Differences Between Troops of Different Nationalties - Why There Should Be Some

[Stephen Smith]

I have a tough time with this, but in general, I guess I disagree with both sides . On the one hand, it does seem a stretch that there is some 'national characteristic' of Americans that makes them break easier and rally easier, or that makes Russians more likely to go fanatical. I suspect that those rules from SL were (inaccurate) attempts to create some national differences between armies. I would be skeptical if someone claimed that such a national difference could be applied to all American squads during WWII.

On the other hand, we all know that each army had organizational/equipment differences, and were made up of distinctly different populations. We all also seem to agree that there were definite strategic and operational differences between the armies (i.e. a Russian Tank Corps behaved differently from a German Panzer division, and both were different than an American armored division). Is is really plausible to suppose that at the squad and platoon level, everyone in every army from WWII basically behaved the same? Is it really reasonable to suppose that a Russian Guards platoon would behave the same as a German SS platoon and an American airborne platoon, just because they can all be quantified as 'crack, veteran, or elite?' I would guess that there ARE differences, due to their doctrine, training, and equipment, that CM will not model accurately without something added. For example:

1) russian mass/wave attacks. I can't imagine (outside of Normandy beaches) American battalions conducting these types of attacks. Simply creating a battalion of Russian conscripts is not going to create the urge in the Russian CM player to use Russian tactics. Instead, he'll play the Russians as he currently plays Americans: set up a base of fire, and try to infiltrate.

2) More extensive availability of radios for the Germans (vs. early war French/Russians). Germans perhaps should be more responsive on the battlefield than the others in order to simulate a quicker communication of information via radio. Maybe there should be a longer delay in giving new orders to units to simulate an absence of radios.

3) better small unit leadership in early war Germans. Similar to 2), above. Simply having one army of conscripts and the other of crack or veteran doesn't really simulate responsiveness very well-it just simulates likelihood of breaking/surrendering.

4) Perhaps others?

I am not confident that I know national differences very well (and by national differences, I am not referring to 'moral' or 'fighting ability' differences, but rather to differences in training, doctrine, and equipment), but I strongly suspect that they existed. Let's face it: CM is fun, it is quite fun, but there is basically no difference (other than relatively insignificant equipment differences) between the armies; choosing Americans vs. British/Canadians/French is really nothing more than choosing different colored icons to move around on the map (and Germans are the same). I wouldn't argue that modelling the entire American army in the Battle for France should be no different from modelling the entire Russian army in the War in Russia (save for a few equipment differences). I would think an accurate portrayal of the two would have to include the three factors mentioned above(training, equipment, doctrine). Why does the argument change at the tactical level?

Steve

[Maximus]

JESUS fellas, drop the politically correct bull**** and face up to the fact, that each country's troops fought differntly than another's. Crap like this argument is where I get sick and wanna throw up at all the politcal correctness. Hell, we all want CM to be as historically accurate as possible and when something that is obviously important to accuracy as this is, people start throwing a ****-fit.

Even when comparing German troops and American troops. German troops were fighting (whether brainwashed or not) for extreme nationalism. Their doctrine was to fight to the last man even if they were losing. American troops were fighting under a doctrine that said the quicker we get this war over the better. While the British fought a war where their doctrine was to take a tea break every few hours even when they had a strict timeline to adhere to, ie. Market Garden.

As far as Russian troops go, their doctrine was to push out the invaders of their homeland at all costs. Therefore the poorly trained and/or commanded troops resorted to wave tactics. "Send enough men towards the enemy, eventually the enemy will crack."

Japanese doctine was to overwhelm their opponents with superior numbers and organization.

So to end in point being that if nationality factors aren't incorporated into the CM series, then it'll become just another game with different units.

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"Rule#3: You must be a member of my Meta Campaign to take

part.(doh!)" - Rob/1

[Major Tom]

Actually, the Japanese had poor organization, and were usually outnumbered.

It would be kind of neat for the British to suddenly break on turn 10, sit down and have tea. Americans stumbling around because of massive hangovers and VD infections during their last leave. The Germans will stop fighting the Allies and go around to each house, root out some civilians and shoot them. The French will just surrender before the game even starts. The Canadians will wander around, baffled at the lack of snow in July. Leaving the Poles to do all of the work.

