"Simple universal force generator." Topic

I have used this simple technique for years. It is somewhat arbitrary but based on a general knowledge of warfare through the ages.
I call it the Iron Law of20/60/20. I base this concept on the idea, possibly completely daft, that about 20% of any armed force will be exceptional in some way, while 60% will be unexceptional, and another 20% will be below average. Now this is entirely relative and is based on the type of era you are representing by your game.
My method involves rolling 2D10 and reading them as a percentage:
81-00 = above average troops. This can mean in morale, armaments, training, and so on.
21-80 = average troops typical of the era/army depicted in the game.
01-20= low grade troops with possibly low morale or weapons, poor training, etc.
Just using the Wehrmacht in Russia as an example, above average might represent a Panzer unit, an average roll might mean standard infantry formation, and a roll of below average might indicate a security formation. The same method employed for the Russians may result in a tank unit for above average, an infantry unit for average, and a partisan or worker's militia force for below average. This can result in some "unbalanced" games, but life is often like that. Here I am using WW2, but it can be used for any period or genre using the spirit of the idea.

Might be too high on your numbers.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: "Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."

So maybe Law of 1/9/80/10?

Sounds like Heraclitus anticipated SLA Marshall!

Old SLAM fiddled the numbers to fit his preconceived notions.

They just need to recruit early from Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.

Your 20/60/20 rule is a rough fit for the first standard deviation of a normal distribution. At three significant figures it's 15.9/68.2/15.9 for three general zones of performance.

The problem is that a normal distribution is easy math (if you hated your math teacher for making you do it in school, I can show you some other distributions that will make you praise that math teacher's kindness for stopping at the normal). Practically, very few real world things are normally distributed, except in small regions of performance. Technically, almost none are. Technically, a normal continues to infinite and negative infinite value. The idea of even a very very very small chance of infinite performance (either direction) by a human is ridiculous. The idea of negative performance doesn't make sense in most cases, either.

Heraclitus may be reasonable for the type of engagements he watched. But even that is too symmetric. Different mission tasks tend to have different performance distributions for a given force of combatants.

Putting those in a game comes down to the desired resolution for the feel of your game. For three levels of performance that represent all mission areas, what you have is a decent representation and has an elegant balance that makes it easy to implement.

I think the percentage arrived at by the 2D10 roll for each category is so period and culture specific, that a general proportion throughout the ages is unrealistic. The WWII examples given may be appropriate; I don't know, it's not my period. For horse and musket era, it would be very difficult to assert that 20% of Napoleon's line infantry were above average as a general rule. Compared to that of some other nations, for much of the period the % would be higher; during 1813-14, it would certainly be lower. There are also units we read about which achieve such feats against the expectation of onlookers that they might rank as above 'above average.' But they didn't do this every day.

If your 'Iron Rule' could be a bit more molten – i.e. adjusted at least by a small margin for each specific scenario – I think it would result in an engaging game. I have been playing a long time: there is more merit in a 4 tier scheme than a 3, I think. In my experience, 'elite-veteran-line-militia' probably works better than 'elite-line-militia' because the 'veteran' category can subsume line/militia who have experience of a number of campaigns.

Sorry to be long-winded. In terms of individual soldiers, is it not 10% of our boys who kill 90% of theirs? That would be hard to justify in combat decided eye-to-eye.

Your 20/60/20 rule is a rough fit for the first standard deviation of a normal distribution.

This is an interesting way of viewing troop quality within a single force mix. The issue is different force mixes will be different, that is opposing armies would also fit on a bell curve and without knowing all the other armies you would not know where they sit. Or to put is simply, the top 20% of the Red force may be superior to the top 20% of the Blue force.

However when you are dealing with, in theory, equal forces then it is an interesting way of breaking up quality. I suspect the quote from Heraclitus may be more accurate, although we would need to apply it to units, or elements. In business the 90/10 rule is often used, 90% of the business is driven by 10% of the sales staff for example.

As for linking this to casualties, I am uncertain if this is possible. In modern combat most casualties are caused by indirect weapons, in ancient period most casualties were caused in the rout. IN Napoleonic's I suspect a mix of the two. I think you can only use the quality measure to determine who is going to run away and who is not.

On the other hand I did read that when the US studied the number of surviving soldiers who fired their rifle and who did not on D-Day, most did not even fire their rifle. However its possible many were pinned down and were not in a position to fire their rifle.

The British, during the Napoleonic war, noted that in many cases individual skirmishers were likely to just take cover, not fire their rifle, empty their ammo on the ground and then go back to their front line for more ammo claiming they had fired all their ammo. The Prussians were aware of this and always ensured skirmishers were in pairs.

Heraclitus' numbers kind of match up with fighter pilots.
Less than 1% are the "right stuff". Those aces shoot down far more enemy between them than the rest.
80% are pretty much just targets.