Why does stuff die so quickly in modern warfare?

[altipueri]

A couple of years ago I thought I should go post WW2 - and all my guys died.

This should link to a vid of an Armored Brigade night time defence:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtGFEfDwtE0

(If it doesn't try going to the forum)


My stuff gets blown up in CMO and Flashpoint Campaigns too. War used to be so civilised.

[Zap]

Although I want to like modern warfare gaming. Your point is a reason its not so enjoyable.

[Kuokkanen]

Why does stuff die so quickly in modern warfare?

In First World War an artillery regiment was lucky to hit a bunker. Right now a howitzer can land a hit on a machine gun inside of a building on first shot of indirect fire.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: altipueri

A couple of years ago I thought I should go post WW2 - and all my guys died.

warspite1

For me personally, warfare post Hiroshima is just so un-interesting. Smart bombs, laser guided this, that and the other, and nukes. Just too boring.

ORIGINAL: altipueri

My stuff gets blown up in CMO and Flashpoint Campaigns too. War used to be so civilised.

warspite1

Agreed. It was much more civilised in the past; nothing says civilised more than being sliced in two from head to foot with an axe or burnt alive with a flamethrower [;)][:D]

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Agreed. It was much more civilised in the past; nothing says civilised more than being sliced in two from head to foot with an axe or burnt alive with a flamethrower [;)][:D]

Yes. It is indeed much more civilized by being cut in half by a lightsaber. It is, after all, a more civilized weapon.

[JWW]

I keep wondering, if a major conflict happens between two near peer major powers, will it really be as deadly as predicted. I tend to think so, but we won't know until it happens, and I'm not sure we have a good test case in real life.

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: jwarrenw13

I keep wondering, if a major conflict happens between two near peer major powers, will it really be as deadly as predicted. I tend to think so, but we won't know until it happens, and I'm not sure we have a good test case in real life.

Perhaps not. If we look at wars between "near peers" but not major powers, wars tend to drag and civilians seem to suffer more than the armies themselves. Stuff like Gulf War is not a good example as it's basically a superpower doing a lightning campaign with all available resources. If two super powers went head to head they couldn't either trust on superiority/supremacy, nor concentrate everything on one spot.

[DD696]

Depends on who is fighting who. The Iran Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 turned into trench warfare and banzai charges. I reckon a lot of dumb kids got to become a martyrs in a hurry, but it seems to me to be much more reminiscent of fighting during world war I. I don't know if that is considered modern, or if I will be banned for bringing up something regarding recent political events, for me anyway. On Google Earth you can still see the fortifications built during that war. It is a shame that A did not neutralize B and that B did not neutralize A. When two bad guys are fighting, it is difficult to know who to root for, except in retrospect.

[DeepBlack]

Killing the enemy is a dreadful waste. The goal is
wounding an enemy badly enough that they require
long-term medical care. These seriously wounded drain the
enemy war effort far more than the dead will ever do.

Because, the dead can be tossed into a hole somewhere,
feted with speeches about their noble sacrifices and
their families paid off.

In contrast, badly wounded enemies will be a net drain
for the duration of the conflict and beyond, removing
resources that otherwise would be used to prosecute the war.

So in summation, killing the enemy is bad. Ripping of
their limbs is good. The more limbs detached, the merrier the
results!

[Lobster]

In a modern conflict that lasts more than a handful of months all of the high tech stuff gets blown up first. Since it takes so long to make the deadly hight tech progressively lower tech gets to the field. So if the conflict drags on it will become less deadly baring the use of nukes. But then if nukes get used really low tech stuff gets used later because anything using electricity becomes a paper weight. Swords, spears, bows and clubs.

[Rosseau]

Anyone who has played the Combat Mission 2 series WW2 titles, versus CM Black Sea and Shock Force 2, finds the latter two are very different games, obviously. Black Sea is especially deadly, although you can get enamored to studying all about the high tech stuff they simulate.

Battlefront has really done a great job (IMHO), with the newest Cold War title not quite so deadly, and maybe a happy medium. Although "happy" is certainly the wrong word if you're on the firing line!

It will be very interesting to see how the upcoming Matrix Broken Arrow game turns out. I hope really good!

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

But then if nukes get used really low tech stuff gets used later because anything using electricity becomes a paper weight. Swords, spears, bows and clubs.

Gunpowder was in production long before electricity was invented (let's ignore claims about fuel cell batteries in ancient Egypt). Rifles were in mass production just before electricity got to power industries. Even right now rifles can be rifled with hand powered tools only. If one has a generator (wind turbine or whatever else), some industrial equipment, and rusty junk metal, some guns can be made.

[ncc1701e]

You guys must play Combat Mission Black Sea. [:D]

[ncc1701e]

And, by the way, Combat Mission Black Sea does not even have rocket artillery. I really hope to see BM-21 Grad introduced in its first expansion.

[altipueri]

I've been re-visiting Armored Brigade and liked it more since the scenarios and videos that Russian Heel made: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5092103

I would be grateful if somebody who likes post 1945 stuff could produce a summary of when various tech advances happened because, as I said, all my stuff gets blown up - what do you mean the bad guys can see at night ?

[OldSarge]

In modern games it is vital that you become familiar with the systems you have available. What are their capabilities? For example, what type of guidance is used by your ATGM team? MCLOS like the AT-3 Sagger? Or SCLOS like the BGM-71 TOW? Knowing this will help inform your tactical decisions and improve your chances.

Staying on the move is useful as well, fire too many times from one position and you'll likely receive a hailstorm of artillery. In AB, I found that moving my forces after three shots was a good tactic. You'll also want to take advantage of the terrain to mask your movement.

In Cold War games after 1980 you're usually seeing NATO develop an increasing qualitative edge versus WP quantity. Before 1980, NATO and WP are roughly equivalent, it is usually a tough job for NATO to be anything other than a speed bump.

It still can become a bloody mess.

[Curtis Lemay]

Yet the figures seem to be only 51,000 Taliban killed in 20 years of warfare. Average of 2550 per year.

[altipueri]

Looks like you got a 10:1 kill ratio but still, quantity has a quality all its own.

"ATGM team? MCLOS like the AT-3 Sagger? Or SCLOS like the BGM-71 TOW?"

???

Ok, I'm old and I've had a few beers.

--
I'd like to think you rather made my point

[altipueri]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Yet the figures seem to be only 51,000 Taliban killed in 20 years of warfare. Average of 2550 per year.

This is a good read about the Taliban:


https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9404/9404-h/9404-h.htm


Here's a bit:

This state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which recks little of injuries, holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless levity, and the tribesmen of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of temper. Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence for all forms of law and authority, and a complete assurance of equality, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British power. A trifle rouses their animosity. They make a sudden attack on some frontier post. They are repulsed. From their point of view the incident is closed. There has been a fair fight in which they have had the worst fortune. What puzzles them is that "the Sirkar" should regard so small an affair in a serious light. Thus the Mohmands cross the frontier and the action of Shabkadr is fought. They are surprised and aggrieved that the Government are not content with the victory, but must needs invade their territories, and impose punishment. Or again, the Mamunds, because a village has been burnt, assail the camp of the Second Brigade by night. It is a drawn game. They are astounded that the troops do not take it in good part.

They, when they fight among themselves, bear little malice, and the combatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses of their comrades or suspend operations for a festival or a horse race. At the end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet so full of contradictions is their character, that all this is without prejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and private blood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind. I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to understand their mental impulses—if he knew, when it was their honour to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they were bound to protect and when to kill him—he might, by judging his times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which, when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently devoured.

I remark with pleasure, as an agreeable trait in the character of the Pathans, the immunity, dictated by a rude spirit of chivalry, which in their ceaseless brawling, their women enjoy. Many forts are built at some distance from any pool or spring. When these are besieged, the women are allowed by the assailants to carry water to the foot of the walls by night. In the morning the defenders come out and fetch it—of course under fire—and are enabled to continue their resistance. But passing from the military to the social aspect of their lives, the picture assumes an even darker shade, and is unrelieved by any redeeming virtue. We see them in their squalid, loopholed hovels, amid dirt and ignorance, as degraded a race as any on the fringe of humanity: fierce as the tiger, but less cleanly; as dangerous, not so graceful. Those simple family virtues, which idealists usually ascribe to primitive peoples, are conspicuously absent. Their wives and their womenkind generally, have no position but that of animals. They are freely bought and sold, and are not infrequently bartered for rifles. Truth is unknown among them. A single typical incident displays the standpoint from which they regard an oath. In any dispute about a field boundary, it is customary for both claimants to walk round the boundary he claims, with a Koran in his hand, swearing that all the time he is walking on his own land. To meet the difficulty of a false oath, while he is walking over his neighbor's land, he puts a little dust from his own field into his shoes. As both sides are acquainted with the trick, the dismal farce of swearing is usually soon abandoned, in favor of an appeal to force.

