[WarInEur] Comment on Attrition

[sgminfo]

Kent's points are well made on the whole concept.

The interesting thing about this is, on the theoretical side we can make 
good arguments either way, indeed most points are sufficiently plausible 
to half convince us before we get to the table.

Where things fall off the rails, intriguingly, are that the actual 
experience of a game in anger against a live and unpredictable opponent, 
often seem not to agree with our expectations. There are enough 
variables interacting to make the effect sufficiently complex to just 
about make our projections suddenly seem, disconcertingly, so much less 
predictable.

For example, often overlooked:-
The Soviet player makes a break and runs for it, secure in the knowldge 
that when he fetches up at the outskirts of Moscow, his opponent will be 
at 60-95% attrition, and like lambs to the slaughter.

The experience of the reality:-
He suddenly himself finds his own formations struggling there, are every 
bit as bad, and  the theoretical seesaw is not quite so one sided as 
first calculations do appear. The defender might run, but use the 
railways or he might go by sea, or he just might walk. The possibilities 
are quite significant, but the effects of the mix are anything but obvious.

At this moment almost everyone is convinced that the Germans will suffer 
a veritable massacre in front of Moscow.

NO ONE  HAS REALLY GAMED IT OUT yet. The reality may be completely 
different, indeed it may take several games before the Germans evolve a 
tactical course that allows them to survive, or again, this task may 
have to be done by the Soviets. What we fail to appreciate is that the 
flood of new forces fleshing out the line for the Soviets may not even 
be fit enough, initially, to take on a rampaging MSU.

The key fact is...once again...like 1941..none of us yet really are sure 
of the outcome, the maths leads us to but  one conclusion, but in 
1941..there was in the real world but one general conclusion..and there 
everyone was mistaken.
. So what the concept does, it turns over the gaming tables a little 
bit, and we are faced with new unknowns, clouding the stereotyped and 
overplanned games such that the issue is once more less than perfectly 
forseeable.

To underscore that point, the tables are not fixed in stone, but can be 
tweaked, as the experience builds up, so we can mod the effect towards 
the mean, if there are ahistorical outcomes that we are pretty certain 
are due to distortions.

But consider this, it may be possible to remove the special layer of 
kludge factors that we have for the first winter, with attrition in 
action, and have, for the first time, universal supply rules that don't 
have to be bent, as they are in the standard game , to ensure that the 
Soviets stand a chance of surviving that first year in the field.

It is a possible (no more) route to enjoying the game in a new way, as 
an experience that feels very different, and very much less plannable 
with most of the field commanders here, who have a most well appointed 
book of opening moves. Since most of the effects are relatively small 
scale and fixed (movement at the moment causing a 4% change in strength, 
for example), they are not so unstable and capricious, as to turn a 
battle into a multi-layered lottery.

But what we can say...
The option is just that...
It is also tunable
And it is new

So the risks of inserting new wine into old bottles, are heavily set 
about with hedges, and tweaks, to minimise the damage, or amplify it, as 
we find out a bit more in the tasting.

-|steve|-