"Draftees/Conscripts vs Volunteers/Professionals" Topic

We're putting the finishing touches on our newest release, "Grunts at War". It covers small unit tactics from WWII to near future/sci-fi. We have a question about opinions on Draftees/Conscripts vs Volunteers/Professionals.

The game focuses on the "wet-ware" of combat: the men. Each group/stand of 2-5 figures is a "team" and a force represents anything from a reinforced platoon to an under-strength company. (The game is designed for 15-28mm and multi- or individually based figures).

When building/defining your force you start by defining the characteristics of your teams which go beyond just morale and marksmanship. After defining your teams with the following characteristics they gear-up with loadouts (e.g. Assault, Rifle, etc.) and special weapons and gear.

MOTIVATION
How aggressive/independent your teams are in an overall sense AND the extent to which that motivation comes from the troops themselves versus having to be pushed along by the field commander. Highly motivated forces will have lots of motivation points (MP), less motivated forces have fewer. Forces which require close supervision have those MP concentrated in their field commander for distribution to nearby teams. Independent forces have more of them available for use by teams anywhere on the field.

TEAMWORK
The overall professionalism, level of coordination, and soldiering skills not directly related to combat. When conducting tasks such as securing an objective or clearing casualties teams with better teamwork will accomplish tasks faster and more reliably. Teams with poor teamwork are less reliable and require more time or more bodies to accomplish a task.

COHERENCE
A combination of the force's situational awareness and ability to synchronize efforts over distances. It's not just having radios! A force equipped with the best gear in the world can have a terrible Coherence value if it's poorly coordinated and there's little trust between leaders. A force with excellent knowledge of the battlefield and unified leadership can have a high Coherence value even if limited technologically. A force with excellent Coherence can operate with more dispersion when it comes to leaders motivating subordinates and coordinating supporting assets. A force with poor Coherence requires a tight rein.

GUTS
A force's ability to keep its act together under fire and when things get chaotic. Teams with a higher Guts rating are more likely to keep moving under fire and to recover faster when hit hard. Teams without guts tend to freeze up under fire and recover slowly when hit hard.

COMBAT SKILLS
These include three specific, separate areas: Shooting, Evasion, and Assault. These skills define how well a team is in identifying and engaging a target with ranged weapons, evading enemy fire by using concealment and cover, and conducting close quarters battle.

THE QUESTION!
In addition to providing the raw tools to completely customize a force the game includes some pre-defined team stats. For example, we have grizzled WWII Veterans with excellent teamwork and combat skills (especially Evasion!) but they're not very motivated and they're not interested in closing with the enemy. We also have Jihadis who are extremely brave to the point of foolishness but who also lack professional combat skills (but that's not true of all Jihadis…some have excellent combat skills, especially Evasion).

A common debate among those who have served and their civilian leadership is the value/desirability of draftees vs volunteers. Some say that volunteers will always trump draftees in areas such as motivation and teamwork. Others say that even the ranks of volunteers can be overwhelmed by those who enlist only to avoid poverty/crime/whatever and undermine a force's quality.

Personally, I strongly suspect the reality is somewhere in between but wanted to read the opinions of others, especially those who have served. IMO an all-volunteer force could be rated either way in game terms: highly motivated and with excellent teamwork or maybe somewhat less enthusiastic. And there are draftees (think WWII U.S. troops) and conscripts (think modern Russians). Both might have little training and no experience but their cohesion and teamwork would likely be extremely different.

How might you define these two different groups? Always distinct? Shades of gray?

Shades of grey for sure, but perhaps fatigue is a more significant factor. The best-trained troops in the world are prone to become distinctly less effective if they have n't rested for 24 hours.

Excellent point Chris!

The question really goes to how many pre-defined troop types we should include for each period.

For example, to your point, we could have Professionals who are fresh and therefore still motivated but maybe they lose some of that sparkle over time. We definitely show that in the pre-configured WII teams but maybe it's still appropriate for moderns too.

I guess another way to look at the issue: if tomorrow the U.S. instituted a draft, how would the resulting force be rated compared to the current one in the categories above?

