If I may: Combined arms is a strategic level decision, not a tactical one.  Tactically, the infantry man beats the Tank. Tactically, the artillery battery beats everything on the offense (even, other artillery) but cannot survive on defense.

Tactically X can (almost) always beat Y but Y can (almost) always beat Z which, coincidentally can (almost) always be X...


tactically then, you would want to apply X against Y, but not against Z.

Strategy is pulling back from that. Combined arms, as a strategic descision makes the tactical choices easier. You always have access to X, Y, and Z, so no matter what your opponent brings you can apply that which is strongest immedeatly.

Sett, in looking at the historically model as simplistically as he does, is only seeing the outcome of various tactical matchups, never the strategies that enabled those matchups to come about.

From a historical perspective it is very common for a new, successful strategy to essentially replace previous strategies, just as weapon improvements can create situations that render previous tactical matchups invalid. No one uses a phalax anymore because strategically no one relys on large bodies of troops slugging it out face to face anymore. Tactically no one uses it because guns always beat closely packed groups of men moving slowly with long sticks.

The current conflict, strategically, between combined arms 'conventional' military might and LIC guerilla warfare does not prove, or disprove, that combined arms was a superior doctrine. In fact, I'm willing to suggest that the LIC guerilla style warfare has a long history going back to the origins of war and, as such, is not inherently a superior, or inferior strategy to combined arms but an entirely seperate 'tree' of strategic thought with its own advancements and refinements.

This suggests the possiblity of a 'strategic tactics' where Strategy X vs Strategy Y can be evaluated just as 'Tactic X vs Tactic Y' was earlier in my post.











Or: Like Sett, I could just be talking out my ass.

Quote from: blakkieExcept people. Millions and millions of people. With firearms and explosives.

You are thinking of the current war, not the first Gulf war.  No one yet has gotten into the impact of morale on warfare, which is relevant when discussing this. The success of the Spartans in war for so long was due to the unbreakable morale of the Similars, the success of the US in the First Gulf War was due in part to the demoralizing effect of the Air War that proceeded the ground war.

Very interesting subject.

Total agreement on the Combined Arms issue. That was the WWII paradigm, period.

That said, post-45 guerilla wars or wars between extremely uneven opponents using the same approach (US/Iraq) are not proof for its obsolescence. Combined Arms is a method for full-scale conventional war between heavily industrialized nations. IMNSHO what caused it to disappear was the fact that post 45 all these nations were protected by the threat of nuclear war.

ON TOPIC... riddle me this:

Flames of War has two defining qualities:

1) It is THE combined arms minis game. Tactics evolve in-game, derived from the historically modeled properties of the units of your force, and responding to the terrain on the table. In an ideal world I would spend hours thinking about whether to get a chemical mortars platoon for the US Armored Rifles.

2) It's point-based, like the Warhammer family of games, not scenario-based. Tactics evolves out of game, derived from the rules set. Rather than combining arms, the kidz are buying all-Tigers-all-of-the-time armies, a) because Waffen-SS is kewl, b) because they have a good chance of winning against type 1) armies. Especially when terrain on the table is very sparse.

Both in FoW and in Settembrini's and Gleichman's take I find it very hard to distinguish 1) and 2), i.e. in-game and out-of-game tactics. They blend into each other all of the time. And part of the argument against 4E seems to be that it shifts the balance more toward out of game?

Is that the argument? Is it true? Can we define some criteria? Or am I missing the issue?

PS: Settembrini isn't talking out of his behind because IIRC he does have a military background.

Quote from: SpikeYou are thinking of the current war, not the first Gulf war.

The current war is the first one. Pity the poor SOB Iraqi placeholders that got sent to Kuwait to 'hold' it in phase 1.

Quote from: blakkieThe current war is the first one. Pity the poor SOB Iraqi placeholders that got sent to Kuwait to 'hold' it in phase 1.

I think Spike might have been referring to the Iraq-Iran conflict of the '80s, also known as "the Gulf War".

!i!

[Edit: Wait.  No, he's clearly not.  That's what we get for having three wars called "the Gulf War".]

If you like, blakkie, since that is a valid perspective (and historically I think you will be vindicated... lazy future historians )

I was referring to 'Operation: Desert Storm/Desert Sheild' not 'Operations:Iraqi Freedom'.

Though, of course, aside from the naming trend (Freedom I, II, III, IV, and now V), this is an utter misuse of the 'operation' term, even within the standard use of the Army (see Market Garden for comparison.  Nobody tried to claim all of WWII as 'Operation: Spank Hitler and Operation:Spank Tojo' and then add year designators as it continued on....)

Quote from: SpikeOr: Like Sett, I could just be talking out my ass.

