[WarInEur] Artillery

[sgminfo]

Ian Raine wrote:
> I don't think the artillery usage is meant to represent some sort of 
> psuedo-tactical model...

I have thought about this, as your post brings up several very valid 
points.

I disagree, not because you are in anyway wrong in what you say, but 
more because I think we ascribe too much of the Scientific, nuts and 
bolts, approach, to the actual process of Game design by SPI.


We have the luxury of the bottom up approach, the project is already 
finished, and we fiddle with the minutiae. so detailed back reference to 
the real world, is the benchmark, indeed the only mark of accuracy. SPI 
surely went the top down approach, broad brush with incremental 
refinements backwards until it was where they wanted the sim to be.

Thus the 6-5 and the 8-10 were arrived at, in all likelihood, by a sort 
of esoteric rule of thumb, leavened with flashes of "gut feeling".
i.e. The 6-5 vs the 1-4 seemed about right for performance in 1941 in 
the east, and once these were fixed down all else had to be hammered in 
around this assumption. The French 3-4 was modelled in the same way, and 
the 8-10 was crafted in later.

 The 8-10 was a subjective assumption about performance in 1944, not 
whether there was any organic artillery, but that underpins the 
performance itrw, and hence is part, unconsciously , of the subjective 
assessment.

With Artillery units I think the design criteria were more mundane, and 
rough and ready.

All the commentaries repeatedly harp on about the massed  artillery 
smothering any German position under attack, so...we must have some sort 
of a nod towards artillery as a clear unit to deploy. Soviet counters 
are biased towards a representational model of the 1941-42 combat 
structure, which is hopelessly inadequate to represent the same units in 
the later war years, so we need a force multiplier, so the artillery 
counter is added in. It is a supremely neat way of magnifying combat 
effectiveness, whilst at the same time rationing that capability to 
prevent an overwhelming result, whilst at the same time keeping the 
existing cardboard counters down to a manageable limit (cost wise). 
Changing unit strengths would be the only other way to go with huge 
increases in exchangeable counters, and a resulting price that puts it 
out in the junk yard.

At the same time it drives home to the student the change in overall 
capability in the Soviet army, the vast increase in capability of 
assaulting troops in a way that gives an easily identifieable handle on 
thechanges, whilst the device of the crt takes care of doctrine and 
other OB influences. The artillery movement rules compel a restricted 
offensive doctrine, that forces the soviet attacker to advertise his 
intention to offensive operations in a sector, with the timely arrival 
of the artillery concentrations.

But primarily, first and foremost, it is a cheap way to mod the beast, 
with a nod towards history, in a way that players could accept dressed 
up as history.


SPI, being commercial, above all needed a product that worked. How 
accurate it might be in detail was not so important as getting a result 
that approximated to the war. As long as the lines on the map tended to 
follow history, then that was good enough to go to market, in time (if 
possible), and somewhere near budget.
 Other monster efforts, were a salutary lesson, and my guess was that 
discipline on accuracy was quite draconian when it came up against 
budgetary deadlines and timetables.

When you have a vast spectrum of players, in terms of age and ability, 
you want a game that is easily grasped, so that at the ground floor 
level it is easy to gain basic competence, so that the less experienced 
do not find themselves out of their depth and unable to square up to the 
more qualified, over the game table.It was history, but it was also a 
game, and to be a commercial success, it had to be big and impressive, 
but more importantly, enjoyable, and easy to understand..

The pseudo tactical type of influence should not be dismissed too 
readily, for it serves to give a sort of bogus, but effective, backing 
to the way the games feels in play.

SPI were not above sleight of hand to achieve the desired result, 
production numbers and the CRT show how they could skew the game 
influences to achieve what was intended.

As Jerry repeatedly says, it is only a game.....but SPIs genius was that 
they could persuade you to part with good cash, for a product that was 
well beyond the normal price spectrum of the parlour evening game, with 
a far greater demand on time and resources, quite a remarkable feat.

DNO showed the other side of the coin, how far you could try and push 
towards technical accuracy, without falling under a mountain of unpaid 
vills, and broken deadlines.

-|steve|-
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