Even more ranting in praise of the Cold War for CMX2 :)

[Sequoia]

Just an observation. You see a lot of WWII shooters and RTS games. You even see Viet Nam and current day shooters. But you don't see anybody else making NATO vs Warsaw Pact games. T-72 is the closest I've seen. Do they know something we don't?

[Michael Emrys]

There are so many possible wild cards in the NATO/WARPAC environment that trying to predict how combat would go is virtually impossible. Consider the effect of tactical nukes and nuclear demolitions, for instance. Just how do you factor that into a CM-type game? What is the air/ground interaction going to look like in a Central Front environment? How about comms disruption? Theater ammunition exhaustion and the necessity for resupply?

The parts that are reliably predictable form only a part of the picture, and probably not a decisive part. People who think that fight would be just like WW II except at longer range are kidding themselves.

Michael

[Tarkus]

I certainly agree that post WWII era would be a challenge, no doubt about that. Even vehicle's datas might not be that easy to dig out. But would it be possible to find balance in the game? I suppose it would. Tactical nuke could be left out IMO, just like the absolute allied air superiority was sort of left out of CMBO. Post-nuked battlefields would be interesting though.

Cheers

[flamingknives]

I think that Tac nukes could be ignored, as any tactical exchange would immediately become strategic. In any case, IMHO, 'tactical nuke' is an oxymoron.

You might ask how you factor the tactical use of heavy bombers in WWII.

Air-ground, comms disruption, theatre ammunition supply and resupply are features of WWII. Why shoudl they be any harder to simulate for a cold war setting? Tactical wargames for modern/cold war scenarios already exist, if not to the detail level of CM. But then, WWII games before CM weren't up to the standard of CM

I've yet to see any remotely convincing reason for not being able to simulate Cold War, battalion sized engagements.

[kipanderson]

Tarkus, hi,

For sure Steve posted six odd plus games. I am always a bit nervous of quoting as I may get the exact words wrong, so tend to paraphrase. But no doubt about it… of course this will only be the “plan”. Exact words where “five to eight games”… I think . Steve has also posted that it may be as low as six months between games. I would put my money on nine months for safety.

Worth pointing out that a major goal of the new engine is speed of development between each version of the game. All fans of CM have a huge amount of fun to look forward to once BFC start cranking out games from CMX2.

When it comes to nukes, and chemical, we can all only guess if they would have been used. My guess is not. I think the risk of war was real, now and then.. on and off, but WMD was bluff all round, even if the players did not know it. I can only guess, but no leader would wish to swap Gorky for London, or Moscow for New York. Of course, all had to train and plan for WMD as before WWII chemical weapons.

Plus, as pointed out above, logistics, airpower in part, are all to some degree ignored or overlooked in CMX1. CMX2 will not try to model “everything” as CMX1 does not try to.

I see no practical reason why NATO Central Front could not be done. If it takes the imagination of the guys at BFC it will happen. The problem with all the real world post-WWII wars is that, happily, they were all very small in scale when compared to WWII. I very good thing in the real world. In the CM world we are discussing the biggest in terms of mechanisation was by far the Arab-Israeli war of ’73. But having re-read up on it recently looking for possible historical CMX2 scenario, the pickings a very thin indeed.

Thus… even if Arab-Israeli ’73 were modelled by BFC in no time most players would have to turn to hypothetical, fictional scenarios anyway. (Also, many of the historical battle of ’73 were very one sided….)

“If” T55s/T62s/T72s/M60s are going to be crashing around on our PCs, it would be a terrible waste not to model NATO Central Front, in my very prejudiced view .

All the best,

Kip.

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Tarkus, hi,

For sure Steve posted six odd plus games. I am always a bit nervous of quoting as I may get the exact words wrong, so tend to paraphrase. But no doubt about it… of course this will only be the “plan”. Exact words where “five to eight games”… I think . Steve has also posted that it may be as low as six months between games. I would put my money on nine months for safety.[...]

I see. That was my understanding as well. I just thought you were refering to more specific intents I might have overlooked.

Thanks.

[Michael Emrys]

At least during the Reagan administration, the US was very intent on using tactical nukes. The Pershing missle was intended to hit C&C centers in the rear areas of the WARPAC at the first sign of hostilities. Other nukes would have been dropped on assembly areas of the forces forming up. Nuke demolitions were emplaced at critical choke points. It strains credulity to think they were just there for show. Nukes would have been used because without them, NATO would not have had much of a chance.

All indications are that the WARPAC armies were well practiced in chemical warfare, including operating in that environment, and fully intended to use them, not only at the front, but in rear area installations such as airfields.

How nukes and chemical weapons would have interacted in producing an outcome is anybody's guess.

