"Minimum Requirements for a simulation" Topic

UshCha:

I appreciate what you are saying and why. I am simply saying that there are many, many ways to represent infantry combat
in a valid manner without having to include what you say ALL and ANY simulations have to have.

From your link:
[Mprtars] with an approximate kill radius of 40 meters, and a danger radius of up to 190 meters.

During the recent Iraq campaign, US Marine riflemen were interviewed about their experiences by after-action interviewers.

Almost all interviewed stated all firefight engagements conducted with small arms (5.56mm guns) occurred in the twenty to thirty (20-30) meter range. Shots over 100m were rare. The maximum range was less than 300m. Of those interviewed, most sniper shots were taken at distances well under 300m, only one greater than 300m (608m during the day). After talking to the leadership from various sniper platoons and individuals, there was not enough confidence in the optical gear (Simrad or AN/PVS-10) to take a night shot under the given conditions at ranges over 300m. Most Marines agreed they would "push" a max range of 200m only.

That holds true for WWII combat and after. Firefights in the range of around 200 to a rare 300 yards.

Is there some reason Art couldn't use that information to limit rifle fire to 200 yard or under as well as the 'kill' radius of mortars instead of the '200 yard 'danger' radius?

For those reasons, is Art choosing a rifle range of 200 yards all that impossible for the game table size or 'unrealistic?' …Particularly when movement in Crossfire is from cover to cover?

Of course, neither you nor I really know what elements Art was actually attempting to simulate here, so both of us are simply talking about the possible, and not necessarily the likely interpretation.

That is what wargame mechanics are: a translation / interpretation of reality.

On the other hand, are you saying that you could not possibly take Art's system as it is and with a 're-interpretation' of what is represented, have it valid in your view?

McLaddie,
I'm not going to dispute the Marine After Action Report quote. However, just like many other excerpts, you need to evaluate the overall report.

link

Field Report
Marine Corps Systems Command Liaison Team
Central Iraq
20 April to 25 April 2003

Background ~ In support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Marine Corps Systems Command (MCSC) fielded equipment in response to Urgent Universal Need Statements which provided additional capability to I MEF. At the request of the Combat Assessment Team, MCSC provided three officers to assess UNS / legacy system items. This was the second trip supported by MCSC personnel in theatre. The following locations were visited:

An Nasiriyah
Ad Diwaniyah

It appears the interviews were most likely with 2nd MEB,8th Marines(my old unit in the 1970's) after the battles took place and these were all city fights at close range.

There are many combat videos that show extended small arms engagements of 500+ yards, especially in Afghanistan. How effective was the fire? Most likely not very much.

Any "average" range is going to depend on many factors.

Personally, I'd say 200 yards is the maximum "effective" range as beyond the target recognition degrades and it's very easy to hunker down and avoid enemy fire. It's generally not worth shooting as it gives away your position for mortar fire and wastes ammo.

In our games, smart players end up really punishing players foolish enough to open up at the long ineffective range. It's easy to have a 60mm Mortar FO with a field phone to a mortar 50-100 yards behind him ready to bracket an enemy foolish enough to give their position away.

I can't comment on Art's system as I have not played it.

Wolfhag

Mc Laddie, I agree that 300m is proably an extreeme long rnge for a standard rifleand 200m may be closer. However the debate was about Long range. Getting artillery plausibly on a table WHO's maximum range cannot exceed 400 ydsis not plausible and hence the Failure of Crossfire in adding Artillery.

To be honest I most unusually am srtuggeling for words ;-). Perhaps sombody else can frae it better. To me some of the models described like the simple block game that represents some of the aspects of an urban fight would be to me something like an Allagory, a fanatasy element used to illustrate a piont. They would not really be a simulation per say. There unfortunately the definition may not be binary, there will be shades of grey. Personaly for a minatures game, to me ther is no grey, I am on the laws of physics side.

Someone more familiar with the abstract allargory may be able to better define and lable that form of educational tool.

Getting artillery plausibly on a table WHERE the maximum range cannot exceed 400yds is not plausible and hence the failure of Crossfire in adding artillery.

It can be, depends upon the period and the operation. In both WW1 and WW2, infantry were known to hug the barrage to within 50-100m. Conversely, depending upon the time scale, it is more realistic to conduct the artillery strike before the attacker moves onto the board. It all just depends. How much artillery do you want to add? This feels like objecting to a Vietnam War game focusing on sections which doesn't have rules for B-52 strikes.

Personally for a minatures game, to me there is no grey, I am on the laws of physics side.

UshCha, you blow my mind. You can write that, but then object to casualty removal?!?!

I am on the laws of physics side.

Ah. So you model strings and quantum gravity for every particle in every entity on the battlefield. After all, anything less would just be fantasy.

Getting artillery plausibly on a table WHO's maximum range cannot exceed 400 yds is not plausible and hence the Failure of Crossfire in adding Artillery.

I can accept that IF artillery was something Art wanted to simulate. If not, then that has no bearing on what elements he did include.

Phil Sabin's BlockBuster wargame has no artillery either. That wasn't what was being simulated. The veterans who played it were still convinced of the game's validity.

I am on the laws of physics side.

Yep, me too. Have you ever heard the Engineer's joke about spherical chickens? [There also one about spherical cows] or the simulation of a galaxy using a thousand stars?

