Prospective buyer asks questions...

[Chelco]

Hello,

I am a military-sims fan. I started "my sim career" in 1998 thanks to this beloved country who gave me an oportunity to work and to buy (almost everything) I like. I am oriented to products that face you with realistic experiences. In other words, I look for sims where you have to use tactics as close as possible to real life ones. Eye candy is not important for me, I just want something to learn and grow.

Regarding land warfare, good sims on this topic are really scarce. I recently droped into the Battlefront website and now I am a prospective buyer for TacOPs. I will be mainly a single player. I played the demo and really liked it. I have some questions still.

I recently readed "Maneuver Warfare Handbook" by W. Lind. I am eager to apply the theories discussed there. Is this the right sim to do it?

I was very pleased to see that the AI had different "opening moves" in the demo. Are this opening moves designed "on the go" or are they just preseted?

Based on what I saw in the demo (enemy AI was retreating after my agressive counter-attack) I presume the answer will be yes, but anyway here I go. Is the behaviour of the enemy AI dynamic? Does its battle plan dynamically change according to the outcome of the battle?

I was amazed when I read in the forums that the enemys AI follows the former USSR doctrine. Where can I read about such a doctrine?

Is a "morale system" implemented in TacOPs? For example, if I flank an infantry team, are they likely to retreat in such disfavorable situation?

Your qualified feedback is really welcome. Thank you again.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

>Regarding land warfare, good sims on this topic are really scarce.

TacOps is used as a training device in a number of militaries.

>I recently readed "Maneuver Warfare Handbook" by W. Lind. I am eager to

>apply the theories discussed there. Is this the right sim to do it?

Yes, if you are playing against a human opponent.

"Maybe" if you are playing solitaire against the computer opponent. The parts of Lind's theories that deal with avoiding surfaces and exploiting gaps are germane to preserving your forces and accomplishing most missions with fewer casualties. The parts of Lind's theories that deal with collapsing enemy morale at a tactical or operational level will usually not apply because the computer opponent has virtually perfect morale and training.

>I was very pleased to see that the AI had different "opening moves" in the

>demo. Are this opening moves designed "on the go" or are they just preseted?

The various opening moves are coded into the scenario file . The opening move for each new running of a scenario is selected at random.

>Is the behaviour of the enemy AI dynamic? Does its battle plan

>dynamically change according to the outcome of the battle?

Yes and no. The overall battle plan for achieving the mission goals for a given scenario is set by which opening move is randomly picked by the AI at scenario startup. The overall battle plan will usually not change. However, the AI will react and adjust at a lower level to enemy contact.

>I was amazed when I read in the forums that the enemys AI follows the

>former USSR doctrine. Where can I read about such a doctrine?

The full version of TacOps includes a library folder containing 36 U.S. Army and USMC field manuals in Acrobat PDF format. Two of the manuals provide info on OPFOR doctrine - "100-61 OPFOR Op Art Armor.pdf" and "100-63 Inf Based OPFOR.pdf". Other manuals in the set also include bits here and there about OPFOR doctrine and OPFOR equipment (equipment is covered in detail in "OPFOR World Equipment Guide.pdf").

>Is a "morale system" implemented in TacOPs?

A "bad morale" or "variable morale" system is not implemented in TacOps. All unit markers in TacOps are assumed to have good morale and good training and will do their duty until physically stopped or suppressed by fire. Suppressed units automatically recover over brief intervals of time.

> For example, if I flank an

>infantry team, are they likely to retreat in such disfavorable situation?

Not if commanded by the AI/computer opponent. However, groups of unit markers will sometimes displace or fall back and regroup if commanded by the AI/computer opponent. Human commanders are free to order their unit markers to do whatever they want during the orders phase.

[ June 09, 2003, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: MajorH ]

[Chelco]

Thank you MajorH!

I'm in, order has been placed.

[Redwolf]

[EDITED because my grammatics truly sucked]

Some more notes from another gamer:

I find the TacOps computer opponent to be very good by comparision, especially on the attack. It's capablities to react to situations bejond its pretermined plan are definitivly more than adequate. My biggest nitpick is that very are few scenarios where the human attacks.

