"Experience versus tactical competency " Topic

This is primarily addressed to ex and serving soldiers, though others can always chip in. What is the relationship between a units tactical proficiency and it's experience? Is it linear?

Is a unit with a moderate level of proficiency, but with combat experience equal to, or more effective than a unit with no combat experience but a higher level of tactical proficiency.

In these examples tactical proficiency is a result of good drilling and training, often from combat veterans. The unit has trained to a high level of readiness and is able to access the latest training methods and facilities available. A unit represents a platoon and its attendant command structures.

I'm in the process of designing some home-grown platoon based rules that focus on morale, before anything else. I have so far assigned each platoon a morale level, HQ and NCO command rating, tactical proficiency and firepower factor (in that order of importance) but what about experience? All the veterans I have met, or read about, say the training kicks in and you just perform your assigned role, even if it's a green unit, but is this true?

I also have looked as assigning command elements separate ratings, but want the game to be free flowing. Is it better to do this, or simply reduce unit factors to represent the inadequacies of command?

I drew up a table of how each factor relates to one another but now feel just boosting a units proficiency, to reflect it's experience, is not in harmony with my original design intent.

Not a grunt, but there was a pretty significant difference between what we drilled on in the simulators and how good someone was at driving the boat.

From that, I'd actually weight experience higher than training.

As a Combat Vet I can say a poorly trained soldier will rarely survive long enough to gain experience..

I would say yes, good training kicks in during the real thing.

Napoleon said he liked troops who had fought a battle.
Experience is best. Training helps.

I think training helps people prepare for battle, but its main aim is to give people confidence they can cope in a situation.

Historically, inexperienced troops in WW1 and 2 took greater casualties than experienced troops who had presumably had the same training.

This is mostly from tons of reading (my military experience was 9 months in the Danish conscription program, mostly spent digging holes) but what seems to match reality is that training basically establishes a baseline for how bad troops might get.

Think of it this way: Your "quality" rates from 1 to 100 and is determined by rolling a D100.
Your training basically determines the lowest possible level, that quality could be add.

Experience increases it from there.

Well trained troops with no experience will make mistakes but they'll make less of them.

Experience is not a single thing. It is based on both the context of the experience and the context under which you intend to apply it.

One of the hardest things to get buy in with people returning to a combat zone is that the combat zone, even if it is in the "same place, same war" is 6-9 (or more) months a different set of conditions than the one they left. Some of their experience will have great relevance in the new environment. Some will not. And some of that that does not could get them killed.

That said, training is a type of experience.

If you are trying to relate that to a wargame, you might try some system with a moderately large quantifier for relevant experience, say 50 for average troops, and have the troops roll X number of d6 prior to the battle, where X is some function of their training and prior experience. This will allow units with more experience (or better training) to be more likely to have the most appropriate experience for the situation they are about to face.

You can even futz with this by adding modifiers or changing die sizes based on the quality of their training, or the time/space relationship of their prior experience.

The nice thing about this is that even though you can make it arbitrarily complex, requiring tables, charts, modifiers, books, guidelines, cheat sheets, and nomograms (I love a good nomogram!) to implement, you futz with all that, roll the resulting dice, and summ up the total before the game, then you only apply a simple single quality modifier for the troops during the game.

(I also love a good run-on sentence!)

For what it is worth:

My dad was a paratrooper with 507th. I asked him when he thought the unit was better:
1) At Normandy when they had trained for two years but had no combat experience, or
2) At Bulge, when they had experience, but had lost a lot of good men, so had some replacements.

His answer was Normandy.

inexperienced troops in WW1 and 2 took greater casualties than experienced troops who had presumably had the same training

Well that is because experience soldiers know when to take cover.

If the inexperience soldiers were able to survive long enough they learned this as well.

"My dad was a paratrooper with 507th. I asked him when he thought the unit was better:
1) At Normandy when they had trained for two years but had no combat experience, or
2) At Bulge, when they had experience, but had lost a lot of good men, so had some replacements.

His answer was Normandy."

I think a third element here is *cohesion*, as in the "band of brothers" psychology.

At Normandy, while the men may not have been experienced, they may have spent months if not years together and trust each other and would fight for reach other.

By Bulge, there is a combination of fatigue, and the addition of men you do not know well may erode the cohesion of the unit.

I read that in Vietnam (or was it WW2) sergeants tended to sen the new guys forward, considering them more expendable than those who have been in the unit longer.

Thanks for the comments, it seems my original idea was on roughly the right track. Weasel, my idea is to have training (tactical proficiency) setting a base level, represented by a single d6 roll, with rerolls for HQ rating and experience if the roll was low.

Korvessa, thanks, any interesting insight, I guess the 507th would have been at peak efficiency when it both had experience but retained most of it's good men. I might now make experience a weaker positive modifier than training and more vulnerable to taking a permanent negative modifier.

Pedrobear, the importance of cohesion chimes with some of my current reading, I'm trying to simulate this with firepower primarily targeting moral and penalties for units consolidating or intermingling.

Etothepi, interesting, the pre-game rolls might also be adjusted by the quality of the intelligence available.

I think eto hit the nail on the head, training is a form of experience.

Milites,

I'll take a run at this.

"Is a unit with a moderate level of proficiency, but with combat experience equal to, or more effective than a unit with no combat experience but a higher level of tactical proficiency."
Maybe? I think it's not linear, and this is where you see the tremendous difference between professional armies, militias/insurgents, and conscript armies. For example, a platoon of modern professional soldiers with no combat experience is more than likely much more capable than a 'platoon' of insurgents with years of combat experience. Maybe. Depends on what the 'years of combat experience' actually was.

If it was years of experience in the Taliban vs. Northern Alliance vein, our insurgent platoon probably learned they can sit in the open a few hundred meters away from their enemy, spray rounds back and forth hitting nothing, and let heavy weapons (12.7mm HMGs, mortars, and recoiless rifles) do the work. Not going to come off well against professional soldiers.

