Fall Rot | 02 Apr 2009 2:12 p.m. PST |
Since this has been the hot topic in US news lately, Im wondering if anyone has attempted to game Mexican Army vs. Drug Cartels, Or US vs. Cartels, or Drug Cartel vs. Drug Cartel, using the current environment and weaponry, etc
? -CH |
Top Gun Ace | 02 Apr 2009 3:42 p.m. PST |
I haven't, but imagine it could be quite interesting, rivaling those scenarios in Afganistan, Iraq, Africa, or even the Italian Wars, or Wars of the Roses, for whom you can or cannot trust. Given the increasing threat to the USA, I imagine it will be the subject of the upcoming 2010 "24" schedule, if things continue. Of course, that is just a wild guess, but an educated one. If you are keeping track of weapons flows, and stats for that, apparently the often quoted percentage of 90% of the cartel's weapons coming from the USA are way off. Much of it is coming across their southern border, from Guatemala, China, etc. Apparently 150,000 Mexican soldiers have gone missing as well, reportedly having been recruited by various drug cartels, and have taken their weapons with them. |
The Jim Jones Cocktail Hour | 02 Apr 2009 4:46 p.m. PST |
Given the sheer vicious cruelty of the Mexican drug cartels I'd have to say that it doesn't appeal to me as a gaming subject. Matter of taste I suppose. "Apparently 150,000 Mexican soldiers have gone missing as well, reportedly having been recruited by various drug cartels, and have taken their weapons with them.' That's an interesting claim, that means there would be only 30,000 members left, ie an 84% desertion rate. If you find that a credible statistic then you are more generous than I. Famously some of their SF members have joined the cartels as hired guns. Recently it was claimed that Los Zetas had a contract out on the President of Guatemala I'd be interested on the basis of the supposed desertion claim rates to know what you think the percentages of non-US sourced weapons to be. Not that it makes a huge difference. Either way it's the US drug market that's fuelling the supply and the US's close friends in Colombia who are supplying them. Mexico is basically the conduit and the meat in the sandwich. As the man once said: 'Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States
' |
pigbear | 02 Apr 2009 4:52 p.m. PST |
Urg. Call me a stick in the mud, but I don't like gaming current events, at least not without a fictional veneer. Set it in San Theodoros and I'm more than willing. Why I don't set this standard to things that happened just a few decades ago, I have no clue. |
Top Gun Ace | 02 Apr 2009 4:53 p.m. PST |
I thought that number seemed a bit high as well. Maybe someone added an extra zero to the total, mis-spoke, or is including police with the stats. Here's an interesting, and related story to a guy that just got caught: link I agree with the unbelievable violence as well, by most of the cartels, and wouldn't want to include that in a game directly – might be useful to generalize for morale purposes though. There are many similar despicable acts, by individuals, and nations, throughout history, so if carried too far, many wars could not be played as wargames either. |
Dragon Gunner | 02 Apr 2009 6:04 p.m. PST |
"That's an interesting claim, that means there would be only 30,000 members left, ie an 84% desertion rate. If you find that a credible statistic then you are more generous than I." 150,000 have deserted over how long a period of time? How many of them were replaced? I doubt 120,000 deserted over night. I doubt all 150,000 joined one of the cartels. I would be willing to bet they sold their weapons on the black market to jump start their civilian lives. |
dsfrank | 02 Apr 2009 9:18 p.m. PST |
I plan to run a convention game featuring the Wargames Factory Zombies – but I'll be building a trailer park since I have a bunch of Plasticville trailers – there will be a mehth-lab in the trailers with the crew having become zombie victims – a Mexican Drug gang will be coming to try to take over the meth lab – as will a mafia gang – the other factions are gov't back ops sent to clean the Zombie site – soviet agents looking to get a specimen – first responders trying to save civilians and militia "Wolverines" types just looking to kill as many zombies as possible Would this count? |
pigbear | 03 Apr 2009 2:51 a.m. PST |
