TOAW – Professional use and value?

Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War III is the next game in the award-winning Operational Art of War game series. TOAW3 is updated and enhanced version of the TOAW: Century of Warfare game series. TOAW3 is a turn based game covering operational warfare from 1850-2015. Game scale is from 2.5km to 50km and half day to full week turns. TOAW3 scenarios have been designed by over 70 designers and included over 130 scenarios. TOAW3 comes complete with a full game editor.

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USXpat
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TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by USXpat »

Let me first reference - http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a397321.pdf

This is a thesis by Maj Thomas J. Willmuth to the US Army Command and General Staff College examining Operation Crusader via the Operational Art of War. It is dated (2001), but very detailed in its evaluation of TOAW and with generally favorable conclusions over possible usefulness as “more than just a game”.

Primary Questions:
1. How does TOAW compare to other “software & systems” currently available to the likes of the US Army War College and other academic/strategic analysis forums?

2. What do you consider TOAW’s strongpoints/weakpoints for use in the above venues as a training or modeling tool for both historical and contemporary military studies?

3. What other critical points would you like to emphasize as to TOAW’s potential as a professional tool?


Frankly, I see TOAW having vast untapped potential in these directions, but I do not know what other systems are available. True modern wargames involve extensive realism, but also each major training exercise costs millions of dollars . FPS and TacOps games have achieved extraordinary levels of detail as the military wants soldiers who can twitch; where TOAW is more the domain of “generals and colonels”.

Counter-terrorism tended to reduce the emphasis on conventional operations, but the situation in Ukraine (and elsewhere) has encouraged a re-think. While more sophisticated systems might be available to the US Army, I question whether they are available to countries without such robust military funding?

If you can, please include any capacity you’ve had to help qualify your experience and awareness on this topic, you can PM me if you like. That’s not to discount anyone’s participation so much as to be able to direct more specific questions where appropriate.

My intention is to initiate a similar discussion on LinkedIn in the Military History and Strategy Group - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Military-History-Strategy-1373847/about in a week or two.
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golden delicious
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by golden delicious »

I don't have the expertise to answer your first point. I'm dimly aware that the US Army has a similar system that they developed bespoke, and even more dimly that TOAW stood up fairly well against it- but that's all.
ORIGINAL: USXpat

2. What do you consider TOAW’s strongpoints/weakpoints for use in the above venues as a training or modeling tool for both historical and contemporary military studies?

The biggest problem with contemporary studies is going to be the inability to model non-military considerations. Even in the more conventional conflicts of the past two decades, simply defeating the enemy militarily has been an insufficient objective.

To give one example, the loss penalty is calculated based on the AP factors of the equipment lost, which is reasonable for the conflicts around which TOAW was designed (Normandy and the Korean War). In truth for a Western military it's likely to be the sheer number of casualties; losing an attack helicopter is not worse than losing a platoon of infantry. In TOAW, it is.

I'd agree that second tier militaries might get some value from TOAW, but in the modern world these forces generally only have relevance as an adjunct to a much larger ally. Moreover many developing countries send their best officer candidates overseas for training anyway.
3. What other critical points would you like to emphasize as to TOAW’s potential as a professional tool?

I will note that a well-designed TOAW scenario does encourage players to act as if they are fighting a battle rather than playing a computer game, which is obviously critical for training- if all your cadets are doing is learning how to game the system then you are wasting your time. However the other side of this coin is that effective scenario design (as you know from your own experience) is a huge undertaking in terms of time and effort.

I've also been involved in a couple of multi-player (i.e. more than two) TOAW matches. These can be painfully slow but they do produce interesting results in terms of teamwork, and perhaps more accurately reflect the way militaries operate. This is something which I think should be explored further.
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governato
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by governato »

Telumar and I have been thinkign of a multiplayer game of `East Front'..yeah it'd be great fun/challenging.
USXpat
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by USXpat »

Thanks Ben - all good, valid points - on the difficulty of modeling, access to (possibly) better training systems and potential for students to lose sight of training objectives. The latter was addressed at some length by Major Willmuth, along with his participants expressing concern for the amount of time his exercise took. Training objective/s and time requirements for "classroom" purposes could be addressed fairly easily depending upon whether TOAW is a course unto itself or part of a broader curriculum.

Relevant more to Ralph's and Matrix's interests, I think there is some potential for military funding, grants, endowments, sub-licenses, other resources and the like to expand upon TOAW's capabilities relative to the needs of different country's military interests. Or to put it a different way... [8|] there are both military and civilian representatives of different countries actively exploring "wargames" as a training tool and otherwise. Now that World of Tanks is a monetized e-sport, there is also room for military advisers to work with civilian teams.

The situation in Ukraine resparked my interest in this direction (for wide-ranging and multitudinous reasons), suffice there have been some WTF Moments that raise endless lists of questions. If there is not NOW, there should be a system whereby one can look at something like a TOAW screen and get nearly the same kind of information on any unit's status in near real-time. This kind of thing is in place now for top level C&C to watch in on squad level tactical ops - but not for logistical matters. Several instances from Iraq to Afghanistan indicate a system like that would be tremendously useful and with a relatively low cost.

Computer games are getting more and more realistic, so what we know about software over the past 20 years is going to pale in comparison to what we see in the next 20, or even 5-10.
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by golden delicious »

ORIGINAL: USXpat

If there is not NOW, there should be a system whereby one can look at something like a TOAW screen and get nearly the same kind of information on any unit's status in near real-time. This kind of thing is in place now for top level C&C to watch in on squad level tactical ops - but not for logistical matters. Several instances from Iraq to Afghanistan indicate a system like that would be tremendously useful and with a relatively low cost.