Theater supply problems would not have remotely resembled WW II. NATO had enough ammunition in theater for at most about a week and a half's intensive combat, assuming no dumps got captured or destroyed, a big if. That's one of the reasons they would have had to go nuclear early. They simply couldn't count on winning a traditional slugfest.

Comms, and their interruption, could have been far more critical than in the WW II era. NATO tactics depended more on them to get a relatively small force to operate efficiently. Take away their coordination and their usefulness drops off rapidly. The Soviets and their allies were aware of this and devoted a lot of technology and manpower to signal disruption. Prior to about 1990, the West doesn't seem to have done much to protect itself from that.

What I am saying, and all that I am saying, is what I started out with, namely WW III games are science fiction. If you enjoy playing them, fine. But don't think they have much to do with reality or possible reality, because nobody really knows what all that would have looked like.

The progress and outcome of the Arab/Israeli war of '73 surprised a lot of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and led to a lot of recalculation. But mostly it showed how uncertain that whole business is.

Michael

[flamingknives]

The level of difficulty lies in what you are trying to simulate.

Tactical operations in a Cold War setting is naturally going to be a different kettle of fish than full-scale WW III.

CMX1 does not model theatre supply issues Nor does it really model communications, either their presence or absence.

My point is that tactical wargames representing WWII are not really any less science fiction than those representing WWIII engagement. The only difference is that WWII has clearer evidence with regards to the quality of the troops facing each other in a particular battle. The historical battles created by the better scenario designers would be the only thing missing from a cold war game.

[kipanderson]

Michael,

“What I am saying, and all that I am saying, is what I started out with, namely WW III games are science fiction. If you enjoy playing them, fine. But don't think they have much to do with reality or possible reality, because nobody really knows what all that would have looked like.

The progress and outcome of the Arab/Israeli war of '73 surprised a lot of people on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and led to a lot of recalculation. But mostly it showed how uncertain that whole business is.”

We do not really disagree on that much, my spin would just be a little different . With one exception…WMD .

No one can know, but the US using nukes to save Bonn, and thereby sign the death warrants of millions of US citizens, maybe the end of most large US cities, does not seem credible to me. The problem with the nuclear threat, when dealing with other nations with nuclear weapons, has always been that it is far better to suffer the loss of a conventional war than face nuclear strikes on all ones major cities.

All the Soviet Union would have to say is “you nuke us…we nuke you” and those around Reagan never would have let it happen. In my view. Far better the Soviets reach the channel than Chicago disappears.

Anyway… even the senior players at the time would not have been able to predict what happens… BTW do not ignore the Europeans in all this, not keen on nukes being thrown around… but no one knows.

One reason for this speculation is the lack of bones from BFC. Once they have announced the first two titles all minds, including the mine, will turn to those subjects.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. BTW there certainly have been Cold War wargames. Operation Flashpoint and a number of games produced by John Tiller, Modern Campaigns, ae examples. Plus there is a huge semi-Cold War game on the way..read it over at Wargamer.com. Uncle Puttin invades Germany... all the late Cold War kit in a very CM looking environment. But, of course, more Operation Flashpoint then CM.

[junk2drive]

Korea was supposed to lead to nuclear war.

Vietnam was supposed to lead to nuclear war.

And a few other conflicts.

I think a border conflict between minor powers backed by the major powers would make a playable game.

[Tarkus]

Even the tactical nuclear capabilities of NATO ground forces were mostly intended as deterents. The calculation for estimation of potential success of any WARPAC advance toward the west were vastly offbalance because of these weapons. It is clear that the person in charge of using them, from one side or the other of the hill, were probably hoping never to have to actually use them, since it was the first step toward escalating devastation along the so-called "graduate response".

That being said, WWIII equalling fiction in any tacsim is self evident IMHO.

Cheers

[Michael Emrys]

FK and Kip,

You are both assuming that a use of tactical and theater nukes would have inevitably led to an all-out nuclear exchange. The Reagan administration and presumably that of Eisenhower too were apparently betting that it would not, that the US strategic nuclear arsenal was so intimidating as to block that eventuality. Whether or not that was a sound assumption is debatable. I am very happy that it was never tested.

My point is, you can't just wave nukes, gas, and other factors away and have a credible game, because they would have had effects on the tactical level, just as the total destruction of the plant producing Tigers would have had an effect on tactical combat in WW II.

My point is again that you have all these huge unknowns that cannot be reasonably defined in a Cold War/Hot War game. With regard to WW II, they are not undefined because we can look at the historical record and see what they were. A NATO/WARPAC game is just fantasy, and that's all it can be. If you like fantasy games, that's what you'll get. But it will not be a historical game, and the difference will not be trivial.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

The thing about simulations is that they tend, either gradually or catastrophically, to diverge from reality, no matter how careful your data collection and calculations are. But if you have an actual historical record, you can check your simulation against it at many points and make corrections. Where there is no historical record, there is no way to check, and the divergences get wider and wider as the simulation progresses and things which—unbeknownst to the simulation designer—could or would not have happened in reality creep in and skew the outcome. That's just the nature of the beast.