[Hamstersss]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus:

JESUS fellas, drop the politically correct bull**** and face up to the fact, that each country's troops fought differntly than another's. Crap like this argument is where I get sick and wanna throw up at all the politcal correctness. Hell, we all want CM to be as historically accurate as possible and when something that is obviously important to accuracy as this is, people start throwing a ****-fit.

Even when comparing German troops and American troops. German troops were fighting (whether brainwashed or not) for extreme nationalism. Their doctrine was to fight to the last man even if they were losing. American troops were fighting under a doctrine that said the quicker we get this war over the better. While the British fought a war where their doctrine was to take a tea break every few hours even when they had a strict timeline to adhere to, ie. Market Garden.

As far as Russian troops go, their doctrine was to push out the invaders of their homeland at all costs. Therefore the poorly trained and/or commanded troops resorted to wave tactics. "Send enough men towards the enemy, eventually the enemy will crack."

Japanese doctine was to overwhelm their opponents with superior numbers and organization.

So to end in point being that if nationality factors aren't incorporated into the CM series, then it'll become just another game with different units.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Maximus, a number of your examples are issues of tactics, not nature or nurture. Blitzkrieg was a new strategy, not the outward expression of Aryan superiority. Perhaps certain doctrinal differences should be factored in but they need to be well researched and not so anecdotal.

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I've got far more annoying things than that up my sleeve.

-Meeks

You must wear awfully loose shirts to fit an oompah band up your sleeve.

-Chrisl

[Guest machineman]

While we are being politically incorrect:

European heaven:

The French are the cooks, the English are the policemen, the Germans are the mechanics, the Italians are the lovers, and the Swiss organize everything.

European hell:

The British are the cooks, the Germans are the policemen, the French are the mechanics, the Swiss are the lovers, and the Italians organize it all.

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"Environment is everything - The Lion may be king of the jungle, but you airlift him to Antartica, and he's just some Penguins bitch" - Dennis Miller

[This message has been edited by machineman (edited 10-30-2000).]

[Gen. Sosaboski]

Maj. Tom-ROFL! Why do we always have to fight the Germans to the end?

[Brian Rock]

Everybody else has weighed in on this. I may as well take my turn.

1) Yes, I agree there were differences between armies. It does not follow that these differences applied to every unit or soldier within these armies.

Consequently using a universal modifier is illogical.

2) The differences between armies at any level above the tactical situation simulated in a CM battle (eg major encriclements, or theatre logistical support) is irrelevant. We only need to look at differences between individual units on the CM battlefield.

3) Can the CM editor allow players to produce the behaviours they are looking for?

If yes, then the system is not borken, and the debate is a semantic one.

If it can't simulate the behaviours, specify which ones you think are required.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

I think Brian's point about modelling behavior is about right. Ideally, if you get behavior correct, you then the player is faced with the same type of problems the historical leader faced in the same situation. That's what makes a good simulation IMO, and the description of Moon's scenario (which I want to go play now) is a great example of this.

And while all we have now is cmbo, I can't help but think of the eastern front and cm2 when I wonder how different behaviors will be modelled. Although it may well turn out that this modelling does not need to have anything to do with morale or exhaustion.

For example, soviet troops engaged in human wave attacks more commonly than did Germans or Americans, despite the fact that they resulted in a high level of causualties. I don't for one minute believe that soviet troops did this because they the were not bright enough to realize charging armed men across an open field was dangerous. I believe that, given the options available to the troops, making a human wave attack in certain circumstances was the most rational choice.

I don't know enough about tactical combat on the soviet side of the Eastern front to know what tactical considerations made this the best option...maybe it was easier to make sure everyone attacked if they were all out in the open. Perhaps there was some difficulty making sure that a firebase would actually support the attack and not fade off into the woods. Maybe all the troops were armed with PPSh's and the Germans were 500m away. Maybe there is some other C&C issue. Maybe it just turned out that while the human-wavers took more casualties at once, over the course of a longer time period they had fewer casualties

Whatever the reason for the employment of these tactics might be, it seems to be the kind of thing that should be modelled. (And I don't mean this as a criticism; with 120 possible morale combinations, plus fanatacism bonuses, it may well be possible to model this behavior now).