Question to the Major: will the [AI] opponent make use of more off-map artillery if I give it to it?

My favorite book about Soviet Doctrine is "Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii by Richard" by E. Simpkin. It is hard to find, though.

Many people like the Glantz writings "The Soviet conduct of tactical maneuver" and "the Soviet conduct of operational maneuver", but I find them to be exceptionally hard to read.

I once found a short writeup on the net which was very informative given it was short. Maybe I can come up with the URL.

On a lower level of tactics I like the tactics part of "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" by David C. Isby and "Red Thrust: Attack on the Central Front Soviet Tactics and Capabilities in the 1990s" by Stephen Zaloga. The latter is mostly not applicable at a TacOps playing level, but interesting to get you "into the mood".

For games I think you might want to check out TOAW if you haven't already.

[ June 09, 2003, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

>Will the [AI] opponent make use of more off-map

>artillery if I give it to it?

Yes.

[Chelco]

Thank you redwolf!

I will try to get copies of some of them, as far as my hobbies budget allows me!

[HistoryBuff]

Here's another recomendation for books to get. While these deal with strategic movements, they might give some insight on how you might want to build custom scenarios:

The Third World War

The Third World War: The Untold Story

by Sir John Hackett

They are from the mid 80's so a little dated. They still make great reading and still send chills up my spine, specially the Untold Story.

Major H .... great game. I'm a new customer myself and have truly enjoyed it. Quick Q. Will we see an organized Stryker Brigade scenario soon? Maybe something centered around the 2nd ACR as it completes its conversion into a Stryker unit.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by HistoryBuff:

Quick Q. Will we see an organized Stryker Brigade scenario soon? Maybe something centered around the 2nd ACR as it completes its conversion into a Stryker unit.

Using proposed Med Inf Bde TOE's from about two years ago, I've played a number of scenarios with this alternative force structure. Using the import/export OOB functions to replace the original scenario OOB and look at various "what if" situations is very easy and is one of my favorite pass-times.

Happy Gaming

[vyshka]

Speaking of Sir John Hackett, has anyone read 'Great Commanders and their Battles'? I just saw this on bn.com and it seems like it could be interesting.

Was Third World War a rather thick paperback and had some photos in it?

[ScotMc3]

Let me just add to the comment at the bottom:

The import and export OOB feature in TacOps 4 allows one to create any TO&E that uses the existing units in the game and to save it for future use. The OOBs can be saved and even edited in Excel. To duplicate a formation template for a game you may import the same OOB more than once. (Major, a quick question on that: does one have to replace the duplicate ids when doing this or will the program assign new unit ids for imported units?) It's also very handy for shifting forces between maps in a campaign.

Incidentally you might want to check the Team Trackless site for the TO&E of the new medium infantry brigades and battalions. It's a couple of years old now but I have been told on the TacOps email list this TO&E is very close to the new Stryker brigades except that the vehicles are, of course, Strykers and Stryker variants. The page is at

http://www.strategypage.com/tt/msiepage.htm

Scot McConnachie

Using proposed Med Inf Bde TOE's from about two years ago, I've played a number of scenarios with this alternative force structure. Using the import/export OOB functions to replace the original scenario OOB and look at various "what if" situations is very easy and is one of my favorite pass-times.Gary Chilcote

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

> The import and export OOB feature ... does one have to

> replace the duplicate ids when doing this or will the

> program assign new unit ids for imported units?

Unit id numbers are not saved by the export feature so new unit id numbers will always be automatically assigned by the import feature.

Unit PINs (player id numbers) are saved by the export feature. The import feature offers a dialog in which one can choose to (a) recover the imported unit PINs as saved or ( set all imported unit PINs to zero (i.e. the umpire PIN).

[Jeff Gilbert]

Hmmm ... I visited the Team Trackless site on the Strategypage web site. The TO&E charts / lists are gone! :eek:

Perhaps they are being updated? Does anyone have any info on this?

[ng cavscout]

My NG brigade is currently training up and getting ready for, hopefully, enhanced status, we are slated for a JRTC deployment in 2008. Are there any JRTC scenarios for tacops3, tacops4, or tacopscav? Either brigade level, or utilizing the Bde Cav troop.