the game code - would be helpful.

One commentator on battlefront's approach to "explain(ing) how (their) games were designed" had this to say:

Wargame rules can be arbitrary, but you get them written down in English and in paper, and quite often accompanied by a rationale under the title "Designer Notes". This approach to documenting the game might not appeal (to) the casual reader, but it's quite informative. BFC appeal to our intuition with 1:1 modeling and lush 3d graphics, but both the representation on the screen and the modeling are at odds with it.

Battlefront has been adamant, and with good reason, that involving the audience in things like adding free content will never happen. The rationale for not publishing more detailed "designer's notes" is less clear, but apparently is not confined to any one company, or wargaming medium, since it has been a topic of discussion for decades now. They might prevent these kinds of posts:

The best example is the stepped degradation of optics and fire control. There seem to be 4 or 5 standard steps that no matter where it hits, it gets reduced one step. There may be some reality to that with back up sights and such, but I had a Leopard 2 hit on the rear deck that ended up dropping optics down a level. I have no idea what that means or how it happens.

Similar questions continue in the Normandy title, as evidenced by this thread, which includes this comment:

Sub-system damage never made any sense to me in CMSF or this game. There are some indications it is hit-point based, but it never makes enough sense for me to work it out.

After three days of discussion, the publisher has not provided a response, or directed respondents to an FAQ.

Gamer and Designer as Equals

Kanterman and Bonforte ended their article by suggesting that "If players and designers begin interacting as equals, the hobby will take on a totally new dimension." It's an interesting proposition, though on the face ot if one would need to clarify before declaring it still valid, with respect to computer games. As pointed out in the post referenced above, expecting fanbases to directly contribute computer code is probably not workable. In many ways, fan contribution does happen already, inasmuch as games like Combat Mission depend on volunteer scenario designers and beta testers to populate their releases. As someone with direct experience working on several beta teams on various tactical wargame projects, both board and computer based, I can personally attest that there is a certain amount of input (dependent on the personalities involved) that testers may have on the actual design of the game, via feedback to the developers during the research stage.

The article from 1978 makes some interesting points that still apply, but I would suggest that they may have wanted to divide their attention between pre-release input and post-release input. A famous military artist once told me that his favourite come-back to "know it all" critics was to use the line "where were you when I needed you", i.e., before the project was completed and released to the public.

Conclusion

The "Realism vs. Playability" debate is not one I intended to enter into; merely comment that it has been ongoing for decades and will go on for as long as hobbyists enjoy wargames. Rather than be disappointed that this dichotomy can never be resolved, I think it may pay publishers - and gamers - dividends to look at successful models from the past to find strategies for communication. FAQ lists, Designer's Notes, and bilateral communication on design decisions seem like good models to adopt. Whether gamers and designers should be "equals", as suggested by Kanterman and Bonforte, in the design phase is still in my opinion open to debate.

My question(s) to you

Can a game designed by committee really be superior? Kanterman and Bonforte mention in their conclusion that a game author who "relates what his interpretation was based on" gives players a "guide to creating a better (game)." Battlefront has stated publicly that allowing free content additions to their games would be "competing with themselves." Is there a valid disincentive to publishing designer's notes?

Notes
1. Though the manifesto is referred to by Steve Grammont as having been published as early as 1998 in this post which references the current, 2008 version, which rewrites the 1998 version.

Buildings in Tactical Wargames

2011-09-03T20:08:00.000-06:00

This subject seems to be coming up in various communities recently. One of the criticisms being levelled at Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy is that houses afford too little protection to infantry. In the Advanced Squad Leader world, the latest edition of their own journal devoted 12 entire pages to an article on "Key Building Defense."

Given the amount of discussion of the subject, you would conclude the topic is somewhat important; at first blush one might even ask: what's to conclude? Hiding behind a wall is safer than being out in the open - it's a non-starter.

Let's go back a bit, first.

Background

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Jebb of the Royal Engineers, pictured at right, made a modern and scientific study of military approaches to attacking and defending not just military fortifications, but also civilian dwellings, and published his findings in Aide Memoire to the Military Sciences in 1853. His approach to the subject was thoughtful and measured, but above all, indicated that buildings could be successfully defended by infantry given the proper circumstances, notably solid construction, commanding lines of sight/fields of fire, and a clear path of withdrawal, among others. In 1862, as the American Civil War was being fought, the same publication printed an article discussing the concepts of house-to-house fighting inside built-up areas. By 1914, engineers in the world's armies - for centuries, the practitioners of siege operations - were studying and practicing for siege operations in miniature. New weapons were perfected in the 1914-18 war, such as the flamethrower, and old weapons - such as the hand grenade - were modernized with new twists, such as the friction igniter.1

Modern house clearing

So even as early as the ACW, armies were thinking about not just attack/defence of isolated strongpoints in individual buildings, but also urban combat, where entire blocks of buildings might become fought over by infantry. Large cities did not become objects of attention in the First World War - mobile warfare advanced at too slow a pace even when the front broke loose of the trenches - but things were to change by the time of the Second World War.

Tactics for street-fighting in the 1939-45 war were developed in many ways reluctantly. Most armies considered major urban operations as undesirable due to the resources it would require to fight within a large urban centre, and cities were usually considered best bypassed. While the Germans did have their own tactical training in place for urban operations in 1939-40, their operations in places like Calais or Warsaw were the exceptions to the rule.

