Digitization?

[Determinant]

Armour and armament is a mere distraction. The principle advantage that the M1A2 has over other nations' MBTs is the use of digital processing through the Inter Vehicle Information System (IVIS) to give the Commander unparalleled situational awareness.

Contraversial WW2 example: Think of technically better Soviet tanks (T-34?) being torn apart by inferior German models (Pz III). The reason?: Germans all had radios and therefore enjoyed improved situational awareness over their opponents.

Is the combat advantage of digitization properly modelled in TacOps?

[(temporary)]

Armor, armorment, and technical layout are all important. For example, there was one KV-1 that held up the lead elements of a panzer division for a day or two (it also inflicted much damage).

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

Superior situational awareness doesn't help much if the enemy can engage at a greater range than you can with rounds that go through both sides of your vehicle while yours bounce off or disintegrate even at close range .

[Determinant]

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

Superior situational awareness doesn't help much if the enemy can engage at a greater range than you can with rounds that go through both sides of your vehicle while yours bounce off or disintegrate even at close range .<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Forgive me being dismissive of guns and armour: I'm one of those boring people who make controversial statements to stimulate debate.

But: The enemy is engaging us from a position of advantage using his superior weapons? This sounds like his situational awareness is a lot better than ours. What were we (not) doing to allow this to happen?

Before you do anything you have to cycle through the OODA loop (Observe, Orientate, Decision, Action). If you can do this quicker than your opponent than you have the initiative.

My point is that a force using digital technologies (ie US Army & in particular M1A2) ought to be able to develop and to react to situations much more quickly than steam powered opponents (who are all still busy marking maps, writing orders, coding messages for the radio, waving coloured flags etc etc).

Seizing the initiative is the real advantage on the battlfield and digitally equipped forces will normally be able to do this. Assuming that the technology doesn't crash of course...

[Carter]

> Is the combat advantage of digitization

> properly modelled in TacOps?

Seems to me that TacOps models an exceptional capability for situational awarness.

As a commander you have complete knowledge of all your forces: You know where everyone is. You know exactly how much ammo they have on hand. You know what all your units are doing.

When one of your units spots the enemy, you know instantly.

If anything I think that TacOps gives the player better situational awarness than they might have in real life. Sure, the Army has some very useful digital situational awarenss systems on their vehicles, but the grunts don't have that stuff yet.

OPFOR probably wouldn't be have the digital situational awarness systems either.

But I don't mind. Compromises have to be made in a simulation, and I want OPFOR to be as tough as possible.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

> The enemy is engaging us from a position of advantage using

> his superior weapons? This sounds like his situational

> awareness is a lot better than ours. What were we (not)

> doing to allow this to happen?

In the 60s and most of the 70s we did not put enough money into the development and fielding of new weapons and equipment for the ground forces to maintain basic parity. For much of that time period, the ground weaponry of our worst adversary was superior to ours. In the areas where we had a technological edge (air, electronics, etc.), the Soviets still greatly outnumbered us in platforms. The balance begain to shift in the late 70s to early 80s with additional funding and a change in development and fielding priorities plus a fundamental change in the training of our ground forces - the flowering of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin. The training at NTC also resulted in a leap in situational awareness for our ground forces. The result by 1990 was a ground force that was an order of magnitude better than our worst adversaries.

The point being that improving situational awareness is important but the effort will be largely wasted if the "guns, armor, training" foundation is not there to allow one to exploit any advantage gained. We need to continually make progress in all areas.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

> When one of your units spots the enemy, you know instantly.

> If anything I think that TacOps gives the player better

> situational awarness than they might have in real life.

If you want to experience a very different TacOps game, uncheck the box in the preferences labeled "Fring units are always spotted".

[Carter]

> We need to continually make progress in all areas.

I agree one-hundred percent.

[Determinant]

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

> Is the combat advantage of digitization

> properly modelled in TacOps?

Seems to me that TacOps models an exceptional capability for situational awarness.

As a commander you have complete knowledge of all your forces: You know where everyone is. You know exactly how much ammo they have on hand. You know what all your units are doing.