The same type of rational behavior should apply wrt to armor, too. There are a lot of reports that point out deficiencies in early-war armor doctrine, including rigid platoon movement and poor use of terrain (I suppose these are not unrelated). Once again, I don't believe that soviet tankers didn't realize that it was better to be hull down or concealed; I assume that, given the absence of radios, etc., the tankers felt that this rigid movement was better than whatever alternative they could devise -- perhaps this was the only alternative that would permit a platoon to act in concert at all, and thus was preferable to simply having tanks randomly roaming the landscape.

Because I believe that the examples of behavior I've described were rational under the circumstances, I don't think that they reflect a "national" characteristic. That is, radioless french tanks should probably behave similarly to radioless russian ones, and if whatever circumstances that made human wave attacks a good option were to befall, say, british troops, they would also be capable of human wave attacks.

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Maximus, a number of your examples are issues of tactics, not nature or nurture. Blitzkrieg was a new strategy, not the outward expression of Aryan superiority. Perhaps certain doctrinal differences should be factored in but they need to be well researched and not so anecdotal.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Isn't that what we're talking about here? Aren't tactical doctrines in someway or another related to nature of troop beliefs or fanatism. For example, if an army is destined to fight a war quickly in order to minimize casualties, wouldn't their troops go above and beyond the call of duty quite often in the heat of combat.

Well, some of my examples may have not been entirely correct, but my point was that having some sort of "quality" or "behavior" coded into the troops is definately needed for accurate portrayal of the world's armies.

I mean, damn, as an American soldier, I surely wouldn't wanna be compared equally to a Polish trooper.

LOL! Well look at it this way. Compare a US soldier of 1991 to an Iraqi soldier of 1991. There's MAJOR differences in the quality of troops there.

[Guest machineman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus:

LOL! Well look at it this way. Compare a US soldier of 1991 to an Iraqi soldier of 1991. There's MAJOR differences in the quality of troops there. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wouldn't forget the role of equipment. How well would the Republican guard have done if they had M1's and attack helicopters while the the US soldiers were driving T-55's without air support? US morale and combat effectiveness might have dropped some in that situation, while the Iraqi's may have looked pretty good.

From what I've read the French, for example, under their general Juin in the Italian campaign, were one of the more effective, if not THE most effective allied army in Italy. Just given good equipment and good leadership.

How many Italian Wittmans died taking their creeky POS Carro Armato M11/39's to battle in the desert?

[brucer]

Writes Chupacabra: "I can't find where you said that, in fact."

In my first post, on page 2, I made three implied statements: one, attacking another game for its flaws is, as always a bit of a straw man and you should really be attacking the historical underpinnings (such as Dupuy) that ASL is based on. Two, I suggested we should keep accusations of racism out of this as unproductive.

And three, I asked whether something like an army's doctrine should have any effect on how we set troop quality in game, ie, if it can be established the US airborne taught independent thinking under fire, or the SS engendered fanatics, say, whether their mean troop quality should be different. I did not believe then, or now, that this absolutely requires a game change, only an openness here to discussion by knowledgeable people about the relationships of differences in doctrine and other sociocultural factors to battlefield performance.

Also, "I believe you're incorrectly attributing certain beliefs to those of us who disagree with you."

Make no mistake: the implied psychological view of the game, that all humans are capable of the same range of behaviours when put in small-group high-stress situations, regardless of their society or culture, IS a profoundly relativist statement, and would easily be seen as such if it concerned a different subject area. It comes from the same intellectual wellspring as suggestions that the Aztecs (SS, Mau Maus, whatever) were just misunderstood, or that "every side" in any given war committed war crimes.

Sometimes, cultural relativism can be illuminating; sometimes, as in CM's case, it may even be necessary, politically. But sometimes it can also get in the way of full understanding. Like all approaches to historical problems, relativism should only be used with the awareness of its own inherent prejudices. Taking a relative view on cultural matters is certainly NOT wrong in all circumstances. But I don't believe it's always right, either.

BruceR

[brucer]

Posts Germanboy:

"I'm sure you can see where the dog starts chasing its tail."

Dupuy has often been accused of circularity, and fairly so... but so has just about every other researcher with an interest in quantifying human ability.