All are held in the grip of miserable superstition. The power of the ziarat, or sacred tomb, is wonderful. Sick children are carried on the backs of buffaloes, sometimes sixty or seventy miles, to be deposited in front of such a shrine, after which they are carried back—if they survive the journey—in the same way. It is painful even to think of what the wretched child suffers in being thus jolted over the cattle tracks. But the tribesmen consider the treatment much more efficacious than any infidel prescription. To go to a ziarat and put a stick in the ground is sufficient to ensure the fulfillment of a wish. To sit swinging a stone or coloured glass ball, suspended by a string from a tree, and tied there by some fakir, is a sure method of securing a fine male heir. To make a cow give good milk, a little should be plastered on some favorite stone near the tomb of a holy man. These are but a few instances; but they may suffice to reveal a state of mental development at which civilisation hardly knows whether to laugh or weep.

Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood—"Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs,"—and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with the theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the people. More than this, they enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," and no man's wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write. As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach."

Yet the life even of these barbarous people is not without moments when the lover of the picturesque might sympathise with their hopes and fears. In the cool of the evening, when the sun has sunk behind the mountains of Afghanistan, and the valleys are filled with a delicious twilight, the elders of the village lead the way to the chenar trees by the water's side, and there, while the men are cleaning their rifles, or smoking their hookas, and the women are making rude ornaments from beads, and cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine the conversation passing from the prices of arms and cattle, the prospects of the harvest, or the village gossip, to the great Power, that lies to the southward, and comes nearer year by year. Perhaps some former Sepoy, of Beluchis or Pathans, will recount his adventures in the bazaars of Peshawar, or tell of the white officers he has followed and fought for in the past. He will speak of their careless bravery and their strange sports; of the far-reaching power of the Government, that never forgets to send his pension regularly as the months pass by; and he may even predict to the listening circle the day when their valleys will be involved in the comprehensive grasp of that great machine, and judges, collectors and commissioners shall ride to sessions at Ambeyla, or value the land tax on the soil of Nawagai. Then the Mullah will raise his voice and remind them of other days when the sons of the prophet drove the infidel from the plains of India, and ruled at Delhi, as wide an Empire as the Kafir holds to-day: when the true religion strode proudly through the earth and scorned to lie hidden and neglected among the hills: when mighty princes ruled in Bagdad, and all men knew that there was one God, and Mahomet was His prophet. And the young men hearing these things will grip their Martinis, and pray to Allah, that one day He will bring some Sahib—best prize of all—across their line of sight at seven hundred yards so that, at least, they may strike a blow for insulted and threatened Islam.

The

[OldSarge]

ORIGINAL: altipueri

Looks like you got a 10:1 kill ratio but still, quantity has a quality all its own.

"ATGM team? MCLOS like the AT-3 Sagger? Or SCLOS like the BGM-71 TOW?"

???

Ok, I'm old and I've had a few beers.

--
I'd like to think you rather made my point

Oh yes, just because a side has a qualitative edge doesn't mean they have the ability to employ it. For the WP player, it is sufficient to close with NATO and bang them like a cheap drum. For the NATO player, the goal is to play rope a dope and deal with WP from afar.

ATGM - Anti-Tank Guided Missile
MCLOS and SACLOS (a typo in the above) are types of guidance systems available during different periods of the Cold War.
MCLOS was used in 1st generation ATGM and required the firer to basically fly the missile to the target. Its weakness is that the firer has to remain focused on the path of the missile, anything that disrupts him will likely result in a missile miss as the Israeli army discovered during the '73 Yom Kippur War.
SACLOS came about with 2nd generation ATGM and only require the firer to keep sights on the target, but the firer still has to remain stationary.
Later generations of ATGM, like the U.S. Javelin, have fire and forget types of guidance.

Games like Combat Mission Shock Force 2, Combat Mission Black Sea (I haven't picked up CM Cold War yet) and Command Modern Operations do a pretty effective job at showcasing the increasing lethality of modern warfare.

I'm old too! I was in Europe during the transition from the early Cold War era to the late Cold War era, so the 'what if' intrigues me - and makes me glad it never happened.