Michael

[Tarkus]

Agreed, but that can be an asset, since none could get that secret after action report clearly showing that T-55 would nail M-48 7.2 times out of ten. Grogflames wars on purely speculative level. Now THAT would stem some action on the boards.

[flamingknives]

Ah, but a WWIII simulation could only cover the first few weeks of the conflict - after that it would almost inevitably become strategic. You could leave 'tactical' nuclear weapons out in the same way that tactical and strategic use of heavy bombers is omitted from CMX1.

Production facilities are removed from the front line, and attacks on logistics can be abstracted. However, it is the tactical battle that is important.

What are the huge unknowns?

I'll agree, but Kip won't, that any data on weapons systems post 1980 or thereabouts are unreliable and incomplete, as many of these systems are still in use. However, the properties of earlier systems are well known and, in many cases, battle-proven.

[rleete]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Far better the Soviets reach the channel than Chicago disappears.

You've obviously never been to Chicago...

[Kip Watson]

I would love to see a Cold War CMX, and as you say, I don't see why Nukes couldn't be modelled much like Strategic Bombing was in CM1 - reflected in the ability to inflict damage on terrain and enemy.

A nuclear devastated battlefield would rock (as mentioned above), why not also 6-months-post-nuclear-war complete with dead vegetation and nuclear-Winter sky. And if EMP has degraded communications and radiation poisoning is affecting the troops, that could probably all be modelled even using CMX1, so CMX2 should do it even better.

It would be difficult to accurately assess respective troop quality and such, but if a range of troop abilities were modelled, scenario designers could decide for themselves. As for ballistic and armour info, I would have thought with all the conflicts fought using Soviet and Nato gear there was enough data to make some quite close estimates.

It's the 'what if' factor that makes a good simulation so fascinating, arguments and all...

[Bannon DC]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

How many times are you planning to waste bandwidth by saying this?

A guy with over 17 THOUSAND posts said this. Now that is funny!

[Pzman]

Yes it is isn't it. That said, a Cold War game would be not as interesting IMO, beause there is no way to account for changes that the sides would most likely make as interm messures for AFVs in that time periods based upon battle experience that never happened, aside from Korea.

[MikeyD]

"My guess is that both will be WWII. North West Europe"

Oh God no. Not another D-day or Bulge game! Hasn't CM1 (and all those 'Medal of Honor' type shooter games) completely satisfied our urge to kill Shermans with Tigers yet? Please please PLEASE pick another theater of operations!

-

About using nukes, That would probably be ignored in the same way CM1 ignores strategic bombing. But it would be a bold decision to include that option. You could witness how often a careless commander kills all of his own men. I still recall watching an old PBS documentary on OPFOR in the 80s. A visiting commander was given the option to use a tactical nuke to extricate himself from a difficult situation. He sat at the computer monitor with his mouth agape as his own position gets swallowed up by a 'virtual' fireball on-screen.

--

"assuming... nukes would have... led to an all-out nuclear exchange. Reagan administration... betting that it would not."

We should also remember Reagan was suffering from brain damage. He was once recorded laughingly joking about launching WWIII over an open radio mike. Let's not use HIM as a basis for our nuclear policy!

[Pzman]

Please please PLEASE pick another theater of operations!

No, please don't, 1944 West Front once again!

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

In a post-WWII game that is also high-intensity, combined arms warfare there is only one place to go, the big one, the one that never happened, NATO’s Central Front

Since you want science fiction, why not starship troopers & bugs? Personally I prefer historical gaming

[throwdjohn]

there is an interesting book on world war III, aka the cold war turning hot, but i forget the author. it is written in historical style, after the fact, and it makes interesting points about why there would be no nukes used. check it out.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Since you want science fiction, why not starship troopers & bugs? Personally I prefer historical gaming

The only wargaming that isn't science fiction is scenarios that are based exactly on real life battles. Every time you hit the QB generator you are going into Sci-Fi land.

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

The only wargaming that isn't science fiction is scenarios that are based exactly on real life battles. Every time you hit the QB generator you are going into Sci-Fi land.

1) No war ever occured between NATO and WARPAC.

2) There are extremely good reasons why there was never a war.

3) Large chunks of data on both sides are still classified information, so any simulation would be based on false information.

4) The likelyhood of a conventional war in Europe between NATO and WARPAC are about as likely as a war with the Klingon Empire.

Pure science fiction with no basis in reality.

There is merit to having CM cover the modern era... there were plenty of wars. However, I see no merit in basing it on a war that did not, nor would have, occured