Think of it this way: you rig CM so the computer plays itself over and over. You randomize the map, the force mix, and all the other variables. It plays itself over and over and over and you extract the kilometres advanced, or the casualties lost on each side, or whatever other result is meaningful. After a few hundred runnings, you've probably got enough of a data set to start concluding that, say, in scenarios in heavily wooded areas the attacker advanced 10 per cent more slowly than in scenarios of average tree cover. Or in scenarios with an above average number of leaders, they advanced 10 per cent faster. Or if the defender was crack, the casualty:loss ratio was 10 per cent higher, and so on. It's very easy and mathematical, all you need is enough base data for the results to be statistically significant. And the conclusions (ie, it's harder to attack through trees) will be pretty much inarguable, even if when you took just one of those battles, tree cover would be just one of a thousand factors with impact on the result.

That's basically what Dupuy did, but taking hundreds of real life engagements (not having CM to work with). And as each factor was identified, it was taken out of the equation across the board.

Now if you do that in CM, evaluating and taking out every single variable a game designer has access to, you can be fairly sure the result at the end will be the ratio of American force accomplishment to German force accomplishment, say, will be 1:1, since the troops are modelled exactly the same once all the designer-imposed variables are removed.

But when Dupuy did that in real life, he found that there was a residual differential. Grossly simplified they'd be something like German 1.1, Allied 1.0, Russian something less than 1, etc. And he attributed that, many believe correctly, largely to differences (ie, doctrinal ones) between the military cultures of the countries involved.

It's warfare as rotisserie baseball: still far from capturing the totality of combat. But it's a compelling theory, with tons of statistical data, and just because it goes against our "Any Given Sunday" common sense view of soldiering doesn't mean that it's wrong. Other statisticians have proved there's no such thing as a "hot streak" in basketball or hockey, either, but we still have trouble accepting that, too.

BruceR

PS: Re "insinuating" you're a relativist would imply I believe relativism is something to be ashamed of. It's not. But it is a popular view today... you only have to sit through a few seminars with young students saying the Aztec genocides were misunderstood, or the Nanking massacres were merely a side effect of the colonial legacy, and you start thinking maybe it's gotten just a bit too popular.

BruceR

[Brian Rock]

Well, at least Andrew has identified a specific behaviour the game doesn't readily capture, the ability for Russians to use human wave attacks.

Otherwise it's still rather fuzzy. Specifically what is it that the Germans/Poles/Russians/Bulgarians/whatevers should do differently that can't be done with the current system?

Incidentally one of the problems with Dupuy is that his samples are skewed. I don't have the reference in front of me, but I read a critique that points out his US vs German examples are primarily German defensive actions, and that from memory he only used something like a dozen examples, not hundreds. It's been a year since I read the chapter so I may well be wrong on the details.

[Slapdragon]

Ok -- first off to cite Dupuy: the book is "Numbers, Prediction and War". There are also a number of Dupuy papers presented at military institutes. Dupuy is not the only cite on this subject, but he is the most powerful and has basically survived the test of time. Criticism of Dupuy mostly centers around his methodology of choosing data sets but since his finders were born out in Vietnam most critiques of him on this subject have died down. He is pretty much the accepted starting point for small unit firepower.

Now, for those who do not have a chance to read Dupuy, some backlground/ Dupuy was interested after WWII in quantifying combat power. His primary area of interest was World War Two, for which he had a large number of recent data sets. The section everyone on this forum is referring to concerns how small units (platoons) stacked up in World War Two in terms of ability to generate casualties in other units.

Dupuy took a huge data set (hundreds of thousands of after action reports) and choose a manageable set of platoon level actions that covered a broad range of engagements types and nationalities, and took a cross section of these for which he had reasonably accurate data from both sides of the action. He then asked a large number of questions, one of which was does nationality effect ability to generate casualties, which is what we are currently on about. He concluded that yes, statistically speaking nationality effected ability to cause casualties, and he quantified his findings by assigning the US a casualty producing ability of 1.0 for the average US units across hundreds of reports (note this is average, his data set has variance and looks like a nice bell curve if plotted out, so some US actions had lower than one, and some higher than 1, they just averaged out to 1 in his system.)

