CM: Shock Force 2 Wish List

[iMolestCats]

I believe the game takes place in 2015.

[Erwin]

The thing with CyberWar, it has the capability of being the ""revolutionary form of warfare" that makes all the current crop of high tech weaponry we spend billions on useless. Rather like the sub and air made battleships obsolete, or the tank made horses etc.

All that armed might is useless if the C2I is disrupted. And that means that any realistic depiction of Cyberwar in a game like CM2 would make for a non-game. Eg: "Enemy Cyberattack completely blinds you and stops all communications. You lose."

[Buzz]

Yes I think 2015 is the time setting.

Erwin, I see your point but I doubt major players don't have Counter Cyber Measures available to thwart / block attacks at least global threats. Honestly I don't know but the recent NK threats are being discounted in the US media as so much bluster but few are considering it may not be a nuke that slips past or it may be in the form of a NK cyberattack on US infrastructure. Of course that is outside CM: Shock Force 2 simulation requirements but a tactical battlefield cyberattack simulation could be included. How I don't know but thought I should mention it.

[Alan8325]

Cyber warfare is only going to increase in sophistication and frequency and many of its possible effects on a military force could already be added to a scenario by the designer. For example, disruptions to the command and control network could place troops in disadvantageous positions, drones could be disabled (and just not appear in the scenario), the side having conducted the cyber attack could have gained pre-battle intel, etc. If you want to get really creative you could give the 'Red' side access to a 'Blue' drone that was successfully hacked and fully commandeered by the geekiest element of the red forces.

In regard to new capabilities in the CM engine, it would be good for scenario designers to have the ability to selectively disable specific equipment in vehicles and selectively remove equipment from troops. This would apply to cyber warfare by allowing the simulation of an attack on communications or GPS equipment.

[Erwin]

I think what you are describing is a game completely different to the CM2 series (and/or its engine capabilities).

A decade ago I was involved in designing a cyberwar sim for DoD agencies. And it was NOT fun to play (if you enjoyed moving military units around as in CM series). It starkly indicated how useless/helpless all our extremely expensive conventional armed might/toys could be since we (in the west) are so dependent on high tech for superiority. As you might imagine, the sim was not well received by DoD and funding not continued.

[Buzz]

Interesting.

Alan8325, you make some good suggestions on how cyber may be a CM game factor. Thanks.

Erwin, Sounds like your experience of cyberwar goes deeper than the next CM game. I am sure our military is preparing as best they can but no one can prepare for everything.. but you must try if you want to win.

I do not think most ordinary civilian folks have considered how destructive a substantial cyber attack will be on their "routine." Just look at what goes down in "Natural Disasters" where people lack power, water, sanitation, money, and transportation for a few days. Of course this is not expected to be simulated in CMSF2 and should not be.

[Alan8325]

The thing with CyberWar, it has the capability of being the ""revolutionary form of warfare" that makes all the current crop of high tech weaponry we spend billions on useless. Rather like the sub and air made battleships obsolete, or the tank made horses etc.

All that armed might is useless if the C2I is disrupted. And that means that any realistic depiction of Cyberwar in a game like CM2 would make for a non-game. Eg: "Enemy Cyberattack completely blinds you and stops all communications. You lose."

Not sure a high-tech army becomes useless, just less high-tech. Much of our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was done with small arms and artillery technology that hasn't changed much in the last 40 years, albeit with a lot of high-tech intel help such as drones and high-resolution IR cameras.

Cyber warfare could in fact be a very good story element in CMSF2 as a factor that levels the $630 billion difference in defense spending between the United States and Russia. Imagine the U.S. GPS system having been knocked offline, preventing the kind of massive precision Tomahawk missile barrage that we use to knock out air defense systems. As a consequence, the U.S. doesn't have the unchallenged air superiority that we've enjoyed for the past few wars.

[John Kettler]

TOS-1 Buratino, seen here. Quite the thermobaric MOUT weapon! And loopholes, also shown.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Erwin]

Also consider any large formation being unable to function effectively. Combat would again be at the platoon, perhaps company level with LOS rules.

Think of the TWILIGHT 2000 game about military activities in a post-apocalyptic era.

(Of course that's close to a worst case scenario. My point is that it would be a completely different kind of game, and we "panzer pushers" would most likely not enjoy the GAME.)

A Cyberwar game in which one is fighting instrusions into one's systems while attacking the enemy's systems is more akin to a high abstracted RT wrist twitcher. Now some will enjoy that. I am simply raising a caution that a game with a "realistic" depiction of cyberwar would not be anything like the current CM series.