Even in open warfare, though, individual buildings still had to be dealt with. German training manuals emphasized deception:

Individual farms or other isolated buildings required rather different treatment, as described in Der Feuerkampf der Schutzenkompanie (1940). In this instance the best plan was for a squad to be placed in cover a few yards to the rear of the structure while the leader adopted an inconspicuous forward observation position...Once enemy troops came into view the rest of the squad could quickly be signalled up into defensive positions in and around the house. In this way the enemy would be fooled into thinking the building was undefended until it was too late, when their own men were exposed to fire at disadvantage.2

If there has been argument in the gaming communities about the advantages/disadvantages afforded by buildings, so too has there been in the "real world" on which our tactical wargames are based, at least if some of the reports of the 1st Special Service Force from the Anzio beachhead are any indication. In mid-April 1944, a "lessons learned" document emerged from their experiences, gleaned from every soldier in the Force:

One of the problems it dealt with was houses: whether to use them or not. One member of 3rd Regiment (1SSF) pointed to their value: "Houses are not death traps but give protection from artillery and mortar fire," he argued, "and patrols will not be surprised in them if they are properly out posted." Someone had a different opinion:

If your intention is to secure a house, you do not get in it. Place your fields of fire to cover it. Basically you were probably not given the mission of holding the house but of engaging the enemy in that vicinity. The house will likely attract the enemy. That is all value the house has to your operation 90% of the time.

And a third added this warning:

A patrol from a neighbouring infantry outfit, 13 strong, was sent out to an outpost, a house. Nothing happened for two night. They assumed that nothing would. They relaxed. All members of the patrol were taken PW. A subsequent patrol went to search for them, found all their weapons neatly stacked...The enemy patrol apparently was not even large enough to carry off the captured weapons. Never get in a house at night.3

If tactical wargames reflect the reality that they seek to portray, then it's incumbent on them to address the modelling of troops in buildings. Most games do this with a simple bonus to cover and concealment, often with two or more categories (light/heavy, wood/stone, etc.). The actual tactics for breaching the buildings are not often modelled in detail, for example, rooftop entry, "mouseholing" by use of demolition charge, etc. There are exceptions to this. Cityfight (SPI, 1979) was a purpose-designed look at contemporary urban operations in great detail. Likewise, Combat Mission: Shock Force (battlefront.com, 2007) attempted to give similar coverage to 21st Century urban warfare in a videogame treatment.

Wargaming Examples

The axioms that Colonel Jebb outlined as early as the 19th Century were sound, and can be applied to any wargame. The ASL Journal advises players defending buildings to protect flanks and ensure escape routes lest defenders become trapped inside buildings.4 Test scenarios set up in both Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord and Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy reveal the wisdom of this, and you can try this on your own. Put a German heavy MG crew in a building on a flat open piece of terrain. Put three U.S. squads 200-250 metres metres away at three widely divergent compass points. They can all be "out of command" from their headquarters. You can even have the U.S. headquarters charge headlong at the German MG just to have the rifle squads sight the MG and get the test started. What will invariably happen is that the machine gun team, surrounded, will be picked off by rifle fire and the U.S. rifle squads will suffer little, or no, losses.

However, in CM:AK, when the American rifle squads are put on line, and the German MG is able to benefit from the cover of the building, the expected results occur: the German MG team will remain intact - suffering no losses and firing until it runs out of ammunition. Even under concentrated rifle fire at ranges of 200-250 yards, rifle fire alone will not be enough to have an effect on the MG. On the other hand, the MG will be able to return fire on the infantry in the open and inflict casualties.

In CM:BN, the German MG team acts uniquely - the Tac AI will almost immediately pack up the machine gun, and retreat outside the building and set up in the lee of the house, highlighting a self-preservation rationale in the AI's decision making. Even when playing from the German side, the Tac AI will override the player's orders and exhibit this behaviour; just one minute into the test scenario, the German MG team, faced with three rifle squads to its front, will pack up its MG and race for the back door of the house in order to redeploy in the lee of the building.

The tempting conclusion here, absent solid data to back up the assertion, is that the building does not offer solid enough cover to the infantry inside. Observational data seem to confirm it - i.e. repeat tests show the infantry inside do suffer losses when exposed to rifle fire at the same ranges as in CM:AK. However, the Americans use rifle grenades with greater frequency in CM:BN, and their use, like that of all weapons, is less abstract.

What is "correct"?

None of which gets one closer to the "truth". The fact of the matter is that given the wide variance of actual practice in real world armies, and the lack of consistency in which success or failure was reported, we may never know what is "right" or "wrong" with regards to the modelling of same on the game board or in computer simulations, or indeed, if such a thing can exist. Timothy Harrison Place, who wrote of Military Training in the British Army, tells us that "The scarcity of evidence makes it impossible to gauge the progress of units towards achieving fluency in minor tactics."5 He writes of the training phase, but certainly such confusion must extend to the actual battle phase, for which relatively few detailed technical examinations at the section/squad and platoon level have circulated in the public consciousness.

All of which is frustrating for the tactical wargamer, who has to spend time - perhaps in "test-bed" scenarios such as the one above - trying to figure out what works, and what doesn't, rather than having the comfort of an easily accessible manual or rulebook that will outline in clear "how-to" terms what to do and what not to do. Then again, that, too, is historical. The major combatants of the Second World War dipped their toes into major urban combat only reluctantly, as we have noted, and developed their doctrine for house-to-house fighting as the war progressed only out of necessity, not desire, particularly after Stalingrad. The British began honing their methods as the threat of invasion loomed in 1940, and in fact their Home Guard were among the pioneers of development, and it was contacts with them that prepared the Canadian Army for the bitter test of Ortona in late 1943 on the Italian front.

Still; in 1977, there was some comfort for a Squad Leader player of having a nice firm kill stack ensconced in a solid +3 TEM stone building, especially with a solid -2 leader directing the action. One has to ask what those fellows in CM:BN are doing - skulking (this is a term used to describe the specific tactic in ASL of moving one hex in the phasing player's movement phase, to avoid being fired on in the enemy's defensive fire phase, then advancing back into the very same position in his advance phase again, an exploit of the game's unique multi-phase system) - or sulking?

My question to you

The traditional breakdown of building types has generally been two - SL/ASL has had wood/stone buildings; CM's various incarnations has generally had light/heavy buildings; Ambush! had light/heavy, etc. Is this enough? Should there be more distinctions for a Second World War era game set in Europe? Just one? Which game has gotten the modelling just right - and which game has gotten it disastrously wrong? The parallelograms from the Sniper! games by SPI have never been popular, visually, but in practice seemed to work okay.