If it was years of experience in the insurgents vs. western powers in Afghanistan/Iraq, our insurgent platoon probably learned having a stand-up firefight is a bad idea, learned to rely on IDF and IEDs. Not real useful in a firefight against professional soldiers.

If it was years of experience in the Chechen vs. Russians vein, particularly the street-fighting in Grozny where they learned the finer points of infantry vs. infantry MOUT, as well as taking on enemy armor and defeating the enemy's technological superiority (such as air, artillery, and ISR assets), well now we're getting somewhere. Then you take into account that a lot of those guys had military experience via their conscription into the Soviet military, they stood up their own training facilities, and the fighting was so brutal that the survivors are very good at what they do, and now this platoon seems like someone that could stand up against a professional army in a firefight.

Once you get to 'apples to apples,' i.e., a professional military against another professional military, this where the pie gets sliced a lot thinner and the difference is no longer one of proficiency (they are largely equal), so experience assumes a much higher level of importance.

"All the veterans I have met, or read about, say the training kicks in and you just perform your assigned role, even if it's a green unit, but is this true?"
This is true, but there's still a tremendous difference between a blooded unit and a virgin unit. The point of training is to make the soldier and unit familiar and capable with its weapons and tactics, and the point of battle drill is the 'the training just took over,' i.e., the 'muscle memory' so the troop is not thinking, simply reacting the way he was trained.

In a green troop in his first firefight, if he sees a situation he was specifically trained for he will react accordingly. That is, if any enemy pops up in front of him, he will shoot the enemy without even thinking. But that's not likely to happen; usually the guy(s) initially taken under fire is down, and so no one else saw the enemy. That means you have to move to get into position.

The first time you're shot at is utter confusion: who's shooting, where's it coming from, who's it directed at, where are they, what do we do, should we move up, or left, or right, who's behind us, who's in front, where's the Lieutenant? Yes, a tremendous amount of training is spent trying to overcome the initial shock and stress of combat, but (as the cliche goes) there is nothing that compares to the real thing.

But where veteran units do much better lies in the fact that, if you survive the first and next couple firefights, you really become adept at figuring the world out. The platoon is moving up a road in in column and you're in the middle of the formation. Shots ring out at the head of the column; you really do get to the point where you can process all of that in a mili-second; you not only know what is happening, who it's happening to, and (mostly) who's doing it, but you know exactly what needs to be done.

You're situational awareness is so much higher that a lot of times you can tell if it's 'light' or 'heavy' contact, what weapons they're using, where they are; you know the terrain, you know where all of your guys are, and so you already have a pretty good plan in your head of what needs to be done. Now all of you've got to do is start hollering and getting people moving, but since it's a veteran unit, most of them are seeing/thinking the same thing you are, so 1st and 2nd squad are already building a firing line to the front, and 3rd squad is already starting to move around to the right flank. It's almost like an out-of body experience, where you're looking down on the fight, and you just know what needs to be done.

No amount of training can get you to that level, but you can't get to that level without a tremendous amount of training. I don't know if that solves your problem or answers your question, but there's my 2 cents…

V/R,
Jack

That's a very incisive and fascinating summary – which to a total outsider rings true.

We who have never experienced combat can perhaps compare it to other experiences that were new and stressful only I'd say an order of magnitude or perhaps several more extreme.

The first time you drive a car in traffic the instructor basically has to drive it for you with you just operating the controls as and when told to. It must be a bit like that in combat – if you have a chain of command that is issuing orders there is a good chance you will follow them at least if you have been trained for the situation.

I think many armies/forces can never get to the level of trained and experienced professionals because they never get the explicit training to learn what to do – a lot of their experience would be hugging the deck and being scared half to death – or just firing randomly to no clear purpose.

You would have a few 'naturals' who learn fast enough to become effective but the are not going to turn raw recruits into a cohesive team.

Of course – the trained professionals will reach a point when the training and experience is dissipated due to casualties or troops rotating out of combat or indeed becoming psychologically exhausted due to not rotating out of combat.

It is a very subtly varied patchwork quilt effect and in the end you will need a broad brush to make any differences felt on the tabletop.

Something which crops up a lot is how inexperienced but trained troops are harder to 'pin' (but take heavier casualties). Few rules can seem to work this in.

Also – the jaded veterans who are unwilling to take many more casualties – though I have seen this portrayed [in Flames of War for one].

The blend of old sweats and 'FNGs' is also a tricky one to model – and these can suffer from a serious lack of cohesion.

Gamers just want their units to be ELITE or TRAINED or perhaps GREEN if they've progressed beyond 'powergaming'.

I see cohesion more as a function of morale than training/skill/experience. While training will teach cohesion, getting shot at or having been on the front for too long seems to impact morale and cohesion.

Using the Flames of War ratings as an example, there are 3 different morale/confidence ratings (Reluctant/Confident/Fearless) and 3 different training/skill/experience ratings (Conscript/Trained/Veteran).

I remember reading numerous times that German commanders who had served in both World Wars always thought the troops in the second war were not as good as the troops from the first war.

Always wondered if that was not due to the army having 40 years to get ready the first time vs only 10 years the second time. Also the units in the first war had a long tradition already of being formed units, some for a hundred years or more, while due to the huge build up prior to the second war units were created from scratch.

Depends on what they regarded as good. It might just be the, 'things were better in my day' (i.e my youth) syndrome, but could also reflect the fact the WW1 soldiers, were performing in a les complex tactical environment. The attack at Mons was hardly a feat of great tactical ingenuity, and relied on German soldiers having far less initiative and being far more willing to sacrifice themselves to gain their objectives.