Whirlwind, The objection is not really to casualty removal but that wargames do this unrealisticly. In company commander after a VERY heavy defeat of the Gemans they only found 30 bodies. This he stated was, using a standard he was taught' that they were attacked by at least 200 men. So casulaties were of the order of 15%, perhaps a little more. Hence the most you could take off would be around 2 figures of a ten man team before in effect it was driven off proably with additional casualties. This is not a good way to model the effects of casualties.

So casualties were of the order of 15%

OR 30% if there were the same number of wounded taken away.

Obviously, if 140 men attempt to cover the same ground as 200, there are consequences. The Germans, in 1944 reduced there division [or was it brigade?] strength from 9 battalions to 6 battalions, but expected them to cover the same frontage. The Germans did it, but not as well…by 1/3.

Still confused UshCha. That isn't an argument about casualty removal at all, it is about how incurring casualties affects morale and then effectiveness.

In company commander after a VERY heavy defeat of the Gemans they only found 30 bodies. This he stated was, using a standard he was taught' that they were attacked by at least 200 men. So casulaties were of the order of 15%, perhaps a little more.

As McLaddie, pointed out, 30 bodies found does not equal 30 casualties. At normal rates for a small arms engagement, that implies 60-90 wounded. If mortars were involved, then add more wounded still. Deduct a proportion of Germans aiding the wounded, then pretty much an entire group of 200 could be out of the fight (as in fact happened).

Hence the most you could take off would be around 2 figures of a ten man team before in effect it was driven off probably with additional casualties.

Casualty effects don't necessarily work the same at different levels of command. A squad/section might suffer 50% casualties in 10 seconds and still be firing back; a division might suffer 5% casualties in 10 hours and be out of the fight.

Why does removing one figure from a composite unit have to represent a specific number of casualties?

A stand frontage and/or figure removal are two artificial methods of representing… whatever the designer wants.

The minimum requirements for any simulation is to effectively model what the system was designed to model.

I think I will give up on this thread. The attempt was to define a usefull minimum for a good Tabletop simulation. It has degenerated into a rather esoteric discussion on simulation or perhaps its me (proabley me).

A 9 block model may represent some very limiteed (but usefull) elements of urban fighting but I is not one I would consider for a tabletop game where the board is in effect a 3D map. Perhaps there are those that even this minimum requirement is not what is required for a table top game.

I suppose my attemps to bring a common set of values for coherent definition of a table top simulation were doomed to failuer. Given that it is not even possible to define a coherent reference standard for figures. One mans circus freak is another mans reslistic, reference simply to real scale is almost considered anti social ;-).

It is clear why sporting bodies exsist without them chaos is the result, which is where wargamers seems to want to live, where many games call them selves simulation where there is scant eveidence that there assumptions are well askew with the real world.

Thanks for your time.

A 9 block model may represent some very limited (but usefull) elements of urban fighting but I is not one I would consider for a tabletop game where the board is in effect a 3D map. Perhaps there are those that even this minimum requirement is not what is required for a table top game.

UshCha:

The issue posed by you for the thread was "the actual minimum requirement for a simulation."

Not a board vs a tabletop wargame. I gave two examples of what were termed SIMULATIONS of modern combat that meet none of your minimum requirements, yet both are seen be veterans as being valid designs.

QED Your minimum requirements are not necessary for a wargame to be a simulation…of modern warfare.

It may be very limited in your view [all simulations are, the question is whether the two wargames simulated what the designers intended…no more, no less.]

You may not consider BLOCKBUSTER as a tabletop game, but it could be played with figures on the table all the same.

One mans circus freak is another mans reslistic, reference simply to real scale is almost considered anti social ;-).

In designing a simulation, whatever YOU feel is realistic in reference to scale is not the issue nor is wanting a real scale. What is anti-simulation design is to insist that any functioning simulation HAS TO have real scale as a basis for players [or at all] to be a simulation.

It just ain't so.

You defined the parameters of the simulation and the minimum inclusions for a simulation, period--not ALL simulations.

There is nothing 'esoteric' about saying that while you are free to determine what parameters of reality [in modern combat at some[?] scale] are important to you, that doesn't define what a simulation has to be or include to be a viable, functioning simulation of reality, considering how much there is of reality compared to what ANY simulation can embrace.

Mechanics like taking figures off the table is simply a game mechanic, fun or otherwise. Saying X number of inches represents so many yards doesn't simulation anything until we know how it works in the design.
The system and various parts represent nothing until the designer establishes:

1. What exactly the mechanic [and the whole design] is supposed to model [and there are millions of things mechanics and game system could represent].

2. Does the created mechanic [the dynamic model] demonstrate any fidelity to the targeted reality?

There is nothing esoteric about those points anymore than yours. It is what a simulation has TO DO [achieve, demonstrate, produce, create…and whatever active, very un-esoteric verb you want to substitute for a wargame to be a functioning simulation.]

Your three points may or may not accomplish those two requirements above--that has to be proven, but they are not THE THINGS a simulation has to do to model modern combat.

We can talk about how important your points are in modern combat and what parts, but they are not "the minimum requirement for a simulation" of anything but what you feel are the parts of a very large reality YOU feel are important.