Notes
1. Bull, Stephen World War II Street Fighting Tactics (Osprey Publishing Ltd, Botley, Oxford, UK, 2008) ISBN 978-1-84603-291-2pp.3-4
2. Ibid, p.7
3. Joyce, Kenneth H. Snow Plough and the Jupiter Deception (The Story of the 1st Special Service Force and the 1st Canadian Special Service Battalion, 1942-1945) Vanwell Publishing Ltd., St. Catharines, ON, 2006 ISBN 1-55125-094-2
4. Pitcavage, Mark "The Last House on the Left: The Art of Key Building Defense in ASL" ASL Journal Issue Nine (Multi-Man Publishing, 2011) p. 47
5. Harrison Place, Timothy Military Training in the British Army, 1940-1944: From Dunkirk to D-Day (Frank Cass, London, UK, 2000) ISBN 071468091-5 p.67

Tactical Wargamer's Journal 2

2011-09-03T17:52:00.000-06:00

A brief post here, to announce the publication of Issue 2 of Tactical Wargamer's Journal.

Full four-page Index of subjects:
Index Link

Preview and order link:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/tactical-wargamers-journal-issue-2/16687992

Available in both print and electronic download form.

Link to all titles: Publisher's Spotlight

The issue is intended as a "gamer's guide" to the American effort in Normandy, with articles - as the preview suggests - on the campaign as a whole (operational overview), analysis of tactical wargame treatments of the American experience there, a guide to U.S. Army uniforms in Normandy for miniature and computer mod artists, a guide to the Sherman tank and its variants, plus extras such as a study of wargame treatments of the Battle of Singling (coincidentally featured this month in both the new Special Ops Issue 1 from Multi-Man Publishing as well as Armchair General magazine), a look at how real life battle procedure compares and contrasts to wargame mechanics, and a list of suggestions of how to write scenario briefings for board, miniature or computer games.

The issue is larger than issue 1, but unlike the premiere, is available in electronic form in addition to the standard print format, meaning you can view it on a computer screen, iPad or other device, or print it yourself at your convenience.

7 Reasons Stalingrad is so Compelling to the Tactical Wargamer

2011-02-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

In March 2008, in a discussion at gamesquad I did a survey of the “official” Advanced Squad Leader scenarios, in order to determine which campaigns and battles scenario designers were focusing their efforts on more than others. The results were a mixture of anticipated answers with a couple of surprises thrown in.

The survey included all the historical modules (of which, at that time, two were set in Normandy on D-Day and two in Stalingrad), Deluxe ASL (again, one of which was set in Normandy), Historical Studies (one set in the Scheldt and another on Guadalcanal), Action Packs, two website scenarios, GI’s Dozen (reprints from G.I.: Anvil of Victory), Out of the Attic, The General (including G series, tournament scenarios, and Squad Leader conversions), the ASL Annual, ASL Journal, and subsequent re-releases by MMP of core modules (i.e. version 3 of Beyond Valor and For King and Country, which featured reprints of earlier Annual/General scenarios – these were counted as separate scenarios for this survey).

Some Statistics
The survey showed that Stalingrad was the most popular subject for scenario designers, with 39 separate scenarios taking place within the city proper (this excludes scenarios set during Operation WINTER STORM, the relief efforts, and fighting on the flanks of the cities.)

By contrast, 24 scenarios were set on D-Day in Normandy (June 6, 1944), due in no small part to the Paratrooper module which focused on Normandy actions, as did Hedgerow Hell, the first Deluxe module. No wonder that there were 11 more scenarios set during the first full week in Normandy, D+1 through D+7 (June 7 – 13 inclusive). The most interesting contrast was the fact that for the rest of June, (June 14-30), only three scenarios had been crafted, despite all the hard fighting of V Corps to expand the bridgehead, to cross the Cotentin Peninsula, to advance to Cherbourg, and to take the city, not to mention what the British 2nd Army was doing.

And for all of July and August in Normandy, some 61 days, there were only 21 scenarios. And just two depicting the fighting in August in Southern France.

By contrast, 31 scenarios were set in the Ardennes Offensive between December 16, 1944 and January 3, 1945 (19 days). MARKET-GARDEN, the Allied offensive in September 1944, is depicted in 26 scenarios, with 13 set in Arnhem. Kursk, the largest (if most misunderstood) tank battle in history had 9 scenarios, while perhaps one of the most important tank battles in the history of the west, Second El Alamein, had exactly one scenario in the published inventory.

Between 1 September 1944 and 31 December 1944, the Allies deployed 7 full armies in combat on the Western Front. From north to south: 21st Army Group, consisting of 1st Canadian Army and British 2nd Army (and as a point of trivia, that is exactly the order in which the ordinals appear in their names); 12th Army Group, with U.S. 9th Army, U.S 1st Army , and U.S. 3d Army (the Americans, always stingy with letters in their abbreviations, shed the “d” in their ordinal as religiously as the British added the “u” to their armoured units), and the 6th Army Group, with U.S. 7th Army and French 1st Army. During this 122 day period, in which these 7 armies were engaged in major campaigns such as the clearing of the channel ports, the Scheldt estuary, the Hürtgen forest, the Lorraine campaign, and if one excludes the Bulge and southern France (as we have counted them above already), there are exactly 16 scenarios representing this period – but even if every Army (composed of two or more corps, each corps with 2 or more divisions, each division with 2 or more brigades/regiments) produced only one company-sized action (i.e. ASL scenario) per week, one would expect to find fodder for over 100.

