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dicedtomato

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  1. My look at CM: Cold War. https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/what-if-the-soviets-had-invaded-europe-combat-mission-cold-war-aims-to-find-out/ Michael
  2. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/08/combat_mission_shock_force_simulates_u_s_attack_on_syria_lessons_for_obama.html
  3. I never received your first move, and I sent you several messages. Do you still want a match?
  4. Hi, Bill, I appreciate your hard work on this. Operation Z is a good scenario. But like a lot of other strategic games, there is no reason why the Allies just can't avoid combat until they've built up an overwhelming advantage, and then whomp Japan. Japanese automatic victory is practically impossible against non-comatose humans, so the Allies have no incentive to fight in 1942-43. At the same time, the game exacerbates Allied military and economic preponderance. For example, there is no reason why the Allies can't transfer all the British/Dutch/Australian ships to Hawaii or California. It takes a while for Britain to save enough MMPs to repair them, but it seems funny to start old Japanese battleships at reduced strength when the Allies can double the size of their non-carrier fleet. One solution is to make Japanese automatic victory easier. Give the Allies a reason to fight under less-than-ideal conditions.
  5. Why is it historical to give the Allies four extra months beyond August '45 to compel a surrender? Why is it historical for Japanese warships to start with neither experience nor naval warfare upgrades (even though Japan starts with Naval Tech 1)? Why does Japan start with Heavy Tanks 1 but their armor begins the game with no upgrades? Is it more realistic to force Japan to spend time and several hundred scarce MMP to upgrade? A game that allows Japan to capture California is poor history. But a game where we shrug our shoulders and say, "oh, well, Japan is going to lose anyway. Have fun" is a poor design.
  6. Would like to try US. vs. Russia.
  7. Operation Z is tilted against Japan. It's not simply the number of MMPs. It's also the tech advantages that the overwhelming number of U.S. (augmented by British and Dutch, especially ships) can bring to bear. Japan conquering China will not compensate for that. It also helps that the Allies that the scenario extends beyond August '45 into January '46. Given how easily ground troops in SC:PT can be pounded into oblivion by multiple carrier/land-based air/battleship attacks, the Allies can pretty much take what they want. I suspect there will be a lot more enthusiasm for playing the Allies rather than Japan in PBEM.
  8. I'd like to do a TCP/IP Operation Z. I'm willing to take the Japanese.
  9. I'm looking for a PBEM campaign. Can do multiple turns a day.
  10. The point is that Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets intimidated them. Germany had to be physically occupied and Japan had to be starved and atom-bombed before they would surrender. War as a contest of wills sounds more like nuclear-era deterrence theory - act tough, use force to send a carefully calibrated signal, and the other side will back down. Like the African spear-wavers, that game only works if everyone is playing by the same rulebooks. Not likely in an age of asymmetric warfare. You're right that soldiers frequently are not the ones demanding escalation. It's the home front that wants the war ended and a decisive victory to justify the sacrifices. War doesn't have to lead to mass murder. But it seems to be the most efficient medium. Diced Tomato
  11. That "long peace" of aristocratic war saw Native Americans and other indigenous peoples wiped out. I guess the moral is that aristocratic wars work as long as the aristocrats have some outsiders to exterminate. I don't get your definition that the point of war is proving that you're willing to self-sacrifice. That sounds more like African tribes waving spears at each other, or a political-military chessboard conflict like Vietnam. Nazi Germany didn't surrender because the Soviets proved how tough they were. They surrendered when the Red Army stormed Berlin. Diced Tomato
  12. Whoa! We can see that Desert Dave was a grunt, because he believes that all combat pilots are war criminals. They must be criminals, because they're dropping bombs from 10,000 feet without seeing their targets, which means that houses and schools inevitably are hit. But then I'd have to ask Dave: when the grunts in Vietnam took fire from a village, and called in the 105s that pulverized the old farmer and his family, was that a war crime? I do believe in the concept of war crimes, defined as deliberately targeting innocents for the sake of terror. But that's a Pandora's box, isn't it? Britain in 1942 had no real means of striking at Germany directly other than strategic bombing. Given the primitive tech of the time, civilians would inevitably be killed (as they were during American "precision" bombing). So would you tell an Auschwitz mother who watched her baby stomped to death by an SS guard, that you couldn't bomb German cities because German babies might be hurt? Cary, aristocratic war is nonsense. It never stays aristocratic. If you like Weigley, read his book on the quest for decisive victories, which every nation sought but few achieved, so the war dragged on. WWI began as aristocratic war, a game between monarchies that degenerated into mass murder as trench warfare produced frustration (see http://military.discovery.com/randr/reviews/books/cataclysm.html). Of course I would love to see a clean war, like some SF novel where the combatants fight on some magically empty planet. I know that military professionals would love nothing more than to fight their opposite numbers in some civilian-free world, just like Rommel and Montgomery (and we'll just forget what the Germans did to the Tunisian Jews in the rear). It's too bad that professional soldiers are also taught to focus on accomplishing their missions, and if civilians get in the way, it's "collateral damage." If you want to avoid civilian casualties, don't go to war in the first place. If you do go to war, expect that you will hurt innocents. That may not be decent, but at least it's honest. Diced Tomato
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