Wargames and tactics

[cowboy40]

I have war gamed for years...on the computer and on the table tops. The problems i am finding for acurate war games is that the rulesets are getting to complicated, but that said, the more complicated the rules the better the results.

I have played games on the table top...and have learned many valuable lessons in tactics.

Playing Command at Sea has taught me the value of air power in the era of World War II. This ruleset takes in account for time to arm, fuel and to spot carrier decks for launch and recovery. It takes into account for land based turn around times. I have learned the management of task forces at sea. These rules include instructions for surface battles and sub-surface operations as well. You can fight convoy actions, air to surface battles, and even air to air fights. the rules allow you to conduct shore bombardments and even landings right up to the beaches during an amphibiou8s assault.

The Admiral Trilogy Group, who is now handling the ruleset, has developed it to the point that it is very much intergrated into the ruleset for Harpoon. This isn't fully seamless yet, but they are working on that. Larry Bond and his comrades over there have given us a great theory of rules that allows us to conduct naval warfare though out the last 150 plus years say around 1880 to the present day covering rules for per-dreadnaught era to the present day of the ballistic missile submarines of today.

I have been able to use the tactics i have read about, developed by the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) and the U.S. Navy's 10th Fleet's Anti-submarine Warfare School, that developed the tactics by using simple war games to developed tactics that took the oceans back from the U-Bouts. I have used these tactics in Command at Sea. To good effect. This shows how lessons from one war game can lead to tactics that can be used in another. The experiance i gained from C&S have translated well into early Cold War actions developed in our sessions of Harpoon V rulesets.

I haven't gotten into the Fear God and Dreadnought rules yet, but i wonder if the lessons learned int the rulesets i play now will help me in the age of the battleline? I am going to be getting into that ruleset soon. How different will it be not to have radar directed weapons on the battleline. How will it be to fight out Jutland as opposed to the surface battles of Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf. I look forward to dipping my feet into the waters of World War I. FGDN shou7ldn't be to much harder then what i have already learned.

And yes, I Know there are other rulesets out there, but this is the system I have played since the 1980s.

Now for land warfare, I have learned to use Battlefronts gaming system Flames of War and Team Yankee rulesets. They are pretty much on the same system. Problem with this ruleset is it is pretty much limited to the tactical side of things of actions up to Battalion size. I haven\'t really found a set that gives theater level strategic operations a good learn. That level of gaming seems to become convoluted like a real war does, so maybe I have learned that level of Ground warfare.

Flames of War covers things like World War I, World War II, Vietnam and the Israli wars of the 1960s, Team Yankee covers a Third World War in Europe in the 1980s. Great stuff.

Ironically I have been able to use some these lessons learned in the naval warfare gaming to even our Star Trek Simulator. That ruleset has shown me what FASA stated ships can do tactics wise and how to fight even the odd balls like the Excelsior Mk. I and the Fenlon classes.

I have learned alot from my table top gaming that I use in my PC war games as well.

I am going to sign out for now, because life is throwing one of those Whisky Tango Foxtrot moments at me, my boss is trying to call me on the weekend..lol

Good luck and good hunting...

[cowboy40]

Actually giving some thought to the ruleset i have mentioned up here, I have placed some of the gaming, in the tech, I mentioned for naval warfare before World War II. This is in the form of the Command at Sea module: Bywater's War.

This is scenarios based around hypothetical wars with Japan from the 1920s into the 1930s. It is based on the novel by Hector Bywater named the Great Pacific War. In many ways he was able to predict some ot the conduct of World War II in the Pacific. It is a great book..a techonovel of its day.

The module even has a battle that would have rivaled Jutland, this being fought around the Philippines. And yes I do mean it would have been a fight between two very large battle fleets.

Playing these scenerios, teaches you about the early days of Naval aviation and the impact that it promissed, but wasn't quit ready to blossom to the war winning force that it became.

I am impressed with just how much fog of war this era of combat had. Fleets latterly probed the ocean and usually found each other by just sometimes plan blind luck. The scouting force was covering vast areas of ocean, submarine pickets lines and the likes. In the era covered here, aviation was still being played with and developed.

Some good stuff...lol

I like how it is based off of War Plan Orange, that was developed by playing war games at the Naval War College. You see another real life example of the importance of war gaming.

The scenarios in the modules hold true to the doctrines of both the US Navy and Japanese Imperial Navy.

You really learn the strengths and the weaknesses of those doctrines.

Just some more thoughts...

[cowboy40]

Most people in the naval war gaming community call the above system that covers all this time period as the Harpoon ruleset, It has four different books or maybe we should call them expansions to the Harpoon ruleset.

Dawn of the Battleship: Tactical Naval Warfare 1880 - 1904
list of DOB resources

FEAR GOD & DREAD NOUGHT 2nd Ed: Tactical Naval Warfare 1906 - 1925
resources for FGDN

Command At Sea 4th Ed. 2nd Printing: War at Sea 1926 - 1955
resources for C&S

Harpoon V: Modern Tactical Naval Combat 1955 - 2020 (personal note: this is actually beyond the year 2020)
Resources for Harpoon V

These products using the Harpoon Ruleset can cover just about any type of Naval action you can think of in the modern times..

it still has one hell of a strong community as well...

[cowboy40]

I also play these tactical level games on the computer. I started of by playing the computer version of Harpoon, again in the early 1990s. This did give some good insights into cold war operations.

I played Harpoon up to the time that it lost its major support, but there are some players that still try to keep that sim alive and going.

Once Command Modern Air and Naval Operations came out, i moved my play to that platform. It is pretty much a more advanced version of the Harpoon system on the PC. It has gone through several incarnations to get us to the present version of Command Modern Operations. I like these formats because i can still use what i learn on the babble top on the computer.

That said these types of games really don't have the following that they should, because they don't have fancy graphics and people think they are to hard to understand...that isn't the case, but they weren't meant for casual gamers.

I also like playing SCS Fleet Command. now that one does give you some decent graphics, but it is getting long in the tooth now.

I do like having some of these games with graphics, but they also need to take in account the problems and solutions of the actions, To meet this need i like playing games like Cold Waters and Silent Hunter IV. Those are some great submarine sims. Now we are getting a tactical naval sim that will be a spiritual successor to Fleet Command in the form of Sea Power, I am planning to adding that one to my sim collections.

so yes you can take what you learn and use it elsewhere..