pamak1970

I just read the pdf. Very nice indeed. I have one question. I saw somewhere command delays and REPORT delays. It is the latter i want to ask a question about. What types of reports are the ones we are talking about? Is it information about friendly status on the operational map? Is it information about enemy movement or spotting there? I always beleived that this feature and the introduction of friendly fog of war and delay of gathering of information creates a realistic "command atmosphere". I am dissapointed when i see cases when a player has real time information about percentage of casualties, fatigue or supply levels.

Maneuver. As i was reading the steelbeast forums, i saw the following coming from the designer who happens to be a proffesional German officer of the tank Corps....................... "If we want to reduce the debate to buzz slangs, the difference between maneuver and attrition warfare is the reversal of means and purpose - do we apply firepower in order to enable maneuver, or do we move in order to apply firepower. Either way, fire cannot be separated from maneuver." Of course you have every right to claim that there is much more to the debate between maneuver theory and attrition but essentially your approach is more "shifted" if you want towards the maneuver theory mentality than attrition theory mentality This does not mean that you diregard the value of overwatch and fire, but you seem to be ready as an attacker to trade at least in some cases a portion of your potential firepower for more speed. BigDuke6 says the same."Better in some cases to go with somewhat less and faster than with everything you can master under a deliberate carefull approach but slower" The right balance of speed and patience is the backbone of military ART. From the same thread of steelbeasts i wrote there my version of the difference between maneuver and attrition theory. I will repeat it " To me Blitzkrieg is the willingness to trade a portion of your potential firepower and information , in exchange of more speed. Of course as others said, everybody needs to use firepower under any theory. The idea is that under blitzkrieg you count on going with less (firepower and information) but still be able to overpower your enemy because 1. He also has less information (operationally speaking) and the simple fact that you go faster than him adds more uncertainty to his side. So although you accept higher level of uncertainty, you still aim towards information dominance over the enemy 2. He also has less firepower cause he lacks information and time to concentrate it against you. Again you aim to overpower him at a location of your choice , and although you traded a portion of firepower for speed, the simple fact that you have the initiative to choose where to fight and speed of execution, gives you the time advantage of concentrating superior firepower over him before he applies counter-measures. " [ June 09, 2008, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

This is an interesting point. Joachim you said you are not interested in maneuver or attrition warfare theories but you are actually taking a position towards the former when you play a CM game. It is interesting that in previous threads related to those theoritical issues i had pointed that Jason seemed to underestimate fog of war issues and the role of intelligence in real life. Now,if i understood it right you argue that he underestimates the role of intelligence and reaction time in a CM game. In a way, the deliberate slow approach is the application of Jason's "attrition mentality" in the game, while your argument of "speed and reaction time does matter" , is the "maneuver mentality". In order to avoid misunderstandings, CM can not really be used to test those theories. It does indicate though how certain personal beliefs about real life issues may actually affect a personal game style . Or it might be even the opposite, having CM results affecting beliefs about real life issues

and you still will not be able to apply this in practice to find the "perfect solution" for a particular situation, and without even having a basic estimation of the "width" of this bracketing, you do not even know if it is going to be useful at all, or at least better than a classic approach of search for moving targets. s to the previous part about the best solution and the incorporation of uncertainty in it, there is no problem with that statement. That is another attempt to create a strawman from nowhere again. The problem is what i described in my previous post.

Which is basically what was said before about sweep width taking a range of values. However YOu DO need to know the specific value if you want to make the PERFECT DECISION for the particular situation.( THAT is how all this started from. If in the most simple scenario the theory can not guarantee that, why you complain when the Marines say " "Finally, since all decisions must be made in the face of uncertainty and since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any battlefield problem. Therefore, we should not agonize over one. The essence of the problem is to select a promising course of action with an acceptable degree of risk" Nothing implies that Marines can not use OR or decision theory or whatever scientific method, to find a "promising course of action" with an acceptable degree of risk. In your scenario ,in the general case of starting a search when an average value of the distribution is less than 20,(promising action), DOES force you to accept the risk of starting the search and find that the actual search value during your particular effort happens to be above 20. So now the whole issue is how you define "perfect solution" for a particular scenario. If perfect solution means the one that gives the most promising action , or is the one that gives the best results in this particular case? Needless to say that in reality, most probably you will not really have information to understand if your solution is either of the above. A simple example which i stated before is the unknown regarding the value of targets in the area you search,which is a pretty commom situation [ April 30, 2008, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

actually in this case you have already too much information in your hand. When you index everything according to cost, you basicallly know things which you are not going to know in reality. That is besides the stationary target issue

The more you describe it, the more you show that your example is irrelevant.The approach is totaly different from what you describe. I did not say anything about formal methods. I talked about your example.