JJ, do you think therefore experience should boost any rolls for tactical proficiency? In my system, a unit gains an additional die for each level of proficiency it has, over its rivals. Those die rolls then generate points which can be allocated to the platoon dice, and I'm thinking of using those dice for firepower and movement allocation. Maximum movement cannot exceed the morale rating and firepower to the proficiency level. You can move fast and put more fire down but there will be penalties or reduced effects if you exceed your proficiency level.

Remember in Band of Brothers, during the Market Garden operation, right after the tank blew up the half track, and the Germans sprung the ambush? One of the experienced vets and a new guy (who went through the same training), went through the hedge under fire. The vet low crawled through the hedge, while the new guy went through standing, and promptly got cut to pieces by mg fire. That's the difference between training and battlefield experience.

Milites,

Prepare for long post… First, I'm an extremely simple man, so please keep in mind that I'd never play a game that tried to do this (unless you came up with some super-duper mechanism to make it simple, and I do love talking about game design), so here's what I think.

In my mind, combat proficiency/capability/efficiency is a measure of both training and experience. I don't know if this matches up exactly with what you're proposing, but here's what I think conceptually in terms of dice for capability:
-Untrained (militia/insurgents) we'll give 1 dice
-Conscript military (trained), 3 dice (I believe training not only in weapons handling, marksmanship, and weapons employment, plus small unit tactics, no matter how simplified, counts for the two dice disparity from untrained).
-Professional military (regulars), 5 dice.
-Elite military (special operations/expertly trained), 7 dice.

Then add in experience:
-Green (never been shot at), 1 dice.
-Seen the Elephant (been shot at), 3 dice.
-Considerable combat experience, but not in the nature of what they are not facing (i.e., Taliban that fought the Northern Alliance for a decade, but now are facing a different type of combat in a fight against western professional armies), 4 dice.
-Considerable combat experience, of the type they are now involved in (the German infantryman who has been fighting on the Eastern Front for the past three years), 6 dice.

Then you get to the issue of 'morale.' For me this is always tricky, in that you have to define it and then take into account all the relevant factors. Does 'morale' stand for a unit's reaction to orders, does 'morale' stand for how a unit reacts to enemy fire, or does 'morale' stand for both?

Let's look at some things that affect 'morale' in terms of how a unit acts on the battlefield:
-What is the overall situation? Here you get into the issue of how the unit 'feels' about it's current predicament. For example, the oft-cited 'nobody wants to die on the last day of the war,' the oft-cited 'badly going counterinsurgency that really doesn't affect my nation's security,' i.e., the US at the end of the Vietnam War, the Soviets at the end of Afghanistan, etc… How about 'short-timer's disease,' i.e., a unit getting ready to rotate home. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the 'defending your home' scenario. Certainly this affect's the unit's overall combat capability and how they react under fire (won't press home an attack/won't give up a position, harder to hit because they won't come out of cover, easier to hit because they believe God is their protector).

-What is the specific situation? Do we severely outnumber the enemy, or vice versa, or do we have a marked technical or firepower superiority/deficiency? Is this fight the fifth in a line of victories/defeats? Are you put in a situation you're not trained for, or never prepared for?

I can remember a time when there was a lot of talk about the term "SHPLANG," which was the sound of Marine bayonets bouncing off Iraqi tanks (of course this never materialized, but the point was that Marine Task Forces with a a couple tanks and a couple TOWs, riding around in AAVs, HMMWVs, and LAVs, weren't exactly best suited to mechanized warfare. That can shake your confidence for a minute, particularly given the rumor mill present in all militaries, i.e., some LCpl from HQ letting loose to his buddies about "I heard they've got a whole brigade of T-72s over the next hill."). The same thing with Special Operations-types that were told they were going to be carrying out one type of mission and then were thrown into blocking positions on a major highway without AT weapons.

Highly trained guys are going to have their capability take a hit, but maybe their morale stays the same as they're the 'never say die, die in place' types. Lesser trained guys might take up position and stay until they take fire from the tanks then melt away, etc…

Confidence in combat is a huge factor; even when the individual is scared, when he has the following that 'we can't be beat,' and he sees everyone else acting like that, he's probably going to act the hero. Conversely, you get a couple bag troops, or one bag leader that does something dumb/cowardly, all of a sudden there can be a real negative impact. Same goes for an unfortunate casualty.

Throughout Iraq we never really felt like we could be beat, no matter the situation, and that included a couple sandwiches, and this with losing 53 (not including 'walking wounded' that returned to the company while in Iraq) of our ~180 men during the month we were in Fallujah. The point I'm getting at is momentum not only pre-battle, but also morale being dynamic in battle.

In your terms, you had highly trained, highly experienced, and highly motivated infantrymen coming off a string of wins, with overwhelming technical and material superiority (how many dice is that?). These men could do anything asked and do it well (I'm not bragging, I'm speaking in game terms), against an enemy not much good for anything. But they were fighting on their home turf, for their homes (and foreign fighters for religious reasons), they had us in an urban environment (which, along with the rules of engagement mitigated much of our firepower, i.e., except in very rare occasions we were unable to use anything larger than the 83mm SMAW and 60mm mortar), and we made a tactical error which played to the enemy's favor (in this case, having a plethora of RPGs in city streets).

One of our outposts came under fire and we dispatched a platoon in three AAVs. In less than two minutes two of the tracks were burning after a wave of RPGs hit them; they were heading west to our outpost, and the third track sped up then cut south, getting separated from the rest of the company, before getting hit by another wave of RPGs. The third track had about 15 guys in it (including the crew), including the Plt Cmdr and Plt Sgt. The TC was killed and three platoon members were badly wounded, including the PC. They got out of the (burning) track and into a nearby house and went into 'Alamo' mode.

Another platoon was sent to rescue them; when I got there they were hanging on by their teeth. The situation was pretty grim, but there was never any doubt in my mind we'd be okay, but it was shocking for me to see these guys holed up and scared (and I'm sure I'd have been the same way if I'd just been through what they'd been through); I was almost shot coming in the door, despite following our procedures for passage of friendly lines (fear overcame training).

