Excellent and relevant documentary

[Dutchie999]

Hi guys,

I don't know if this is the right place for it but I wanted to share something. I finally found a documentary that goes into very specific details of major, modern, US led air campaign. In this case the air campaign in Gulf War I. General strategy, electronic warfare, air superiority strategy, SEAD operations, general US SEAD tactics and the Iraqi IADS are all covered in detail. Very interesting to watch to see how the 'pro's' do it!

Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-JZ7vT9s5o

[CaptCarnage]

+1!
Very awesome.

[MrGandi]

3000 coalition planes?!?! I wonder whether it will be ever possible to create such huge scenario. And what monster machine would be able to run it.[&:]

[Gunner98]

3xB52's every 90 min - for 39 Days! [&o][&o]

[Dutchie999]

ORIGINAL: MrGandi

3000 coalition planes?!?! I wonder whether it will be ever possible to create such huge scenario. And what monster machine would be able to run it.[&:]

I personally notice that when running a big scenario almost always my CPU is the limiting factor. I have a Macbook Pro (mid 2010) running windows 7, 2,4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 and a 5400rpm harddrive. If the software C:MANO is written in has no constraints then I am sure with something like a i7 5820K ($350) you can run very big scenario's (maybe 3.000+?). But I doubt games can effectively use all 6 cores at once.

[gbethel]

I've run scenarios with 8000+ AU's. It's slow but it will run.

[Gunner98]

Am running an i7-4770 and can run fairly big scenarios, but if you have 6000 AC on one side you need a good number of targets, decent IADS and whatever air forces the Iraqi’s had to make it a fun scenario for the player - otherwise it just becomes work to get everything flying.

I can see a decent - but very large - scenario covering the first 18 hrs with ~ 600 allied A/C taking down the IADS. That would still top out over 2000 AU I think.

B

[MrGandi]

My Macbook is mid 2012 and maybe way faster but such scenarios with 8000+ would be more pain then joy regarding slow motion I guess. But good to know it's possible.
Also thanks to dev team who do great work on performance optimization.

However besides a powerfull machine the other thing is the huge amount of time to create scenarios like the air campaign during Desert Storm.[;)]

[Mgellis]

ORIGINAL: MrGandi

3000 coalition planes?!?! I wonder whether it will be ever possible to create such huge scenario. And what monster machine would be able to run it.[&:]

No, no, no...the solution to this problem is not only simple but probably gives people more variety anyway.

You don't make a scenario with 3,000 units. You make 10-15 different scenarios that each have 200-300 units. Naturally, they all have to have some differences, but since different ships, planes, targets, etc. will be involved, that should not be too difficult.

What I'm finding, more and more, is that a good maximum size for a scenario is where each side has about one carrier battle group's worth of ships, planes, facilities, etc. (or maybe two of them) and the scenario lasts anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The game will run fine if you make the scenario bigger and/or longer, but it becomes increasingly harder to keep the gameplay itself running smoothly.

And, besides, this way you get a dozen scenarios instead of just one.

[Gunner98]

Agree 100%. Parsing out the distinct activity is the trick. A few possibilities:

-Going Downtown --- Bagdad
-Dismantling the WMD facilities
-Bridge busting
-Scud hunting
-The Battle of Khafji
-Highway of death


B

[hedning]

Thanks for the share, I really was impressed to hear about how B52's dropping for over a month! That must have been some ridiculous money scattered in the desert...

OfT: Haha like your avatar, Corporal Dwight.

[Pergite!]

ORIGINAL: Mgellis

ORIGINAL: MrGandi

3000 coalition planes?!?! I wonder whether it will be ever possible to create such huge scenario. And what monster machine would be able to run it.[&:]

No, no, no...the solution to this problem is not only simple but probably gives people more variety anyway.

You don't make a scenario with 3,000 units. You make 10-15 different scenarios that each have 200-300 units. Naturally, they all have to have some differences, but since different ships, planes, targets, etc. will be involved, that should not be too difficult.

What I'm finding, more and more, is that a good maximum size for a scenario is where each side has about one carrier battle group's worth of ships, planes, facilities, etc. (or maybe two of them) and the scenario lasts anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The game will run fine if you make the scenario bigger and/or longer, but it becomes increasingly harder to keep the gameplay itself running smoothly.

And, besides, this way you get a dozen scenarios instead of just one.

Then there is the human in the loop as well to consider i.e the player. A military rule of thumb is that a commander should not have more than 5-8 (rough figure) subordinates to command, be they ships, aircraft or squad members. If you have 3000 planes, than those are divided into different units in different levels which means that General Schwarzkopf in this case did not have to draw waypoints and select loadouts for each and everyone of them.

Many wargames and scenarios totally misses this point completely making the game more of a chore than putting the player in actual command. The whole staff element is also often completely missing, making the player scan around in different menus to compile own lists and keep track of availability of everything from jet fuel to torpedoes and weather-fronts. A working AI staff that could help you out with logistics and keep track of assessment of enemy strengths etc. would have been really great to have in a game like Command.

You of course could do this all by yourself, but then you would be playing more with MS Excel than with the actual game. This has led me to the fact that I more enjoy the smaller, low unit density scenarios where one actually can keep track of everything with a just some comments on a notepad between sessions.