When one of your units spots the enemy, you know instantly.

If anything I think that TacOps gives the player better situational awarness than they might have in real life. Sure, the Army has some very useful digital situational awarenss systems on their vehicles, but the grunts don't have that stuff yet.

OPFOR probably wouldn't be have the digital situational awarness systems either.

But I don't mind. Compromises have to be made in a simulation, and I want OPFOR to be as tough as possible.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Absolutely. Penetrating the 'Fog of War': I haven't read 'Men Against Fire' for years but isn't there an anecdote in there from a company commander saying that his 'best' (all things are relative) day in combat was when he had both flanks anchored, while in a reasonably stable situation so that he knew what was going on or something like that?

But it is good to read in the AARs from TacOps CPXs (never been there myself) that 'fog of war' is a continual factor bearing down on TacOps commanders.

The British Army is attempting to link the next generation of battlefield radios with GPS so that at least a commander will know where all his guys are, and also information like ammo states will be more easily transmitted down the logs chain: trying to move towards at least partial oversight of the situation I suppose.

But I guess the above really answers my question: if you properly modelled a digitized blue force up against a steam-powered OPFOR then blue force would be making something like two moves to the OPFORs every move.

This would be particularly acute in novel and demanding situations - I guess that the OPFOR would still be pretty quick off the blocks when executing their well rehearsed drills in response to forseeable tactical problems...

But as Major H has said previously in regard to one side having overwhelming air or arty there wouldn't be much point in trying to simulate a foregone conclusion.

[minmax]

Just to throw another log on the fire. I think too much Situation Management creates Micromanagement. I have argued with a Lieutenant that saw the APCs advance on my position telling me to displace without giving me the time to explain that we had a good Ambush set up.

Soviet Doctrine was all about Commssioned officers having SA and not really trusting NCOs to do their job. American doctrine gives that squad and fire team leader more trust to know the plan and do whatever was neccesary as an individual to accomplish the objectives of the plan.

Young officers always want to know what is going on. Giving them electronic situation awareness sounds good but, the downside is they want to run the battle.

My greatest success in combat was in part due to my superiors faith in my ability to do my job. Without big brother the tac board watching.

I would like to see an option in Tac Ops where friendlies dissappear and re-appear as they lose and gain comm with me. Or another type of damage is lose of antennae. say establish a pre-arranged lost sight, lost comm plan to get those forces back to your control.

Its like controlling fighters by radar vice on a TACCS range. Radar updates every ten seconds. TACCS is a video game. 100% perfect SA is artificial and does not allow for acts of God on the battle field.

Well that is more than my two cents worth... :mad: :mad:

[Determinant]

Yes - is there a wargame on the market that realistically models command and control problems?

It would be quite a challenge to have blue force units disappearing off the map everytime they moved out of range, lost comms, were jammed or whatever. In fact it would be a nightmare just trying to keep your own side organised and under command.

Perhaps that's why it's not commonly done - it would be a bit like accurately modelling logistics: essential but boring!

But your post nicely highlights the double edged nature of electronic aids: on the positive side they will give the tactical commander enough information to fight his battle, but conversely they give the rear area commander an opportunity to interfere where he's not needed ('Now move that fire trench 3 yards to the right...').

The doctrine says to delegate missions to subordinates but how many commanders will be able to resist the temptation to interfere, especially when casualties must be avoided at any cost?

[minmax]

The doctrine says to delegate missions to subordinates but how many commanders will be able to resist the temptation to interfere, especially when casualties must be avoided at any cost?

Your qoute brings up another question concerning digitalization. Does it help reduce causualities? I don't think it does.

I also think the Clinton era revealed a penchant for creating military operations that put troop welfare above mission accomplishment. So we go in only if we are sure of 100% survival for all concerned. Meaning that we back down instead of doing the job b/c someone might get killed. I think the point is to accomplish the mission with minimum losses. To risk nothing is to gain nothing. :cool:

[Carter]

> Does it help reduce causualities?

Digitization is a force multiplier. It helps everyone coordinate better with each other.