Wait a minute. Now you go to different path.Before you did not care at all about the sweep width. Are you saying now that you are going to examine it to find how it affects cost? Finally you start to get it.

That is what you say. They actually understand that there is a stop strategy where the cost for pursuing the obssesion of perfect plan which needs a lot of information gathering, exceeds the potential benefits.

Of course it is a different problem. So we agree that your case is just irrelevant. Interesting though that even you mentions "detection width" which is EXACTLY the point i made.

Do you have many cases of the above in the type of search we are talking about?

Apply it to my simple problem. You have one cell having a target of 20 value. Without even caring to examine sweep width which affects the value of a specific cost,do you start a search or not? By the way, you would be very lucky in real life if you even knew the things you know in this example [ April 29, 2008, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

And since you show a quite low level of math efficiency, it is more probable that you are familiar with some type of social science,than applied ones. In addition there is no way to bypass the fact that OR methods at that time gave totally different results. Saying that "if they were asking him or you they would knew the answer" is just stupid or arrogance or both. The issue is based on what criteria someone would accept ANY SPECIFIC answer. The fact that "this is a scientific method or OR" is BS, cause most used similar aproach with different ASSUMSIONS about certain factors like Iraq fighting will. Some gave dozens of thousands casualties, some others gave much less. As to the seminars, you might be absolute right about what you do and you might actually run a demonstration for marketing reasons of the company, or for teaching simply interface to clients. Now you can "spin" it a little bit and claim what you want. It is still no convincing because i have been to various types of seminars too where people that present some things do not really teach ,they just market products And this shows that OR does not give perfect solutions because you will always be able to gathert even more information. Somewhere you have to stop "turning over more tiles" before the cost you have to pay (see time- delay for the Marines), exceeds your gain expectations. Your accusations are false. I gave you an example of OR study from Marines about "Maneuver warfare science". Instead of admitting that marines also use OR and science in general, exactly because of the things you mentioned, you chose to respond "do not beleive them". First of all it does not say "violent now". It says "good plan now" , second it is not a matter of just "better", it is a matter of "better at what cost regarding time to prepare it". [ April 29, 2008, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

It is amazing that you still confuse theory and implementation. Apply "your rule of thumb" deciding if you should continue search or not,without knowing the cost you have to pay. Apply your rule of thumb when you do not know the total value of the targets distributed in the area you reach. Apply your rule of thumb when you do not know how many cells remained to be uncovered or how many cells you have total in the first place. Again you confuse theory and implementation. The answers for F and 2F are different.The concept might be the same but this does not help in practice to determine what you do when you do not know which F applies in your situation. If you need cost of 1 to search an area of a single cell with a known value of target 20, you go for it. If you need cost of 21 to search an area of a single cell with value of target 20, you do not go. In the above simple example so that you can finally be able to get it,, even though you know the value of targets ,even though you know the number of cells, you can not decide about what you do without knowing the specific amount of cost you have to pay. Different values of cost can lead to totally different decisions and nonsense about "relations" do not help you in practice decide what to do. The fact that all answers come from the same theoritical approach which has the answer for "all possible values of cost" , does not mean that you do not need to calculate cost in the specific case you have tom deal with, and it is HERE that at some point you will need to look to the time factor and sweep width! Of course it is powerful like the fact that you index everything to cost. In theory you can do it, in practice you simply need an awful lot of information to do the same thing . Bingo!. That is why you can not use such simplistic approach for search in military. You know in your example TOO much. That is exactly why real professionals struggle to cope with determining values of sweep width and incorporate them in their search patterns. If there was a way to bypass all these by using your idea of cost, they would have done it. Actually it is very much different and actually makes your attempt to use your example for search ,irrelevant for moving targets,which makes me wonder why you brought in the first place? And why please you mention IF saturated area is never issue at all?.Most probably it is an issue and in addition if you go with some type of collision approach, you again have to use some type of effective range of the searcher in detecting the target. So actually it is VERY much different from your example. Instead of saying what someone can do in general, feel free to show the optimum strategy using the SAME approach for moving targets and adding "just a coefficient" so that we have something solid to talk about. Claims mean nothing when there are no evidence. How is this relative with my observation? Let me repeat it The issue i point is that your example treats cells as blanks or full in contrast with standard search studies which do not do such simplifications. As long as you do not provide the version of this for moving targets, there is no point in talking in general about what someone might or might not be able to do to apply it for moving targets.

