1. Dick Sossi called the other day... he had received his October REVIEW and he telephoned to tell me that he had read the first two pages (a new high for him, and which, I think, includes the cover) and he had found nothing humorous.
When I'm competing for subscribers with the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic and the New Yorker, it's no wonder that, occasionally, there's an absence of humor.
2. Incidentally, Dick's SHIP SHOP in Annapolis has changed its name to SHUTTLES & SHIBBOLETHS or SOLDIERS & SEAMEN or SHIPS & SHIRKERS... some sort of alliterative sounding name. Whatever, Dick has not seen fit to supply me with new advertising copy; the thousands... yea, millions... of dollars in lost sales resulting from this oversight doesn't seem to have phased him in the least.
3. For sometime now, I've been advocating "morale games" wherein, when a unit fails a morale test, its demoralized status renders it so ineffective that it is removed from the field until rallied on some subsequent turn, at which time it reappears on the field.
There's an interesting comment on a similar topic in Volume 6/No 1 of Hal Thinglum's Midwest Wargaming Association Newsletter, Sept/Oct 87 issue. Jayson Gralewicz is the author of the rules set A FISTFUL OF MINIATURES, and in an article describing his thoughts on the design of the rules, he mentions "the nagging problem" of melee resolution, and states:
- The fixing of that problem is rooted in my own concept of what exactly causes a casualty. On the stand and whole figure scale, the eliminated don't represent actual dead and wounded. Part of the justification behind the stand losses is that the stands aren't so much eliminated as they are temporarily Ineffective, due to loss of cohesion, disablement of key figures (officers, WO's, musicians and the like), and temporary exhaustion. So I took the rather radical step of allowing units to bring eliminated stands back on the game board.
By limiting the times when dead figures may be returned allowed me to encourage certain styles of play. The only times I allow figures to be brought back are: 1) If a unit wins a melee and forgoes any pursuit, or 2) When a unit successfully rallies from a rout. This leads to a lot of decision making in the midst of an assault, which seems to surprise a lot of gamers who expect clear cut "best Moves" to present themselves.
I'm glad to see that someone else has taken up the idea of temporarily removing stands or units or whatever, if in a slightly different vein. John Grossman, of THE COMPLEAT BRIGADIER fame, indicated, some time ago, that he was experimenting with the concept.
4. Speaking of the temporary removal of units, this issue contains brief descriptions of 2-count 'em-2 American Civil War battles using a set of rules employing the whisk-the-stand-off-the-field technique.
The rules were designed for 15mm figures, and, in truth, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd learn to love the little buggers. Of course, having paid good money for these painted figures, a lot of the love comes built in.
I even went so far as to paint two regiments: one is aptly named "Simon's Raiders" and the other is the famed 23rd Oregon.
Jim Butters, a Civil War buff, took issue with the 23rd Oregon; he claimed that it just never was, nor couldn't be. I refuse to argue the point.., he'd probably find fault with the 4th Hawaiian. And, interestingly enough, he never questioned the existence of "Simon's Raiders".
5. And just what is it that we're doing here?... Assuming that we died-in-the-wool historical gamers are truly engaged in simulating the effects of combat, 'twould be nice if we could actually model what goes on on the battlefield. Many issues crop up during a wargame which, because of the uncertainty of exactly what it is we're modeling, lead to lots of discussion, but not too much resolution.
Take the question of how one treats "built-up areas". Not too long ago - I think it was in Bill Protz's Seven years War Association publication - I read of how, in certain rules, troops defending a built-up area, i.e., a small town or village, were given no additional defensive factors.
The reason? ... because the force is spread out, the elements not in communication with each other, the individual units are on their own, they are difficult to coordinate, the command and control functions are severed, etc. Hence the defending force should be overcome and be driven out quite easily.
Other rules sets take the opposite tack: once entrenched and set-up, it will take heaven and earth to force the troops out.
The reason? ... because, set-up in a village or house, each unit tends to develop a sense of identity with the "turf" it is defending; because, fighting within a restricted space, they're fighting with their backs to the wall; because, due to the relative confinement, a spirit of comaraderie prevails to hold the unit together.
And so on.
I take the middle ground between the two extremes. If a defender is in a built-up area, I'll give him a plus for the first or second round of combat...' then, for subsequent rounds, he gets no benefit since the attacker is deemed to have gotten past the barriers and the fight is on an even keel. Anybody wanna argue...?
6. Below is an excerpt culled from a recent computer magazine (PC Resource, May 87, pg 99). The author described his simulation of a bowling game, and the article piqued my interest when he stated that bowling is an easy game to simulate, because "The action is not continuous, making it easy to consider each event within the game separately."
This last description would seem to apply to a table top wargame, wherein, each turn, we "freeze " the action and calculate fire effect, melee results, etc., as a function of the positions in which we find the troops.
- Here are some of the rules for creating a simulation.
1. It must accurately reflect reality within the limits of the simulation. If it doesn't, you haven't included enough of the details.
2. It must run reasonably fast. Otherwise, why simulate?
3. It must not simulate factors that cannot be quantified. Why include an allowance for practice if no data exists to show what effect it might have?
4. It must obey the rules. A simulation can bend rules, but must never break them.
5. If a simulation takes forever to write, it's not worth doing. This is a good way to tell if you are getting bogged down in too many details.
There are two basic ways to create a simulation: top down and bottom up. In the first, you focus on the details of the simulation as you, build it. In the second, you focus on the overall structure of the model and fill in the details as you go. A combination of both methods generally works best. Over attention to details as you build the model leads you too far astray, resulting in a model that doesn't reflect the gross structure of what you're trying to simulate. Likewise, too much concentration on the gross structure results in a model that is too insufficiently detailed to be useful.
Back to PW Review November 1987 Table of Contents
Back to PW Review List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1987 Wally Simon
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com