Sicily, a battle that raged for 38 days, produced 18 scenarios, on the other hand, and the fighting on the Italian mainland eight, due mainly to an Action Pack concentrating on Italian forces, and the unique situation presented by the capitulation and the fighting between former Axis partners. Yet the 92 calendar days for the rest of 1943, from October to December, which includes the Moro River and Ortona, are represented by a single scenario, as are the 128 days of 1945 in which the war was fought up until VE-Day. For the 366 days of 1944 (which was a leap year), there are 11 scenarios, not even one per month, or an average of one every two months for the two Allied armies that fought there (the American 5th and the British 8th.) Put another way, the campaign on the Italian mainland averages a scenario every 45 days. The 10 published scenarios set in Poland in September 1939 have a higher ratio, of one every three days.

Why?

Surely it can’t be that English-language source material, and on a tactical scale, is easier for researchers to find for Poland than it is for the Scheldt. Can it be that the fighting there just isn’t that interesting?

Why should Stalingrad rule the roost? Wasn’t it mostly just guys squatting in buildings?

The Truth

General discussion of tactical games often reveal ignorance of conditions on the ground – part of the fun of playing them, of course, is in learning new things of the period involved. There is no greater misunderstood period, tactically speaking, than the First World War. The ground work for the combined arms tactics that the Germans so successfully employed in the Second World War was not only laid down in 1917, but arguably perfected by 1918. The best units in the BEF, including the Australians and Canadians – “shock troops”, in Tim Cook’s phrase – were using artillery, mortars, light machine guns, grenades, bayonets, tanks, and even aircraft in concert to win ground and defeat the enemy. Yet the myth persists that the war was a deadly stalemate dominated by poison gas, where infantry were mere pawns and the military state of the art stagnated for four years. Nothing is further from the truth.

Where does our vision of “truth” come from, then? Mostly pop culture depictions. In the 1920s, these were sardonic novels such as "The General Died at Dawn", and "All’s Quiet on the Western Front". They had the ring of verisimilitude about them, and anyone who criticized these works would have been seen as calling into question the suffering of the veterans themselves. The revisionism that Corrigan alludes to in "Mud, Blood and Poppycock" began to build, and was in full swing by the 1960s when films such as "Oh, What A Lovely War" were presenting the war as a useless waste conceived by European elites, conducted by incompetent generals, and suffered through unwillingly by millions of common people who had no choice. This distorted view has been reinforced by television shows such as the fourth series of "Black Adder", which played on the popular understanding of the war to extremely good effect. Outstanding entertainment television it most certainly was; good history, it neither was intended to be, nor one hopes will it be remembered as.

What do you know?

Stalingrad has entered the popular culture via a couple of routes. "Enemy at the Gates", the William Craig book, is perhaps one of the most well known. Written in a style reminiscent of Cornelius Ryan, it is not a scholar’s book, instead painting a broad canvas of the battle, at the same time personalizing it through the eyes of a handful of participants, as if characters in a play. As is well know, the book became a well known movie, though even more well known was the eponymous "Stalingrad" film in 1993, directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. Like "Enemy at the Gates", though, it was not exactly a documentary about the battle.

Those who chose to dig deeper could find some decent titles; Ballantine published an entire volume in their Second World War series, expanding on the standard treatment meted out in general histories of the war. All these sources generally agreed that the battle was monumental, fought in several distinct phases, but never really broke down in tactical terms what happened there, or why – a phenomenon not restricted to books about Stalingrad by any means.

Perhaps that is part of the allure.

1. The Streets of Stalingrad – For anyone who did play Squad Leader, regardless of whether they progressed to Advanced Squad Leader and left the original series in the dust, or just happened to play a couple of games from the purple-topped original and moved on to other things, they almost had to have started out with the first three scenarios in the rulebook. Using the Programmed Instruction method of learning, the first three scenarios were set in the doomed city, with the now all-too familiar board 1 filling in for the massive Dzerzhinsky Tractor Works complex. It is probably not on anyone’s list of best scenario designs, but it has remained unarguably a set of classics in their own right. And for anyone interested in tactical games, probably whet their appetite for learning – and experiencing – more about the battle.

2. Scope - For drama, you can’t beat the notion that you’re taking part, however vicariously, in an event that is changing history. Historians, and gamers, will always debate whether or not there was a single turning point of the Second World War. I think there is little debate that there were many obvious changes of fortune even if one doesn’t agree on where they war changed. Stalingrad was without doubt one of those changes of fortune. The scope of the confrontation was enormous; even if one remains ignorant of the numbers involved, the figure of 91,000 Germans going into captivity after the battle is well known, as is the fact that only 5,000 survivors came back to the west 10 years later. A beach is an abstract concept, a bridge, a hill, or a forest, are all difficult to conceptualize or assign a scale to; but to mention the word “city” is to automatically know that it is something bigger and grander than a hamlet, village or town. Whatever Stalingrad was, even if you knew nothing else about it, you know it was big.

3. Pathos – Some of the books that emerged in the immediate post-war decades were similar to the First World War revisionism; the generals and particularly Hitler were targeted as wasteful and stupid and the brave men of the 6th Army portrayed as unwilling sheep. Two novels in German (widely available also in English) are noteworthy; "The Forsaken Army" and "Stalingrad". Particularly emotional is the book "Letters from Stalingrad", notes home from anonymous soldiers of the surrounded 6th Army; history did not record their fate, though the odds of survival can be calculated from the numbers given earlier. The “truth” of the German Army is probably somewhat different than the pop culture depictions since the war; certainly some work (many by Israeli scholars) have pointed out that genocide may have been a much higher priority among field troops than is otherwise suggested in self-serving memoirs, or indeed, letters home at Christmastime by men in beleaguered garrisons. That “truth” probably lies at some point in the middle. In English, the Soviet side has hardly been scratched in the public consciousness; the lay person would be excused if he thought the average “Russian” looked like Jude Law and had a faint British accent.

4. Familiarity – the more you learn about a place, the more time you want to spend there. Reading about the Tractor Works, the Barrikady, the Grain Elevator, etc., the more intriguing it becomes to think about ways in which they truly differed from each other. Just as the novelizations personalized the battle, histories have as well by imprinting the names of key features into the collective memory. “The Tennis Racquet”, “The Grain Elevator”, Univermag Department Store, “Pavlov’s House”, and the more one learns about the battle, the more places one picks up on. The upcoming Panzer Command update will have a detailed 3D recreation of the railway station area (the same location that ASL’s Valor of the Guards map depicts) complete with accurate models of several historical buildings. These locations have become characters in the drama just as much as Paulus (often incorrectly cited as “von”), Chuikov, Zaitsev, et al.

