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Where have all the warriors gone?


12Alfa

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60 to 1, then you might have something. as the M1s will run out of ammunition before they can kill them all :P

i did a little scenario that i caught quite a bit of flak for making.

it was toyota wars, gadaffis T-62 and artillery support vs ford pickups with TOW missiles.. end result was the T-62s got slaughtered. without ever killing anything.

T-62 had a real hard time spotting the enemy, while they were visible clear as day to the TOW armed pickups.

and even after you'd spotted the TOW pickups, you weren't able to hit them, as they engaged at 3km.

the BTR on the other hand proved somewhat useful, killing off a few pickups before they died.

Wasn't that the actual outcome though?

Like Ssnake said, Artillery & Smoke. :)

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Well, I'll say that I'm not bothered by unbalanced games, and I adjust my expectations of my performance to suit the situation.

If I'm doing a 1991 Desert Storm scenario, I expect to be able to pretty much annihilate my opposition while taking few or no friendly casualties.

If I'm playing a 1981 "Soviet surprise invasion" scenario as the West Germans, I expect to take casualties as my Leopard 1s square off with T-tanks and to most likely get pushed back. My definition of "victory" in this scenario is to inflict as much damage as I possibly can on Red, while keeping my losses down to a point where I can still organize an effective fighting unit for the future.

If it's a later 1980s scenario where I have Leopard 2s or M1A1/HA tanks, my definition of a "victory" gets a little different as I expect to be able to put up much stiffer resistance.

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Wasn't that the actual outcome though?

Like Ssnake said, Artillery & Smoke. :)

I think it was the actual outcome, so as long as the TOWtrucks didn't have thermal sights I don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a SIMULATION, folks. Sometimes you're supposed to 'loose', the challenge is to not get beat as bad as the real guys.

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Wasn't that the actual outcome though?

Like Ssnake said, Artillery & Smoke. :)

yeah, Gadaffis army was pretty much wiped out in real life.

it was definitely a valuable lesson, and interesting experiment.

i knew the T-62 were going to have quite a challenge, but i was still surprised by

how badly they got beaten. in that terrain, with those weapons, it was virtually useless.

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Points taken TH,Thanks.:luxhello:

Question if I may for the next?:confused:

I posted the concept,units, rules, so how did players not know what they were signing up for. How could one improved in portraying the above in such a way, in words, pictures, that a player knows what to expect in a campaign.:confused:

I seemed to have failed for some in this regard:confused:.

Well, those on Red who felt from the beginning that the campaign was totally unwinnable in its original iteration had to decide whether to not even join or join in the hope that things could subsequently be sorted out through negotiation. We chose the latter. I turned out to be a mistake. C'est la vie.

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while I see 12a's point, Thers one thing that hasnt been said. In real life, all the tanks are manned by people, all AFV's and so on are manned by people. In SB, not all tanks are manned by people, but AI. And we know that the ai isnt always perfect, and doesnt always do what we want it to do. For example, Give me 12 other people, put 10 people on red side, give them 10 tanks, put me and the remaining two on blue, give us only three tanks. Are we outnumbered? yes, but, being that we are people, We have a chance, even if its slim, of winning if we use the right tactics. Now, give same scenerio, but instead of me having two people, have me with three tanks, two manned by ai, and my chances of winning go down drastically, because now instead of having to worry about crewing just one tank, I am trying to crew 3 tanks. On the other hand, put me and two guys on blue with three tanks, and let red have some ai crewwed tanks, you just increased blues chance of winning.

I too am a cold war warrior, and understood at the time that if we were to go to war that we were going to be well outnumbered. But like some people pointed out, yes even though this is a sim, That doesnt mean that people want to play where they are always going to have their butts handed to them on silver platters, but also I dont think that it is necesarily the fact that the sides are unbalanced for them, but their chances of winning are very slim, if any. And even I dont want to play in a scenerio where there is no hope of me winning, or even breaking even no matter what tactics I use.

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While the red side was saying they could not win under such restrictions of force ratios, AFV's, others were PM'ing me pointing out how they would have done the missions to defeat Nato.

I will say this, the first mission me and Dark were discussing it and I had started out as an optimist about it. That we could have a shot at doing damage, but as more thought was put into it I was converted to more pessimistic views of it.

As someone who has been playing with Soviet gear for a year now I generally know what you can and cannot do with T-72s and BTRs. With equal numbers or a slight advantage on your side, you can generally defend with that. But for the attack you need something in your court. Whether it be a vast numerical superiority in the actual battle, or something else. Even then it can go pear shaped, see some of the Red Tide missions, in those we had 3-1 superiority along something like a 20k front and even those would go in the defender's favor as a result of attacks into unfavorable terrain, or just failing to concentrate at the decisive point.

But what made things go well for us in that was that we could engage in maskirovka, could mass at a decisive point and allowed us to use maneuver. The best example of that was the Day 5 advance in Red Tide. We recced heavy in the north, which led the defenders to focus there with some of their better units and mines, and instead of attacking there we hit down south with great effect. While we had a 3-1 advantage entirely, we managed what must have been near a 6-1 advantage at the decisive point. With FC we never had the ability to do such things.

With Soviet gear you need to be able to maneuver, to mass forces and ideally have the option to engage in maskirovka. I say it really is a must. Convince an opponent of one thing while concentrating to do another.

With FC look at that combat phase mission. Granted Assassin may not have used the tanks to their best effect, he hadn't massed them on line for example, but even if that was done the result wouldn't have been very different. It still would have been a company wiped out with little to show for it. In any case he really cannot maneuver, or engage in maskirovka, he is forced into a frontal attack on Blue's terms, and the results are what they are.