Now - here is why this is meaningless for this discussion. His other work identified why casualty rates were different between nationalities, and in all cases difference were explained by Dupuy or later scholars. Nationality was nearly meaningless in estimating how much punch a unit has. Unfortunately Dupuy, people on this board, and the United States Military will take a hit for being politically correct with this, but Dupuy and others who look at the problem empirically and qualitatively find that nationality, even if there is a correlation as Dupuy found, does not equal causation. Proof of this can be found in the fact that the United States military has felt that it could learn from the best qualitative ground forces of WW2 (the Germans) by adopting their methods and equipment. Witness the adoption of the M60 GPMG, the M60 tank (discarding the TD concept) and the M14 rifle.

So what did effect unit capapility?

1) Number of people who shoot. The better trained, the more people shoot at the enemy. This is expressed as morale in CM.

2) Low level support weapons. Possesion of automatic weapons as low as possible in the TOE. Most casualty causing capability of a squad in fact is represented by its support weapons.

3) Communication. The better you can communicate, the better your units can respond to emergencies.

4) Coordination: Expressed as the ability to bring in Artillery. Artillery is a major killer on the batte field, and the more ARTY you can fire off and the better it is directed, the more casualties you can cause.

All of these can be modeled by leadership, arms carried, or other game capabilities and need not really be modelled as a built in fudge factor.

Finally, many people have found difference in nationalities in qualitative terms, but they did not have a direct effect on combat ability but have been successfully quantified. Most of them wont show up in a CM battle. They include:

Literacy

Mechanical Aptitude

Electrical Aptitude

Animal Aptitude

An example: the US had literacy rates in the low 90%, higher than even great britian. This means that NCOs and other trained soldiers could self trained and be ready for a wider range of problems by using manuals. So here a quantifiable figure (literacy) COULD be equated to a national difference, but of course the game has no need to model literacy in any major sense, not in 30 minutes of battle time.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus:

I mean, damn, as an American soldier, I surely wouldn't wanna be compared equally to a Polish trooper.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Maximus, as usual, your ignorance just beggars belief. Maybe you should just stay away when adults are trying to have an argument. Ever heard of the Polish troops fighting on the Mace? The efforts of them to try and get across the Rhine at Driel to reinforce the 1st Airborne? The fact that Sosabowski knew he was in for the slaughter before the jump but felt it his duty to send his men anyway? Or the Poles in Monte Cassino? Or heard about how the 106th US ID gave up without putting up much of a fight in the Schnee Eifel? Or the 36th US ID totally bungling the Rapido river crossing? Or the 1st ID The Big Red One running from Kasserine Pass? Or the Philipine garrison being outfought by the Japanese? Or the 90th ID's atrocious performance after landing in Normandy? Obviously not. Next time try to insert brain-activity/knowledge/reading/study (any of the aforementioned will do) where at the moment there is little more than nationalistic ignorance on your part. I find posts like yours nauseating, and the fact that you try to cover up your little prejudices with smilies does not make it any better. You are in fact totally clueless and have not understood a word of the debate going on here. As is evidenced by your posts. Stick to doing mods.

Now - BruceR. I would still like to see how you quantify it. I am not arguing your general point, and you can go on about cultural relativism until the cows come home, it won't change your basic problem: You can not quantify it. I have no problem accepting that there are some pretty big differences between people from different countries. I have lived in Japan for two years, in the UK for three, in Eire for one and in Canada for about two months. All these are very different places, and that is because the people there are different. But it is impossible to quantify it. Therefore you can not have it in a simulation.

Ask yourself this: a major problem in combat performance of the Allies in Normandy (US and Commonwealth) was that they were learning on the go (read Dobler on this). They learned fast, and the lessons they learned informed their post-war doctrinal thinking, and what we see in combat doctrine and SOPs today is often derived from the experiences made there (note, I am not syaing they copied German tactics and doctrine).

Now we as players fight CM battles with the benefit of 50 years of doctrinal development, readily accessible to us through the internet and books. If you want to truly simulate the performance of the Allies at the start of the campaign in North-Western Europe, you have to ask the Allied player to forget all about this and please perform (against better knowledge) the same bungling mistakes made by the commanders then. I am sure nobody would be interested in that.

That is where historical accuracy goes out of the window, and no amount of fudging with nationality modifiers is going to change this. We as players know something the real COs in the theatre at the time did not know. We know that the Allies can fight (Kurt Meyer at first did not), we know something about combined arms operations that the UK commanders at first did not understand. We know things about Bocage fighting the US soldiers did not know but had to learn then. Nobody amongst us is willing to give up this knowledge to have a more historical experience. That is far more significant than any nationality modifier.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 10-31-2000).]