[YankeeDog]

Imagine the U.S. GPS system having been knocked offline, preventing the kind of massive precision Tomahawk missile barrage that we use to knock out air defense systems. As a consequence, the U.S. doesn't have the unchallenged air superiority that we've enjoyed for the past few wars.

Possibilities of Cyberwarfare are interesting to contemplate, and there certainly are vulnerabilities in the U.S. system that could be exploited. However, wrt TLAMs specifically, they (and many other types of U.S. "smart" ordnance) are capable of homing in on targets completely without GPS, using a combination of Inertial Guidance and the terrain-map TERCOM system. These systems are completely autonomous and do not require the missile to network with any external system. They're less accurate than GPS, but only slightly -- you might not be able to reliably hit a specific house with them, but you'll still hit the right city block which, when you're talking about a 1,000 lb. warhead, is generally good enough.

Also worth noting the GPS system is actually probably one of the harder systems to disable with Cyberwarfare, since the GPS satellites are basically autonomous clocks that simply beam out a radio signal with the current time and don't require any network communication to function. There is no "network" or 2-way communication between a GPS receiver and the satellites to "hack" via Cyberwarfare.

As long as the GPS receiver can "hear" at least 3 satellites, it can establish an accurate position fix.

Theoretically, you might be able to jam the incoming GPS radio signal with a stronger transmitter on the same frequency, but past attempts to do this have pretty much failed miserably for a variety of reasons, most significant of which is that the GPS satellites are a directional source, so you'd need a transmitter somewhere along the same vector as the satellites to most effectively scramble the signal -- e.g., a high-altitude aircraft or another satellite. Either of these would very vulnerable to being shot down, especially considering a jamming source would, by definition, be radio-broadcasting its location.

[Erwin]

The thing about cyberwar is it could be very hard to determine WHO is attacking us. It may not be a nation-state.

The question raised by my team was that what was the point of worrying about (say) Tomahawk targeting issues when back home, the financial system has collapsed, your wife and relatives can't get any money out of their ATM's, the food distribution system has been crippled, the large cities especially become deathraps as lack of water, food heat etc lead to massive "social upheaval" and all one's troops are now needed simply to keep order so that the top 1% are not inconvenienced.

The question that no one wanted to answer was what good are a nation's aircraft carriers, nuke subs, stealth bombers etc. in this sort of war?

[YankeeDog]

The question raised by my team was that what was the point of worrying about (say) Tomahawk targeting issues when back home, the financial system has collapsed, your wife and relatives can't get any money out of their ATM's, the food distribution system has been crippled, the large cities especially become deathraps as lack of water, food heat etc lead to massive "social upheaval" and all one's troops are now needed simply to keep order so that the top 1% are not inconvenienced.

This is a very good point. I think military systems like GPS, secure military C2 networks, etc. are amongst the least likely targets for Cyberwarfare simply because there are so many easier targets that could be hit.

Hacking far enough into U.S. military computer systems to affect something like GPS or tactical-level C2 would be REALLY hard. Certainly not impossible, but compromising these systems in a significant way would definitely take some serious cyber espionage effort.

Comparatively speaking, other essential networked computer systems like our banking & financial systems, power grid control systems, etc. are MUCH less protected.

So if you're a hostile power at war with the U.S., where do you choose to spend your cyberwarfare effort? You could try to hit something like the GPS system that is very hard to get into in the first place, and that the military will be able to re-boot very quickly once the attack becomes apparent, or you could try to shut down the nation's entire banking and financial system, which will probably cause irreparable economic damage and has a much higher chance of success.

In other words, why would anyone try to batter through the castle walls when the main gate is wide open?

[Erwin]

Also, even if we look at purely military cyberwar attacks, what do you do when all your high weapons are increasingly offline when the POL supply is disrupted, no spare parts etc etc...

It's not that this is a fascinating topic for a game/sim. All I am pointing out is that cyberwar is a game that would be far removed from the world which the CM series attempts to depict.

[Alan8325]

True, we are not likely to see any active cyber warfare in a CM type game, but the effects of cyber warfare can be built into a CM scenario. Things like troops being placed into a disadvantageous position or less-than-ideal force being deployed to the theater because of economic damage back home.

[Buzz]

Thanks again guys. Very good points made. I do think Alan8325's note sums it up well... "not likely to see any active cyber warfare" but cyber impacts could be included in some capacity. YankeeDog & Erwin also appear to have the pulse of how bad or not the military impact could be... "where do you choose to spend your cyberwarfare effort?" It is most likely going to be in Homey Land and that is another game setting for sure.... "shut down the nation's entire banking and financial system..." kind of my point re: our US relatively minor Natural Disasters. Take down POWER, banking, communications, transportation, water, food, medical.... etc. even for a week and many if not most in the USA will be wishing they followed the CDC poster.... Get A Plan.... who needs ZEDS when you got Cyber Cretins.

Did I mention this before on the Wish List?

Hot Key grid lines?

Toggle to enable / disable the grid lines.

Hot Key to change colors / width relative to perspective / height of grid lines.

Options & Clear delineation of grid distances 100 meters or 50 meters.

[Erwin]

It just occurred to me that the originators of the "Cyberwar" idea for CMSF may have a point if they were actually referring to EW (Electronic Warfare) and ECM (Electronic Counter Measures).

Having worked with "Cyberwar" concepts now for many years, I forget that the vast majority of folks do not understand what Cyberwar actually entails, and in this instance I think that EW and ECM is what the original posters actually meant to discuss.

EW and ECM may well be good additions to CMSF2 as they are (mostly) a tactical weapon. "Cyberwar" is more of a strategic weapon and is akin to the gamechanging "nuke" of the 21st century, making previous weapons systems obsolete in a major war between sophisticated opponents.

What is scary is that "sophisticated oppo" could include bright computer geeks as well as a nation state. As a result I predict that a very nasty cyberattack is FAR more likely to occur in the forseeable future that any nuke exchange.

But, EW and ECM are very likely to be experienced in a conflict between sophisticated oppos such as NATO vs Russia/Ukraine etc as (IIRC) is proposed in CMSF2.

[Buzz]

Back in town with reliable internet.

How about a directed energy weapon?

[YankeeDog]

Back in town with reliable internet.

How about a directed energy weapon?

Not likely to be anything deployed by 2015 that would be relevant at the CM scale. There are a few DE systems that will probably go into at least limited deployment within the next couple of years, but they're large systems mounted on ships and the like, not small tactical systems that would be deployed at the point-of-contact in a ground engagement.

[Erwin]

The USAF, which has the reputation of being the most advanced technologically of any of the services, has invested in researching non-kinetic weapons.

But, in game terms the weapon effect would be no different than an instantaneous missile hit. It's more about knocking out ICBM's and enemy satellites. But, yes, also any aircraft or rocket.

Another weapon could also microwave troops and crews in their tanks. I suppose we could watch them explode in the game.

[Vark]

I'd also like a system that shows where teams, from a broken down squad are, in respect to each other. Sick of trying to find where A/B team, 1st squad is, makes the game a bit of a tedious click-fest, when in reality the squad/ team leader would have a good idea where each was, in relation to his own position.

[YankeeDog]

The USAF, which has the reputation of being the most advanced technologically of any of the services, has invested in researching non-kinetic weapons.

But, in game terms the weapon effect would be no different than an instantaneous missile hit. It's more about knocking out ICBM's and enemy satellites. But, yes, also any aircraft or rocket.

Another weapon could also microwave troops and crews in their tanks. I suppose we could watch them explode in the game.

There is a whole bunch of DE stuff the USAF, USN and to a lesser extent the Army and Marine Corps are experimenting with. But with a few exceptions, none of it is likely to make it to the battlefield by 2015. And, as I noted, the few systems that might be operational by 2015 are not likely to play a role in point-of-the-spear CM-style engagements.

For example, the US Navy just announced that they are deploying a shipboard laser system to the Gulf in 2014. As far as I am aware, this will be the first operational deployment of a true weapon laser system by anyone (I'm excluding stuff like dazzlers etc. that can disable, but don't really physically damage a target). But it's huge, is mounted on a full-size warship such as a frigate, and is only powerful enough to knock out small, light aircraft like recon drones and also disable small craft like motor boats (by targeting the exposed engine). In the present iteration the laser not powerful enough to take out targets like fighter jets or sea-skimming missiles.

Now, go out to 2020 or 2025, things get more interesting...

[Erwin]

I agree. The OT (I think) was whether these new systems should be in a CM type game. I think not, as it would be like doing a Napoleonic game and saying "let's add fast firing AA guns".

[Buzz]

Thanks guys for the information on directed energy weapons. Maybe a 2020 or 2025 - CMSF-3 or 4 DE component?

When I read about these DE weaponsI wondered how soon real life would imitate a swashbuckling Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol:D

I would buy one no maybe two;)

Vark, How would you design a system that shows where teams, from a broken down squad are?

[Erwin]

Color borders on the icons for a squad, and the icon color for the platoon (for example).

[Amatoro]

Real test of laser weapon system. As you can see it does not cause instant damage. The laser needs time to inflict real damage. And the target did not do any maneuvers in the video. I think long time should pass before we will see real and usefull laser weapon systems.