You're doing better than Sett

One point where you go wrong is that you're splitting up the levels (tactical/strategy) incorrectly, but I don't consider the details of which word applies to which detail to be worth the debate in this specific case.

It's enough to say that generally from a common military point of view, tacticals is how the direct field battle commander uses the resources at hand to meet his goals.

Thus a Team commander (with say two tank, one infantry and artillery support with a A-10 on stack) is making tactical decisions as he commits those forces to take an objective.

The fact he's in the area to do so often called Operational decisions.

Above that, Strategy was used to determine that the objective was desired.

Very simple view of the subject for what it's worth, but a workable one.


From a rpg PoV, Tactical the only level that matters from a rules PoV.

Quote from: SettembriniThe hard-on war-college teachers and wargamers and computer gamers have for combined arms is is not neccessarily vindicated by history..

I know not what war-colleges you speak of, perhaps German ones that haven't successfully launched a significant offensive operation in over a half-century.

Sorry, couldn't resist the snark. The problem isn't limited to Germany, there has been a serious decline in Military History and it's study here in the US and elsewhere. Seriously, I wouldn't trust anything coming out of many of them these days.

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YTdiMDkzZDJjYTYwOWM4YmIyMmE4N2IwODFlNWU0MjE=

The US military however is still very much all about combined arms.


You do however sound like someone who's bought into today's brand of military history. For example:

Quote from: SettembriniTake all major guerilla wars: Without airforce or tanks, the riflemen of the NVA, for example  dominated those conflicts, and forced THEIR tactics upon the enemy.

In the NVA example, they lost every single battle of note. And they lost badly.

Their victory was through their Strategy, a very basic and core element that you would know from the writings of the Guerilla leaders themselves.

Quote from: SettembriniTake the first gulf war: the insistance of Saddam Hussein to fight a classical combined arms war led to the annihilation of the vehicle force, and large scale demoralization.

Ok, this one is just...

Sigh.

Too much. Just too much. I could show how you're wrong in so many ways. One hint, proper use of combined arms is not grounding your airforce and digging static defense lines. If anything that war was the ultimate example of proper combine arms use.

And at this point I'm stopping in the interest of space. I could write pages on this one item alone and match it on the others.



Let's just say that I disagree,  and disagree very strongly with you Sett and leave it at that. As this is the RPG area of the boards, do you have any rpg related discussion about the article?

Spike, I very strongly disagree that combined arms are a strategic issue, not tactical. Also, I think you may be missing the operational level.

Overall, though, the levels-of-focus (strategic/tactical/operational) are somewhat arbitrary and only important to the extent that you want to compare history to what's being represented on the game table.

(Notwithstanding, side note: another example of a combined arms tactical system beating a single-mode sytem IMO is the second Punic War, where Hannibal's cavalry+infantry took advantage of Rome's infantry-heavy system. And IIRC the tables were turned once the Romans got the Numidians to switch sides. Yet the Romans did not switch to a pure cavalry system; they knew that both arms were important on the battlefield.)

I notice I'm crossposting with gleichman; he's correct of course that for an RPG as commonly conceived, only the tactical level matters. But beyond that, really all that matters is the small-scale skirmish involving no more than a a couple dozen figures per side.

(Personally I would be very excited to see more RPGs that find ways of incorporating higher-level tactics, but that's a bit outside the scope of what most people look at. Though granted, such a thing would be a good tool for incorporating historicity and enhancing tactical gameply.)

For the small-scale skirmish, the validity of combined arms varies. Only from WWII onward do I believe that a squad or platoon could consist of people operating in specialized tactical roles, such as BAR or light machine-gunner providing a firebase and other men acting as a maneuver element. Prior to that time if you had varied elements on a side, within a skirmish, it was either an accident of war or, basically, a nonmilitary riot/street fight--if it happened at all outside of adventure stories.

Quote from: blakkieI still don't get why someone looking for tactical and strategic challenges would come to RPGs, especially D&D (any version or flavour). It is nearly the polar opposite with it's stacks of obscure rules, it's dice, and hidden secrets.

I'll answer this for myself, for I do indeed come to RPGs for challenges tactical and strategic.

I use to wargame a great deal almost from the start of the hobby until it's almost death when SPI died. RPGs dragged me away from it for simple reasons- context and investment.

While I had great fun fighting out, oh say the air battles at Midway- I didn't have much of an investment. It was a moment of history that belonged to someone else. I could and did play hypothetical campaigns with continuous histories made up by ourselves, but even those didn't give me a feeling of investment because I as anything other than an abstract commander wasn't really present.

Faceless soliders.

RPGs take it to the next level. My character has a name, a history, desires and hates. A reason for being. He likes that person, loves this girl. He fights for these reasons.

You play RPGs, you must know how much depth one can give them.

Now I get to take that investment of character and take him to war and battle. I can play out all the things the cause him to be there, and I get to play our all the impact the events of it has upon him.

In an rpg, I have the full context for my wargame at last.

That's why.


The D&D side of things, I'll leave for others. I can't use that game for this purpose.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen(Personally I would be very excited to see more RPGs that find ways of incorporating higher-level tactics, but that's a bit outside the scope of what most people look at. Though granted, such a thing would be a good tool for incorporating historicity and enhancing tactical gameply.)

I would too.

Our long-term fantasy campaign has to some extent. We've fully engaged the Operational level of things in our mass combat system, and we certainly have strategy to some extent.

But I'd like to see more examples so I could steal good ideas.

Quote from: Elliot WilenFor the small-scale skirmish, the validity of combined arms varies. Only from WWII onward do I believe that a squad or platoon could consist of people operating in specialized tactical roles, such as BAR or light machine-gunner providing a firebase and other men acting as a maneuver element. Prior to that time if you had varied elements on a side, within a skirmish, it was either an accident of war or, basically, a nonmilitary riot/street fight--if it happened at all outside of adventure stories.

I would generally agree here although there are some exceptions earlier, I would think of them as a bit of nitpick.

Fantasy games however allow combine arms by the inclusion of specialized skill sets, magic, and of course the fact that they are about heroic fiction for the most part instead of reality. And I would say that by allowing them- they make the game more fun for the typical player.

Quote from: blakkieExcept people. Millions and millions of people. With firearms and explosives.  EDIT: And some armour vehicles as well, that had remained hidden. But they were not much of a match once the US ground forces forced them to expose themselves.

Yeah, most of them were willing to surrender on the first sight of anyone.

Brian, you haven´t read my postings carefully, and you come off arrogant while not adressing any one the issues I´ve delineated in ameaningful way.

Then you pick out two of my examples, and say they are invalid without argument. This is dishonest. And your off-hand comments are at the level of CNN.

You obviously misunderstood me, so I´ll try to clarify.

1) You mistook my overgeneralized statement regarding guerilla wars as me being a subscriber to to buzzword talk of assymmetrical warfare. Regarding the Vietnam example, see my comment on Clausewitz. It precedes your off-hand snark, but says the same. The pont regarding Vietnam is: The tactics used were not solely or most often combined arms. The tactical variety in most of the engagements in these wars was not achieved via a multitude of dissimiliar assetts. But by a plethora of different usages of the basic foot soldier. This is especially true for the VietCong side of things. It´s totally irrelevant what the kill ratio was. Did the VC act tactically diverse? Yes. We, as interested parties should look into that.

What were some of th the main changes of conduct for the US/Western militaries? Changes in infantry tactics, deployment, movement and equipment of foots soldiers, organization. Popular examples include air cavalry, seek & destroy, forward forts,  etc.

So there is a world of tactical richness beyond dissimiliar assets, movement on the battlefield and ressources. At least in reality.

2) Did I attack your article? No. No need to get pissy.

3) Most eras of history have been utterly dominated by a certain fighting style. Sometimes new ways creeped in, as did the musket, sometimes it happens in the short period of some hours, as with the Swiss or Torpedo Bombers.

4) The idea of combined arms, is a tactical doctrine, derived from WWII. Most soldiers in all human history have never participated in combined arms operations.

5) dissimiliar assetts have always been an important part in tactics.

The only real criticims I raise against your article, is that you look into combined arms for dissimiliar assetts.

And my counterargument is: that line of thinking, is one thing I´ve seen very often among officers, textbooks, politicians and especially wargamers.

Dissimilarities stem from a multitude of sources. And usually, the differences in organization, deployment scheme, motivation, structure, training, leadership, current fatigue level, ammunition of the "Silver Bullett" of the time are more important than the differences between the different troop types of the time.

The last paragraph is important, if it´s unclear, I´ll gladly rephrase.

Quote from: SettembriniThe only real criticims I raise against your article, is that you look into combined arms for dissimiliar assetts.

This is the only point I'm going to respond to, because it's the only one on topic for 'Role-Playing Games'. If you wish to take up the other matter, please feel free to. I would suggest the 'Off-Topic' board. I likely won't be taking part unless the thread goes somewhere of interest to me.



In the article Combine Arms was an example and analogy, one related to the subject at hand because both were relate to battle (be it, one side was only fictional) and both shared things in common. It was not a meant to be the entirely of the subject. I would have to write at much greater length to manage that.

Frankly I don't see how it could fail in those limited terms but there is always the risk that someone will take exception to such examples. If one used a free market exchange analogy for rpg point construction systems, I'm sure the socialist would find fault.

I think it clear you would have wrote a different article. Feel free, I'm a terrible writer and perhaps you could do better.