[Slapdragon]

One read that would also help this discussion is Peter Mansoor -- "The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions." It goes over the bumbling of the 106th ID, but also goes in depth into the advantages and disadvantages of the US Infantry division citing both quantitative work like Dupuy and Qualitative work like the Military Academy series of WW2 AAR tactical studies. (Interesting to read Slaughterhouse Five right after to get back your compassion for the average soldier). Manssor does find differences in national armies, but not what you would expect, and nothing that can be quantified into a game that focuses on 30 minute actions.

[PeterNZer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Maximus said:

Well, some of my examples may have not been entirely correct, but my point was that having some sort of "quality" or "behavior" coded into the troops is definately needed for accurate portrayal of the world's armies.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My goodness man. Are you not very bright? Or are you just trying to piss people off? Did you fail to read (yes, that could be the problem) the last 100 posts about the issue. The fact is that no 'behavior' or 'quality' is DEFINITELY needed for 'accurate' portrayal of the worlds armies. For goodness sake, please go read the thread. I know it contains big words, but you'll get there.

Further more, have you played CM? I must almost assume you haven't since you would be instantly aware of quality if you had. It's called conscript, green, regular, veteran elite, crack (did I get those last two around the wrong way?). I think if you'd played the game you would realise that you are able to accurately simulate different troop 'qualities' and 'behaviors' with these settings.

I mean, what more do you want to see in a 30 minute battle? This isn't StarCraft where each side is distinctly different, has pretty colors and zap-zap weapons. In 30 minutes what counts is your squad, their weapons and skill and your skill. I see no reasonable argument at all that suggests any other kind of qualities are required.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Maximus started with:

Even when comparing German troops and American troops. German troops were fighting (whether brainwashed or not) for extreme nationalism. Their doctrine was to fight to the last man even if they were losing. etc etc<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since I'm generous, I'll assume this is some kind of joke on your part. It is, isn't it?

If you honestly believe this, I'll ask you, are you saying that all German troops should be shouting "for the fatherland!" and rushing off to die to the last man? Any broad understanding of WW2 history shows this argument to be ludicrous. Hell, I have a German relative who on d-day was at Normandy. He saw the Canadians landing, went down to the shore and in his words "I make give up!".

Goodness me.

O, another Maximus gem

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>LOL! Well look at it this way. Compare a US soldier of 1991 to an Iraqi soldier of 1991. There's MAJOR differences in the quality of troops there. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. Very astute of you. It's called 'conscript' versus 'veteran'. Wow! Amazing! You can try a similar style of battle yourself in CM. Get a battalion of conscript German Volkstrum, make sure they have the worst equipment possible. Now take a company of heavily air supported, arty supported, tank supported veteran US infantry and watch them clean up.

(Now I am aware there were some hard battles in the Gulf war, but the public doesn't really hear that does it? hmm).

As for the Iraqi's being poor fighters, you lack of knowledge is glaringly obvious. I knew a guy at uni who was in the Iranian army during the Iran/Iraq war, he said the Iraqi's were big tough bastards, (he was 6'2" and built like an Aryan brick-****house as they might say).

It's clear then that leadership, equipment and training are much more decisive in battle.

Please.

Think.

PeterNZ

[This message has been edited by PeterNZer (edited 10-31-2000).]

[Chupacabra]

Wow, Maximus, you really know how to elevate the level of a discussion.

Go away.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Major Tom]

I don't know why, but, I think I am siding with Maximus on this one. There was some difference between the Allied (not just American!) and the Iraqi troops encountered on the Frontier. The Iraqi were not only Conscript troops equipped with old stuff, but, had to endure constant bombardment before even seeing their enemy. However, this can be represented by CM, through starting off the troops at an exhausted level of rest, and to make them 'shaken' (this can be done, right?). That will make them resist at the same level they did historically. So, it IS represented in the game, it just isn't universally imposed.

Regarding his pro-Americanism, just take a look at all the smileys. I am pretty sure this time he is joking around with the rest of us, eh?