I'm wary of this. There were also instances in the Iraq war of local officers being overruled by the guys in Doha with all their systems and information- and it turning out that the officer on the ground (or in the air) was right.

It's understandable that generals should desire to know and control everything, but I think it's also highly dangerous. I'd suggest that devolved command will be more robust and produce better results.
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golden delicious
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

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ORIGINAL: governato

Telumar and I have been thinkign of a multiplayer game of `East Front'..yeah it'd be great fun/challenging.

Need players?
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governato
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by governato »

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: governato

Telumar and I have been thinkign of a multiplayer game of `East Front'..yeah it'd be great fun/challenging.

Need players?


Definitely! I will keep you in mind if you are interested. But most likely it is something for after the patch as I have two EF games ongoing. The question was how to deal with the multiphases..but I think it should be simple, one team player moves the formations under his command,
set the attacks, requests control for extra units for the next turn and then passes the save to the 'main' player who finishes the
turn, including all other phases, decides to release/take units from the first player and sends the turn to the other team. This is probably best for the Soviet team that does not have get many phases anyway. The 'main' player position could be switched at intervals...
It'd make for a challenging game!
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by golden delicious »

ORIGINAL: governato



Definitely! I will keep you in mind if you are interested. But most likely it is something for after the patch as I have two EF games ongoing. The question was how to deal with the multiphases..but I think it should be simple, one team player moves the formations under his command,
set the attacks, requests control for extra units for the next turn and then passes the save to the 'main' player who finishes the
turn, including all other phases, decides to release/take units from the first player and sends the turn to the other team. This is probably best for the Soviet team that does not have get many phases anyway. The 'main' player position could be switched at intervals...
It'd make for a challenging game!

This is how our "Great War" match worked, and it did make the game move quickly, though for relatively static fighting it made the co-ordinating player very powerful. In a more mobile campaign (like the East Front) it will be less of a problem.

Note that in the multiplayer DNO match, we had only a single Soviet player. I'm not sure why this was done.
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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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USXpat
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by USXpat »

Iraq was a logistical nightmare. I was with EG&G/LSI at Al Asad, Al Taqaddum, Anaconda and briefly at Doha on the logistics side, 2004-5. Can't believe it's already been a decade, but so it goes. Doha had a point in that there were thousands of con-x's that had been shipped, received, but not processed to the different camps around Iraq. Too many issues to address without going into detail, suffice that I do agree, completely, that the logistical status of a unit should be determined by the unit.

In Ukraine, we've had units deployed to the Donetsk/Lugansk region without food. So, however FUBAR Iraq was, the first 90 days following the occupation of Crimea were much more FUBAR. To some extent, still. A significant portion of military support is being conducted at the grassroots level - fundraising, soliciting donations of flak vests, helmets, night vision goggles, etc.

It could be set that veteran players of TOAW are probably better qualified to conduct operations in Ukraine than most Ukrainian officers. I'm not sure how much that says though... as there was a close correlation between rank and corruption.

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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by golden delicious »

ORIGINAL: USXpat

It could be set that veteran players of TOAW are probably better qualified to conduct operations in Ukraine than most Ukrainian officers. I'm not sure how much that says though... as there was a close correlation between rank and corruption.

I'm a pretty good TOAW player, but when I reflect on it, I'd say that's at best perhaps 20% of what goes into being a good commander at a similar level. To a great extent it's about managing people and knowing how to motivate them and interpret their reactions to things. Moreover in TOAW you can sit back and think about your turn in comfort, and view a situation dispassionately. In warfare, you are ultimately in the business of killing people, and the other side is going to do its best to kill you. That makes it hard to be as rational as a good TOAW player needs to be.
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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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USXpat
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by USXpat »

Granted, thousands of books have been written about all the things that go into making war, leadership, etc. The aim is to define where TOAW can be useful to others in a professional military or academic role; how it compares to other systems commercially available. We've discussed a few of its weak points here, so far. It would be impossible to model Crimea with TOAW.

I see TOAW as potentially useful as a low-cost, hands-on exercise to compliment an existing (or customized) curriculum for military cadets (military history and strategy); contingency planning and situation modeling; exploring hypothetical strategies; and if the program was expanded it could provide a visual situation or unit status report.

While designing scenarios is an involved process, once you have the map, the order of battle and unit TO&E's for a particular situation, the scenario could be updated almost daily; or at least weekly. That could even include revising the event schedule. If a particular problem/situation needed to be analyzed in greater depth, that could be done on the fly, fast and cheap.

Whether it is TOAW or something else that is commercially available, games are becoming increasingly better at modeling real life. That is accelerating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Doom - Doom was adopted and approved for use on US Marine computers back in 1996; and there's also America's Army -- all FPS and Tactical Simulators get some traction in the military as a training tool.

One of the core issues I think that is applicable is frequency of training / frequency of decisions. The games that exist now help soldiers acquire "twitch" abilities - ability to think fast and respond appropriately. I see a lot less of that applying to the benefit of officers.
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RE: TOAW – Professional use and value?

Post by SMK-at-work »

Many years ago my local wargaming (figures) club included a chap from eth NZ Army, and we had a great day playing Delta force & TacOps in the Army's Trentham base on a network of about 20 pc's with 19" monitors - this was about 2000 or so - so it was pretty flash at eth time :)

TacOps wiki page - the US and Aussie armies also licenced TacOps.

The NZ Army now has a more up-to-date simulations unit and I am fairly sure the Aus & US armies will too!! :)
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