An untrained volunteer is as useful as an untrained conscript. I would be hesitant to place too much emphasis on how they entered as opposed to training and experience with equipment and experience in combat. For example, a conscript opposed to the war could be unmotivated to fight. But so could a person initially rated to be a cook or administrative clerk transferred to a combat unit. Or perhaps someone who joined at peacetime seeking regular pay and the chance for promotion and pension. A conscripted zealot could break down under the pressure of a bombardment. A drafted Quaker would be a useless rifleman but an excellent medic or nurse. And so on.

A lot would also depend on the general sentiments for the war.

Or a pacifist could become a decorated war hero: Sgt Alvin York.

link

Jim

Ratings for units should be based upon training, experience of the men, ditto of the leadership and how long have they operated together. Does not matter where you came from as bullets do not discriminate between ricj or poor, high school dropout or PhD. What matters is how long can the grouping of THESE men (being rated) can function together as a "unit" towards accomplishing their mission?

History has shown us that the purpose of basic training is to mold the new recruit by to forgetting where he/she came from and replace that with new experiences and memories of working together with what were total strangers and achieve a goal. It is what makes units cohesive.

To say that a volunteer is "better" than a draftee does not go far enough. Every unit is made up of individuals- no two are the same. Swap enough of them out for others and the dynamics of the entire unit changes in x amount of time.

So I guess my .02 cents worth is don't make rules based upon gee whiz factoids that do not really have much to do with the real-life melding experience. Take a bit of time to research and find root causes for group behavior. (Or, you could just slap a new coat of paint on the subject and call it a new rules set and the emperor will have yet another new suit of clothes.)…/>)

The cadres, intensity and quality of training, the examples from pros/ veterans, overall treatment / consideration. A six draftee from 6 months training can be no different from an enlisted from 6 months training.

Group cohesion, with draftees can be higher than pros constantly shifted from one outfit to another to make for numbers in opex ( external operations). The leaders are mostly important, draftees or enlisted feel it.

Wrote a post then realised it was basically what Terrement had just written. I always want top avoid bookkeeping and therefore favour the KISS principle – Keep It Simple Stupid – except in financial transactions where I favour the CUFF principle.

If the conscripts are unhappy, better factor in "fragging" disliked superiors.

"Oops! The Commissar just bought it. Seems an enemy infiltrator placed an AP mine under his pillow…"

I think a "volunteer/professional" may be more skilled than his conscripted counterpart, but he could be less motivated to take risks (like 'taking point' in a patrol) because he's a "career soldier" who isn't prone to self sacrifice.

Based on my past military experience '79-'90. I'm a strong advocate of an all volunteer professional military. I'd rather lead volunteers than some one who was forced to be there.

I guess another way to look at the issue: if tomorrow the U.S. instituted a draft, how would the resulting force be rated compared to the current one in the categories above?

Based on what I see currently a US draft would probably be a bad idea. The youth of draft age today are not the youth of the past. For better or worse. Looking back to Vietnam, for example. The Anti-War movement was more of an anti-draft movement. If there was no draft the only ones protesting the war would be Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, etc., types.

I think a "volunteer/professional" may be more skilled than his conscripted counterpart, …

I agree with that again based on my service.

but he could be less motivated to take risks (like 'taking point' in a patrol) because he's a "career soldier" who isn't prone to self sacrifice.

That is rarely/not always true. A profesional who knows fieldcraft, weapons, tactics and is highly trained and experienced knows taking point is not an act of self sacrifice.

but perhaps fatigue is a more significant factor. The best-trained troops in the world are prone to become distinctly less effective if they have n't rested for 24 hours

I disagree. Highly trained and experienced troops don't usually become less effective, until about 3-4 days without rest/sleep. After 4 days with no sleep, you are just a zombie usually.

I was never in the military, but I have played a lot of StarGrunt II and Striker I (and some Striker II). Also, I have gone as a mercenary (past, present, and future) to many costume parties. So there's my street cred, and here is my advice:

Morale consists of at least three components, (1) the more or less permanent, (2) the definitely short-term and, (3) the effect of current events.

The things that go into the permanent component are training, unit elan, indoctrination, self-motivation, etc. Experience changes the permanent component -- hence my "more or less" qualifier. That change is usually an improvement.

The things that go into the short-term component are short-term: fatigue, when they had their last hot meal, etc.

Current events are the things happening now, to and around the unit.