The other thing was that Red Tide had the balance sorted out before the campaign was started. With this one here however it very much seemed a work in progress, the Blowpipe affair convinced me of this. Once you have to have negotiations about balance in the middle of the campaign there is a problem dependent on certain personalities. After all as Rumi wrote "When self-interest appears, virtue hides" and well, some will try to keep certain advantages, despite if it makes things entirely unworkable for the opposition. For example the buried mines shouldn't have been a negotiation, it was simply something that didn't WAD in relation to the campaign.

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60 to 1, then you might have something. as the M1s will run out of ammunition before they can kill them all :P

i did a little scenario that i caught quite a bit of flak for making.

it was toyota wars, gadaffis T-62 and artillery support vs ford pickups with TOW missiles.. end result was the T-62s got slaughtered. without ever killing anything.

T-62 had a real hard time spotting the enemy, while they were visible clear as day to the TOW armed pickups.

and even after you'd spotted the TOW pickups, you weren't able to hit them, as they engaged at 3km.

the BTR on the other hand proved somewhat useful, killing off a few pickups before they died.

We sound like birds of a feather. I was thinking of making a TGIF like that... I might not now!

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Well, those on Red who felt from the beginning that the campaign was totally unwinnable in its original iteration had to decide whether to not even join or join in the hope that things could subsequently be sorted out through negotiation. We chose the latter. I turned out to be a mistake. C'est la vie.

So, let me get this straight for the future. A person deams the a mission/campaign is UN-winnable, but joins anyway, then back out to say its now unfair? Even with negotiation taking place?:confused:

Never saw that coming.....:c:

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As someone who has been playing with Soviet gear for a year now I generally know what you can and cannot do with T-72s and BTRs./QUOTE]

Indeed. And as UKA and SVU are based around the same core of inviduals (not all are members of both units), I suggest we have a better idea than most of what we're talking about. So it was very disappointing not to have our suggestions listened to but instead be dismissed as a bunch of whingers who would only be satisfied once the balance had been rigged dramatically in their favour. But the campaign director was convinced from the outset that the campaign gave Red a fair chance of winning, so it was understandable that the balance didn't change much.

Can you give me the "the balance had been rigged dramatically in their favour."

Most saw the 20-40 units as change differently that your assessment.

Your suggestions were heard for the most part, some transmitted with harsh language were not.Some were even implemented.

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WP had a very good chance at victory. With 2:1 odds, choice of terrain to attack, the ability to attack the same ground again and again, and many tools and a huge number of units to pull from. People can say whatever they want about they perceive as a chance to win but the fact's remain. WP Command approached this like a tgif pick up game.

NATO never saw any massive Soviet artillery or smoke.

NATO never saw any recon of our obstacles or strong Battle positions.

NATO only saw one thing from WP. Attack with a small portion into unknown territory, loose a few units, blame it on everything in the world, then quit. The AAR painfully put this on display and no amount of desperate blame game tactics will change this. I just can't stand people blaming others for their own shortcomings. This type of thing really gets under the skin of warriors, as it goes directly against what makes a warrior, and is offensive to them. I guess some people just don't want to play unless they see an easy path to victory. Some people don't want to play if it requires more planning than a pick up TGIF game. Some people just don't want to play unless the scene fits their description of what they see as " fair."

I wish I could live in a world where these people where marginalized instead of tolerated and given credibility for this type of attitude. This sort of thing can spread easily to the impressionable.

If you get a sick feeling in Your stomach when faced with this sort of highjinks, You are probably a Warrior.

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You know perfectly well that that is not what I said. The use of the word 'dreaming' is an insult. Dreaming is an emotional, irrational process that happens during sleep. We were wide awake and made a conscious rational assessment of the situation. And we pulled out when it was clear that negotiations were going nowhere.

I would draw an analogy with the UK's membership of the European Union. Some say we should just leave because it is not working to our advantage. Others say we should stay in and try to reform it from the inside. Which is what we did with First Clash. But our reform requests fell on dead ears.

You CLAIM that you want to learn from the experience, yet continue to insist that there was nothing wrong with the campaign design and all difficulties were down to the Red leaders - all three of them being experienced and knowledgeable players.

Members of the community will draw their own conclusions.

Sorry, I meant to type deem, as in made a assessment to, comes to a conclusion, etc.

Just woke up during the post, and without coffee.

Thanks for the input from the e-mail I have gotten over the last few days everyone. I had implemented most if not all for the future. My thoughts posted here on the forum are as I have seen it from both sides, a unique advantage point that only can really be appreciated seeing both sides point and issues at the same time, both publicly and through the PM/email system. I tried to share some without causing friction, how ever that did not turn out well. I'll keep the rest to myself.

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WP had a very good chance at victory. With 2:1 odds, choice of terrain to attack, the ability to attack the same ground again and again, and many tools and a huge number of units to pull from. .

That is your opinion. Others did not see it that way. Simples.

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Sorry, I meant to type deem, as in made a assessment to, comes to a conclusion, etc.

Just woke up during the post, and without coffee.

Thanks for the input from the e-mail I have gotten over the last few days everyone. I had implemented most if not all for the future. My thoughts posted here on the forum are as I have seen it from both sides, a unique advantage point that only can really be appreciated seeing both sides point and issues at the same time, both publicly and through the PM/email system. I tried to share some without causing friction, how ever that did not turn out well. I'll keep the rest to myself.

OK 12A, I have withdrawn my previous two posts as I had already posted elsewhere that IMHO opinions had become so entrenched that further 'discussion' was pointless. I should have left it there.

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