Patrix's Uncertainty Principle [PUP]

[dieseltaylor]

What I propose

" You underspend by say 100 or 200 pts [in a 1500pt] and you get this credited to your flag score"

What does this achieve?

Uncertainty as to the oppositions precise strength and objectives. And lack of absolute knowledge in meeting engagements would seem highly appropriate. Even in attack and defence scenarios not knowing the absolute size of an attacking force would seem a realistic historical position.

If I underspend my need to get a majority of flags is removed - unless of course my opponent has done the same! No longer can you sit on three out of 5 and feel secure. Eliminating the enemy becomes much more necessary.

I am watching a league match at the moment and with virtually nobody killed and no armour sighted but based on infantry seen the total tank force has been deduced. You could call this could battlefield intelligence but it must have been very rare that 100% certainty would apply - it is unrealistic.

Under the present game system the introduction of PUP really only works with moderators/leagues or playing with friends. I wouild like the forum to consider the idea, play with it, and refine it.

Consider in a later CM you could perhaps decide to go in mob-handed with minus flag points but with the need to capture all flags - your opponent might be going in light in equipment but with a flag or two points value to his credit.Now thats what I call uncertainty!!! And think of the fun when you both go in mob-handed!!!!!

[Fionn]

Under the Lanchester system such an underspend would make one's game much more difficult to win. Certainly the Lanchester model doesn't apply fully in its original form but the larger the battle the more modified forms of the Lanchester model apply.

In any case such a system would be fatally flawed when playing against anihilatory opponents as opposed to the more "flag and point oriented" opponents.

[Steiner14]

Dieseltaylor,

totally agree, that the visible size of the flags, even the flags itself, can lead to a unrealistic gameplay.

IMO the visible flags lead to concentrate the troops/firepower on the main flag(s), eliminate the weaker enemy forces easily, becuase the enemy tries to conquer all flags, and afterwards spread the troops and take the other flags.

I wish there would be an option for playing without any flags and creating whole (invisible) areas that need to be hold instead of single points.

[NickT]

Originally posted by Fionn:

[QB] Under the Lanchester system /QB]

I can't find any reference to this in CMBO or CMBB; do you have a pointer?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by NickT:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Fionn:

[QB] Under the Lanchester system /QB]

I can't find any reference to this in CMBO or CMBB; do you have a pointer? </font>

[NickT]

I knew that really (ahem, uncrosses fingers)

So, very broadly speaking, all caveats being weaselled, a force twice your size will inflict casualties at 4 times the rate of an equally sized force?

Nevertheless, there still seems mileage in investigating ways of obscuring force size and mix, and allocation of victory locations. This shows up particularly in the 1500 point games that I would quess are amongst the most popular.

[ March 11, 2003, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: NickT ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by NickT:

I knew that really (ahem, uncrosses fingers)

So, very broadly speaking, all caveats being weaselled, a force twice your size will inflict casualties at 4 times the rate of an equally sized force?

Ensuring that the caveats are accurately weaselled is, obviously, the big shark in the custard. However, if they are accurately weaselled (homogenous forces, which never happens in real life; fire distributed evenly among enemy forces, which never happens in real life; boatloads of real-life factors studiously ignored for tidiness, and the prediction taken as applying only to the expectation of casualty rates) then we are not speaking "broadly" at all, but with absolute mathematical precision. Lanchester's Square Law is true; it's just that it isn't what happens in fact. A modern direct-fire battle consists of a whole mess of fleeting firing opportunities between extremely small sets of opponents. Many of these are duels and "truels" (1 v 1 and 1 v 2) enagements, and in the case that the target hasn't seem the firer they are often, as a combat modelling pal of mine says, merely "More or less inglorious massacres". Nonetheless, people of a Dupuyo-Triandafillovite cast of mind (rude people may say "Stratobeancounterish") may from time to time attempt to establish some kind of "battle algebra" that seeks to capture the overall statistical outcome of the whole collection of such interactions.

Another of the great wonders of Lanchester's Square Law (my pied de nez in Fionn's direction being of course a vile calumny which is as contumelious as it is untrue) is that it can be (and has been) used to argue for both a brute-force attritionist and a dance-around-the-baddies maneouvrist apporoach to warfare. The attritionists claim that as the Square Law provides mathematical "proof" that God is on the side of the big battalions, then better to have a force of 7 units than 5. The maneouvrists claim that if they can make units more agile and so bring them to engage fractions of the enemy in any individual battle, then 5 units stand an even chance against 7 if they can fight them as 3 then 4 (3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2), and a far better one if they can fight them as pairs or individuals (5^2 > 2 + 2 + 1 + 2). Annoyingly, both arguments are right.

Originally posted by NickT:

Nevertheless, there still seems mileage in investigating ways of obscuring force size and mix, and allocation of victory locations. This shows up particularly in the 1500 point games that I would quess are amongst the most popular.

Many years ago I had a tiny "back-of-a-postcard" game called "Section Attack" published in "The Nugget". One of its odd features was that victory points and force selection points were interchangeable. You could pick a force as large as you liked, but every point spent on force selection cost you a victory point. If you had a radio-man in play, you could "up the ante" and call for reinforcements, paying further points for these. The only mechanism to stop people bringing on the whole of 3rd Guards Shock Army as reinforcements was the fact that losses throughout the game counted against morale rolls, and once a side had lost more than about half-a-dozen men, panicked men would never rally.

I would like to see a similar mechanism used in other games, as the "blind bidding" element is quite fun from the play point of view, and it serves to remove us from the appalling tactical artificiality of having evenly-matched sides.

All the best,

John.

[NickT]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

Wilson's "Wargamning" (originally "The Bomb and the Computer") is perhaps the best.

I knew this rang a bell - have located my trusty Pelican, priced 6/- !

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by NickT:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:

Wilson's "Wargamning" (originally "The Bomb and the Computer") is perhaps the best.

I knew this rang a bell - have located my trusty Pelican, priced 6/- ! </font>

[dieseltaylor]

It is nice to get such thoughtful posters.

To summarise:

It is incrementally harder to win with lessser forces

There is a terrible artificiality in equal forces

Flags are too much of a focus

Uncertainty of precise numbers[points] is good

BUT

Is it worth trying? ?....??

I have been giving it some more thought and it occurs to me that within the band of 1700-1300 points one creates the possibility of one side doing a limited attack with retention of ground and somone deciding on an all out attacks with the intention of serious bloodletting.

[i am making it a requirement that any force must control a flag to score any points. This amy come as a disappointment those who were envisaging a large number of aircraft:)]

So you have the possibility of attack/defence within a meeting engagement. Certainly something to disturb serious bean counters.

There is also the added great bonus that recon becomes very much more important - I think it is undervalued because we already play the game knowing the opponents maximum size and also the specific values of all the objectives up for grabs. Certainly most games are played with a dearth of light units scouting.

I will be trying out with a "volunteer" shortly but I do not think my opinion will be totally unbiased.

[Holien]

I am glad I popped in for a look.

You learn something new every day.

Pity it does not always stay in my mind...

H

[NickT]

Some of my original thoughts were based on a PBEM where I thought I was able to divine the opponent's force mix with some accuracy. Significantly, we knew that we were both constrained to a Mechanized - Combined Arms formation with standard rarity.

On reflection, I am not certain that this prior knowledge is as critically helpful as it might inbitially appear.

Firstly, the knowledge isn't perfect - basically I got the opponent's force mix wrong, albeit at the margin. But in this case the unforseen units were two AT guns.

Secondly, with extreme FOW, even if you guessed the opponent's forces correctly, there is a very good chance that what your men are telling you is going to contradict your own hunches.

Of course, if I had had more will-power I would not have forensically disected the opposing force's likely permutations with quite so much effort, but let's just say that it was a substitute for the innate awareness that more experience would have provided. I imagine that there will be some point in the future when I know to within 50 points how much a platoon of Tigers will cost for any given month.

So, you play a battle where you feel sure you must know the likely composition of the forces against you. Is that unequivocally helpful? Are there not going to be occasions where you mislead yourself and are hit by forces that you just didn't cater for? If the game you play has unrestricted unit choice (but still with standard rarity) you are even more likely to be wrong in your assumptions regarding the opponent's units.

So, I can see that the addition of variable force size adds uncertainty, but I think I now feel that the existing level of uncertainty isn't as small as I once thought and, moreover, thinking that you know the opponent's forces more or less accurately is not necessarily to your advantage.

[dieseltaylor]

I think NickT has missed the finest point of the concept. With the ability to "overbuy" and "underbuy" by the odd flag value the need to get a majority of flags is no longer paramount.

To put it another way your sides decision on how many flags to capture may be very different from the opponents and this dysfunction can/will generate more interesting battles.

Worst possible case you both underspend by a flags worth and there are two flags - you both go for one each and feel virtuos holding on to "your flag". Of course you might still go for the same one ..... or perhaps there are three flags .....mmmm.

You buy 1500 pts you both grab a an equal number of flag points. Decision time --- has the opoosition got fewer points , do you need to liberate the flag? Has he more points and just teeing you up for a sucker punch. Is this the time when you wish you could do some serious recon?

That is my point. The certainty of equal points in forces, equal points in capturing the same flags, is just too cut and dried.

[MikeyD]

It sounds like some of the 'win-at-all-costs' types are starting to defect to the 'historical recreation' camp!

I agree about the flags. Halfway through my last couple games I was wondering why I was going for the flag in the middle of the bog, as opposed to going for the obviously best tactical placement. I've found it's best to simply forget about judging victory by flag points (gasp heresy!).

If you want games without flags there's always operations. Can you specify a one-battle operation in the scenario editor?

[ March 21, 2003, 12:51 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[dieseltaylor]

I have actually played games where I have deliberately ignored going for the flags but regarded them as bait. Admittedly not all battlefields are conducive to this approach.

A friend of mine in CMBO played a game in which all flags were in this small town. As the Allies he had decided to buy some 14" artillery .... laugh .... the German player? Disappointed would cover it amply.

A more commom approach for me is to see if I can flank the flags and waste the units he has put into position around it/them expecting a frontal assault intent on grabbing the flag.

Even more amusing is when you crawl a unit on a hide order into woods adjacent to his units and negate the flag value at the end of the game.