new To the genre and looking for some war gaming advice

[mainsworthy]

tactical level as "the level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical units or task forces.

operational level means the day-to-day activities of putting emergency management into practice. Only the key details considered necessary for achieving operational effectiveness

The strategic level focuses on defining and supporting national policy and relates directly to the outcome of a war or other conflict as a whole. Usually, modern wars and conflicts are won or lost at this level rather than at the operational or tactical levels. but operational can be doing things that help multiple armies achieve there plans too.

tactical you can see the gunfire

operational you can hear the gunfire

strategic your imformed about gunfire

tactical is like an sas raid on an building

operational is getting the units to the building

if you want to play say as churchill or Hitler then you would be playing strategic.

the meanings are like close medium an far

tactical is like the movies that depict a squad .

operational is planning and moving your troops on trains to a battle and then having a general outcome of battle like you won or lost

strategic is like the warooms on movies that show a map on the table , and people pushing blocks around

strategy just means you have an overall plan. operational is making the plan happen by doing things that help the plan, like trasports, ammo, units to use in place,then tactical is whats used to do the plan , the units are in place and you have ammo so attack

you can easily figure out weather you doing a stategic, opperational or tactical by the rank of the force your ordering to do something. if your ordering army leaders thats strategic, if your ordering a part of an army your opperational. if your ordering the smallest parts of an army your doing tactical.

Thanks Antmf_slith its been a lot of fun answering this.

[AndySfromVA]

ORIGINAL: Antmf_slith

Can anyone explain the difference between Tactics, Operational and Strategic war games? Sorry for noob question...

Tactical games focus on small units. Some tactical games are Steel Panthers, Battle Academy and Wargame Design Studio's Squad Battles. Strategic games deal with armies. Strategic Command World at War is a prime example. Operational games are somewhere in between, such as Panzer Corps, Operational Art of War, WDS Panzer Campaigns and many more.

[Erik Rutins]

I would also suggest Panzer Corps and Order of Battle as good beginner-friendly wargames on WW2.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: Kuokkanen

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

I would recommend you Warplan, very good WW2 strategy game. The first one in Europe (WPE) and the second one in Pacific (WPP).

Excuse me? I thought first game in that series is Warplan Orange in Pacific theater?

Oh no, Warplan Orange not the same series than Warplan or Warplan Pacific.

[Kuokkanen]

To further elaborate tactical-operational-strategic levels, some games have 2 or all 3 of them, where player gets to do military and/or nation building, assemble and move military forces, and command battles on tactical scale. Some of such games:
Total War series
Close Combat series
Lords of the Realm series
Age of Wonders series
Heroes of Might & Magic series
Knights of Honor
X-COM series & derivatives
XCOM series & derivatives

[Antmf_slith]

I think either Tactic or Operational level war games would be best for me to start with because the Strategic ones I think are a tad to broad for me right now...

[Zovs]

If you have never played any board or computer wargames I think the two easiest started games would be Panzer General (the older first version) and Order of Battle. The next step up would be John Tillers older Campaign Series, and then maybe one of the Decisive Campaigns all WW2 games.

You can try some free tactical games like Steel Panthers here and elsewhere, plus there are a number of free demos out there, don’t want to break any rules here, but search : war games free demo and I am sure something will pop up.

[Zovs]

Once you have tried a few then you’ll know if you like tactical, operational or strategic level war games. There is a difference, some folks incorrectly call all war game strategy games but that is not exactly true. I can expand on this if desired.

[Zovs]

From my board war game days:

Tactical Level War games are primarily designed around small unit tactics. Mostly at the squad and up to battalion level, but some are single man games (a bit rarely in board war games, but common in FPS), but most war games are squad up to battalion level games at the tactical level. The idea is that the tactics fall on the battalion, company, platoon or squad leader and they are implementing a smaller part of one of the operations.

Map scale: 5-250 meters per hex (man to man 5-25 meters, squad 25-75 meters, company 75-250 and battalion 100-250 or up 500 meters)
Time scale: 30 seconds to 1 day per turn (usually for man to man you'd see 30 seconds to a few minutes, most squad level games are 1 minute to 5 minutes, most platoon level games are 30 to 60 minutes, most company level games are 1 hour to 8 hours, most battalion level games are 2 hours to a day per turn)
Unit/Counter scale: 1 man up to battalion per counter/unit (so 1 man, a squad (8-15 men) platoon (20-50 men), company (100-180 men) battalion 200 on up)

Operational Level War games are primarily designed the operational level of movement, combat, logistics and other operational aspects (too numerous to list). Generally Operational level war games are battalion up to division level. The general or most common are divisional level war games. The idea is that operational level war games are implementing the grand strategies set my High Command or Political leaders.

