Skip to main content

Wargame: Red Dragon and Doctrine (Part two)

This was supposed to be the second part of my wargame and doctrine piece focusing on NATO’s airland battle concept and it’s utility in Wargame: Red Dragon. Airland battle is a different beast conceptually that does not lend itself well to direct translation into a significant shift away from the norm of play in the same way Deep Battle does.
Airland battle at its core is about speed (maneuver), precision and lethality. Identify the threat, move to contact with purpose built assets, deliver ordinance accurately and destroy them. This model is to be applied across the entire depth of the enemy force by striking enemy rear areas with artillery and airpower. This prescription is to be applied in the most aggressive possible manner. The initiative is prized in Airland Battle, by exploiting tactical success to achieve operational goals.  
This doctrine is much harder to apply directly to Wargame: Red Dragon. The spirit of Airland battle is already exercised by most players because its objectives are flexible. Deep Battle is a more linear doctrine in the sense that it has more conventional, strict procedures. Part of the problem is also mechanical, the recon assets available in the game are simply not up to the task of collecting enough data to execute Airland Battle effectively. In reality air recon, ground radar, electronic means, and other methods of detecting enemy force concentrations are critical to establish an understanding of the operational situation. This is really a symptom of the divide between simulation and reality. Wargame simply doesn’t have the resolution of simulation to implement these doctrines in any substantive sense.

While Wargame’s limitations may not allow these doctrines to be followed as prescribed exactly, they can be a useful lens for a particular situation or starting point for understanding Wargame better. An understanding of these doctrines, I think, can help players make sense of their units and their roles in combined arms operations simply because most units in the game are the way they are because of one doctrine or the other. Researching these topics definitely made me a better Wargame player. This gathering of context serves a purpose, one which wargamers should understand well; time on recce is seldom wasted.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Games and Theory Ep4 Companion and guest article!

Written by Jordan A. Vandergragt, Games and Theory special guest. This time on The Games and Theory podcast we talk about some strategies to up your game and crush your enemies in Flames of War. Much of the podcast discussion revolves around having a "theory of victory". The basic idea is that as long as you build a list that has combined arms, (infantry, mobile firepower and at least one bombardment) you can win any match with the right plan of attack. This means a bunch of different things that we ramble about in the episode, but in this article I'll attempt to explain my personal theory of victory for my tournament list, as well as discuss a bit about modeling and preparing the army. It took me far too long to decide what force to play at the upcoming tournament at FDB in Gatineau. We haven't had many local mid-war events since the new dynamic points came into effect, so there are a lot of things I wanted to try. My favourite force for mid war is the British crusad...
Post a Comment
Read more

Road to Nationals Part Four: The Most Interesting Card in the Game

Flames of war suffers from the same problem that most tactical games suffer from, the lack of interaction with the operational layer. In missions with reserves, 40% of one's force is for the most part out of your hands, even more so if you use aircraft. In V3 the only influence you had over those all important 5+ rolls was your platoon count. Hit that 9+ platoon sweet spot and put your awkward filler platoons in the reserve box, maybe see them on the board, maybe not. V4 is still very much the same in this respect but the new command cards give players some bearing on the reserves system. There are 2 basic flavours of such card thus far: cards that let you re-roll aircraft or reserves and cards which stop your opponent from rolling for reserves or aircraft. The Italians, always the outlier, have a card which nullifies cards which would stop them from rolling for reserves or aircraft.  This is the most interesting card in the game. Now that more direct means of influencing reserve...
3 comments
Read more

Road to Nationals Part Six: Finalizing the List

Having come out the other side of the July Tunisia Firestorm campaign as the highest scoring allied player, I'm quite confident in my Rifle/Lee list. The one major change from that list is that I can take a flight of P-40 Warhawks. In our firestorm, we couldn't have aircraft since aircraft were one of the firestorm units and it wouldn't make sense if someone had ended up with 2 flights of planes. The Mortars have gotten the ax to make way for a second recon patrol and a second battery of T30 assault guns. I really fear 2 things from my opponents, heavy tanks and Marders. I wont have AT above 10 so FA 9 monstrosities could be a real problem. Marders can quickly and easily wipe out my armour and hinder my ability to maneuver much more than 88's and such given my artillery and smoke. luckily I doubt heavy tanks and Marders will be combined. Despite these two threats the list I've built should be able to handle most comers. Most of my list is highly mobile and Le...
2 comments
Read more