StarGrunt models this by giving each unit a quality level, which that squad always has (until they improve it over campaign), and a motivation/fatigue level, which depends on the scenario. Current events can affect the morale die roll.

Striker gives each soldier a quality level, and each fireteam's morale level is the average of the quality of each soldier. I forget how Striker handles the short-term stuff, but I know it's one of the rules. Current event are also a factor in morale checks.

Accounting for each of these elements of morale will give you believable results when you roll morale checks.

Striker has a bunch of morale modifiers, mostly negative, for the situation you are in (being in cover or having leaders nearby helps a bit).

Units also lose morale permanently by taking casualties.

It's one of the few games where the advance of a whole platoon can falter because one team in one squad has a guy go face down in the dirt.
Interesting but very brutal :)

IMO, the key difference between a conscript and a volunteer is that the volunteer is much more likely to do the annoying basic details of soldiering to a higher standard. (Not that you don't have some poor attitudes among double-volunteers in the submarine fleet, but we had very few)

Another important detail is that volunteers usually have a service contract long enough to really train them to a high level. IIRC, it took 24 months of training before a US soldier was considered ready for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan for a year, while South Koreans only have 24 months total mandatory service and Russians only serve about 18 months!

This is neither a new set of questions nor are they without examples/comparisons from WWI to the present. It has been a singular issue with the military in most countries during the last century. [and certainly before] Lots of studies, commentaries, etc. to be found.

Military men have had a lot to say and a lot invested in the conclusions about the performance of the volunteer vs the conscript, the career professional vs the draftee.

Scharnhorst wrote in 1800 about the French citizen army of volunteers vs the conscript armies of the Allies. The Rand group, as an example, has done a number of studies. Here is a 2006 study of the Volunteer army versus the Conscript army:

link

I'd be looking to get the information from as many experienced military men/studies as possible if you really want to narrow down the general strengths and weaknesses of each visa vie reality.

The most experienced and professional troops will know what to expect and weather fatigue and deprivation far better than inexperienced troops or conscripts--comparatively and in general. On the other hand, is that what we see in the last 100 years of war? How often? that's the question.

I think you are not doing yourself a favour by introducing such a fine-grained approach to a game of that level. For a platoon-company game, youŽll need another approach that allows you to resolve things quicker, otherwise your game will take ages to play and destroy the feeling of a quick, sharp modern engagement.

I see a lot of folks here using "volunteer" or "conscript" as a proxy for other attributes.

Let us remember, folks, that there are forces where volunteers have little or no training (Worker's Militia, anyone?), and other forces where conscripts are highly motivated and professionally skilled (who wants to face off against the Israeli "all conscript" force?).

If you think that an all volunteer force is better because of the training and length of service, then pay attention to the training and the length of service, not whether it is volunteers. And if you think conscripts are less motivated, then pay attention to the level of motivation, not the conscription. Because I guarantee you I can find numerous cases of highly motivated conscripts, and short-service volunteers.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

As Mark says, it is training and length of service which make the difference, not so much the mode of enlistment.

The eighteenth century Royal Navy was a largely conscript force and didn't do too badly:)

"I think you are not doing yourself a favour by introducing such a fine-grained approach to a game of that level. For a platoon-company game, youŽll need another approach that allows you to resolve things quicker, otherwise your game will take ages to play and destroy the feeling of a quick, sharp modern engagement."

Definitely not a concern as this is essentually the system we use in Warfare in the Age of Madness and that game moves along extremely fast. We've had zero complaints about speed of play and people actually have requested more stuff for the game. In the new game we just tweaked a few terms and definitions.

The fine grain comes not from lots of rules but by making troops quality a factor in various game mechanics that must be executed no matter what. Here's how each of those attributes work:

MOTIVATION
Each team starts its activation with 2 Action Points. Each Action costs 1 or 2 points. A team may be given 1 Motivation Point (a marker) which can be used as an additional action point or to re-roll a single die.

Your pool of MP is noted as something like 1/3 meaning 1 MP may be allocated to a team within Cohesion range of your command team and 3 MP can be allocated to any team on the field. A force with Motivation 1/5 is composed of highly independent and aggressive troops. A force with Motivation 2/0 is very passive and requires the command team to make things happen beyond basic actions.

