dicedtomato

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

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

Experienced player wanted for PBEM or TCP/IP.

Still didn't get it. Do you have an alternate e-mail address?

I never received your first move, and I sent you several messages. Do you still want a match?

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.

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.

Would like to try US. vs. Russia.

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.

I'd like to do a TCP/IP Operation Z. I'm willing to take the Japanese.

I'm looking for a PBEM campaign. Can do multiple turns a day.

Looking for PBEM opponent.

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

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

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

Depends on how you look at it, Blashy. The Western nations have gone with volunteer militaries, so the direct impact of Iraq is less than WWII or Vietnam. But Americans are conscious of terrorism, which is a form of unconventional warfare. The lesson nowadays is that no one is immune from the effects of conflict. Diced Tomato

Attacking non-combatants began in the Age of the Mastodons, not the Flying Fortresses. The first time that Joe Neanderthal killed Jim Neathanderal, and grabbed Jane Cavewoman as booty, meant that civilians would be in the firing line. Only dreamers, armchair generals (most wargamers belong to that pseudo-martial category) and techno-fetishists could believe in clean war. Maybe in outer space, but not on Earth, where conflict inevitably means someone's crops will be trampled, their livelihood curtailed, their way of life disrupted. Perhaps that's not such a bad thing. It means that modern war is democratic. All of us are involved, so we can't fold our arms and cry, "It's not MY war. It's THEIR war." Diced Tomato

During World War II, a woman who lived outside an Army base in Mississippi decided to hold a Thanksgiving dinner for the soldiers. She called the base and spoke to a young lieutenant. "You can send over a dozen soldiers," she said. "Just make sure that none of them are Jewish." "No problem, ma'am," said the officer. On Thanksgiving Day, the woman heard a knock on the door. She opened it, and saw a dozen black soldiers on her porch. "What are you doing here?" she cried. "Lieutenant Goldberg told us to come." Diced Tomato

When I download the zip file, the file is empty. Diced Tomato

Rolend, it is impossible to wage war without hurting innocents, not least because defining an "innocent" is tough in the industrial age. One could argue that a computer geek who designs training wargames for the military is a legitimate target. There are also those who maintain that limited war is immoral because it prolongs the conflict. It's an ugly argument, but you have to wonder whether 18th Century peasants in Europe ever got tired of armies trampling their crops year after year, and wished for a conclusive war instead of endless small ones. No war is ever limited when you're on the receiving end of a shell. Diced Tomato

Kuniworth asks why Israel ignores the U.N. This is the same U.N. that is dominated by such champions of human rights as Syria and Zimbabwe. Its compassion for Israel was eloquently expressed by the 1975 resolution that declared Zionism (the desire for the Jewish people to have their own nation) as racism. Given a choice between complying with the wishes of progressive states like Saudi Arabia, or committing national suicide, Israel chose the former. However, this is irrelevant. If it wasn't Israel, the Muslim world would find someone else to hate. Hating is easier than explaining why East Asia, South America and parts of Africa have progressed over the past 50 years, while the oil-rich Arabs have been petrified politically, economically and intellectually. While the Muslim world has been mooning over the glories of the 11th Century Caliphate, the Israelis were busy creating a nation. While I don't agree with U.S. policy in Iraq, I don't pay much attention to Europe, which traditionally has been willing to perform various sexual acts in return for Arab oil. Such appeasement has been rewarded by gifts like the London train bombings. As for Cary's Pat Buchanish-ish isolationism, those "entangling alliances" allowed the U.S. to keep the Soviets at bay, and gave us a global economic system that keeps us prosperous. George Washington could be isolationist because his slaves grew his food and cotton. You like your cheap made-in-Shanghai toaster and the Kuwaiti oil in your gas tank? You'd better be prepared to fight for it. Diced Tomato

I'll give it a try if anyone wants to do TCP/IP or PBEM. Which folders do I extract the files to? Diced Tomato

Blashy, am I reading your victory conditions correctly? The Axis need Berlin, Warsaw, Frankfurt, Essen, Konigsberg for a minor victory? If so, then the Axis need to hold pretty much all of Germany + Konigsberg + Poland to win. That seems fairly stiff. On the other hand, the Allies only need Rome, Warsaw, Paris, London, Moscow, Washington D.C. for a minor victory. So all they need to do is take Poland and one Italian city? Diced Tomato

Squad Leader was okay. Never got that much into it, but I enjoyed it. How many times did we play the Guards Counterattack at Stalingrad Scenario? ASL was one of the nails in the coffin of paper wargaming. Rules as thick as a phonebook. $50 modules that only gave you American paratroopers or German vehicles. As far as I concerned, it was an attempt to milk the gaming public by redoing Squad Leader with oversized counters. However, I'm not into tactical board games. They tend to be too clunky. I didn't enjoy Avalanche's Panzergrenadier series, either. Diced Tomato

Well, Blashy was a sailor. So he can tell us quite a few stories about certain bars. Or, as Churchill described the Navy, "rum, buggery and the lash." Diced Tomato I AM NOT A NUMBER! I AM A FRUIT!