I was thinking more along the lines of drug gang throws a grenade into crowd of civilians or police/army storms drug lab, etc. I suppose zombies are a bit more palatable. |
tabletopreview dot com | 03 Apr 2009 8:22 a.m. PST |
I find the thought of "gaming" with vicous modern and totally non military events a it distasteful personally. David tabletopreview.com |
nvdoyle | 03 Apr 2009 8:45 a.m. PST |
I'm always fascinated (read 'dismayed') by the fact that whenever someone brings up the idea of gaming a modern conflict in which Bad Things happen, someone assumes that the person wants to play Atrocity Alley. I was thinking more along the lines of drug gang throws a grenade into crowd of civilians Seriously? Did you really think that this is what Fall Rot meant? How did you get 'drug gangs throwing grenades into crowds of civilians' from 'Mexican Army vs. Drug Cartels, Or US vs. Cartels, or Drug Cartel vs. Drug Cartel, using the current environment and weaponry'? Why did you jump from a standard Regular/Irregular wargame environment to throwing grenades at civilians? And what's wrong with 'police/army storms drug lab'? Sounds like an Ambush Alley scenario to me, just put in 'potential drug lab' for 'hotspot'. Heck, it'd be an even better scenario to have the Regulars want to take prisoners, not just kill the opposition. I find the thought of "gaming" with vicous modern and totally non military events a it distasteful personally. When a military engages armed opposition, regular or irregular, in combat, how is that 'totally non-military'? |
von Paulus | 03 Apr 2009 10:09 a.m. PST |
Mexican drug wars, NI, Chechnya, Arab-Israeli, Afghanistan, Iraq – its all conflict so can be gamed. Don't see the distinction between that and ACW, ECW, WWII etc. People died and we game it. If you have an objection to that then you shouldn't be a wargamer! |
pigbear | 03 Apr 2009 2:56 p.m. PST |
nvdoyle, Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, it's just not my cup of tea. When I think of waht's happening down in Mexico, I think of college kids on spring break and their worried parents. Call me a softie, but I can't help getting mixed emotions about these posts where people ask who's gaming the latest troubles. On the other hand, I'm inspired by these events to think of scenarios. It's just my own personal brand of self delusion that drives me to setting them in fictional places, a la Krasnovia, Musoria or what have you. Game away if you want to, but I still may be compelled to burden you all with my opinion. |
Daniel | 03 Apr 2009 6:58 p.m. PST |
Well said, Doyle. You put it better (and nicer) than I would have. Sounds like a great game – Ambush Alley for sure! |
The Jim Jones Cocktail Hour | 03 Apr 2009 7:59 p.m. PST |
Yes an excellent point, somewhat lacking in originality but an excellent point, except for the fact that people have indicated that the subject isn't to *their* taste. I don't think anyone here called for a blanket ban on such games. Personal tastes differ. I'm not interested in fantasy games. Personally, on the basis of my own taste, I'd probably avoid gaming the Manson family or the 9/11 bombers. Yes, the logic to this, if there is such a thing, is somewhat obtuse but I suspect we all have our personal limits rearding taste or interest. Having lived in places where this sort of drug violence is all to frequent an occurrence I can say that it doesn't appeal to me. But if it floats your boat, that's your affair. |
The Jim Jones Cocktail Hour | 03 Apr 2009 8:03 p.m. PST |
BTW I've now seen the source of the supposed 150,000 deserters.It's none other than the highly respected and always objective Fox News. The 150,000 is supposed to have taken place over six years and their source is claimed to be some unnamed Mexican politician. I'll wager that the US and British armies would kill for recruiting sergeants who could recruit 25,000 new members a year, or hasn't the Mexican army noticed it's a little short on numbers? |
Dragon Gunner | 04 Apr 2009 7:03 a.m. PST |
"I'll wager that the US and British armies would kill for recruiting sergeants who could recruit 25,000 new members a year, or hasn't the Mexican army noticed it's a little short on numbers?" They probably don't have to try very hard with the amount of illegals crossing into the USA looking for jobs. |
