ORIGINAL: miral
Ok, again apologies for my original rant because I did not do my research. I have now played the first RT game that I enjoy.
Nice to read you enjoy a RT game .... [:D]. I for one, "turned" away from turn-based games (no pun intended [:D]) and never returned. Mostly due to the release of 2 games: Close Combat in the 90s and Highway to the Reich {HTTR} a few years ago, with its sequels Conquest of the Aegan {COTA} and the upcoming Battle for the Bulge {BFTB}.
WAR would, I think, also be appreciated by Clauswitz, because it simulates so well two things about battle that he hits on again and again. Check my spelling here as I don't read German and dont have Zom Kreiq in front of me but Clauswitz points out that the German word for slaughter is schlact. This is also the German word for a battle. Before Clauswitz was a theoretician and historian he was a combat officer in many bloody battles of the Napoleonic Wars and he knew what he spoke of. The second thing he returns to again and again is the chaos, the uncertainty and the disorientation caused by battle; in large part by the slaughter taking place around you.
All this is simulated excellently well in WAR.
Well, my guess is, that, while WAR does an excellent job at simulating stuff on a squad/tactical level by using an abstract number of troops (less than 8 - 12 soldiers), Clausewitz would have favoured the HTTR / COTA engine, as this game simulates stuff on an operational level, and, in my books, operational warfare is (in real life or in a simulation) pretty much like playing chess, you have to anticipate or compute your opponent's potential moves. The AI in HTTR/COTA is brilliant (best I've seen in a wargame so far), and never hesitates to commence attacks, so it can be regarded as a simulation that gets pretty close to the real deal. It would make for the perfect training tool at West Point, covering the bigger scope of a battle, up to Korps or Army level. The engine really shines on regimental level, though. It's pausable realtime, and it processes LOS, type of terrain, terrain heights, etc.
I urge you to try this game engine. You'll be amazed by the amount of realism this real-time engine is able to muster.
Clauswitz also loved to point out, [].... if the attackers have only the same number of units as the defenders guess who will win most often? This can be ofset to some extent by giving the attackers heavier equipment but it still makes a slightly unhistoric situation.
I beg to differ here. Think about the Normandy landings in 1944. Most Allied troops were able to move inland after relatively short fights, due to several reasons: These troops encountered minor cliffs/low seawalls only, no rough terrain, few gun emplacements and German troops with little or no combat experience. Quite contrary, the US troops at Omaha beach faced difficult terrain, advanced fortifications or multiple MG nests and a battle-hardened German division (352nd Inf Div). While the 352nd was stretched across a long line of coastal defensive positions - outnumbered and lacking tank support, the division could rely on artillery support (mostly mortars, some arty fire, the vital coastal guns on strongpoints like Pointe du Hoc were either not yet installed or not fully installed) and was able to frustrate the US attack to a level where US troops could infiltrate the perimeter with platoon-sized groups of survivors or understrength Coys only, for most of the day. Also, the initial US bombardments of the coast line (airforce, ships) turned out to be ineffective due to the level of fortification (tunnels, trenches and concealed gun positions).
The following Wikipedia excerpt, based on the US War Department's official history (Sept. 1945), delivers a good compressed description:
ORIGINAL wikipedia
The German emphasis on devoting resources to this Main Line of Resistance (MLR) meant that defenses further inland were significantly weaker and based on small pockets of prepared positions less than company sized in strength. This tactic was however enough to disrupt American advances inland, causing difficulties even in reaching assembly areas, let alone achieving D-Day objectives.
As an example of the effectiveness of this defense despite its weakness in numbers, the 5th Ranger battalion was halted in its advance inland by a single machine gun position hidden in a hedgerow. The attempt by one platoon to outflank the position ran into another machine gun position to the left of the first. A second platoon dispatched to take this new position on ran into a third machine gun position, and attempts to deal with this ran into fire from a fourth position. The success of the MLR in blocking the movement of heavy weapons off the beach meant that after four hours the Rangers were forced to give up on their attempts to move any further inland.
.
The original part of the official history can be viewed here:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-11/ch5.htm
This is a good description of how effective the main line of resistance can be, and, even if a defender would just have time to prepare basic foxholes, trenches and barricades, an attacking force, mustering a superior number of troops, could still fail.
The outcome of an attack depends on many factors, like the type of terrain, the level of fortification, the level of experience and morale (enemy and friendly) - means quality of troops in general, the number of heavy weapons, the use of tactics and proper use of combined arms, just to name a few. There are other examples of defensive positions that did not collapse, like the totally outnumbered US units holding strongpoints in Vietnam, or outnumbered German troops fending off desperate Russian counterattacks at the Eastern front in 1941 or 1942.
EDIT: In turn, there are numerous examples where an inferior number of attackers routed or even neutralized defending forces that could muster a superior amount of troops:
A good example here would be the capture of the vital Fortress Eben-Emael (Belgium) in 1940. A tiny German force consisting of around 83 specially trained paratroopers conducted glider landings right on a field/plateau (within the Fort) that was used by the Belgian personnel - as football field. German recon planes provided the info that the field was not mined, as, by chance, they took pics of a football match taking place on that field.
This German force used the element of surprise and disabled the Fort's armored observation/gun turrets and strongpoints by using the then pretty new hollow explosive charges on the steel cupolas, disabling either guns or crews. The following day, the Belgian defenders, amounting to around 1200 troops, surrendered to the German paras or to the Infantry regiment that was moved in overland as relief force.
Successful attacks don't necessarily deal with the number of available troops.
My 2 cents.
). You can get VASL at www.vasl.org and get the software to play on-line with people. I see every weekend few people on-line. Second, I play with SASL (soliatire ASL) module and I'm having lots of fun. If you like Red Barricades or Valor of the Guards historical modules, there are missions out there for these two modules that you can play against the SASL system. Tom Morin, the designer of VotG is even working on SASL rules for all the VotG campaigns. I'm currently playing with a friend of mine (we divide the friendly forces between us) VotG CG2 against the system and it is a lot of fun - we are testing Tom's SASL CG rules for VotG module.