Map scale: 1 km to 50 km per hex (regiment/battalion level 1 km to 5 km, brigade/regimental 1-10 km, divisional/regimental/brigade level 15-30 km, divisional/army level 25-50 kms).
Time scale: 4 hours up to biweekly turns (regiment/battalion 4 to 24 hours, brigade/regimental 1 day to 1 week, divisional/army 1/2 week to 2 weeks)
Unit/Counter scale: battalion up to divisions per counter/unit (each counter could represent a battalion, regiment, brigade, division, corps, or armies, with multiple counters for each regiment, brigade or division and/or pure regiments/brigade/divisions)

Strategic Level War games are primarily designed for the strategic level of command, sometimes involving production, politics, where and how to employ those strategies.

Map scale: 20-100 km per hex
Time scale: 1 week to seasonal turns
Unit/Counter scale: Divisional up to Army Group level per counter/unit

These are generic concepts that have been around since 1958 when Avalon Hill first introduced the first board war game called Tactics II, and evolved when SPI came into being in the late 1960s while being led by John F. Dunnigan one of founding fathers and most prolific war game creator/inventor.

[Antmf_slith]

Yeah sounds like Operation first and foremost than tactical is more for me...

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Antmf_slith

Yeah sounds like Operation first and foremost than tactical is more for me...

Then try Panzer General, I or II, then Steel Panthers. You might be able to get them for free.

For a Pacific Strategic level game, Pacific War is free.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=17

A description:

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/pacifi ... ix-edition

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: Antmf_slith

What about some of the John Tiller games? I read they are pretty deep which I prefer and read that they aren't as hard to learn like WiTE?

John Tiller's Campaign Series is always among my first suggestions. Tons of content and variety. The mini-description for each and every unity is useful for someone who wants to learn the basics about WWII, too.

[Rosseau]

And this is why I love this forum so much: Advice given without condescension or malice.

I will just add the obvious; that the digital choices are so much greater than when I was a young guy and couldn't wait for the postman to deliver the latest SSI game. Such excitement. Old men enjoy their memories!

The good thing about Tiller (now under the great love of Wargame Design Studio), is that if you learn one, you are relatively familiar with them all. I still like the Squad Battles series best, and now we have Campaign Series Vietnam from Matrix, which is making the existing design even better!

[Zovs]

You really can’t go wrong with JTs Campaign Series (East Front, West Front, Rising Sun all packaged together), CS Middle East is good too.

I have 67 (4 of which are demos) of the WDS titles and they are keepers.

When Matrix has the big winter sale (or your anniversary) JTs CS, Panzer General I (with all the DLCs) and WITP-AE are priced ridiculously cheap and offer a lifetime of war gaming.

[Kuokkanen]

Speaking about free games, here's a thread.

Another consideration about tactical & operational is that at its simplest, there are only game pieces or icons attacking eachothers, reducing hit points. In this case, tactical level tends to have more range in terms of hexes/squares, as it is practically zoomed in variant while operational scale is zoomed out. Most straightforward comparison is operational scale Panzer Corps and tactical scale Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon which both share the same game engine. Civilization IV has got mods that turn the game from strategic nation building down to tactical scale combat.

[Curtis Lemay]

The TOAW manual defined Operational Scale as:

"Think of the operational level as a view of the battlefield on a scale just exceeding that at which differing ranges of various direct fire weapons are significant."

[TheGrayMouser]

Interesting to see how players view and or define operations vs tactical. I personally think it has much less to do with things like weapon ranges, scale etc but what you as the player DO and WHY you do them in the game. Do you do things that are tactical or do things deemed operational or even strategic? Since games are GAMES, very few seriously try to simulate YOU in realistic role as a major, a general, supremo commander, Kaiser or whatever.. ( FPS exempted perhaps) Thus most games are somewhat hy-breds.

Some examples: Steel Panthers 3 , Talonsofts/Matrix's East Front West Front etc game, are platoon scale ( ie you pick up and move platoon size units in game) Scale is 200 and 250 meters/hex, clearly range in hexes is a huge consideration for positioning your tanks, AT guns, missles whatever.. There is no fatigue management, units cannot be repaired or receive replacements, there is no change from day to nite and thus even the largest battles in the games are hour, or mult-hour affairs. Pretty darn tactical. It goes without saying SP 1 2 and the various offshoots from Matrix and Shrapnel, The Squad Battled Games from JT are of the same vein , pure tactical.

If you then consider the Napoleonic titles( and the Civil war ones too)from JTS/WDS your "pieces" are battalion, Squadron or battery size elements, which were the actual lowest maneuver units( in general) in those eras. 100 Yard hexes, ranges of weaponry matters, and facing relative to the enemy matters. ( flank attacks confer bonus in melee). Seems very tactical... but!:

Some of the maps are monstrous, and are played out over several days with nite turns where fatigue can be reduced or increased if one tries to maneuver at nite.. With Division and Corps size units in route of march columns miles away from where the battle POSSIBLY can be fought, players can decide what road networks to take and make decision that imho seem much more operational..Your shaping when where and how the battle develops.

Of course, you still have to DO this by moving many pieces one at a time, down to 50 man skirmishes screening the army... Not really what an operational commander ( ie Davout, Napoleon) would be doing.. So what is this, a tactical game or what? haha!

Now if you go up a level in size there are the Tiller Operational games for WW1 and WW2, 1 hour turns, 1 km hexes, small arms all have the same range( adjacent) the full battle in the titles can be like 400 turns, so over a week or more in time. Fatigue, replacements etc all come into play. Seems pretty operational BUT you are still moving basically tactical units around ( a lot of them) ! So it seems again, its a tactical game in what you do, but the size is so large it has the feel of operations without really having any mechanics for that.. BTY this is not a bad thing, the WW1 titles are pretty amazing!

I don't own these but I suspect that the Decisive Campaigns sold here by Vic likley have actual operational elements in what you do as a player, but I'm not sure.

One thing that not too many computer games do ( but a lot of board games did) is Grand Tactical. I don't own these either, but the Napoleonic games made by Paul Bruffel at HPS sims seem to fit this bill.
The players concern is over the battlefield area only( ie Austerlitz etc), the map has area movement ( so no mini maxing terrain, if you enter an area that is wooded you suffer the penalties for being in wooded , in say Steel panthers a heavily wooded map will have breaks in the trees, paths etc you can maneuver and fight in and thru if woods are no good for your tanks) Units are regiments ( which would be several actual tactical units of battalions or squadrons in each one) When you attack another area, you are not concerned about the most in game effectiveness of range or flanks for the small element in a stack, these are not your concerns in a grand tactical game, and the game doesn't include those elements anyhow.

Arguably the Panzer general games might be grand tactical but certainly also they have operational ( fuel, weather, cities and production centers) and even strategic concerns as well ( you control the means of producing your army tailored to what you like...choices in branching paths ie attempt Sealion OR Barbarossa in 1940). Not a fair comparison as im talking about a campaign of linking carryover battles here, where i was really talking about single scenarios in the other games, however the grand campaign always defined the PG games and I think it would be a mostly forgotten footnote if SSI only included single battles.

Without a doubt, the TOAW games, when they stick within the boundries of size scale time etc that Norm Koger recommended for best use, feel very operational but I suspect one can see the tactical in there too if you look hard enough.

Anyway I have procrastinated enough to avoid moving a lot of snow off my house, cheers!

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: TheGrayMouser

Arguably the Panzer general games might be grand tactical but certainly also they have operational ( fuel, weather, cities and production centers) and even strategic concerns as well ( you control the means of producing your army tailored to what you like...choices in branching paths ie attempt Sealion OR Barbarossa in 1940). Not a fair comparison as im talking about a campaign of linking carryover battles here, where i was really talking about single scenarios in the other games, however the grand campaign always defined the PG games and I think it would be a mostly forgotten footnote if SSI only included single battles.

Interesting arguments. How does Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon look to you?

[coachi]

Command ops. Difficult to learn. Easy to play

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: TheGrayMouser
If you then consider the Napoleonic titles( and the Civil war ones too)from JTS/WDS your "pieces" are battalion, Squadron or battery size elements, which were the actual lowest maneuver units( in general) in those eras. 100 Yard hexes, ranges of weaponry matters, and facing relative to the enemy matters. ( flank attacks confer bonus in melee). Seems very tactical... but!:

Some of the maps are monstrous, and are played out over several days with nite turns where fatigue can be reduced or increased if one tries to maneuver at nite.. With Division and Corps size units in route of march columns miles away from where the battle POSSIBLY can be fought, players can decide what road networks to take and make decision that imho seem much more operational..Your shaping when where and how the battle develops.

The same could be said of the Panzer Campaigns series. The scale of the game is tactical or grand tactical and the smaller scenarios have a tactical feel to them. Then the same scale is used for, for example, the whole France 1940 campaign.

I often joke that the ultimate grognard game would be World in Flames at ASL scale, but Panzer Campaigns almost aims at that. I have some titles and I played them a lot, but always the small/medium scenarios, never the Grand Campaigns.