CM as a Battlefield Simulator

[The_Capt]

As suggested on another thread, I am wondering what the feelings of the pro's and amateurs are on the RL application of what we do in the game to reality. Little, lot or somewhere in between?

I will reserve my opinion but I think points that come out might be able to make CM2 a better game, provided anybody listens to our ranting of course.

[KiloIndiaAlpha]

Interesting question and one that I've often pondered. I spent 4 years involved with very large scale, computer driven, military exercises. Sort of Gulf War Part Deux, but on computers. Did the folk being trained get anything out of it? Yes I think they did. Did it have any resemblance to reality?, to a degree it did. But always at the back of the minds of the 3 and 4 * officers being trained was that they knew when endex would be called and that they could sandbag and give 110% just before the end.And, I think more importantly, they knew it wasn't for real, no one dies and no one really gives 100% as they would if it was a genuine operation.

[Croda]

Ok, I'll bite.

I think that this is the cause of most of the debates that occur on this board, specifically the ScoutPL and Pillar debates.

Pillar employs the fruits of his studies to the CM battlefield, and has great successes. ScoutPL argues with Pillar because he feels that the tactics that Pillar employs in the game would never work on a true battlefield.

The bottom line is that CM is a game. It may be a fantastically well simulated battlefield, but it is still a game. The human aspect is necessarilly limited and therefore predictable. I think it is safe to state that the best commanders the world has seen have reached that status due to their abilities to predict and deal with the unpredictable. It doesn't take much to be a successful CM commander, it does take much to be a successful battlefield commander.

To sum up: I find CM to be the application of real-life tactics in a sterile, predictable evnvironment. While I play the game for hours every night, I see no RL application between the two with the exception of CM's attempt to reproduce RL.

My appologies for naming names, but I felt that this was where you were going anyway.

[This message has been edited by Croda (edited 02-20-2001).]

[Mannheim Tanker]

Originally posted by Croda:

Ok, I'll bite.

To sum up: I find CM to be the application of real-life tactics in a sterile, predictable evnvironment. While I play the game for hours every night, I see no RL application between the two with the exception of CM's attempt to reproduce RL.

Good points, Croda, but I could also point out that nearly all military (peacetime) training is performed under controlled and predicatable conditions (for example, as mentioned above). I have taken part in several RL training exercises, including SIMNET (tactical computer sims of armor company and platoons), JANUS (BN level computer wargaming), sandbox exercises, and ground training in the mud.

CM imparts many valuable lessons that most of these exercises attempted to teach (IE coordination between sub-units, combined arms, etc). In some cases, the military sims did it better, while in others, I find CM to be a better training aid (albeit under WWII conditions). It would certainly be interested to see what company-grade officers and senior NCO's think about the possibility of a CM-based simulator for tactical training...

[Mr. Clark]

I can't really comment on the military training aspect, but I can honestly say that playing CM has noticeably increased my tactical thinking ability in all other areas of life.

I've always studied tactics and strategy (philosophy), and other wargames have helped me understand certain ideas, but CM is the best at it (tactics). With CM's depth, you are allowed to attempt nearly anything you can think of, and need to expand your tactical thinking to cover so many details, that it gives you a more complete experience than any wargame I've played before.

------------------

"Fear is for the enemy... Fear and Bullets."

"They didn't want to come... but I told em, by jeepers, it was an order."

[BloodyBucket]

Very interesting, as I am doing a presentation to my reserve unit on this very topic.

Not the be all and end all, CM is certainly another tool in the toolbox. It gets people to think tacticaly, an important end unto itself. Of course, the systems employed have changed dramaticaly over the last 56 years, and a game will always be just a game, but compared to other games on this scale CM is outstanding.

Until society lets us kill each other and destroy property in training (not likely or desirable) we cast shadows on the wall and try to predict the future with them. CM is one of the best and most entertaining shadows out there, and as long as the limitations of this or any sim are not mistakenly taken as gospel, it does more good than harm to use them.

The mind is a powerful weapon on any battlefield, and CM can help sharpen that weapon. It can stimulate tactical thinking. It cannot replace other methods of training or experience.

Just the opinons of a humble Master Sergeant.

Your mileage may vary.

------------------

"Roll on"

[Bruno Weiss]

The_Capt wrote:

As suggested on another thread, I am wondering what the feelings of the pro's and amateurs are on the RL application of what we do in the game to reality.

You mean there are professional CM'ers. Where do I apply? It (CM), has definitely altered my reality perception. I now peer out the blinds looking for snipers before opening the door to take out the trash. When parking the car, I tend to pull in the space and then back out quickly before finally pulling in again (just in case the position has been spotted). I now take the dog to the rear area of the woods hex to poop instead of the front portion so we avoid enemy FO's.

Hehe, but I'd agree with some of the others. CM might be a tool, particularly to teach the basic principles with a visual as to why this or that tactic is a good idea. But modern warfare and weaponry is quite a bit different than CM's time period and I believe that, as well as the fact that CM cannot be totally realistic and is alas a, dare I utter it, a game, (unless as Charles has pointed out in the past, you want to run it on a Cray), prevents CM from being an accurate battlefield simulator.

