World War 2

[Dillweed]

Seeing some of the posts by the WW2 purists got me thinking. What is it that people find so interesting about the war? And how does this translate into a demand for all ww2 war games. I'll take a shot at my guesses:

1) Size: This is the major one that set ww2 apart, I think. The war was really really big. I don't understand how this would translate into CM as a tactical game. A company or battalion level engagement would pretty much the same; it wouldn't matter if the company was a part of a regiment or an army group.

2) Good vs. Evil: Also important. Hitler, Tojo et al where amongst the baddest MFers of the 20th century. While the allies' actions ranged from not always perfect to pretty atrocious (*cough* stalin *cough*) they really can't hold a candle to the stuff done by the axis. While obviously this has no immediate effect on game play, I feel that it really does have an impact on the feel of the game.

3) Victory: The allied victory was decisive and total in a way that is very rarely seen. I think the desire for this sort of victory is what is mostly driving the WW2 mania currently being seen in the US (in other countries as well? don't know)

4) Technology: Tanks! Planes! Big ships! While most of these were developed for WW1, its not until the 40s that they really came into there own. Plus, lets be honest guys: The Tiger. Now this is pretty relative (if you don't believe me set up a random game in CMBO for may of 45. A company of tiger v a company of pershings and see what happens) but it just so outclassed anything the western allies had it just couldn't help but seize our imagination.

So there you have it. I'm not looking at this as the end all be all, just my observations. I'm interested in what others think. What first attracted you to the war? What continues to do so? And while I don't agree with the ww2 only purists, I'm very much interested in why they think that way. Please tell.

[Michael Emrys]

There is much more to size than you are considering here. WW II was huge! That meant that it was fought in many kinds of environment by many nationalities and kinds of forces. This lends it a variety that probably cannot be entirely matched by any other human conflict. I've been studying the blasted thing for 50+ years now, and I still keep running across things I've never heard of before. Whatever kind of combat you might be interested in, aside from interstellar war in the weightless vacuum of space, you'll probably find it represented in WW II.

Michael

[Cpl Steiner]

My shot at an answer:

1) WWII is sufficiently recent and sufficiently important historically for even the layman to know quite a bit about it.

2) We can understand the tactics as they aren't that different to what we use today (Gulf War II is pretty much textbook blitzkrieg). Anything earlier like the Napoleonic period needs a bit of reading to understand.

3) It is morally unambiguous. The Allies pretty well had no choice but to fight. For instance, Chamberlain is regarded with disdain as the man who appeased Hitler, so it follows that history regards the war as just and necessary. In today's world, in which wars are often sources of great controversy, it's hard for even the most committed anti-war demonstrator to complain about a WWII film or wargame, because of the level of moral certainty we feel about it.

[hoolaman]

I think also the fact that it was a pretty fair matchup.

If you watched a football game the followed the ebb and flow of WW2 it would be a pretty amazing game. Germany was the underdog, but was only beaten down by overwhelming odds. We can also wonder about the many events and battles that may have gone either way, and what the world would look like if they had.

Also the fact that WWII is simply near enough in history that we can relate to it, and it's personal enough that our parents or parents were lived it. And its legacy shaped and continues to shape the world we live in. I mean Germany was only reunified 15 years ago or so!

Some of the popularity for the war in our culture may also be from the fact that the whole thing was so heavily and successfully propagandized.

[aka_tom_w]

There was a time early on when it looked like the Axis forces might win if unstopped.

[ September 25, 2005, 06:10 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Frenchy]

For a lot of us that play the CM series it gets personal.

My mother is French and lived four years of childhood under Nazi occupation. My grandfather on my father's side served as a combat engineer in the US Army. My step-grandfather served with the 33rd ID in the Pacific, seeing action in New Guinea and the Philippines. A great uncle served in the Navy on destroyers in the Pacific. A great aunt served at the Pentagon.

I owe a lot to them and the others who served. So I read, do what I can to keep the memory of those that served alive.

I once started a topic which asked how many players had relatives that served. Got quite a response. I couldn't find it using the search feature. I did print it out and have it saved at home.

[ September 25, 2005, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: Frenchy ]

[stoat]

Nuclear weapons.

[aka_tom_w]

Wow

Frenchy that is personal

My father severed with the British Army in Singapore near the very end of the war. He was a Mechanic and builder of truck and bus bodies in what most here would know as " the motor pool".

he served most of his time in the British Army just as the war was ending for the "good guys".

Fortunatly for me (and him) he never saw any combat action.

My uncle (Dad's brother) was offered a spot as a trail gunner in the RAF but he said "no thanks" and ended up washing and cleaning fighters and bombers (or something) if I have that right.

Technically that sort of makes me a baby boomer (BUT I was late in the curve).

-tom w

[ September 25, 2005, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Frenchy]

Tom,

Technically I am a baby boomer also (on the late end).

I am actively involved with the 70th Infantry Division Association. I have worked on their website for nearly 10 years. At their reunion last year the gave me the Outstanding Trailblazer Award for service to their organization.

My grandfather who served as the combat engineer served with them. He was drafted at age 31 in 1944. He arrived in France in Jan 45 and saw action in France and later Germany.

If you haven't done so check out the site I maintain for them.

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Wow

Frenchy that is personal

My father severed with the British Army in Singapore near the very end of the war. He was a Mechanic and builder of truck and bus bodies in what most here would know as " the motor pool"

he served most of his time in the British Army just as the war was ending for the "good guys".

Fortunatly for me (and him) he never saw any combat action.

Technically that sort of makes me a baby boomer (BUT I was late in the curve).

-tom w

[Aacooper]

I'm reading Reardon's book on Mortain, and virtually every page has a combined-arms battle at the CM scale. You could spend a lifetime making CM battles from that book alone.

If there were a Gulf Wars CM (for example), not only would the technology be uneven, but there'd be a limited number of historical battles to pick from.

Like other people said, WW2 was recent enough and universal enough that EVERYONE has a relative who participated in it. Whether their grandfather fought in the Hurtgen, sat on a boat in the Pacific when the A-bomb went off, or met their spouse when he was guarding German prisoners in Texas, everyone has a story.

[Michael Dorosh]

I think it's a pretty personal answer for everyone, really. And nothing anyone need "justify".

As far as "propagandized", I don't believe that is true, not as an explanation of interest. It was the seminal event of the 20th Century and the effects of this event are still with us.

Nuclear weapons, as stoat pointed out.

Lasting peace in Western Europe for 60 years. Practically unheard of, and the level of co-operation? Common currency, etc. Even if warfare wasn't conducted in Western Europe itself, the various powers there haven't waged war on each other by proxy, either, since 1945.

The destruction of the British Empire.

The age of Super Powers. Some may argue that ancient empires like Rome et al were examples of this; don't know if I would agree.

The rise of the United Nations which - condemn it for many of the things it has not done well - is still our first workable system of world government.

Never mind the Holocaust, the great military campaigns, the millions of individual stories of evil, heroism, etc. WW II shaped the world in ways no other historical event has (barring geographic events like ice ages or the extinction of the dinosaurs, etc.)

[Midnight Warrior]

The other thing unique about WWII is that it was a battle for national survival fought as a total war. Nations, governments, ways of life, and even populations were fighting for their very survival. You don't get this at a global scale in other wars (even WWI).

[Michael Dorosh]

Oh, and of course the alcohol content in Canadian beer went from 5.5% down to 5 as a result of wartime rationing, and has stayed that way since. :mad:

[Dillweed]

Actually nobody in my family served. Both grandfathers were the oldest children and turned 18 in august and november of 45. Closest either of them saw to action was the brit catching some shrapnel in the heart courtesy of a zionist truck bomber in what was then palastine. I always joke with him that he was getting his ass blown up over there long before it became fashionable.

[Battlefront.com]

Dorosh, you should try Unibroue! Not only isn't it something brewed by MadMatt, but it is also something that scoffs at 5%. Heck, a few of them scoff at 10% And with a shelflife of up to 9 years for some, you can keep 'em around as long as you like (some peak after 3 years, so my basement has some nice surprises for me in a couple of years!)

I'd agree with everything said so far, except for Germany losing due to being overwhelmed. They shot themselves in the foot so many different times it is hard to understand how they weren't knocked out by 1943. Good thing for them the Allies were still shooting off whole feet around that time

I used to be of the opinion that no other warfare since WWII could possibly match the tactical challenge. In fact, I also never though the PTO was worth a darned as a tactical simulation. Over the years I came to understand it was my mindset that caused me to think this way, so I have since come to understand that the challenge all depends on how the sim is set up.

I've always maintained that CMx1 would make a poor WWII PTO simulator. I standby that claim just as strongly today as I did when I first made it probably 5 or 6 years ago. I also thought Vietnam would make a poor setting for CMx1, as well as pretty much every other engagement that has come up since Korea. I still stand by this thinking. Korea, on the other hand, I always saw as being something that CMx1 could have done and done well.

But CMx2 is not CMx1. It was designed with more than WWII in mind, and therefore it was crafted in such a way that it can make Vietnam or the First Gulf War fun. It can also be scaled and altered to make Ancient Greek/Roman warfare a real hoot, and everything since then and well into the future. How? By not designing the game system specifically for WWII like we did with CMx1. It's hard to describe exactly what that means in a couple of paragraphs, but the basic kernal of it is:

CMx2 is designed to be interesting, challenging, tense, and fun even if nobody dies or blows up. What this means is game play enjoyment does not hinge on how many things you can blow up in x amount of time, rather it hinges on how you acheive your objectives. If your objectives require blowing up a ton of stuff to win, that's fine. But it is also fine if your objectives are acheived by merely denting some stuff.

IMHO CMx1 was a heck of a lot of fun even when not much happened if the scenario was interesting and challenging. The problem was the latter... it took a really great scenario designer to make an interesting and fun game out of something that didn't involve lots of stuff getting blown up in the process. With CMx2 it will be so much easier to do this, with results far more daymanic than even the best scenario designers could ever have sussed out of CMx1.

So... while WWII is still near and dear to my heart, I am so very much looking forward to new challenges that other settings offer. WWII will always be a big part of what we do, but as I have said for a long time now... it will not be the only thing we do.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, nobody in my family fought in WWII that I know of, except for a great uncle who was a member of the Danish resistance. Unfortunately I didn't have much contact with him and only have a handful of stories to relate to. My grandfathers spent the war here in the US supporting the effort - one figured out new ways to get stuff packaged without rotting while in transit, the other was a senior exec at a tiny little company called Raytheon. Just a reminder that someone has to stay home to make sure stuff gets designed and to the front.

Odd to think that one grandfather packed stuff (vehicles, aircarft engines, etc.) that was defended by stuff (radios, radar, etc.) my other grandfather helped bring to reality.

Steve

[PseudoSimonds]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

So... while WWII is still near and dear to my heart, I am so very much looking forward to new challenges that other settings offer.

aHA! You're 'very much looking forward to new challenges', ergo vis-a-vis concordantly the setting for the first game will remain WWII. So there you have it. I think sleuthing this brilliant deserves a CMx2 screenshot.

[Zalgiris 1410]

So Steve why don't you make CMx1.04 combining everything so far with the Spanish Civil War, the early WWII Campaignes 39-41, including the Winter War and add on the Korean War as an all in one onto the old CMx1 engine with minor improvements? How cool would all that be!

O'h and on the subject of this thread I agree that WWII is the most interesting War of all time and will remain so even after we've all gone and the personal reasons for people disapear. For me the NKVD executed or transported to cold Siberian gulags many of my father's relatives while others were pogromed by the Einsatzgroupen, I'd always tried to make sense of all that and understand just how it was that his parents brought him out down here to the land of Oz.

On my mother's side, while their had been more of them both in and who died in WWI, my Grandfather was an RTO on a bomber plane based in Darwin for the most part, but his older brother was captured at Sinapore and died after surviving the Sandarkan Death March by being bombed by allied bombers. Now that's not just bloody ironic, because yes my Grandfather was in those arial attacks, I've checked!

[ September 25, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Well, Steve, I had a great uncle in the 2nd Battalion Regina Rifle Regiment (meaning he stayed in Canada) and another who was a Zombie, a Canadian draftee. He went to the Aleutians in 1943 and then to Holland, but never got the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal because he never volunteered(!) Both grandfathers stayed home in both World Wars.

I had hoped my Unibrow Beer remark had gone unnoticed. No wonder I'm not on the Beta Team. :mad:

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

So Steve why don't you make CMx1.04 combining everything so far with the Spanish Civil War, the early WWII Campaignes 39-41, including the Winter War and add on the Korean War as an all in one onto the old CMx1 engine with minor improvements? How cool would all that be!

[JonS]

Dorosh you n00b. army.ca don't like hotlinking.

[Canada Guy]

I had a great-uncle who stayed in Germany and flew Stukas on the Russian Front. He survived the war but did not talk much about his experiences other than to say that it was extremely difficult time. I did hear one story about his group being pounced by Russians who were in turn pounced by German aircraft and he somehow managed to survive.

My family line though moved to Canada to continue the Mennonite way of life. They got a bunch of free land in Western Canada because they were great farmers and as long as they farmed, did not have to fight in the war, though many did.

I am sure though that many of the crops produced made it into many a fine ale. Such as my favourites (1) McNally's Irish Ale brewed in Alberta and at 7% - Only for the strong of heart and (2) "Alexander Keith's" proudly brewed in Nova Scotia since 1820 but sadly only at 5%.

See, in life, everything ties together.

[Battlefront.com]

So Steve why don't you make CMx1.04 combining everything so far with the Spanish Civil War, the early WWII Campaignes 39-41, including the Winter War and add on the Korean War as an all in one onto the old CMx1 engine with minor improvements? How cool would all that be!

If computer games could program themselves, yeah... we'd be up for that! Oh and art programs that paint textures with nothing more than positive thinking to guide them. 3D models would of course have to be churned out by magical little pixies who don't have anything more important to do. Sounds would, of course, come from the heavens already edited and ready to go. We could get volunteers to do all the research and scenarios, but they would have to be managed through a benevolant being who mind melds them together so they churn out something that doesn't suck. Wait a sec... nah, I don't think that is going to work. Oh well, it was a nice though

Don't know how many more times I'll have to see suggestions like this after I couldn't make it more clear why the CMx1 engine is DEAD, but I'm sure it will be more than a few

Steve

[Mies]

I once started a topic which asked how many players had relatives that served. Got quite a response. I couldn't find it using the search feature. I did print it out and have it saved at home.

I remember that one too. Did a search and found the thread. Here is a link .

Mies

[Barrold]

aHA! You're 'very much looking forward to new challenges', ergo vis-a-vis concordantly the setting for the first game will remain WWII.

I reached this same conclusion using the very same methodology and evidence in one of the 'guessing' threads earlier.

I do look forward to seeing how they can stretch their legs with the new system, but I fully expect them to prove the concept with WWII and then move on.

I for one welcome our Interstellar Crustacean Overlords.

BDH