If i recall right, Rudell was shot down over 30 times.

If i recall right, Rudell was shot down over 30 times.

Actually it is not so much that there is back up history between me and him, although we had debates in the past. I am not a very active member of this community and i do not have much time to spend here, although i would love to have time to play more CMBB. My issue is not the fact that he has a different opinion about something My issue is that he tries to validate his opinion by claiming titles of what he is instead of giving some type of back up source or focus on specific arguments and counterarguments. His style is that whenever he is not sure how to respond to certain arguments, he writes a 1000 word response talking about everything and nothing at the same time ,trying to back it up with claims about his expertise on that subject. The " back history" is only relative to the fact that we had discussions involving math during which he did not demonstrate knowledge of the subject he was talking about. I did not say anything at that time, but when he has the "nerve" to claim that he is teaching scientists", "pakmak - here is your problem. You are talking to a major content developer for social science applications of about the most sophisticated technical software package in the world (Mathematica), who teaches formal modeling methods to scientists as a sidelight." or that he had the right answers for predicting casualties "Well I could tell them, I had accurate results, so did the other political scientists I worked with " and all these without giving a single source of information ,combined with the fact that since i am an engineer , i have a few years of experience dealing with higher math,which make me understand who really knows about what he is talking ,or simply trying to analyze things he has no clue about, i question his integrity. Now, you and everybody here can also question my integrity also. My point is not to persuade anybody here about what i am or what Jason is not. My point is that everybody here should be more careful in accepting what he is claiming in general for things not related to the computer game he is playing. Obviously that applies about me too. I would not expect someone to accept what i say about math ,simply because i say that i am an engineer. The problem with Jason is that he knows about how to play a game which may sometimes make people fall into the trap of accepting his opinion about any subject as that of an "expert",especially when he claims the things he does. The thing is that if you do not know math cause simply this is not the area you spent years of education and work in the field, do not let any body trying to impress you about his "expertise". Same with any other subject. Focus on arguments and FIND ORIGINAL SOURCES of information. You will notice for example about Jason, that he rarely offers links to back up what he says. It is easier that way to distort or spin or simply not let others discover that you "missed something". At the end the value of this thread is not linked to "operations research issues". It is linked to the general culture of how you debate about anything. This affects in general the quality of discussions here and although i do not participate enough, when i come from time to time to read something about a certain topic,i still want to see all participants involved in a serious effort to debate about something honestly without trying to mislead the audience,spinning about things and hiding information. That is even more important for people like Jason who has the time to get involved and talk in almost every thread here. The last of course is happening when he is not busy with his profession or his hobby to teach formal modelling methods to scientists, or develop theories which he shares with political analysts or read about military history or play computer games. It is funny that i am "simple" engineer and i still have difficulty to find time to play a game cause my profession simply does not give me a lot of free time. [ April 28, 2008, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

You gave just your ignorance by trying to understand something. The example you gave does not need search radious because it is incorporated in the cost factor it uses. If you have a certain search radious, you need a certain time to cover a cell. This is a type of cost.It is cost for a business (time is money) ,it is cost for a military commander. It can be translated to fuel consumsion, manhours and salaries and whatever is appropiate in a specific example, but all of these are linked with time. If you alter the search radious, you alter the cost for each cell scanned. If you tailor the dimensions of a cell to always fit with a cost equal as "one",regardless of the sensor you use or the weather conditions which both affect the search width, you basically have to alter the dimensions of cells which in turn alters the total number of cells in the area you intend to scan. In practice, and that is the implementation of theory,you do not know these things, you do not know the total number of expected items located in the area, if there is any at all that is, you have moving targets and it is well known that the OR approach for moving targets is different than when they are stationary and so on and of course in search theory you do not have "blank cells".Even if you "turn over" one and you found nothing, it is still possible that you missed to spot the item there. That is taken into account when we talk about search patterns because different search patterns affect the distance of "cells exposed" which in turn affects probability of detection. In addition and in direct contrast with you , i have no problem to find something to back up my claims and i already posted it, but since you prefer to ignore it, i will post it again.The link is located in one of my previous posts . FRom real proffesionals we read the following paragraph So i suggest,you go to military OR community and try to sell your new breakthrough analysis of finding optimum search patterns without the need to know sweep width It did not prohibit you though at that time to try to "prove" mathematically that you are right.The thread is actually there for anybody to see.