COHERENCE
The distance which a command team can throw its Motivation Points and the distance one can coordinate supporting assets such as mortars. (Note that all game measurements are given in bounds…for 15-20mm figures one bound is 4"/10cm and 25-28mm figures one bound is 6"/15cm)

TEAMWORK
Rated 2-4. Roll modified value or less on 1d6 to do things like secure an objective (all die rolls in the gane work the same way…roll the modified value or less to pass). Other teamwork-based actions include things like securing and treating casualties.

GUTS
Rated 2-4. Roll guts value or less to remove Friction Points from a team. Friction Points represent fear, confusion, chaos, minor wounds, malfunctioning gear, etc. Also, a unit with FP can't do a move action unless it passes a Guts roll on 1d6.

COMBAT SKILLS
Rated 1-4. To hit a target, evade enemy fire, or conduct an asssult, roll the modified skill value or less.

So each attribute is simply the value the game uses for core mechanics such as extra action points, "command range", various skill/combat rolls, and "morale rolls". And all rolls work the same way for ease of learning and speed of play: roll modified value or less to pass (number of dice rolled varies by what you're doing).

The other advantage to this approach is that players quickly learn their base values as they play. All of their Guts related rolls are base X, Teamwork rolls are base Y, and so on.

The best psrt of the system is that each component is very easy to learn and executes fast but taken together represents a broad spectrum of soldier quality beyond a simplistic "elite or regular".

MODERN PROFESSIONALS
Coherence: 4 Bounds
Motivation: 1/3
Teamwork: 3
Guts: 3
Shoot: 3
Evade: 2
Assault: 3
Solid, reliable troops with decent initiative.

JIHADIS
Coherence: 1 bound
Motivation: 2/1
Teamwork: 2
Guts: 4
Shoot: 2
Evade: 3
Assault: 2
Dedicated and elusive fighters but lacking in coordination and certain combat skills. Shoot and scoot!

TIER 1 SPEC OPS
Coherence: 6 bounds
Motivation: 1/5 (or even 0/6)
Teamwork: 4
Guts: 4
Shoot: 4
Evade: 3
Assault: 4
The cream of the crop. Independent and deadly.

WWII RELUCTANT/WORN VETERANS
Cohesion: 2 bounds
Motivation: 2/2
Teamwork: 4
Guts: 2
Shoot: 4
Evade: 3
Assault: 2
Knowledgable and able to hold their own in a firefight but fragile and unwilling to close with the enemy. Best in stand-off engagements with supporting arms.

Completely unanswerable question, if not absurd in the first place. A lot of volunteers joined the armed forces to get college tuition, a job, or some sort of skills. That does not mean they are motivated to kill the enemy or even submit their skins to danger of perforation. On the other hand rank conscripts can go on to become highly decorated war veterans and later career army men. Professional volunteers might have done it for quite careerist motives. Conscripts can internalize the virtues of the armed forces and the military life, and there is no guarantee professional volunteers will.

It is all largely a matter of chance and happenstance.

Second BOTH the unmotivated conscript and the professional time-server can perform their uolerably to admirably well, when they there is no combat or loss of life. Combat and the giving and receiving of death and wounds is in no way connected to the prior status of the individual.

To have what you are talking about would be to desire a "berserker" psychosis in individuals, such that would have a direct effect on their attitude in combat.

Otto, clearly you've never seen the movie "Stripes".

:-D

Ah, okay, I got you wrong here – if these values apply to all of your force the system looks okay. I was worried about mixed forces, where Unit A has other ratings than Unit B & C, which would lead to notorious cross-referencing ("what was that units stat again?") – especially if situational modifiers come on top of that basic construct. ;)

You are correct Black Guard, that is how it works. Situational mods are extremely limited with th3 max being 3 for any given die roll. Just one or two obvious mods is the norm (e.g. roll to hit using Shoot value is -1 per friction point on the shooter.) The systems tries to follow the rule of three: people remember things more easily when presented in lists of 3 things (or less).

Special teams such as command, medic, sniper, FO, etc. have special traits which enable them to take special actions but all teams share these common characteristics.

That being said, we did have requests from Age of Madness players to allow mixed quality forces. In that game's expansion, A Clear and Present Madness, we allow for allied forces for a max of two quality stat lines. For example, you could have a force of several Spec Op teams leading several teams of Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan. But that would be just two stat lines to deal with.