I read a book written by a Daniel Bolger, a company commander, about when his unit was at the NTC. It was called "Dragons at War Land Battle in the Desert". In it, he observes that the units that fought best were the units in which the commanders gave the most information to their subordinates.

For a unit to fight best, everyone had to be on the same page. Digitization will help you do that.

"APPLIQUE" is a digital system that coordinates troops and logistics. It was tested at the NTC. As I remember, OPFOR got their butts kicked by the troops with APPILQUE. APPILIQUE is supposed to be a force multiplier of 2 or 3.

Sure, digitization won't help you with poor, micromanaging leadership.

But the NTC helps create an accurate evaluation of leaders. The good and the bad leaders are identified in the combat-like competition.

Bad leadership should be addressed directly, its not the technology's fault.

[Determinant]

Thanks for the tip about LTC Bolger - I'd never heard of him before but I've just bought his 'Battle for Hunger Hill' on the strength of your recommendation.

[Carter]

I'd read "The Dragons of War" before I ever played TacOps. It gave me a lot of insight into how mechanized land wars are fought, since I've never been in the military.

It was very helpful to have read it before I played TacOps. It gave me a lot of perspective. It also makes you appreciate a lot of technology in TacOps. With the events in the book taking place during the 80's, Bolger's unit had no GPS, Abrams tanks, Javelins, or Bradleys.

Their TOC was kept well concealed, and Bolger talked about how officers would get lost trying to find the TOC at night

The book wasn't an easy read for me. I had to learn a lot of terms, and re-read sections to get a real understanding of what happened. I think that's mostly due to the fact that the book was written by someone in the military for someone in the military. The editing could have been better too.

I'm glad I read it. The content was what made it worth the read. I've been thinking about re-reading the book now that I've played TacOps. The book would probably be helpful to an officer going to the NTC for the first time.

I think the book is available on Amazon's zShops.

NOTE: APPLIQUE was not in Bolger's book. I got that info from other, more recent sources.

[Stephen]

Does the increased digitization and transmission of data over the battlefield give the enemy an increased opertunity for direction finding and hence locating your forces?

Also how about increased risks of interseption and decode of information?

Just what are the increased oppertunities for enemy Sig Int?

[Coyote]

"Does the increased digitization and transmission of data over the battlefield give the enemy an increased opertunity for direction finding and hence locating your forces?"

Against a US style force with litterally thousands of emmitters (radios, radars, datalinks, repeaters, etc.,etc.) direction finding is only somewhat useful. By the time you make sense of the data everyone has moved around. It gets better, read on.

"Also how about increased risks of interseption and decode of information?"

US SINCGARS family of radios change frequencies originally were intended to change frequencies (hop) 300 times per second. That was 15 years ago. I don't know how fast the newest systems hop but what your opponent hears is mostly electronic "white noise". Encryption is applied during transmission and changed either daily or as needed. A transmission may eventually be pieced together and decoded but it will be long after it's tactical significance has vanished.

"Just what are the increased oppertunities for enemy Sig Int?"

Basically just ELINT, classifying each emitter by type and trying to get a picture of a force's disposition by looking at the distribution of it's electronic systems. 90% of this activity takes place well above the level of TacOps. Good questions though. Very few civilians appreciate how complex war has become.

See you at 'Fiddler's Green'

Gary Chilcote

[minmax]

Gary,

You are right about the direction finding capabilities. Soviet doctrine knew the shortcomings of their DF equipment so the Reds swtiched to just Jamming the equipment which the Americans and Allies heavily rely on.

I exercises the jamming serves to really flumox a battle field picture and can really mess up SA. Soviet jammers learned english which allowed them to jam parts of conversations which further muddied the waters.

One bit of history the Russian invented Jamming by accident in their ill fated war against Japan. A young Russian radio operator noticed that Japanese naval gunfire was off target when he transmitted over their fire direction calls. So he keyed the mike every 12-15 seconds after the last volley which saved the structures at his base.

The West has very good DF gear while old Soviet Bloc stuff is very good at jamming accros the spectrum or even on specific frequencies.