What Dupuy has done, was take a lot of small engagements, figure out their results, combine them together to see a 'national' result, and then tries to miniturize these large results in order to work for every small result. You can't work this way, since, every small action has many independent factors from another small action. These factors are included in the after action reports and blended into his general conclusion for a nation's behaviour. However, these independent factors (such as weather, level of rest, enemy powerfullness, level of surprise etc.) really mean nothing when you are trying to figure out one nation's ability against another's. You CAN'T take a general (and a statistic like 1.3 for Germany, 1.0 for Allies, etc. IS GENERAL) and make it a universal. German's weren't always 1.3 better than the Allies, sometimes they were 1.5, or 0.5 in certain engagements. When you average(d) out the grade you recieved on all of your school tests, and it was 80%, you didn't get 80% in everything. Some things you got 90%, and others only 70%, possibly you never got an 80% in your life? But, your average is 80%...

Kill ratio's do not determine the ability of one nation's troops over another. The Allies had GREAT kill ratio's against the Germans in the Western Front campaign of 1944, yet, you still claim that they are 0.3-0.1 better than the Allies.

The problem with your argument, is, that what you are demanding IS included in the game already. You can make one side weaker or stronger by fiddling with experience, rest, supply, platoon HQ bonus', etc. The only difference is, that we aren't FORCED to use them for every scenario.

[brucer]

Major Tom:

Snapdragon has it almost exactly right. Dupuy's work always concerns the average result, abstracted from a very large data set. He said, with enough data you can quantify the average influence of differences in terrain, or equipment, or training, or tactical picture, or leadership, or artillery/air support, abstract them out of the equation, and still be left, on the average, with the fact that *all other things being equal* with a quantifiable fact like Germans and Americans in exactly the same position, advanced (say) 1.1 times faster than Americans in the tactical offensive. Logically, that quantifiable variable must equal the combined influences of all the non-quantifiable influences on that result. Given a sufficient and reliable data set, it's a first-year statistics problem.

Dupuy and his colleagues were bang-on when they argued pure accidents of geography (i.e., whether one was born in America or Germany) could logically have no causal relation to the differentials they were finding. They said it was likely due to differences in doctrine and military culture.

*All other things being equal*, they proved you could show statistically that some armies' small unit tactics and military culture just worked better, and Dupuy's adherents believed if you adopted elements of the same system (as the Americans have done with some German tactics) you would fight better, too, *on average,* by a quantifiable amount.

Where Snapdragon and I depart is his saying all this has no relevance to CM, for I believe it should have some influence on scenario design. For if we can establish, once all the other variables are abstracted out, that one unit's "Dupuy value" would have been 1.2 and another's was 0.8, for instance, I believe it's incumbent on a scenario designer to consider that in his evaluation of which troop quality value, Green, Regular, or Veteran, to *generally* assign to those troops *under most circumstances.*

BruceR

[Mark IV]

Originally posted by Major Tom:

The Iraqi were not only Conscript troops equipped with old stuff, but, had to endure constant bombardment before even seeing their enemy.

Many Iraqi units would have had the CM equivalent of Regular or Veteran status, and not just the Republican Guard. This is a nation that has been in constant battle, large and small, with ample opporunity to train troops, including under fire. There were still officer and NCO veterans of the rather large war with Iran, and many guerilla and counter-insurgency ops during "peace" against Kurds and other heavily armed minorities. I don't think the majority of Iraqi troops were really Conscript level (in CM terms- technically, most American soldiers in WWII were "conscripted").

However, this can be represented by CM, through starting off the troops at an exhausted level of rest, and to make them 'shaken' (this can be done, right?). That will make them resist at the same level they did historically. So, it IS represented in the game, it just isn't universally imposed.

Exactly.

Regarding [Maximus'] pro-Americanism, just take a look at all the smileys. I am pretty sure this time he is joking around with the rest of us, eh?

MT, you've been around here long enough to know... you're accusing him of subtlety?

The problem with your argument, is, that what you are demanding IS included in the game already. You can make one side weaker or stronger by fiddling with experience, rest, supply, platoon HQ bonus', etc. The only difference is, that we aren't FORCED to use them for every scenario.

Bingo.

Opposing an automatic national characteristics modifier sure ought not to be construed as some form of political-correctness, but rather the recognition that the game already provides every mechanism required to simulate historical reality.