For historical, scenario-based games you could also use multiple stat lines for, say, WWII French resistence fighters and American paratroopers fighting side by side.

You could always comprise a checklist:

Are the troops "well trained" (Whatever that means in the setting or period)?

Do they believe they can win?

Do they have an ideological motivation?

Are they fighting a war they view as just or good?

Are they reasonably supplied?

Do they have friends nearby?

Do they have good leaders?

Are they flush with victory?

Modify up or down by a random dice roll the first time they fight.
In a campaign, apply a small random factor each battle as well.

The most experienced and professional troops will know what to expect and weather fatigue and deprivation far better than inexperienced troops or conscripts--comparatively and in general.

Very true … that has been my experience, anyway …

Are the troops "well trained" (Whatever that means in the setting or period)?

Do they believe they can win?

Do they have an ideological motivation?

Are they fighting a war they view as just or good?

Are they reasonably supplied?

Do they have friends nearby?

Do they have good leaders?

Are they flush with victory?

All good points on a macro level. However, when in a firefight, at the squad and platoon level. Most troops are concerned with the survival of his comrades and himself. Then the mission. Which is like the old US Military saying, " Mission First … Troops Always ". They are inevitably entwined in most cases. And IMO, the #1 way to survive and accomplish the mission is to take out as many of the enemy as possible out of the game, ie.: KIA or WIA. Using all assets at your disposal within the ROE, generally. Just my 2 cents …

Let us remember, folks, that there are forces where volunteers have little or no training (Worker's Militia, anyone?), and other forces where conscripts are highly motivated and professionally skilled (who wants to face off against the Israeli "all conscript" force?).

The IDF is not a good example … they are surrounded and backs are to the wall in most cases. Highly trained and skilled volunteers may still have their hands full. When dealing with insurgents or forces that are willing to die en mass for their "cause". Note the IJFs in WWII and the current batch of islamic radicalized fundmentalists jihadi terrorists. However, like with the IJFs, these type forces may take many, many losses before they can be effectively "neutralized". Which I don't see anything like that happening anytime soon with Daesh, AQ, etc., etc. …

A lot of volunteers joined the armed forces to get college tuition, a job, or some sort of skills. That does not mean they are motivated to kill the enemy or even submit their skins to danger of perforation. On the other hand rank conscripts can go on to become highly decorated war veterans and later career army men. Professional volunteers might have done it for quite careerist motives. Conscripts can internalize the virtues of the armed forces and the military life, and there is no guarantee professional volunteers will.

That is where leadership comes in. Again, based on my experience I see the well trained volunteer force is more effective. If you join the military for college money, you might not want to be in combat arms like the Infantry or Tanks. Usually when the hits the fan. Combat units like those are first in the line of fire.

For historical, scenario-based games you could also use multiple stat lines for, say, WWII French resistence fighters and American paratroopers fighting side by side.

Both examples of highly motivated "volunteers". In both cases generally you were not "forced" to join. And you can't say the French Resistance was forced to join. If that was the case every Frenchman and woman would have "joined" …

MODERN PROFESSIONALS
Coherence: 4 Bounds
Motivation: 1/3
Teamwork: 3
Guts: 3
Shoot: 3
Evade: 2
Assault: 3
Solid, reliable troops with decent initiative.

JIHADIS
Coherence: 1 bound
Motivation: 2/1
Teamwork: 2
Guts: 4
Shoot: 2
Evade: 3
Assault: 2
Dedicated and elusive fighters but lacking in coordination and certain combat skills. Shoot and scoot!

TIER 1 SPEC OPS
Coherence: 6 bounds
Motivation: 1/5 (or even 0/6)
Teamwork: 4
Guts: 4
Shoot: 4
Evade: 3
Assault: 4
The cream of the crop. Independent and deadly.

This seems about right to me …

I've thought long and hard about this and settled on three attributes.

EXPERIENCE – though excellent training can substitute there is nothing more important than how well the troops know their jobs.

MOTIVATION – are we winning yet? are we gonna win? What if anything are we fighting and dying for?

COHESION – this is to cover the attrition and replacements situation. A few experienced men can hold together a gaggle of green troops but eventually they will become casualties or the greenies lose faith in the old sweats.

I think everything else overlaps with these 3 or is insignificant in comparison to them.

There is considerable overlap between your unit characteristics. These types of "stat line" numbers work best when their various impacts on the unit's behavior are quite distinct from one another, as in Skarper's example (I would have selected Training, Motivation, Experience, and Condition, as I have in some of my own designs).

If you're "putting the finishing touches on" and are just now asking fundamental questions like this one, don't you suspect that you may have skipped an important design step somewhere earlier in the process? Unless you're just looking for unit "color" on the table (which is a perfectly legitimate design goal) and are not all that worried about actually replicating unit behavior . . . in which case, carry on, you're OK.

You are all dancing around the issue.

A volunteer force is nice, but when you want to play in a "big war" you have to have lots of manpower which means-- conscription

"There is considerable overlap between your unit characteristics."

Actually, there's essentially zero overlap as they relate to basic game mechanics. For example, you can't drop Motivation (which represents levels of aggression and initiative) and just use guts (which represents functioning under fire) without losing certain distinctions with repect to force types.

For example, a force of fanatics might be insanely brave individually (high guts value) but unable to "carpe diem" as a group and meet their objectives (low motivation and teamwork). They could be on drugs or religiously motivated but that doesn't replace soldiering skills and coordination.

OTOH a dispirited force of pros might know their jobs inside out and can out maneuver their enemies (high skills and motivation) but be extremely fragile and unwilling to advance under fire (low guts). They've been around the block a few times but are now unwilling to risk their lives or be the last man to die as the fight winds down.

We have tried really hard to boil everything down to the essentials and if anyone can suggest something for consolidation I DEFINITELY would consider it!!!! Our goal with any design is to so the most with the least without sacrificing too much color and contrast.

We're a small publisher and would happily delay publication if someone had an idea for additional streamlining.

The question we're asking has NOTHING to do with the design. That has been around for years and has been pounded on by lots of independent players. It just has to do with ratings for some canned troops (which can be ignored and modified by the players anyway!) It's like asking "How would you rate the Old Guard compared to the Highlanders" rather than "How would you design a troop classification system". The two are totally different.

Furthermore, we're not even asking for in-game ratings, just impressions of these different types of real-world soldiers. From there we would tweak the in-game suggested values and, MOST importantly, our players can accecpt, modify, or completely re-do the ratings.

We don't sell minis and see our games as a service to the player. We try to make the system as flexible and complete as possible to provide as much value as possible.

"A volunteer force is nice, but when you want to play in a "big war" you have to have lots of manpower which means-- conscription"

Excellent point Otto and it goes to the heart of the discussion. You're exposing many shades of gray there.

For example, you have Russia during the Afghan war (conscript and not enthusiastic?), US in WII (conscript and patriotic?), US in early OIF (volunteer and fully committed?), and US in later OIF (volunteer but maybe straining to maintain standards?).

So perhaps those who have rejected method of enlistment are correct: it's not an issue in assigning troop rat8ngs.

"A volunteer force is nice, but when you want to play in a "big war" you have to have lots of manpower which means-- conscription"

I think you will find that the main reason for choosing volunteers is value for money. Conscripts on one year service require each years cohort to be trained; you need a large training establishment. Long-service volunteers allow smaller training establishments, wider and deeper development through experience and training as well as better motivation. As noted in the comments above there are many other underlying factors; the Norwegians used to have quite a strong conscription requirement for social community factors as much as inherent military requirements.

A volunteer force is nice, but when you want to play in a "big war" you have to have lots of manpower which means-- conscription

Didn't stop the Brits during the Napoleonic Wars, or up until WW1.

Also, when one of your volunteers is capable of fighting as hard/well as 5-10 conscripts, that really turns the "numbers needed" issue upside down.

The Brits at Waterloo brought quite a few friends though ;)

A factor which has had a historical impact on unit ratings whether on fighting ability or morale strength which is willingness to fight is education.

Prior to the 20th century having a 3rd grade education was rare. Men fought and went where they were told to go. The motivation may have been harsh treatment by superiors or knowing that if you were in a hostile land, it was better to be with friends rather than alone in the wilderness.

The 20th century saw improved education and a change in motivation. Training remained primitive through specialist had to know how to deal with mechanization.

As far future warfare, education will be vital in order to operating high tech equipment. The more educated the less likely men are to want to sacrifice themselves. So a no other choice motivation will be needed to ensure that men remain to fight regardless of losses.