Which brings us to:

5. Jason Mark and Charles Kibler – How you write an informed treatise on Stalingrad without leaving Australia, I don’t know. I suppose someone should ask him. That’s if the story is true. Frankly, I don’t care how he did it; his books on Stalingrad are the current gold standard, despite harrumphing in certain quarters about lack of synthesis in his findings (Glantz is better, they scoff) or that he is simply regurgitating raw data. Here’s a hint to anyone curious about how tactical game scenario designers work: they love raw data. If only for their own purposes. If they can sneak the real name of a participant into a scenario briefing, or point to a shed on a map and say “that building was really there in 1942”, the more they like it, even though it will have no effect on the outcome of any game. It’s about the verisimilitude. Mark’s “Island of Fire” has provided owners of the Red Barricades module much added value, fleshing out the history contained on the scenario cards and putting faces to some of the names. That module, by Charlie Kibler, was the first historical module for ASL and a truly ground-breaking concept in tactical games; a multiple scenario format where results on the map (and a historical map of the actual terrain, at that) carried over from one scenario to the next. Incidentally, Kibler has produced other Stalingrad maps for historical projects, both published and unpublished, including an excellent map of Skulpturny Park for the PC game Combat Mission.

But just understanding something, or having availability to resources, doesn’t make it fun. So what’s the attraction?

6. Tactics and Weapons – Stalingrad, as is well known, was the first major strategic level defeat for the Germans on the Eastern Front. But wait, you say, wasn’t that mostly because of the collapse of the Romanians and Italians on the flanks?

Not really. It was important, but the 6th Army was pinned inside the city, and the Red Army did an honest job of finding new ways to beat the Germans there. Chuikov learned lessons from fighting the Germans out in the open; he saw how their firepower and ability to stand off at range served them well. He knew the close terrain of the city would permit them to fight it out – “hug the Germans” – and nullify the advantage of artillery, tanks, and machine guns. The Germans countered with assault pioneers, armed with demolition charges, flamethrowers, and assault guns, including rare types brought up special for the fighting. In wargamer’s parlance, lots of “toys”, which is an appeal in itself. Perhaps it is the fragility of a flamethrower unit with its limited range and slow movement, or the open-topped, thinly armoured assault guns, vulnerable to attack by mortars and Molotov cocktails. Perhaps it is the astonishment when they actually do something worthwhile. One hopes it isn’t the realization of what the actual participants went through when these terrible weapons scored a direct hit. But there is something satisfying about seeing these weapons perform on the simulated battlefield, and few places as appropriate as Stalingrad in which to employ them. And that’s because of:

7. Terrain – The popular image of Stalingrad – now reinforced by Vilsmaier’s film – is of small groups of infantry huddled in desolate city blocks, sometimes in spitting distance of each other, for hours or days at a time. This was certaintly true at times, but the "characters" mentioned above speak to the variety of terrain types encountered in the fighting. There was a variety of terrain types, from the balkas - deep gullies – to Mamayev Kurgan, the large burial mound now home to Mother Motherland, at one time the world’s largest statue – to blocks of wooden worker’s settlements, to the factories. Even the fact that the two armies stopped to fight it out in a city is unique in the annals of the Second World War; most major cities were declared "open" in order to spare them from destruction. Commanders rarely wanted to get bogged down in costly street-fighting, either, as it nullified the advantages of mobility and firepower. The Germans certainly knew this, and Chuikov used this to great advantage once battle was joined. But for that very reason, major confrontations usually took place away from major cities - another reason Stalingrad was unique and why so many men were sucked into its vortex.

As it turned out, the battle was far more interesting, tactically speaking, in reality than the popular notions we've seen in popular culture depictions. Most battles usually are. The Pentland print above - used as the cover art for Valor of the Guards - is one other notion of Stalingrad combat; massed infantry charges through the streets into concentrated machine gun fire, depicted on screen in Enemy at the Gates. It may have happened, but the reality was somewhat different. Not that starving to death in the cold for two months is all that exciting a prospect for a good game, either, but the period of operations in the early weeks of the battle do offer considerably more of a challenge.

Perhaps it is the quest for the "truth" that is the compelling part, and what draws one back to the subject material time and again. The journey, rather than the destination.

Wargaming Normandy

2011-01-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

The wargaming world - or at least, the small part of it I frequent - is eagerly anticipating the release of Battlefront.com's first World War II themed game designed with their new second generation Combat Mission engine - Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. Not only because it has been going on 8 years since the last CM title set in the Second World War, but because squad-based, company level, turn based, 3D tactical games for the PC from any publisher have been few and far between. The only other game in town is Panzer Command, though a long-awaited - and major - update to that series is in the works, called Ostfront.

Why Normandy?

So, one might ask, why go back to the same well with Normandy? It's a popular subject. In the last three years alone, there have been several major game releases set in Normandy for a variety of game systems, including miniatures (Flames of War, for example), board games (particularly Advanced Squad Leader, whose published scenarios and "historical" modules outnumber every other game system, the proportion of those set in Normandy probably reaching over 10% and possibly even one in five).