Top Gun Ace | 04 Apr 2009 12:26 p.m. PST |
and, or giving them two alternatives, e.g. joining the narco-terrorists, or immediate death for them, and their families
.. Pretty easy to recruit people with that type of incentive, I imagine. |
WarDepotDavid | 04 Apr 2009 10:35 p.m. PST |
Interesting conflict going on there. Kidnapping is the biggest business (outside of the drugs that is) there at the moment. I've heard its got so bad that even the kidnappers are being kidnapped. While I have not played it on the table top as yet, I am using it for the setting of the annual 3 days army exercise I run. A small island off the coast of Mexico called San Somala which is the home base for a russian backed cartel. Regards, David wardepot.blogspot.com | milsims.blogspot.com |
alien BLOODY HELL surfer | 06 Apr 2009 8:28 a.m. PST |
When I think of waht's happening down in Mexico, I think of college kids on spring break and their worried parents. Who is stupid enough to go to Mexico at the moment? |
Ambush Alley Games | 06 Apr 2009 2:29 p.m. PST |
College kids? I know I was willing to brave all sorts of peril for a good time when I was that age. Now I'm willing to brave lines at the club if they're not too long . . . |
Cacique Caribe | 17 Aug 2010 10:34 a.m. PST |
People are apparently working on this already: TMP link TMP link Question: Wasn't there some movie in the 50s or 60s about a group that resurrects a U-boat to conduct some illegal smuggling or raids of some sort? Dan TMP link |
Cacique Caribe | 07 Jul 2011 11:51 a.m. PST |
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Grand Duke Natokina | 07 Jul 2011 11:55 a.m. PST |
We did a drug smuggling game once. Thru sheer good luck, I found the shipment and neutralized the boat carrying it. It was okay, but not something I would game regularly. |
Altius | 07 Jul 2011 1:45 p.m. PST |
When I was in the helicopter biz, I once worked on a 6-month contract job in Guatemala, and it gave me some ideas for scenarios. And if you want to remove that ugly, acrid narco-criminal aroma from your friendly neighborhood game, you don't even have to say the game has anything to do with drugs. Try this: Give one side a bunch of insurgents, because that's basically what they are. They have access to a wide variety of military and high-end civilian weapons, and maybe a few trucks. Maybe give them a truckload or two of bad guy reinforcements waiting just off-table, and some booby traps scattered around the table. Their job is to hold onto an objective. This objective could be a building, a group of fields, a vehicle, or even just a person. What's in the building, field or vehicle? Cheerios. Fruit loops. Who cares? It's an objective item which shall remain nameless. The other side gets some trained military or heavily armed police types, and lots of 'em. Not Seal Team 6 kinda trained, but trained nonetheless, and better than the "insurgents". They roll up in unarmed civilian helicopters or trucks, and MAYBE one APC. Their objective is to seize or destroy the goodies, and kill or capture the bad guys. I kinda like the possible situation where a group of government boys are forced to wait several turns for some fields to burn completely while simultaneously holding off a growing number of ed-off bad guys arriving in trucks. The thing about these kind of things is that the government forces will not roll in with anything less than overwhelming numbers and speed (hence, the helicopters). They know already what is there, and have an idea of how many guys are there to protect it. They want to seize it, but don't want to risk failure, so there will be lots of them. In the face of that, there is no way the bad guys can win, in terms of driving off the attackers. The government boys will get that objective from you. But the bad guys could win in terms of costing the government forces so much that they think twice the next time. Give the bad guys points for killing troops. Give them more points for taking out officers or American "agents" as well as the helicopters (also crewed by Americans or Europeans) and the colonel's favorite APC. That's some good, clean fun right there, buddy. And no one in your game club needs to get his nose out of joint because your playing with drug smugglers. After all, you're only fighting over Cheerios. |