What I'm getting at is, in game terms, who these guys were at the start of the fight, then who they were by the time we got there, which I'd say was a serious drop in capability and confidence. They weren't actively defending their position, they were huddled in corners of the house with their backs to walls, every man for himself. The Plt Sgt, a very solid, steady Marine leader, was (a Hispanic guy) white as a sheet and pretty much in a daze, down to his last magazine with two Iraqis dead in front of him in a hallway.

The Company Commander was on scene and called for air, and, owing to the situation, we (my company, B/1/5) received our only CAS mission for the whole month of Fallujah. We had bad guys on three sides, and an F-18 rolled in and strafed the west end; did a good job there, but not much for the north and south ends. However, just that happening caused a surge in morale/capability. Keep in mind this was street fighting, we had a hell of a time just finding the track, then figuring out which house they were in while walking into a fire sac with the enemy on three sides. Command and control, cohesion, etc…, is a real tough thing as soon as teams start moving into houses. But as soon as the air came in, it was like (friendly) heads started popping back up and orders started being relayed (like they're supposed to) and men started moving as part of a team rather than a bunch of disparate elements.

My point is that capability and morale were affected not only by the 'normal' stuff, but by the vagueness and ad-hoc nature of the mission. In 'normal' circumstanced you prepare orders, issue the orders, and rehearse-rehearse-rehearse; this was, 'every man not doing something get in a HMMWV and follow me, the rescue mission needs (the tracks heading out to the OP taking fire) needs a rescue mission.' Also, the violence of action demonstrated by the enemy (the deluge of RPGs that took out three tracks in about 6 minutes), the casualties in general, and then the fact the platoon commander, highly regarded within the battalion, was out of the fight and almost dead, all combined to have a negative impact. This was effectively countered by the singular event of the airstrike, which really didn't have much of a physical impact (one run of 20mm rounds on an intersection). So 'morale' in the game needs to be dynamic.

Ultimately, I don't know how you reflect this in a game. Given your model, I suppose you do the 'add a dice' thing for another category, call it 'morale' or 'confidence.' Though I'd say in this case you need to have the ability to have negative scores as well, which should work right? I mean, it's just pulling dice away from the 'proficiency' and 'experience' pool of dice, right?

I don't know if I helped any, and sorry for the long post, but there's my 2(5) cents.

V/R,
Jack

Great anecdote tying in with your point, thank you.

I don't know if I helped any, and sorry for the long post, but there's my 2(5) cents.

A post like that is worth more like 2 dollars!

Indeed … And good training is very important, but there is no real substitute for experience … However, the learning curve in first contact/first blood can be very steep, at times … This example is a bit of a stretch, and I don't like to go to the lowest common denominator. However it could be valid – watching a porn movie is not the same that being with the actual item … But it may help in practice … in the long run, maybe …

That said, training is a type of experience.

Well said. But it may or may not be relevant to the actual battlefield, and, I would think, bad training might be worse than no training. i.e. being trained to fight a WW1-style battle wouldn't much help someone caught in an enemy blitzkrieg -- it might even make things worse. That is, you react inappropriately.

"Experience is not enough. A mule may have made twelve campaigns with Prince Eugene and not be any the better a tactician for it." – Frederick the Great

In, other words, experience is valueless if you don't (or can't) learn from it.

Again many thanks for all replies, as it is the start of term here, I will revisit this project when I have pondered all the information here.

JJ, I really appreciate the input, my basic idea has organic systems that should come close to simulating some of the effects you describe, in your first hand account, but some features of it might have to prompt a rethink.

Like you, I prefer simple systems, believing that if well designed, they are closer to representing the overall effects of something as chaotic and complex as combat. At the moment, for testing purposes, all training, experience, combat and movement (both friendly and hostile) affects morale, which is a fluid measure, think of them like hit points which can be lost or gained. As they are lost the unit starts to struggle to maintain its proficiency, and therefore repeated exposure to combat will result in it being, effectively destroyed. To recover, it could pull back and reorganise or observe friendly success on the battlefield, including movement, but you said, if I'm reading you correctly, it was the airstrike that galvanised the battered platoon, not your arrival. Why do you think this was?

By the way your CAS story mirrors one told to me by two IDF veterans of the 73 war. Their unit had been battered by a series of bloody encounters, as they sought to cross the Suez Canal, and morale was understandably low. Looking up, the unit watched an IAF jet shoot down two Egyptian Migs and suddenly they knew it was going to be ok, they reasoned that if the Israeli pilot could fight against the odds and win, so could they. Even though it had been 10 years since the incident, the way they told that story with still so much pride at the pilots performance, told you it had been a genuine turning point. As one of them said, it reminded you how well we had all been trained, something that defeat had temporarily made them forget.

Thinking back, I've just remembered another part of that story that chimes in exactly with JJ and some other posters observations. These two farmers had fought, side by side, in 67, 73 and as reservists in the 80's, their wives said, as a result, they were virtually telepathic. A fact I witnessed myself, one of them only had to mention something they needed and five minutes later the other one would have brought it for them, even though they were working in a separate field or building.

I now think I will develop the idea to let experience boost a units tactical proficiency, so it can come close to, or equal its maximum tactical proficiency. This I think, is a useful synthesis of everyone's thoughts and observations on experience and training, though Don's and rmaker's perceptive observations about not all experience being beneficial or learned will have to be addressed, perhaps in a pre-game phase.

That brings up an interesting factor as well: When a unit receives new replacements that may be technically proficient and even have equivalent fighting experience, but they are not yet "in tune" with the rest of the outfit.

Yes, there's lots of things not represented in many games, which is why I started this project, though whether I finish it is another matter!

I suspect many players will resist any attempt to limit their control over their little lead [or plastic] men.

Getting new players to use any kind of morale rules is already a big hurdle.

But the simplistic levels of morale – however many grades you have – are not a good model of what is going on.

It does need to be multidimensional – 2D at minimum and 3D is probably better.

You have training and experience which probably can be exchanged but the rate of exchange might vary. As said above the training/experience MUST be relevant to the combat or it is nearly useless.

Then you have motivation.

FOW has the above 2D system. You can have highly motivated but clueless troops and highly skilled but demotivated troops and they will behave differently.

COHESION is the third dimension you need IMO. You might have a unit – a section/squad rebuilt around a cadre of 2-3 experienced men who have survived one or more battles. If the recruits are trained up to a good basic level and the unit has some time to train together before going into combat it can work pretty well. Too often the replacements are fed in 2-3 at a time while the unit is in combat and it breaks down. Notable failures are the US Army's system in the ETO in WW2 and the US military [USMC included] in Vietnam.

The Germans in WW2 had – I believe – a different system where they let a unit be ground down to a cadre and then pulled it out of the line to refit. During refit they could do some unit training. I don't suppose it always worked so well and it meant a Division could be in the line at battalion strength or even lower. The PAVN/NLF could also retreat into safe[r] areas to refit when attrition reduced their strength. Again – I don't expect it always worked out well in practice but in theory it was a better system than letting green troops get fed into the mincer.

The UK&C used the LOOB system of keeping a few men out of combat just in case there were catastrophic casualties. But they also fed in replacements to units in the line without much time to train as a unit.

I use levels of COHESION to indicate different states of the above phenomenon. Troops that fail cohesion when they suffer casualties drop a grade of their training/experience level. I only have 3 basic levels – E = Experienced, T = Trained and G = Green. Some units with no experience enter combat as 'E' due to the extra training they got and their performance in actual combat. US PIR and British Airborne are 2 examples for WW2.

COHESION is rated at 2-5.

NA Specially selected, extra training, long service together with not much attrition
5 Long service together with no/few replacements
4 Normal ‘meatgrinder' units with a mix of old hands and lots of new guys
3 Lack of experienced cadre or not enough unit training
2 No unit training.

I check the red d6 or a DR against cohesion – if the unit rolls > its experience level following an attack AND it the red d6 is > cohesion it drops an experience level.

The effect is for units with 5 cohesion to hardly ever fail while units with 2 cohesion almost always do. 3 and 4 are in between but 3 is really quite a lot worse than 4.

I don't pretend it is a complete or accurate model but it does feel about right and allows me to distinguish between different units based on their history.

and lets not forget that experience can be both good and bad, this has been mentioned, with JJ. effectiveness dropped and then improved again.. But also one can benefit from the experience of winning, but can also become accustomed to the experience of losing.

Also not all training is created equal or appropriate to the context.

During the American Civil War (specifically, the siege of Vicksburg) General Sherman wrote to General Grant, urging him to prevail upon President Lincoln to fill up veteran regiments before raising new ones. He said: "All who deal with troops in fact instead of theory know that the knowledge of the little details of camp life is absolutely necessary to keep men alive. New regiments, for want of this knowledge, have measles, mumps, diarrhea, and the whole catalog of infantile diseases; whereas the same number of men, distributed among the older regiments, would learn from the sergeants and corporals and privates the art of taking care of themselves, which would actually save their lives and preserve their health against the host of diseases that invariably attack the new regiments. Also recruits, distributed among older companies, catch up, from close and intimate contact, a knowledge of drill, the care and use of arms, and all the instructions which otherwise it would take months to impart…. If a draft be made, and the men be organized into new regiments, instead of filling up the old, the President may satisfy a few aspiring men, but will prolong the war for years, and allow the old regiments to die of natural exhaustion."

Grant did forward the letter to Lincoln, who partially followed the advice, sending drafted men to fill old regiments, but also raising some new ones from volunteers. By WW2 the problem of diseases was mitigated by inoculations and better medicines, but what Sherman says about the troops learning field craft is interesting.

From a game perspective, the question is, when would you roll a test for cohesion versus a test for training/quality? I mean, sometimes cohesion affects morale, and sometimes it affects up in unit 'training'/'quality'/skill.

For example, Ambush Alley games have a 2-stat system, Troop Quality and Troop Morale. When playing a campaign and you get fresh recruits in to replace those wounded, you make a Quality roll with one die. As long as you rolled above the number of fresh troops, your unit will remain at the previous Quality level. If you roll at or below the number of fresh bodies, the FNGs drag down the unit's overall proficiency. That's a case where Cohesion affects troop quality.

As a side note, I'd want to use a WORD system instead of numbers for the most part. What's easier to remember, 3+morale/5+skill or "Fearless Conscript"? Ambush Alley's die types make numbers easier to remember, but if you're using a single die type I think words are easier to remember.

One of the advantages I believe the Germans had was realistic tactical training. in other words their recruits were trained in methods closer to real combat than other nations. I believe it was this, and not equipment superiority or better strategy that gave them an advantage that lasted almost to the end of the war.

I'm not trying to create a professional rule set so there will be periods of inactivity and the player, me, will loose control from time to time.

I'm experimenting with just morale at the moment, playing a few encounters and seeing what I can gradually layer on. I completely agree with it being too one dimensional, but the previous approach of throwing all my ideas in at the same time was not productive at all. Lion I agree, I have spent weeks trying to come up with suitable words for different states of personal injury in my own melee rules.

Don, absolutely, poorly trained units will suffer the more they are in the field, I believe even 30%+ of Russian SF units were routinely out of action in Afghanistan, due to shocking standards of personal hygiene.

As I said the project is on hold at the moment as I get back to work, complete my reading and ponder all your suggestions. If you do have anymore feel free to share your ideas, the more critical the better.

Tuscaloosa and Lion – Thanks, you're making me blush.

Legion – I agree with your porn analogy; the point being, imagine the kid trying 'it' the first time without even an idea of what goes where. In my opinion, if overall capability is a straight-line continuum, training can take you an awful long way down that track, it just can't get you all the way (to a unit's full potential), and experience without training is almost worthless, that is, it may help the individual to survive on the battlefield, but it's not going to help the unit succeed on the battlefield.

Donlowery and Rmaker – I dunno; I think what you guys are saying might be more appropriate at higher command levels, i.e., battalion/regiment/division staff, than the individual soldier level.

Milites – "…it was the airstrike that galvanised the battered platoon, not your arrival. Why do you think this was?" Absolutely it was the airstrike that 'turned the tide' mentally, if not physically. Us showing up wasn't a big deal because there weren't many of us, and we were spread out all over the place (mostly from trying to locate our guys). There was a constant stream of reinforcements coming in piecemeal. Following the airstrike there was a brief pause (I'm sure the air gave the bad guys a moment's pause to think things over), which allowed us to get organized and on task, which was recovering the burning track then getting back to our lines. Normally we'd have just blown the track in place, but we couldn't because it was on fire and the TC's body was still in there, and we weren't leaving him behind.

Weasel and Skarper – Regarding the 'cohesion' aspect of integrating replacements, I can't speak from experience on this. As Skarper pointed out, US forces had big problems with this during the Vietnam War, and so nowadays we don't do individual rotations and replacements, we send units in (usually battalions) that have lived and trained together, they go in and spend their tour together, then they come home. That policy is directly to attack the problems of cohesion/integration.

Having said that, I don't think it's that tough an issue to tackle in our games. I'd still say that 'combat capability' is a measure of training, experience, and morale. In Ivan's example, training stays the same, experience drops a bit (i.e., for simplicity's sake, if we're looking at a 10-man squad that just took in 4 new guy replacements, lower the experience level approximately 40%), then you need to look at morale. Let's say the squad's morale was high to begin with, now it stays the same because overall the squad is still highly motivated (the squad is confident in its abilities due to veteran leadership and highly trained replacements), or maybe morale drops a bit because the vets lost someone they believe is irreplaceable and the newbies, despite their high level of training, aren't feeling 'part of the family' and aren't sure how they fit in.

Skarper – "I suspect many players will resist any attempt to limit their control over their little lead [or plastic] men." I dunno, I know that I don't like to play games that don't make it difficult for you to know what's in front of you and don't make it difficult for you to do everything you want to do. I think the games IABSM and BKC are both pretty good about doing exactly that.

If there's a problem with those games, it's that (in my humble opinion) you get this 'capability effect' on the back end rather than the front end. What I mean is, in IABSM the 'Tea Break' card comes out before 1st Platoon activated, or in BCK 1st Platoon failed its command roll, the player can make up the reason 1st Squad didn't act, i.e., 1st Platoon didn't act because their Lieutenant was taking a nap, or because its radios weren't working, or because it stumbled into a terrain feature that wasn't on the map, etc…

I'd love to have the 'capability effect' on the front end, i.e., last turn 1st Platoon was moving across open ground and got caught by automatic weapons fire, so they went to ground in a gully; this turn they're probably not going to do anything because 1) they're not that well trained, 2) they've gotten their butts kicked the past three days and lost a lot of guys, 3) which resulted in a bunch of replacements whose names we don't even know, and 4) they just don't have the experience to know that the slackening in enemy fire probably means the enemy has split into a base of fire and a maneuver element, and laying in the bottom of the gully might save them for a minute, but will ultimately end in their demise as the enemy will have their base of fire keep 1st Platoon pinned in the gully while its maneuver element flanks them and rolls them up.

In game terms you know all this, then it's time to roll to see what 1st Platoon is going to do, knowing that it's strongly weighted towards them lying in the gully. As the player/commander you would know that (i.e., have a measure of 1st Platoon's capability), and you shouldn't be praying you roll a 10 on a D10 so they defend themselves, you should be maneuvering other elements/calling in supporting fires to save 1st Platoon. or leave them to die and shift your focus of effort, i.e., a key tenet of Maneuver Warfare, you don't reinforce failure ;)

Like I said, IF there's a problem with IABSM and BKC, it's that 1st Platoon has the same (at least roughly) chance of acting as every other unit in the game (i.e., of its card coming out in IABSM or making its command roll in BKC). The problem with this model is having to figure out the 'capability' stats for each of your units prior to the game, then track them as they go up and down throughout the game.

Lion II – "From a game perspective, the question is, when would you roll a test for cohesion versus a test for training/quality? I mean, sometimes cohesion affects morale, and sometimes it affects up in unit 'training'/'quality'/skill." Exactly. I (think) I know what should be taken into account, I just don't have any idea on how to pull this off in a game.

Murvihill – I agree, and not just about having realistic training, but in their approach to integrating them into their units. As Skarper discussed, German units were pulled out of the line, given replacement troops and equipment, then underwent periods of intense training. So, instead of getting realistic training in 'boot camp,' then having all the recruits sent out to fill billets in various units (or worse, to stand up completely new units with 90-Day Wonders for leaders), the combat training was done with the unit the recruits would serve with.

Milites II – "…there will be periods of inactivity and the player, me, will loose control from time to time." Unacceptable! Get your butt to work, I'm ready to play your rules. Actually I'm not; while your periods of wargaming inactivity are due to work, mine is due to a 2 1/2 month old little boy ;) Which is why I have long delays between my extremely long posts. Sorry…

V/R,
Jack

I agree a lot of players nowadays are interested more in the human experience of combat and the problems of leadership under fire.

But there are still a lot of players out there for whom morale is an unwanted hindrance.

How far you can avoid this type of immature player [be they youngsters or just inexperienced gamers] depends on your circumstances. When I was trying to run games in a club setting I pretty much had to take who there was – some 'got' my ideas – others less so.

One key mechanism I use is a dice roll less than the unit's Experience level to do anything at all. I call them Action Task Checks.

This is where I apply DRM for range, being pinned, concealed targets, soft cover, and leadership etc.

Then if you pass this you get to go on to fire or move. Firing gets the drm for 'hard cover' and a few other factors.

If you fail you stop in that area. All friendly units within 100m are not allowed to attempt ATCs until the initiative shifts – i.e. until the other sides turn.

This is harsh but it seems to work. It makes you do the important stuff first. In the example above the unit that had been shot up and scurried off into cover could be selected for an ATC to rally – but it will most likely fail. Either do everything else first or risk nothing much happening for a turn [2 minutes].

Another effect is it slows things down. You can have periods of intense activity followed by long periods of desultory combat when the bulk of your force is just sitting in cover doing very little. [NB – although simulation time races by with nothing much happening these turns are very quick to play through so it does not drag the game out.]

My system uses a lot of dice rolls – 3 x 2d6 dice rolls per attack at a minimum. [though quite often you stop after one dice roll because you failed the ATC]

I can see some players would baulk at this – but I like it because it avoids multiple drm 'falling off the end of the dice roll'. If you have 2 x 2d6 DRs one after the other and apply some drm to each one – then you can generate a small overall chance without it becoming impossible. It also keeps the mental arithmetic easier. I don't like % dice because adding up and subtracting and god forbid multiplying the numbers just gets tiresome.

Interesting thread.

Legion – I agree with your porn analogy;

You and I both being or having been soldiers Jack and gamers and just "guys", can see that paradigm maybe more clearly than others. Again, a unit that is well trained in fieldcraft, tactics, techniques, etc. will have a real edge in combat. A unit that knows what to do after reheasing constantly over a period of time fieldcraft, Immediate Action Drills, SOPS, etc., etc. Who is on the Demo Tms, Litter Tms, etc., etc. … is critical to keep losses down and mission accomplishment. And at the same time instill in the soldiers the ability to use intiative, adapt, etc. … Well trained units lower the learning curve, in the first battles of a conflict. Note that will insurgents/guerillas, etc. … with most not being trained soldiers will probably incur higher losses and probably have lower mission accomplishment. At least in the short run. I'd have my TLs and SLs on occasions, just go into the field next to the barracks and works on Skill Qual Test, battle drills, fieldcraft, SOPs etc., etc. It was a standard on weapons ranges, while some soldiers were on the firing line. Others were going thru concurrent training in the areas behind the firing line. Like SQT, Vehicle ID flash cards, etc. … A lot to learn to be an effective combat soldier, as many of us know.

But there are still a lot of players out there for whom morale is an unwanted hindrance.

I too have seen that in some games. For example, certain forces have a better morale, training, etc. Levels. In some cases a unit with say 3 AFVs loses one, then must roll for morale. And if the roll is failed, then they must fallback to the closest cover. And roll every turn to see if they have regrouped, etc. and fight/play … Some units with high morale/training, would have a better die roll range. Like on a 1 the unit fallsback, after it loses 50% and not 1/3 etc. … The problem with that after a few turns you may have too many units in fallback positions trying to regroup than actually fighting. A similar thing happened with Out of Command. Based on the force you roll on a chart for each army. Some forces/armies out of command shoot at the closes enemy units. Some would have to roll to fallback or do nothing. Some units would move on advance rate and only fire Small Arms/Light Weapons. Some would charge the closest enemy unit, etc., etc. … There was some good stuff in there, but we had to modify things a bit after awhile to make things a bit more playable and not are so complex but keep a level of "realism" … It's really a matter of the gamers' "tastes" … many times …

I like Skarper's ATC idea!

I think it's worth remembering that not all experience is good experience. Bad habits and complacency are two places where units' experience can get them into trouble.

You can learn how NOT to do things as well as the "proper" way also …

I'm jumping in a little late here, but I'm curious as to the op's interest in whether his question concern's a ruleset for contemporary combat or for WWII?
Modern training and practices in professional armies, not to mention the overall quality of the raw material both in terms of officers nd or's is so much higher (generally) than in wwII conscript armies that I'm not sure that comparisons are that worthwhile.
The effect say, of a 9 month campaign in NWE 70 years ago on an initially well trained but still ultimately conscript unit which might well sustain 100% casualties during that period,which is probably in continuous heavy combat compared with a modern proffessional unit conducting a 6 month tour of much lower intensity action,who would consider itself extremely unfortunate if its casualties reached 10%, it really is chalk and cheese.

Lion I agree, I have spent weeks trying to come up with suitable words for different states of personal injury in my own melee rules.

Milites, if you're still looking for words, what about Killed, Dangerously wounded, Severely wounded, and Lightly wounded? I 'borrowed' those from Churchill's History of the Malakand Field Force, so they're appropriate for the Brits in the late 1800s.

this is interesting

PDF link

Regarding quality of conscripted versus professional armies…

It isn't universally accepted that the latter are streets ahead of the former. In some ways conscripted armies bring in a better mix of skills and talents than professional [one might call them mercenary armies though I don't mean it to equate with the worst connotations of that term – the troops serve in large numbers for the money.]

So WW2 armies were conscripts or draftees but I'd say they were no less motivated to serve in a combat zone than the more modern professionals. Some might be quite keen to do their duty while others just want to survive and go home.

What is different is the modern soldier in a full time army gets a lot more training than the few weeks a WW2 solder got. However – there is probably an optimal amount of training after which it just becomes a rigmarole and factor in the WW2 soldiers knew they were going to be in combat sooner or later while the modern professionals do not generally expect this to happen. This means a lot less going through the motions and a greater interest in learning the lessons from the training.

Loss rates in WW2 were extremely heavy – 100% plus per year – making it hard to build up any unit experience and that certainly is an significant factor.

I've always felt and based on my experience, I'd rather train and lead volunteers than dealing with dratfees. The US dropped the draft in '72, IIRC, for a number of reasons. Although all males at 18, must still register for conscription. In a society like we find in the US today. We'd have draft riots, card burnings, etc., if the draft was reinstated as we saw in the ACW, Vietnam, etc. …

In some ways conscripted armies bring in a better mix of skills and talents than professional

I'll still take my chances with volunteers/professionals. Beside, many that volunteer, have skills and talents too … Regardless, a good army will train those skills needed for combat … It is what an army worth it's salt does when not in combat …

I think it's still an open question but I agree that training volunteers is easier than training reluctant draftees.

They will also tend to sign up for longer terms of service while larger scale national service armies tend only to keep their recruits for 1-2 years – less and less all the time.

Some make a big thing of having top up training every few years – I lived in Korea and knew a few people who had to go back for 2 week 'camps'. Very disruptive to family and working life and IMO of rather limited value.

Most people I talked with who did national service consider it a total waste of time and a poor way to provide the manpower needed for national defense.

I heard somewhere that it takes 2 years to train a soldier up the level they can slot into a modern infantry unit – perhaps longer for specialist technical jobs. It also must take a long time to develop the NCO cadre.

IMO only a small percentage of people can be good soldiers however much training they get.

Curiously the US military in Vietnam is said to have been 75% volunteers compared to 25% volunteers in WW2. I'm not 100% convinced of the veracity of that statistic and wonder how many volunteered knowing they'd be drafted otherwise – and how many volunteered so they could apply for specialist jobs and (maybe) avoid combat.

the US military in Vietnam is said to have been 75% volunteers compared to 25% volunteers in WW2.

I've heard those same stats before also … For Vietnam, as the war dragged on more and more draftees were filling the ranks. After the volunteers/professionals have had in some cases 2-3 tours. That 75% number maybe for say, '65-'70 …

I heard somewhere that it takes 2 years to train a soldier up the level they can slot into a modern infantry unit

Maybe … but not always, based on the indivdual.

IMO only a small percentage of people can be good soldiers however much training they get.

Maybe … but you still the numbers. When the hits the fan, the real "soldiers" are revealed. And they can help to bring the rest up to some level of effectiveness …

IMO only a small percentage of people can be good soldiers however much training they get.

And with a volunteer army, you're more likely to get them into the ranks than the random conscript.

I've read that the current US Army makes up 0.45% of the US population. Roughly 1.5 million Soldiers, all told.

Very true … again, I want volunteers …

JJ, phew I snapped to attention reading your post! Actually, because I've actually got my act together, managing my department is not as onerous this year, so I will keep on tinkering. I hope your 'smallunson' (the name a Norwegian business partner used for his baby boy) is doing well and do appreciate your efforts in helping me try to approximate something most military simulations, if my books and reading of them are correct, seem to ignore.

Initially, for the drafting and play testing, I am using morale to cover more than just the psychological state of soldiers, but also; Cohesion ( my reasoning being a low cohesion unit is unlikely to have high unit morale, though there might be some die-hards still effective). Fatigue (a cause of temporary drops in morale, especially with poorly trained troops). Training (poorly trained units I reasoned, were like the Orcs in SPI's War of the Ring game, quite bold when things were going their way, but once they start to loose momentum, more likely to retreat or 'dig in'.) Movement (poor morale reduces the desire to close with the enemy). Firepower (units with low morale are less likely to engage the enemy effectively, with direct aimed fire or suppressive fire). Initiative (poor morale affects the speed with which units issue and respond to orders and the changing tactical environment). There would be separate factors to influence the rating, but morale was the prime requisite, so to speak.

If you don't mind me asking, what morale state were you in, when you relieved the trapped platoon?

Was the noise and presence of the CAS the reason for boosting morale, it's efficacy or both?

Do you believe training allowed the relieved platoon to recover so quickly or were other factors involved?

Just reading your post again has given me an idea about adding illusionary morale, to my temporary moral and permanent morale states. For example in your example the CAS allowed the insurgents to realise the situation they were really in, not so good, and the trapped unit to remember their training and real situation. You said the transformation was very rapid, so perhaps something like a saving throw. with success allowing lost illusionary morale (caused by a perception of being 'defeated' or badly prepared) to be recovered (minus the temporary and permanent morale loss) and failure meaning gained illusionary morale, (caused by a series of perceived victories) to be lost . Just a thought.

Finally to your example of poor 1st platoon in a ditch, due to low morale and my draft rules. It's unlikely if they could even move, as morale not only determines the speed of response, in generating and responding to orders, but also the maximum move distance. So you could assault them, as their return firepower would be minimal, being based on their morale limit, or call in a mortar strike on the gully you have TRP'd!

Christot, good question, initially modern but easily extendable to WWII as it is morale based. Instead of the rules differentiating a particular period by the equipment used, mine would primarily differentiate using changes in training and the social/cultural background of the recruits, well that's the idea anyway!

Legion, good one and a nice historical source. I think, in the end, the really sticky ones were in the middle range. IIRC, I had mortal, critical, severe, serious, injured, light, slight and graze, but was not that happy with it!

LG, thanks very much for the link, I will print and peruse.

Skarper, good point, my relatives, who fought in WWII, would not have chosen the pre-war Armed Forces for a career due to their professional experience and backgrounds. In some cases the regular military personnel struggled with accommodating such people, 'too bright by half' is, after all, a British insult.

The Australians in Vietnam showed the efficacy of mixing National Serviceman and a core of regulars, though that seems to be because of the training the Nats received. As for the time taken to slot in, IIRC the Royal Marines would sometimes send green soldiers (no pun intended) to Afghanistan, after their passing out, but normally only 'red diamonds' or King's badgemen (the best recruit/s from their training troop).

Lots to think about, but I'm more and more confident of the central premise of my rules, that a units morale state is the key to it's performance in battle.