"Current Affairs Count from When?" Topic

Last year isn't even that "current". The TMP discussions of the Sudanese pirates and gaming possibilities was interesting and fairly current. So, I don't know when the cut-off date should be.

1690 seems a bit extra cautious.

If it's wargame related, let it be discussed. If it turns into, "You like Senator Roundjowl's plan? You are a stupid monkey bottom!", than delete those wayward comments. Let the free exchange of ideas flow from the great minds of the gamers here.

Also, "No being mean." Thank you Stuart Little, E.B. White and Parzival.

TMP has a forum rule: "no politics".

This has also been defined as "no discussion of current affairs, unless wargaming-related."

Which raises the question: when is "current"? Within the last ten years? 20 years? Is arguing about the U.S. election of 1947, or the Vietnam War, allowed?

What do you think?

What do I THINK?

That CACA is a stupid moniker for discussion and artificial as hell as a "none shall pass" line in the sand. You created this whole "issue" yourself, Billiam….

TopGunAce.

We actually played the game. The militia had up to date weaponry and one IED. The Suburbans turned out to be mobile arsenals. The IED flipped the Presidential limo but didn't penetrate the bottom armor. Minor injuries to the occupants. Then came the F-16's called in thru AF1. I imagine the militia's only chance to win this would have been the IED, but they misplaced it and only managed a partial hit on the limo. With that failure they should have melted back into the brush and gotten away. Instead they thought they still had a chance and were pretty much in place when the F-16's made their strike. Had that failed Apaches were fast approaching. They never got into the fracas.

As a game it pointed out three things. Guerilla's have to have good intel before they strike. Guerilla's must be prepared to accept failure and retreat. No matter what a Guerilla force is carrying, it doesn't have an Air Force on call.

If such a scenario were to happen, I suspect that at least one and possibly two, helicopter gunships would be added to any movement by a motorcade in open land.

The militia slowed the motorcade with a rock slide in a narrow part of the road cut along a cliff face, by the way.

The fellow who ran it wanted to run a current event game straight from the newspaper. The President's trip to the West, combined with a report that militia groups are on the increase, and some are getting downright militant about it, gave him the idea.

What felt most odd to me was he people willing to play the militia. It sparked a polite political conversation that most of us had never had before, even during the AAR's on other games at the local bar. Some surprises in it for all of us.

But it WAS just a game of a possibility.

Darn, there's that stupid black helicopter again.

I would think that some people would manage to find something to be offended in the bronze age warfare.

C'mon. I don't think that long ago would be an issue….less of course you start prancing around in some fancy red wolf clan tattoo. That would me off.

Dude!

Dude?

While dissecting history, recent or otherwise, is a common thread here, the key to avoiding "CA & politics" when discussing a possible tabletop scenario based on events is to stick to the 'who', 'what' and 'when' and avoid the 'why' as much as possible, except as it applies to scenario objectives.

Its a slippery slope, though.

Why?

Why is it a slippery slope?

Describing actions, either planned (per someone's memoirs) or carried out, is factual reporting. THEY showed up THERE on THAT DATE and fought with THOSE opponents.

"Why" can be factual, but it can also be opinion, hearsay, or slander. The southern part of Hitler's Eastern Front was about control of the oil fields, but discussion of "why" could extend to "Turkey was next", "Hitler wanted to follow Alexander's Persian Tour", or something so outrageous that even modern Germans would be insulted by the statement.

Hitler is an easy target, being dead and widely considered a villain. If you switch discussion of that region to this last year's "Georgian Affair", as the free association of public fora is wont to do, you can discuss numbers of armored squadrons here and there in these actions with that hardware and those casualties, and do so for days, but it takes very few "why" steps to go from stated mission objectives to mass Dawghousings.

So . . . where's the CA board these days?

CC

You're a funny fellow, CC….

LOL.

I'm serious. I can't remember how to get to it. :)

CC

Blue Fez! Blue Fez!

Wow. Wipeout.