I am just giving you a typical real OR problem You can certainly present an original source of information for a typical OR problem. In addition the solution of a "typical OR problem" is about equations with very few words as explanations. Your "solution" does not give a a single equation.It describes in words some,using a style which fits more to a history study than an OR study. That is not a solution,that is a joke. More when i will have more time to waste with you.. [ April 28, 2008, 01:44 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I found and brought back in the Africa Korps forum the case of Jason PHD, messing with one of the most simple formula of Operations research Go to page 8 or last page of the following Previous case of OR arguments

This thread comes from the past as an additonal evidence for the issues i have with Jason in another thread. I point page 8 of this thread and whoever has some basic knowledge of OR is welcomed to enjoy. I have to correct Professor Jason, an expert in operations research who messes with a simple formula. Notice that in none of his subsequent post made any effort to counterargue anything. Note also that this is not some issue of brainfart that everybody can have or some just wrong addition. The guy fails to identify the right equation which is one of the most basics. Jason originally posted My response The crucial point is the following Here is the whole explanation cause obviously i am speaking with an amateur and i have to explain many things. As a side point, it is interesting that although the professor is so confused with the concept of average and the lethality of tank battles ,claiming that it is actually low, I recently saw by chance in another thread that today seems to have changed his opinion. I beleive our conversation helped him eventually ,although he would never admit this in public [ April 27, 2008, 03:29 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Jason Here is the problem you have. You are talking to someone who has an engineering background and actually has worked with OR analysts in industrial engineering. My professional background and our conversations now and in the past with rediculuos attempts of yours to solve basic OR equations makes it clear to me that you are a fraud. A person with limited mathematical background , who claims whatever he wants under the cover of internet and lack of verification , counting on the fact that most members here are not interested in this type of field and will not challenge all the BS you feed them about OR .To most people here, it is better to have you by their side willing to answer their concerns about the game,rather than confront you for something so much boring to them. “ Perhaps you are lost again because if you want to know the associated cost, you basically want to know multiple parameters including the 5 or 7 miles sweep width, because the latter affects time to cover a certain area and “cost” which is associated to a high degree to time and effort spend. Time is actually a common way in OR to measure cost of a search strategy. Where is the link or any decent attempt to present the actual source of information. ?You are so dishonest top the point where you prefer to give lectures again about things you do not reveal,simply because you know that when I will track the details you are going to have hard time to respond . You always start by repeating like a parrot something you read somewhere and when you are challenged to dig into details, you refuse to do it,preferring to give long essays talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Are you really serious that I am going to talk about a OR issue which you present according to your distorted views,without seeing the original source? On the other hand,it is amazing that after about 5 or 6 posts of mine, you try again to argue about something irrelevant. The issue is not if a theory can calculate optimum in some cases with random parameters. The issue I pointed for the last 5-6 posts were 1. The assumsions used to build the theory 2. The IMPLEMENTATION or APPLICATION of the theory in practice. Implementation comes after the full development of the theory. So giving me a theoretical problem trying to argue that you somehow counter my arguments,just saw that you are very slow in grasping the context of an English document you read.

You can write a whole essay about what you beleive. It is still meaningless when you do not try to use a single source of bibliography or link to show us that what you describe is the true picture of implementation of OR. I gave you links and i pointed you specific portion of a subject you mentioned (search theory). You refuse to follow this path and try to counter-argue by writing general thoughts ,where you feel comfortable to say whatever you want. The point is that first, you still do not have a clue about what is an assumsion, being clear by the fact that you state that a function can affect the assumsion, although i was very clear to point that the issue of applying "correct values" has nothing to do with the assumsion issues i mentioned at first. The latter has to do with the implementation of a theory, while an assumsion is actually the beginning point of the theory. Second, you still bypass the issue of how to plot an optimum path of flight which will have specific geometry, when its parameters like sweep width which affect it do not have a certain value. You can map whatever you want.The problem is still the same cause in a real situation the parameters are of specific value and correspond to a certain point of the "map" or the graph [ April 25, 2008, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Correct,and the center of the mass can be located outside of the mass itself. I think a more clear example is the case of a homogenous round ring which is a single object and still the center is located in the middle, outside of the physical dimensions of the ring

I think the following link gives a very good point of view about "center of gravity". http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/sum03/echevarria.html It also gives passages from "On war" where Napoleon is actually blaimed for turning his army towards the " bigger mass" of his enemy, instead of finishing of the weaker Blucher According to the book, on War, chapter V critisism. By the way,according to physics the center of gravity can be located outside of an object's mass . For example The center of gravity of two big spheres of equal mass seperated by a certain distance , is going to be located in the middle of that distance and away from either sphere's mass. The funny thing is that Clausewitz actually thinks that Napoleon should have chosen the option of more uncertainty and more decisive results here is the passage