There is a distinction to be made between long term regulars and short term volunteers. eg at the start of each of the world wars the British Commonwealth countries had small regular forces supplemented but larger forces of reservists. These were soon joined by large numbers of volunteers and later on conscripts (who sometimes were only used for home defence).
As the troops gained experience in training and then combat the distinctions became less important but initially they were quite different.
Things were tried to short cut the training process but were not always successful. eg The "Pals" battalions in WW1 were an attempt to increase unit cohesion by placing men who lived in the same towns in the same units as they already knew each other. The result on the first day of the Somme in 1916 wasn't what they wanted.

surely the crucial difference between highly trained professionals and others is the knowledge of not only how to fight but WHEN to, and to ensure that when they do, its on their terms not the enemies. Which is why they survive, and why they win.

Dear Weasel

The Brits BOUGHT friends. They got their masses from the Prussians, Russians and Austrians.

A volunteer army is a wonderfully proficient, elite force of highly trained individuals. Excellent when you're bullying around third worlders and tiny states.

It all fell apart for the British in 1914. Casualties of 100,000 to 200,0000 would wipe out such an organization. There may not BE 200,000 in your all volunteer organization.

-

Otto,

Do you think the style of combat would he relevant in that example?

I would think flinging masses of troops against enemy trenches would have very different requirements compared to clearing houses of jihadis and IEDs.

Thanks to everyone who has responded, your input has been EXTREMELY valuable!

Ultimately it appears that this comes down to a matter of semantics with respect to the actual effect on what we're trying to provide to players (i.e. merely some pre-configured troop types as a point of departure for their gaming).

So rather than tagging them based on "method of enlistment" we've decided to tag them based on level of training, experience, and perhaps background. This will vary by period obviously. Again, this isn't about designing a system to describe troop performance (that's been done already and a version on the market for about a year now…this is the evolution of that system). It's just about attaching a meaningful name/tag/word to a stat line so it makes sense to players.

For example, the pre-configured troops for Moderns might be tagged Tier 1 Spec Ops (Stay frosty…), Professionals (Ooh Rah!), Trained (This is my rifle…), Jihadi (Allah Akbar!), Militia (My pappy gave me this rifle when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.), etc. These tags indicate levels of training, experience, and background which hint at their battlefield stats. Obviously, these canned troop types can be completely ignored as the system allows players to "roll their own" from troop characteristics to loadout and gear.

WWII might include Raw (Ivan, here's your rifle, go kill Germans), Trained (welcome to the army Joe!), Experienced (Blimey! Keep your head down mate!), Veteran (Let the arty handle this.), Fanatic (For the Fatherland!), Elite (Who Dares Wins), etc.

Each is listed with an appropriate stat line as described above.

Thanks again to all who responded, every post was useful in its own way and very much appreciated!

Dear Visceral Impact Studios

Oh absolutely not. Massed warfare of mass armies is far more effective in cleansing houses of Jihadi's and IED's.

First of all you bring up to the town the Army, Corps, and Divisional artillery. You throw on one or two battalions of 8" howitzers besides. Then the town is leveled by the artillery and medium bombers. The flattened buildings, incendiary fire storms, and massive 1,000 pound bombs will destroy most of the Jihadi's and the falling buildings take care of the Ied's. Then you have the fighter bombers ready to strafe Then bring in the bulldozers and scrape off a pad to rebuild on.

Massed Warfare by Massed armies is the only war. The rest is just playing tag in the timber with the terrorist.

Yeah Oschimidt … but all that is not PC and does not play well on the world's news stations, etc. … Not to mention some of the the more "sensitive humane", etc., members on this site and others may find the reality of real total war too grim, dark, deadly, etc., etc., … Or as some may say "effective" …

The Danish military defines its goals as:

*Preventing conflict and war.

*Defending Danish sovereignty and protect the nations continued existence and integrity.

*Promoting peaceful developments in the world with respect for human rights.

I sort of feel that massacring civilians is not promoting the ideals of the culture I was, however briefly, called to serve.
Maybe it's just me though.

Yes, an interesting approach to aiding the civil power. Perhaps we should have tried that in Northern Ireland, I'm sure it would have gone down a storm.