How much do you understand about real world tactics?

[Dr Zaius]

How many of you feel that you play TacOps with an eye toward employing your forces using real world doctrine? How did you aquire your knowlede of tactics and other military principles? I know that many people feel that anything goes while wargaming (within the limits of the game engine), while this attitude infuriates purists who see wargaming as an art form.

If you don't know much about tactics how are you seeking to improve your play?

 

[Hub]

I have no military background- I learned tactics from my historical reading and from playing wargames for almost 40 years. What is so great about TacOps is that what works in reality will generally work in the game.

Moving by bounds, overwatch, the recon/counter-recon fight, the use of force multipliers like arty and CAS, etc., if used properly in the game, will give very satisfactory results.

Moving from tactics to doctrine, there is enough fidelity in the game to employ various approaches, and achieve believable results, I think. Having said that, I don't think I would want to be restricted to playing "by-the-book," all the time ("C'mon, a Motor Rifle Regiment doesn't deploy like that!")

 

[Rame]

("C'mon, a Motor Rifle Regiment doesn't deploy like that!")

Hub must be refering to me and the current TacOps scen we are duking it out in.

 

[Redwolf]

If it wasn't for some real-world teaching books I would be totally lost. My formations in particular are right out of real world, although they are partly unneccessary in a wargame with no communication faults.

I think the main unrealistic thing I do is seperate infantry from APCs and load random infantry back into random APCs.

But I think it's safe to say that almost every wargamer is pushing the infantry to unrealistic extends and would provoke mutiny in a real fight.

 

[GCoyote]

I learned the theory and principles in US Army schools back in the 70s and 80s; mission and terrain analysis, weapons systems, force multipliers, admin and logistics, etc. But the day to day chores of running a military unit effectively prevent anyone from devoting the time to tactical proficiency that they would like. I still read military history [documentary, not biography] and have tried to keep up on current technical and tactical developments most of my life.

TacOps has provided me with the ideal tool to study and apply the tactical principles I've learned to my hearts content and explore in detail the issues that interest me most.

Because the game engine has no blue AI I am free to apply rigorous doctrine as I usually do when playing solitare. But I can just as easily throw the rule book out the window and burn through 6 UAVs in an hour and drop a battalion's worth of artillery on two grunts as in Friday's CPX.

Many players do treat their units as cannon fodder but as the author periodically says, "it's your money." I try to achieve only the level of realism in tactics and doctrine that my opponent is comfortable with. I save the dabates on realism for forums like this.

 

[Sniper]

Hi,

How about the converse of this question: Can one learn anything of RL tactics by playing TacOps?

I have no RL military training and have read little on tactics. Over the years I think I have become a pretty good TO player. I regularly beat the AI and do pretty well in PBEM and 2 player network games. But I cannot be sure if have learned any RL tactics or if I simply employ tactics that are successful within the TO game engine.

Comments?

Randy

 

[Tripler]

I learned what tactics I know from a lot of time spent with Army and Marines while in college as an AF ROTC puke. Even afterwards, I've had friends that were Missile Cops that would ask me to "play OPFOR" for real exercises. Now, I'm RED HORSE, and we're taught basic infantry defense tactics even though we're a heavy Engineer unit.

I've learned all that stuff, but I've been able to practice it over a few beers and a keyboard with TacOps. It kind of taught me what to look for so I could kick my cohorts' asses when it came down to exercises. :laugh:

So yeah, I'm an Engineer, but there are times I wish I stayed with the infantry.

Tripler
But I love my job, and I won't lie about that.

P.S. Sniper, I grew up in Ramsey, NJ.

 

[dhuffjr]

As a civilian with zip military experience but a very "odd" hobby as my wife calls it, I get my tactics knowledge from reading. I have power skimmed a lot of the Field Manuals and other DOD publications. I ordered the FM disk from Battlefront as it was faster than downloading them via dial up. I pick up all kinds of military books at used book stores and have gleaned quite a bit that way. These stores are a treasure trove of info at a very reasonable price, you just have to hit them every couple of weeks. I also read a lot of military fiction. Not always 100% accurate in details but you do get an idea of how a unit would fight. I try to go for accuracy in my own gaming and add units to include HQ formations. I actually find that I spend more time playing 2 player games with myself fiddling around with different ideas than I do playing the scenarios.