------------------

"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 02-20-2001).]

[Michael Dorosh]

I can't comment on how well the game simulates tactics, but I can make a few obvious points about leadership which were touched on briefly.

Military commanders need to exert a certain amount of personality - to exert it, they must possess it, as well as moral courage, physical bravery, quick reaction time, many attributes that are NOT a prerequisite for sitting on a chair and playing a computer game (and a turn based one at that).

I've had a bit of management experience IRL, as well as having had minor supervisory tasks with the Army, and anyone who hasn't been in such a situation really doesn't know what it required, or how tough it is.

When I was a bike courier, I was very quick to make judgements about my manager, and question his decisions - when I was promoted, I quickly saw how short-sighted I was, but there was really no way I could have related, not having been in that position before. I've had similar experiencss in the Reserves, being put in a position of authority and realizing how difficult it is to co-ordinate even the smallest number of people in the simplest of tasks.

None of this is even remotely simulated in Combat Mission (nor could it, naturally, nor is it even desirable - it is a game, and things like personality are factored in to "command range" and "leadership modifiers").

The entire human element is missing, to further state the obvious, but any military leader has to be able to interact with other human beings. For a squad or platoon leader, this interaction takes place on a daily, hourly or minute-to-minute basis. The platoon leader must set the example by eating last, going to sleep last, seeing that his men are warm and dry before he is, he must counsel them in tough times, praise them in good times, and the best ones for the most part say "follow me", seldom "go on."

In short, even if games like CM did teach tactics to a high degree (and maybe it does, maybe it doesn't), it certainly wouldn't prepare anyone for the million other resposibilities and duties he would have, from memorizing the 2 million abbreviations and acronyms currently in use, to teaching his newest recruit how to keep his feet clean.

[Henri]

This is a very complex issue.

Steve has made some good comments on the past on the admitted limitations of CM as a simulation, while defending its degree of accuracy.Maybe he should repeat them here to help clarify the issue.

It would be wrong to say that because someone is good at CM, he would be a good battlefield commander, and no one to my knowledge has claimed that.

It would also be wrong to say that just because a game cannot simulate all of reality, its is worthless as a simulator. After all, the Canadian and US military have adopted TacOps as a training device, as well as other devices mentioned in other messages.

ANY simulation is a more or less imperfect modeling of specific aspects of reality. The success of a simulation depends on what the purpose of it is; for example, an IPX exercise with TacOps may be more to train the participants in dealing with giving, interpreting and executing orders than on learning how close a shoulder-fired missile should be from its target before firing.Many military wargames have as much or more to do with verifying logistics procedures than with battle procedures.

CM is a game that has pretensions as a WW2 battle simulator. I believe that this is justified to some extent, moreso than for any other game except possibly for TacOps.BTS claims that tactics that work in CM would have worked in real life and conversely, and this is also true to a great extent.This complex question was at the root of the long and heated debate a few months ago about "gamey" tactics: the "anti-gamey" crowd believed that

CM is such an accurate simulation that such tactics detract from the realism, whereas supporters of "anything goes" (to which I belong) did not subscribe to this point of view. The heated discussion of last October on maneuver warfare also had its origin in a comment by me that CM did not very well allow the simulation of maneuver warfare.So it is ironic that I now find myself defending the realism of CM against some of the military professionals who were on the "anti-gamey" side previously.

It bears repeating that factors that detract from realism in CM are absolute spotting, unity of command, victory-flag-oriented scenarios, time limits, small maps and so on. Thke lack of true casualties are no more or no less important than in any simulation including military wargames that go on all the time.

My view is that CM is a very good but imperfect simulation of WW2 combat. And despite my reservations about maneuver warfare, I do believe that generally WW2 tactics yield pretty much the same result in CM as in the real World.Of course I can't prove this, it is only my opinion.

I do hope that Steve will step in here to give BTS' point of view on this issue.

Henri

[Guest Mikey D]

There are simulations and simulations. CM won't simulate the recoil of a rifle against your shoulder or layinf face down in muddy grass. But I've seen nothing out there that approximates so well distances and proportions. Because of CM I now have a plausible mental picture of what it means to engage a target a 1,000 meters.

[Peter White]

One obvious strategic difference between typical CM experiences and real life is that CM scenarios tend to be roughly balanced.

I suspect one of the most nerve-wracking questions for any commander making contact with an enemy force is whether there are any really nasty surprises he does not know about. Or how aggressively he should exploit suspected weakness? Is it a trap? Is he the hunter or the hunted?

When I play CM, I automatically *know* that if I "play well", I can probably "win". That is perhaps the most valuable information you can give a commander.

If we could channel the spirit of McClellan, his hindsight on the matter might be interesting.

[Mannheim Tanker]

Obviously, CM lacks the human dimension of combat, but then again, so do many of the official military sims. I don't think anyone has said that CM could be an end-all for military training. Even if it IS set in WWII, it still teaches many facets of modern combat (IE combined arms, etc). We did the same thing in my unit with sandtables and cardboard counters!