There are a number of reasons that Normandy fascinates - beyond even the fact that pop culture has made it "popular" with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. The earliest Normandy-exclusive game treatments pre-date these films.

a) unique circumstances: the initial entry onto the Continent was by the largest invasion in history (Sicily involved more formations, but D-Day was grander in overall scope). You had paratroopers, landing craft, cliff assaults, swimming tanks, "funnies", and devious devices by the Germans to combat all this.

b) balanced forces: Allied and German formations in Normandy were a mix of veteran and green divisions on both sides, and even the experienced divisions were a toss-up between "battle-hardened" and just plain "battle-weary." The 82d Airborne fought hard, drawing on its experience on Sicily, while other veteran divisions like the 51st Highland or 7th Armoured were criticized for lack of drive when it was expected their cadre from the North African battles would help them lead the way.

c) unique terrain: particularly in the American sector, the bocage country has been described in countless personal accounts. The Normandy hedgerows, with deep ditches flanking thick hedges laced with impenetrable roots and surmounted by tangles of trees and bushes, lining small fields for miles inland of the U.S. beaches, made hard-going for infantry on the assault. The troubles began on June 6th for U.S. paratroopers and the Germans tapped to counter-attack the invading forces, and the hedgerows became a steady trial for weeks. New tactics had to be devised, defensively and offensively, and American ingenuity developed new equipment for the problem as well.

Advice on games

The existing literature on finding the "best" tactical level wargames is scarce. Certainly in print, there is little to guide the prospective gamer.In an appendix to the book “Normandy 1944”, entitled “Wargaming Normandy”, Dr. Stephen Badsey tells us the following:

...a table top representation of the notorious Normandy bocage will deliver a sobering lesson n the difficulty of piercing a dense defensive line in close country (and) board games proved a ready packaged alternative (to miniatures) – especially in respect of squad- and platoon-level combat. The appropriately named Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader series of games are particularly popular and offer clearly D-Day orientated scenarios as Paratrooper and Hedgerow Hell. These games, however, offer only 'typical' scenarios, and the wargamer wishing to re-fight the numerous small actions of D-Day and its aftermath will have to suffer the satisfaction of doing his own research. (Normandy 1944, Osprey Publishing, ISBN 0-85045-921-4)

Dr. Badsey may refer to the use of geomorphic mapboards but all ASL scenarios are based on actual events, not “typical” scenarios. (He's wrong about "Squad Leader" being an appropriate name for a company-level game, also, but I digress.) He is correct in that a large number of games have included "bocage" rules to simulate the Normandy fighting - as far back as Armor, and carrying on through G.I.: Anvil of Victory, Advanced Squad Leader, Combat!, Advanced Tobruk System, Valor &Victory, Lock 'n Load and Combat Commander to name the squad-based ones. Platoon-level games include PanzerGrenadier and PanzerBlitz: Hill of Death for which a "Carentan" mini-game was published in the Special Edition #2 of Operations in 2009, not to mention the Tactical Combat Series, which has an Omaha Beach title in print and has a second title in Normandy planned, dealing with the Canadians on the Caen front. Even man-to-man games got in on the act with Hetzer, the Sniper! add-on, which had a "hedgerow" map.

The most detailed treatment of bocage is without a doubt ASL, with large sections of text devoted to "Wall Advantage", the Culin hedgerow device, and detailed LOS examples. A recent scenario offering, or "Action Pack" as their publisher calls it, provided several scenarios and bocage-heavy maps set in Normandy. A couple of third party offerings by Bounding Fire Productions offer some boards and scenarios (Beyond the Beachhead), and as well an extended article on understanding the complex bocage rules (contained in Operation Cobra).

Most other rules, however, seem to either ignore the bocage altogether (including many miniatures sets) or simply treat the bocage as a super-wall and leave it at that, adding a +1 modifier to fire traced through it or adding a half level of height and increasing its ability to block Line of Sight.

On the computer, Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord attempted to deal with the tactical problems of the bocage country and the advantages of the Culin hedgerow device - lengths of steel girder welded to the front hulls of tanks and used to batter their way through the hedges in order to avoid exposing their vulnerable underbellies to German anti-tank fire. But the programming challenges were many, and the solutions were simplistic: breaches weren't created, all tanks were simply assumed to have the devices, and the 20 metre terrain tiles meant that the tight Normandy terrain really wasn't simulated well - and neither were the defending machine guns in that earliest incarnation of the first generation game engine.

And so, eyes look to Battlefront.com as they go back to Normandy - bets are on for the late spring or early summer of 2011 now, as evidenced by chatter on the official forums, which are following a hotly contested match between two beta testers duking it out for public consumption. Memories of Close Combat's spinning tanks and the turn-based silliness of Steel Panthers and the long wait for Panzer Command to come to the Western Front leave little choice for the computer enthusiasts. Board gamers and miniaturists have been feasting for years, with Flames of War's constant stream of Normandy offerings and goodies such as Purple Heart Draw to please the ASL crowd.

If nothing else, the CM scenario designers will have a lot of inspiration to draw on - when the time comes.

My question to you

Can Normandy ever really get old? I think it probably could, but not until it has been done right. We're still waiting for that day on the PC.

Hunting Good Will: How Much of a Good Thing is a Good Thing?

2010-08-18T17:19:00.000-06:00

The announcement on August 16 (2010), after many months of near-silence from Matrix Games, regarding the status of the Panzer Command series, has initiated more than a few conversations among the few die-hard tactical gamers still milling about in the squad-based, company-level, 3-D turn-based “strategy” tactical wargame niche (hopefully I haven’t left out any other major descriptors – oh, I suppose we can add in “World War II era” for good measure).

History of the Niche

A quick review of where this niche has been for the last few years: Combat Mission moved to a new game engine after their successful trilogy with the original game engine (the so-called “CMX1” games – Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (2000), Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin (2002) and Combat Mission: Afrika Korps (2003)) and fans are awaiting the first World War II title in the new “CMX2” game engine, yet to be titled, but taking place in Normandy. Close Combat, which like Combat Mission, had started its development life as a planned electronic version of the Advanced Squad Leader boardgame but instead went independent, has shuffled along with a series of sequels, the most recent being remakes of their earlier titles. Steel Panthers apparently quietly retired with a release of World at War, never transitioning to simultaneous or 3D play.

So here we sit; there have been other games on the market or in development in the interim but few have seemed like serious entries; Lock ‘n Load still uses hexes and counters for pity’s sake. Yet even Panzer Command doesn’t seem to have drawn much attention. Perhaps the question to ask is whether or not the entire genre (I won’t repeat the cumbersome description here – see para 1) has shot its bolt.

Ostfront worth waiting for

For that dying breed that still remember the new-game smell of a Squad Leader box, though, Panzer Command: Ostfront is something worth waiting for on the face of it. I admit to being one of those who are feeling at least a slight twinge of anticipation. I was left cold by Operation Winter Storm, the first installment of Panzer Command (PzC hereafter), mostly because it meant unlearning one interface (Combat Mission’s) and techniques in favour of another. I didn’t much like the “reaction phase” and some other aspects, and especially didn’t like the lack of a map editor. Apparently I wasn’t alone. I bought the Kharkov title in 2008 – PzC’s second installment – out of a desire to support the developer and in hopes the series had improved. It had, but not in the ways that really grabbed me. Maps were larger and their public relations front was certainly professional – a GoogleEarth installation that put all the game maps into the current world, with historical front lines and scenario descriptions accessible via one click. It was pretty slick.

What Ostfront offers is pretty impressive. If you have never played either Winter Storm or Kharkov, you get all that content for free when you buy Ostfront. If you already own the first two, you can download Ostfront as a free patch. More on this later. The feature list for the Ostfront expansion brings the game into line with what user feedback, as expressed on websites such as Matrix’s own forum, or third party sites like gamesquad.com, have been asking for. The “reaction phase” of the turn sequence, while still the default, can now be turned off as part of several optional turn length settings. It’s just one example of how the developer was willing to listen to the fanbase and make what promise to be constructive changes. But, of course, the entire patch appears to have been largely fan-driven as much of the content has apparently come from third party modders, scenario designers and even coders. How well will it work? The beta testers seem to think it has come together nicely, but Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) pretty much assure that they always will.

But the announcement has been low-key rather than boasting; I won’t speculate on the meaning of that. I know that I prefer it and always like to see products speak for themselves. I’ve been rooting for this team for a long time mostly because I liked the direction that Combat Mission (CM) had taken and was disappointed to see some of the later design decisions with the new game engine. I think PzC could do very well to pick up where CM had left off, particularly if the new map maker/scenario design function helps produce some entertaining match-ups. Not sure I like the pre-set map sizes, but I won’t be one to kvetch about “only” having 4 square kilometers to set up on.

Commitment to Good Will

As stated earlier, the new Ostfront product will combine three different PzC games into one, for one price, and you only need to purchase one to get all three. I am sure there will be skeptics or pessimists out there who view this in a negative light, but I’m inclined to accept it favourably as a desire to establish the game on a firm new footing. Tactical wargamers have had to deal with a lot of different models of “regeneration” over the years as developers stumbled around trying to find the best way to model squad-based, company level action during World War II. SPI led the charge in “sequenced obsolescence” with a series of releases in the early 1970s, first releasing games like Red Star/White Star with plotted orders and “Si-Move” (simultaneous movement) which were hopelessly cumbersome to play but supposedly pushed the envelope of realism, and then replacing them a couple of years later with games like MechWar '77. Avalon Hill notoriously replaced almost all of the counters in its Squad Leader game during the three-game run of sequels, and then replaced all those new replacement counters and rules just three years after that, with a sequel to the sequel, or rather, a reboot of the entire mess, called Advanced Squad Leader. There are still two competing camps, with die-hard fans of the original series that refuse to subsidize the usurper. The developers of Combat Mission stated very earnestly that they needed to embrace new markets to grow their company, and that new methods of gameplay, including real time, would be found in the second-generation game engine. Their up-front admission that they expected to lose some customers but gain new ones did not prevent bitter backlash from a vocal online minority. It is also not known what benefit the changes have brought; the new game engine has not performed as well critically, and sales figures are not made public.

Which brings us to Matrix and their interesting model of providing previous releases for free every time a new game is released. This was the case when Kharkov was released (content from Operation Winter Storm was provided at no charge on the Kharkov release disc). The Ostfront release deal has been described above.

It isn’t my practice to look a gift horse in the mouth but one presumes this practice will cease at some point. The developers have promised to move on to other theatres – the western front 1944-45 being a natural, especially as the vehicles for one of the major combatants are already finished. One supposes North Africa, the early war campaigns, or even the Pacific couldn’t be too far off if Ostfront manages to strike a chord and/or turn some kind of a profit. The inevitable debate that follows on in public forums for popular tactical games is how quickly to move on to the Arab/Israeli wars, fictional Cold War scenarios, and even science fiction themes (and with some exceptions like ASL or Steel Panthers, they rarely seem to actually get there).

The questions – largely unanswerable by us – will be whether Matrix sees a reason to continue. Did Panzer Command already reach its maximum audience – and the free patch will just be salve to an already sated core group? Or will it be the springboard for a revival of squad-based, company level 3D World War II strategy (did I get them all in?) gaming that has been largely neglected for several years now?

It should be no secret what I am hoping for. I would have gladly paid full price for Ostfront, but reading some comments on various message forums, I realize my views are not predominant. The “free patch” idea seems to be a good one. Perhaps a better one would be a demo for those who need convincing, but screenshots, videos, and at least one After Action Report (AAR) are finding their way onto the official website even though release is not scheduled until the fourth quarter of this year. I’m going to buy a copy of Ostfront just because I like the idea of subsidizing companies who make games that I enjoy, even though I qualify to download it for free. As a collector, I prize having a physical box or jewel case in my collection in any event; to me they’re part of that “rich historical tapestry” I spoke of in my very first blog entry. They're also like trophies for the unathletically inclined.

There is no reason to presume Matrix can’t “afford” to give away this content. Those pessimists referred to earlier might suggest that free content can’t be good content, and that this distribution method will mask shortcomings in the Artificial Intelligence (AI), game play, or expanded content, perhaps indicating bugs or software issues making this an unofficial “beta” version. The actual beta testers insist this is not the case; having interacted with several of them in the CM community, for going on years now, I’m inclined to believe them or at least give benefit of the doubt. Personally, I hope Matrix starts to make money hand over fist with Panzer Command – including my money – and that the series becomes a strong contender in this little niche of ours. I also hope other games in the same genre do well also; there is a mistaken belief that games like Combat Mission and Panzer Command “compete” against one another, but I suspect that if two games in a very small niche are both well done, those that are passionate about the niche will usually invest in both games. At any rate, Combat Mission’s new game engine has successfully diverged from the original vision of CM that the similarities between the two game series are much less apparent than they were with the original game engine.

My Final Word

As work progresses on the second issue, just a reminder that the premiere issue of Tactical Wargamer’s Journal is still available. Reviews by Panzer Digest and at Consimworld have been favourable, and a number of articles will be of direct interest to anyone thinking about Panzer Command: Ostfront. There is a direct comparison between Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin and Panzer Command: Kharkov, as well as a historical piece on the actual battle of Kharkov that inspired the game. As well, there is a detailed article on characteristics of Soviet armour in the Second World War and a discussion of how different wargames have chosen to deal with some of the peculiarities of Red Army equipment. I’d love to include articles on the “new” Panzer Command in upcoming issues; if you’re interested in writing them, please contact me.

My Question to You

Is Matrix doing the right thing giving away so much milk for free?

Links:

Matrix Announcement of Panzer Command: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2550502

Accuracy in the Trivialization of Human Experience

2010-07-19T21:50:00.000-06:00

I will inaugurate this new web log with the same caveat I gave with my previous "blog" at this link

I've never been a fan of blogs; the concept initially seemed to me to indicate a frustrated writer who couldn't get published by conventional means because of a lack of something significant to say. That may still apply in some cases, though my view is softening. Given the ability of people with nothing significant to say to actually get published in book form in today's desktop world, the distinctions between online and virtual publishing mean much less. But I think now that blogs are losing their 'newness', and the truly insignificant are moving to Facebook, the blogs are starting to gain in importance once again. It still bothers me that I will probably need to edit this to add an insipid smiley face to indicate that the previous sentence was intended as a joke. Sort of. What isn't a joke are some of the high quality writings of other blog writers (I have encountered...)

...and continue to encounter. But it also doesn't hide the fact there are still some dreadful ones. The reader is left to judge how useful this will be, and if I am one of them. I still don't read all that many blogs. Actually, for the joke I made about Facebook in my original comments, I think perhaps I could easily have been far more serious about "podcasts" which are now running on average of about two hours for some of them. At least you can scan an average blog posting in about five minutes.

Revisiting Old Heroes

I know nothing of war beyond what I've read and gleaned from those I've talked to. But I can extrapolate enough to realize that those who knew the most are as often as not likely those who died in it. From what I've read, it wears you out and ultimately, if you're left to toil at it for too long, it consumes you. One way or another.

Manfred von Richtofen died as a result not so much of a bullet through the head but as a result of earlier brain damage. He was target fixated the day he died, exhibited classic symptoms of brain injury and simply pushed his luck beyond the breaking point. There is reason to believe now that Tiger ace Michael Wittman may have done the same thing. The arguments about which Allied soldiers can get the credit for exterminating them are a little beside the point; their suicidal final charges simply put them in position for others to pull the trigger. Not to take away from the bravery or dedication of the Allied troops who were in position at the moment of truth; Roy Brown was equally tired on that fateful day when he was in the air at the moment that Australian machine gunners, firing from the ground, fired the fatal shots that killed the legendary German pilot.

Richtofen's fame had not been gained in glorious man-to-man combat of the type later glorified by Joe Kubert and Russ Heath and Bob Kanigher in the thinly veiled tribute pages of DC Comics' Enemy Ace series. Where von Hammer kept tin cups on a pristine mantelpiece and spoke of honour and chivalry, von Richtofen in real life fought desperate battles in the sky, picking off stragglers on occasion, and was at best a medium rated marksman. It is also intimated in some sources that he never flew a complete loop in his aircraft, and that his flying was similarly not above average. And yet the legend persists of the crack shot, the expert flier, and the impeccable gentleman aviator.

In June of this year, I crouched in the loft of a barn in Cintheaux by a round piece of metal, purportedly one of the few pieces remaining from Wittman's tank. Humbling, if true, that the once mighty Tiger 007 was now reduced to a hayloft curiosity. It is human nature to be drawn to to the morbid and the absurd, and to seek to be entertained by it.

The intent isn't to open the "debate" on the legitimacy of conflict simulation; that ship sailed a long time ago. I think we can take it for granted that we will always look to conflict as a means of entertainment.

What is more interesting is the degree of accuracy and the types of messages we hope to learn from our modelling of these events. The familiar game-vs.-simulation question has been around for a long time. After our battlefield tour left Cintheaux, leaving behind the battlefield debris in the hayloft, meatier questions arose.

We visited the site at Poperinghe where British military executions took place; the cells are preserved as is the post where the firing squad did their work. It is believed now that some of the condemned men may have suffered from what we now know is post-traumatic stress disorder - a malady little understood at the time. The human condition has changed dramatically since British soldiers killed other British soldiers in this courtyard, as has the lens through which we interpret their world.

My Question To You

If we are going to trivialize the accomplishments of the veterans of these wars anyway, is it better to trivialize them in ways that are clearly meant as entertainment - Medal of Honor games where the depictions are so clearly not meant to be taken seriously, or do we continue to march into the Uncanny Valley and try to stamp our understanding of "what it was like" so imperfectly on the history of military history, and continue to distort the true picture (whatever that is) of important events? The further we get from those events, the less able we are to understand them in context. Geography shifts (I noted with interest that the sea-wall on Juno Beach has been all but consumed by sediment), mores and morals change, technology baffles past practice. It may be that the point of no return for accurate portrayals of many conflicts - recent or not - may have been reached. And the only ones who can tell us for sure aren't in a position to tell us.