The organization and armament of the units is the most important national factor, and these are already there. The rest is up to the gamer.

FWIW, I believe that there are cultural and occasionally even genetic differences between "nationalities" and I think most everyone here recognizes that. But the degree of manifestation and dispersion of such traits over an entire population would have a very wide swing, and as has been pointed out, would be impossible to quantify.

That some nebulous set of "traits" (if they could be quantified) would be evenly represented in a given company from that population is highly unlikely, particularly when individual leadership (or armed commissars) play such a vital role in any unit's performance. However, every scenario designer has the ability already to infuse any theory or impression into a unit's attributes.

Even if all this were factored in, the individual player's style has more to do with reflecting realistic national performance. I doubt whether many players of the 1941 Russians in PBEMs would care to emulate their tactics precisely; part of the challenge is to change history by out-generalling one's historical counterparts. And even looking at averages, the "average" 1941 Russian unit differed significantly from the "average" 1944 unit in performance, which means they learned the same as the rest of us did (including the Germans). So I guess "national characteristics" are pretty dynamic.

[This message has been edited by Mark IV (edited 10-31-2000).]

[JoePrivate]

Wow what a long read. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one in favor of a general 'nationality modifier' has stated concretely what it is they want that CM doesn't already provide. The combination of troop quality, condition, fanatical and leadership bonuses has a huge impact on gameplay in CM though it may not always be apparent.

IMO, the underlying current from some posters seems to be a disagreement with the choices made in unit quality by scenario designers. Since those choices don't fit in with their version of 'reality', ie X unit should be Green not Veteran, an arbitrary, fixed, national modifier is desired to circumvent this. I don't agree, I think BTS made a wise decision giving the players the tools and freedom to determine these things themselves.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by brucer:

For if we can establish, once all the other variables are abstracted out, that one unit's "Dupuy value" would have been 1.2 and another's was 0.8, for instance, I believe it's incumbent on a scenario designer to consider that in his evaluation of which troop quality value, Green, Regular, or Veteran, to *generally* assign to those troops *under most circumstances.*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny isn't it - that is what I do at the moment when I design a scenario (semi-historical). If I feel like I want to have crappy German troops defend against crack Polish troops, hey presto, I just do that. If I want to intersperse some vet HQs to reflect a good quality of officers/NCOs, I just do that. None of what has been suggested here is going to add to that, it will in fact subtract from it, because it will take my choices away. Any good scenario designer will do just that. To put it in the Bard's terms, there would be no humour in it otherwise.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 10-31-2000).]

[CavScout]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Major Tom:

Actually, the Japanese had poor organization, and were usually outnumbered.

It would be kind of neat for the British to suddenly break on turn 10, sit down and have tea. Americans stumbling around because of massive hangovers and VD infections during their last leave. The Germans will stop fighting the Allies and go around to each house, root out some civilians and shoot them. The French will just surrender before the game even starts. The Canadians will wander around, baffled at the lack of snow in July. Leaving the Poles to do all of the work. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

LOL!!!!!

[CavScout]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus:

LOL! Well look at it this way. Compare a US soldier of 1991 to an Iraqi soldier of 1991. There's MAJOR differences in the quality of troops there. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There was but was it because one saide was American and the other Iraqi? Or was it training and equipment? What about faith in leadership?

Look and the Polish and Germans. Were the Polish some how less soldiers than the Germans? What was the deciding edge? Culture? Or was it theequipment the Germans had on the battlefield?

You stated, "if an army is destined to fight a war quickly in order to minimize casualties, wouldn't their troops go above and beyond the call of duty quite often in the heat of combat." I'll ask, did the Poles "go above and beyond the call of duty quite" when charging tanks with horses?

Cav

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"Maneuverists have a bad case of what may be called, to borrow from a sister social science, 'Wehrmact penis envy.'"--D. Bolger

Co-Chairman of the CM Jihad Brigade

"AS far as Steve and BTS (mostly Steve) are concerned, you are either a CM die-hard supporter, or you are dirt. If you question the game, implementation, or data models they used, you are some kind of neo-Nazi wanna-be, and become an open target for CavScout, SlippySlapDragon, and all the other sycophants who hang on Steves every word."-- Jeff Heidman [comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical]