Simulating historical stupidity

[MrsWargamer]

Just curious, considering how I have seen so many get so totally worked up over our games being ruthlessly 'accurate', how DOES the game designers accommodate famous idiocies of the past.

Just finished reading the portion of von Luck's book Panzer Commander, recalling his experiences in North Africa. The campaign in Tunisia and thus North Africa, just concluded.

Now in a wargame, we don't have to make dumb idiot decisions, and yet, the real war had to suffer dumb idiot decidion after dumb idiot decision after dumb idiot decision. Heck it's no wonder Hitler lost the war, because his 'genius' ran out at the end of 1940, if it lasted that long at all.

His decision at Stalingrad was criminal levels of stupidity, and his decision in Africa as a whole right from the point he decided not to eliminate Malta was sufficient you would think his generals should have just openly shot him and had the shooter just take one for the team and not attempt stealth at all eh.

And it wasn't just the stupidity of course, code breaking somewhat ruined the Axis chances in many ways. But some of the choices, were so utterly dumb. And if you eliminate these brutally stupid choices from the simulation, well, you get a massive alteration in the simulation.

The clever wargamer, just wipes out Malta and to hell with the cost, and the Allied position rapidly goes down the drain in the Med. The clever wargamer just makes Jets be jets in 43 and doesn't use them stupidly, and the Allies bombing campaign takes a stomping.

And the clever wargamer, doesn't stupidly get massive swaths of his forces stupidly wiped out all for stupid idiotic reasons.

So how do you design a decent simulation, and account for all the stupidity?
Because if you eliminate the Hitler factor, and his moronic decisions, then you've sure taken out a lot of the 'accuracy' of the simulation of the event.

I sometimes wish they made wargames like War in the East, or West, or several other rather good designs too, and just made them balanced red vs blue designs, not marred by trying to include idiot politicians, and aspects, like Ultra, which is essentially a form of cheating if you look at it in just wargamer terms.

No doubt we will have patches arrive for War in the West to fine tune the game. But after all the nitpicking, I wonder if anyone will achieve any means to simulate the other side having the actual advantages and disadvantages that really genuinely existed.

And no, I don't wish to play the AI as the Axis, just so Hitler and his crazy behaviour can be represented by unexplainable bad moves I will be enjoying my game as human vs human ala hotseat as usual.

[zakblood]

this is why i hardly play games as they have been designed to be played, once i find the editor and alter stuff to suit myself, as i don't want to simulate history, i want to remake it and make it my own, i love what if type battles and make my own mods to simulate the choices i want to make, most of your comments made sense to me apart from the need to post it in the first place, once bought you own the game, then it#s yours to alter in any way you seem fit, so i do, it's up to others to play out what others have made for them, i like to alter and tinker for the fun of it, i care less about silly little men dictators and the mad men who follow them, but the troops i command i like to give a fighting chance, so alter the odds and make it a battle not a fight where one side has it's arms tied behind it's back with only one eye open while the other side reads your plans before you commanders even do....

mod, cheat them mod some more is my motto[:D] [;)]

[Rising-Sun]

Well he maybe idiot, but wondering if he ever listen to his generals? Heading over there when the weathers get bad and cold is a serious attrition to his army and other assets. He wasn't prepared for that or it took too long to take it then bad weather rolling in. The AIs isn't that great in most strategy games, like you said, some doesn't know much about history and they are making these games.

On my behalf, I like playing the Japanese in the Pacific in WWII. Why? for one thing they are disadvantage and overwhelming by allied forces (mostly USA) and just want to see if I can make a different. Board game like War in the Pacific DG wasn't bad, but not easy to find good players and infact players now days are hard to come by. So this War in the Pacific Admiral Edition is probably the best bet for me to mess around with. Most players I play with on PBEM didn't come out well as I though, so I play against AIs. Most computer strategy games will cheat in some ways and yes WitP:AE does cheat, I manage to get around it by leaving a hole for them to crawl in and then boom!

Wish you luck finding the right games, either boardgames or computer as well both.

edited... typos lol

[warspite1]

I guess it depends a) on the game and b) what that game is trying to achieve i.e. is it looking for historic realism or a balanced game? E.g. If you look at World In Flames, the best war game ever made, this is a pretty good example. The game takes liberties in a number of areas to ensure play balance – because a balanced game that either side can win is the goal with that game.

One thing for certain, you cannot make a game about WWII and have a proper WWII “feel” unless you take some liberties with historical accuracy. A WWII game that sees Germany unable to beat France is a nonsense. But, as we all know, look at the real life OOB of the two sides (the number of divisions available to each), look at the quality of the equipment (the French tanks for example) and the chances of Germany achieving the result it did in real life are incredibly low. Replay that 100 times and I suspect that in the majority the Germans take such losses that a 41 Barbarossa never becomes a remote possibility – even when they beat the Allies. Therefore game makers have to handicap the French OOB.

Similarly in Malaya, the Commonwealth Army should never have been beaten the way it was – and had Percival held on for just a bit longer, then Yamashita would have been in all sorts of trouble in terms of supplies. Again, a balanced war game needs to be able to ensure the Japanese army is much stronger than it was or the Pacific War can end pretty damn quickly.

If you try and model Supermarina’s inability to take the fight to the outnumbered Royal Navy, then Italy can crumble pretty quickly, so her fleet’s factors are much stronger than they should be.

It probably helps that “dumb idiot decisions” were not the sole preserve of one side or the other. I think in any game if you properly remove the really bad, absolutely key decisions (that are so common in every war that has ever been fought) then you have to accept that almost from day 1, many games will move away from history (some quite alarmingly) and you are left playing nothing more than a fantasy game (after all, who knows for certain what would happen if Gamelin had decided to fight a 1940 war and not a 1914 version? who knows what would have happened if Supermarina had grown a set? Who knows what would have happened had Goering realised, firstly the value of radar and secondly, the damage his bombers were doing to RAF airfields?

and just made them balanced red vs blue designs, not marred by trying to include idiot politicians, and aspects, like Ultra, which is essentially a form of cheating if you look at it in just wargamer terms.

Sorry I didn’t get that comment. What do you mean by balanced? The two sides were not balanced? What both sides have the same number of men and tanks and aircraft and ships and they all have the same factors – you want to play Chess? Can you explain what you mean by that please?

As for the Hitler rant – I think you are looking at things somewhat simplistically. Leaving aside that the Austrian moron took Germany to war in the first place, those that think Germany lost the war because of the stupidity of Hitler, while at the same time holding the German General Staff up as paragons of virtue, miss a few vital points. There is no doubt Hitler saved the Wehrmacht from destruction in 1941/42. There is no doubt had Rommel actually followed orders (you know, those things generals are supposed to follow), the Germans may well have remained in North Africa for longer. Yes, Hitler was a complete ^&&* - but in tactical terms he got some things right.

Interesting that you think the fall of Malta automatically would have meant the end in the Med. Really? O’Hara cannot have it both ways. Did the majority of Axis supplies get to North Africa or not? I tell you what, an invaded Malta would have saved the Royal Navy a hell of a lot of ships. What games are you thinking of where the loss of Malta automatically means the loss of Suez or Gibraltar?

Also, why is it only one side i.e. the Germans in your post, that make mistakes? Why not have the British moving their jet program forward quicker, reinforcing Malaya, how about the Japanese didn’t get victory disease (wouldn’t have stopped them losing to the US but they could have made it harder)?

[zakblood]

as WITW is your latest purchase MrsWargamer, i surmise your comments maybe based on that?

if so, Simulating historical stupidity isn't a choice the developers maybe wanted to do but had no choice, as most want to play the war years in the time frame and it plays out how it does, it's up to the modding community to now alter it and make other choices available to those who may wish to have another take on it, as the engine in question is more than capable of doing it, so lets hope enough think the same and like to alter history and not just play it out week by week with no real choices to make when you already know the end date as the front that matters maybe not in your control, i tend to like a more open approach when the end date isn't fixed, and you have more options to alter before you play, seems there is some with the east front box but not the end date etc, so seems a mod there may be needed, i have never released a mod or even shared it with friends as i tend to do them for myself as they are for more of a better word cheats, as they alter stuff that was never there in the area but could have been if different commanders had been given more choice or a different leader was in charge as the start...

like jets earlier, no 2 front way, was a good mod in another game i made, plus other things i like to tinker with....

[MrsWargamer]

Warspite, red vs blue, I'm surprised that reference confounded you

The old board game Blitzkrieg was essentially a red vs blue design. The sides were not identical, but there was no biased based on crazy human history.

The game Victory the blocks of War from Columbia Games is another great example of the feel of WW2, yet not history straight jacket.

I think over all, Gary's two games could be incredible, if they had been designed into a WW2 like setting, but not the actual WW2 setting.

All the detail of the design, yet none of the aspects of history that confound the simulation.

One of the nicer aspects of tactical I suppose, is you can get it accurate, and yet, the history of the time isn't quite the straight jacket.

My main reason for liking ASL, is it doesn't matter who wins (ok everyone likes to win admittedly ), but the thing is, the game is mainly cool for all the outrageous extreme end of the scale results that can happen. I get that from Battle Academy as well.

I've been hacking away at a project to make myself bonus materials for PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader, mainly as the history of the time isn't as vital.

Often the reason I play operational of the scale of Gary's games, is I like to see what was actually involved with challenges that had to be overcome.
But it gets frustrating knowing that some events happened the way they happened, only because of some human angle that was preposterous.

It was likely a good thing that Patton got in trouble in Sicily. It kept him out of Italy. And his big mouth kept him out of Bradley's job, which meant he ended up with 3rd army and his drive across France which put him in a position to counter the Bulge fighting.

It would be interesting to know, what might have happened, if the Panzer divisions had been freed the moment the Allies hit the beaches.
Falaise might never have happened, if the Allies had not known in advance of the German attack at Mortain.
It is possible the Germans should never have fought the battle of the Bulge.

So many of our wargames, are the result of human failings being made into games.

As for Malta, well, we will never know. Rommel was often denied supplies he would not have failed to get. The war in the desert, the British almost lost that eh, and Rommel almost did it with what he had. To think the Germans would have failed to take the canal if Rommel had gotten most of his supplies, sounds a bit too much like a failed understanding of the situations of the times. Hitler though never took the theatre seriously.

[Twotribes]

The Italians did not have the amphibious units to lift troops to Malta. Hell the one sea lift they did do for the Germans was with civilian transport and had to come into a secured port.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: MrsWargamer

Warspite, red vs blue, I'm surprised that reference confounded you

The old board game Blitzkrieg was essentially a red vs blue design. The sides were not identical, but there was no biased based on crazy human history.

The game Victory the blocks of War from Columbia Games is another great example of the feel of WW2, yet not history straight jacket.

I think over all, Gary's two games could be incredible, if they had been designed into a WW2 like setting, but not the actual WW2 setting.

All the detail of the design, yet none of the aspects of history that confound the simulation.

One of the nicer aspects of tactical I suppose, is you can get it accurate, and yet, the history of the time isn't quite the straight jacket.

My main reason for liking ASL, is it doesn't matter who wins (ok everyone likes to win admittedly ), but the thing is, the game is mainly cool for all the outrageous extreme end of the scale results that can happen. I get that from Battle Academy as well.

I've been hacking away at a project to make myself bonus materials for PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader, mainly as the history of the time isn't as vital.

Often the reason I play operational of the scale of Gary's games, is I like to see what was actually involved with challenges that had to be overcome.
But it gets frustrating knowing that some events happened the way they happened, only because of some human angle that was preposterous.

It was likely a good thing that Patton got in trouble in Sicily. It kept him out of Italy. And his big mouth kept him out of Bradley's job, which meant he ended up with 3rd army and his drive across France which put him in a position to counter the Bulge fighting.

It would be interesting to know, what might have happened, if the Panzer divisions had been freed the moment the Allies hit the beaches.
Falaise might never have happened, if the Allies had not known in advance of the German attack at Mortain.
It is possible the Germans should never have fought the battle of the Bulge.

So many of our wargames, are the result of human failings being made into games.

As for Malta, well, we will never know. Rommel was often denied supplies he would not have failed to get. The war in the desert, the British almost lost that eh, and Rommel almost did it with what he had. To think the Germans would have failed to take the canal if Rommel had gotten most of his supplies, sounds a bit too much like a failed understanding of the situations of the times. Hitler though never took the theatre seriously.

warspite1

Warspite, red vs blue, I'm surprised that reference confounded you

I'm not the sharpest tool in the box so that fact something confounded me should come as no surprise. However, now you've explained things...I'm still none the wiser

So if we take WITW - what biased crazy human history have the designers modelled in?

It would be interesting to know, what might have happened, if the Panzer divisions had been freed the moment the Allies hit the beaches.

Agreed. That would be interesting. But then again so would Case Yellow without Manstein's plan (that Hitler authorised). Without that you have a full frontal slog through Belgium. Good luck with that.

As for Malta, well, we will never know. Rommel was often denied supplies he would not have failed to get. The war in the desert, the British almost lost that eh, and Rommel almost did it with what he had. To think the Germans would have failed to take the canal if Rommel had gotten most of his supplies,, sounds a bit too much like a failed understanding of the situations of the times. Hitler though never took the theatre seriously.

So what % of his supplies did he not get? I think you over estimate this. The problem for Rommel was more to do with the fact that a) Hitler could not spare him the reinforcements his ego required, and b) it is arguable how much more the North African theatre (with its logistical problems) could support anyway. Which of course is why he was ordered on the defensive in support of the Italians in the first place.

Hitler though never took the theatre seriously.

But this is to completely fail to understand what the war was about, what Hitler was about [&:]

WWII was fought for Lebensraum. End of. Hitler found himself fighting the Western Allies because they refused him a free hand in the East. But the war was all about the East.

Hitler did not take North Africa seriously for the same reason he did not take Sealion seriously (aside from the fact the latter was impossible). Because he needed to beat the Soviet Union and, like Napoleon before him, he decided to turn East before he had dealt with those pesky islanders.

So sure, take Hitler out of the equation and put in a leader that does not have a hard-on for the East. Guess what? You suddenly don't have a Second World War.

BTW did we really come close to losing Egypt? I don't think so. Auchinleck beat Rommel and as a result, Rommel was a busted flush come the time of El-Alamein (albeit still an incredibly tough nut to crack on the defensive).

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The Italians did not have the amphibious units to lift troops to Malta. Hell the one sea lift they did do for the Germans was with civilian transport and had to come into a secured port.

warspite1

Another aspect that the "take Malta and the war is won" brigade do not understand. Taking Malta with what? Could it be done? Maybe? But it sure as hell ain't the 100% certainty that is portrayed.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The Italians did not have the amphibious units to lift troops to Malta. Hell the one sea lift they did do for the Germans was with civilian transport and had to come into a secured port.

warspite1

Another aspect that the "take Malta and the war is won" brigade do not understand. Taking Malta with what? Could it be done? Maybe? But it sure as hell ain't the 100% certainty that is portrayed.

Also the the fact that not even Adolf or Benito could give orders to all the commands involved. (The former could order the Luftwaffe, but not the Italian air/naval/ground forces. The latter the opposite.)

And then there is the fact that OKW never saw Africa as more than a side show.

[zakblood]

if enough resources were tasked at doing anything in that time period, it would have happened, as the waste of resources on other mad cap ideas were too many to mention, troops were left and sent everywhere for next to no real purpose, resources were used for silly projects and ideas that never were real main steam ideas, can always remember being told if they as in Germany had spent time on building real tanks instead of super weapons, the world maybe a different place today, yes most of them were mad, daft and plain nuts, leaders that is, not ideas...

so Malta could have been taken, same as for the allies Crete could have been kept / defended

there are plenty of what if type battles and campaigns that could have been that never happened, if only types, then again if you change resources from one place you weaken something else, so it's a balancing act, something that Germany was good at, but the Leaders were not so good at.... but if and buts and if's won wars we all be speaking a different language, but not necessary German either...

[MrsWargamer]

Recently finished reading a fine account of the war in the Med actually.The Battle for the Mediterranean by Donald Macintyre 1970 (first print was 1956).

A lot of the reasons for a lot of Rommel's problems, were often due to the lousy thinking at the top of the food chain in the Axis camp. It's amazing Rommel succeeded at anything at all, ever. The supplies were being efficiently, and effectively and completely trashed, and Malta was the main reason.

And yes, the Allies lost a LOT of men and material retaining it, and even while the Axis were not taking the matter seriously enough.

My main point, from a wargaming point of view, is if you edit out lousy stupid thinking, a lot of WW2 should have gone a lot differently for the Axis.
Actually, I am usually of the opinion, that while yes he started the war, the thing is, Hitler likely caused his own defeat as much so, if not more so, than some of the Allied actions. By the time of D-Day, Hitler had already shot himself in the foot enough times his goose was so completely already cooked.

[USS Wyoming]

Essentially your wanting an ahistorical war game, correct? I have never played ATG, but that seems to fall into that category. Another option would be to forego playing large operational campaigns like Barbarossa (as well as the other complete campaigns of the other major theaters) and limit your historical wargame play to operations that were relatively balanced.
Of course, no real combatants purposely start en engagement knowing they are equally matched. I have played neither WitE, Decisive campaigns, or TOAW -but, it would appear that a hybrid of these might generate a historical grand campaign, with ahistorical results.

I throw TOAW in because how time is modeled.

[warspite1]

I have not read the book you mentioned, but here is a review of that book on Amazon:

"sketchy - poorly researched - not worth the effort to even try and read right through to the end of it"

I would suggest reading some of O'Hara's work. He is clearly a fan of the RM but he puts a figure on the supplies sent successfully to North Africa in The Struggle for the Middle Sea. According to O'Hara, of the Personnel and Supplies sent to Libya, 92% of the Personnel and 86% of the Supplies sent were successfully delivered. Those numbers do not sound like "efficiently, effectively and completely trashed" to me.

To think the Germans would have failed to take the canal if Rommel had gotten most of his supplies, sounds a bit too much like a failed understanding of the situations of the times.

Well it sounds like Rommel did get most of his supplies....


It's strange that you fixate on German mistakes while ignoring those of the Allies. The Allied errors were just as plentiful if not more so.

- The total and absolute shambles that was the Norwegian Campaign

- The effective loss of France in less than a month?!?!

- The transfer of troops from North Africa to Greece - and the subsequent loss of Crete

- The botched Dakar operation

- Stalin ignoring all evidence to the contrary that Germany was about to attack

- The sending of Force Z and the "defence" of Malaya

- MacArthur's inaction at the start of the attack on the Philippines

The list goes on and on. Mistakes were not the sole preserve of the Germans.

One thing we can agree on. If you edit out "lousy stupid thinking" the war goes very differently for the Axis....... The war ends much sooner in their defeat.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Similarly in Malaya, the Commonwealth Army should never have been beaten the way it was – and had Percival held on for just a bit longer, then Yamashita would have been in all sorts of trouble in terms of supplies. Again, a balanced war game needs to be able to ensure the Japanese army is much stronger than it was or the Pacific War can end pretty damn quickly.

I wouldn't say the Japanese were stronger, they were experienced and well geared. British outnumbered the Japanese by three times and poor quality not prepared for the jungle. Guess it was taken a lot of trickery and surprises to pull that off. Japanese were really good in the jungle and using hundred of bicycles to move quickly and they were carrying their own gears and supplies.

And putting that in a game is almost impossible to do. I think this is what some players are unhappy how things turned out in their wargaming. Don't think you going to find a perfect WWII or any historical strategy and/or tactical games.

Just like Victory at Sea I bought from Steam, it was fun and not accurate at all. I had to remind them what is wrong or wrong setups in the Pacific Campaign, they left out Truk Naval Base for IJN lol. Supreme Ruler 1936 did the same thing and later on add it. But Supreme Ruler 1936 is just a game, not realistic or historical at all.

Just like you said warspite1, what kind of game you are looking for and how much complex details you are looking for. There are tons of beginner, some moderate and not very many complex ones.

[warspite1]

Hi RisingSun.

To be clear I did not say they were stronger. They were not as you say!

What I was saying was, if you build a balanced war game (such as WIF) then you need to make the Japanese stronger (and/or come up with various modifiers) or they will be crushed by the Allies in every game.

[bairdlander2]

Wake up people,WW2 was about economics,

[warspite1]

I am going to regret asking but, what?

Edit: I see you've just deleted some of that statement.

WW2 was about economics

Well that is not exactly a surprising statement. Most wars are about economics or religion masking the economic imperative.

I said earlier WWII was all about Lebensraum.

So what was Lebensraum all about? In addition to the racial superiority and anti-Semitic nonsense, it was about Germany being self-sufficient and having room for growth so that it could compete with the USA and the British Empire.

Hitler didn't want another war where the Germans could be squeezed from all sides and being cut-off from vital resources. He therefore wanted Ukraine (the bread basket) and the Caucasus (oil) as well as other raw materials that the lands of the Soviet Union could provide, as the cornerstone of that plan.

That, is economics.

[MrsWargamer]

Well I could mention some of the Allied gaffes.

Rommel should never have even gotten his chance. That advance after the Italians were totally trashed in the beginning, came to an end, mainly due to his troops being stolen to go help Greece. I think if I recall correctly, that is the record for longest advances in military history (not totally positive on that statement). I suppose the Allies couldn't tell that going and helping Greece was going to result in an absolute and total travesty though. But one has to wonder, if he had not been suddenly deprived of the troops, where would the war have gone, if Rommel had never had the chance to arrive. Because geography did to some extent help him in that first gamble.

Patton actually DID want to invade the Pas de Calais which is interesting, considering the fake army he was heading while in the dog house, was a lot of the reason the Germans had trouble accepting Normandy was the real thing. I think if he had invaded the Pas de Calais, it would have been a LOT messier and there would have been MORE than just the equal of Omaha beach to cope with.

The trick with mentioning Stalin, is he started out a buddy of Hitler, and then got stabbed in the back before he was able to do it to Hitler
The man though, well he was responsible for so many deaths, that even with Hitler's obsession with eliminating the Jewish people, Hitler still doesn't even come close to the amount of people Stalin got killed. I think the only thing that will ever compete with Stalin, is the Black Plague.
But it is considered pretty much established, that Russia had every intention of attacking eventually. It's not like Hitler could have pretended it was not going to happen. Hitler likely mangled the chances of a communist take over of the continent.

Norway, yep, that is definitely a part of the war that can be summed up with a facepalm.

I find it annoying that most wargames tend to make it difficult for the Allies to just decide to hell with Hitler and attack full out the day after Germany goes into Poland. I often wonder, did the French really have any chances at all? Most games tend to depict the German OOB as having almost NOTHING in the west to stop the French at all. I've played a few games of Strategic Command, where the cagey Allied player converts the French navy into ground troops, the Brits send the whole of the British military on to the continent, and in the process, the German player gets so far behind schedule that the game frequently rolls over and dies in 42-43 when the weight of Russian and US forces are just too much.

But that is the point again isn't. If you don't have politics in the way, if everything is just cold calculated numbers and there is no human element, it tends to throw the game massively out of sync with the historical record. At which point, a lot of the bellyaching about patches to make the game more technically accurate in terms of machines loses some of its relevance. In Advanced Third Reich, the subs are not playing pieces they are abstracted resource damage. The Allied Bombers are the same, they are an abstracted impact on resources. For that reason, A3R is several orders of magnitude more capable of simulating those events, than the counters are in the games in most cases. In Strategic Command, you suicide the French Navy on the two sub counters and in the process, the Battle of the Atlantic never occurs. Which kind of kills the games credibility to a point.

Sometimes, an abstraction is actually a great deal more accurate, than being given control over a bunch of counters. Sometimes we have too many counters in our games that shouldn't be in the game at all as a counter.

[Mobius]

I posted this on another forum but it applies here as well. German industry wasn't geared up from the start for total war effort.

Study of German war production data as well as interrogation of those who were in charge of rearmament at the time, leaves no doubt that until the defeat at Moscow German industry was incompletely mobilized and that in fact Germany did not foresee the need for full economic mobilization. German arms production during 1940 and 1941 was generally below that of Britain. When the full meaning of the reverses at Moscow became apparent the German leaders called for all-out production.

By September 1941 Hitler was so confident that he had succeeded in Russia that he ordered large scale cut-backs in war production.

After the defeat at Moscow early in 1942, armament production increased rapidly. However, such increase was more the result of improvements in industrial efficiency than of general economic mobilization. Studies of German manpower utilization show that throughout the war a great deal of German industry was on a single shift basis, relatively few German women (less than in the first war) were drawn into industry and the average work week was below British standards.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USS ... mmary.html