World War 2 and all that
eddys...@hotmail.com
The recent release of yet-another-Bulge-game by White Dog made me
think about a quote I read in a designer diary yesterday : “if you
have two solid games with well-written rules, you'll pick the one with
Formula 1 and not the one about goat grazing.” - Ignacy Trzewiczek.
Strange as it seems after all these years wargames about and set in
WW2 are, instead of steadily declining in public favour, actually
holding their own, and if you believe a recent poll in a wargame
magazine, even strengthening their lead over other time periods. Why
is that ?
Can’t be for patriotic or political/emotional reasons – there’s not
really a link anymore with the world we live in today and even the
Good Guys / Bad Guys connotations have faded.
Are the grogs steadily growing older and harking back to the AH type
games of their youth ? Possibly, but why are so many youngsters
happily playing FPS games set in a time period even their granddads
didn’t experience themselves ?
I only have to look at my own interests – apart from Nato vs WP which
never happened, I’m not in any way interested in any war after 1973 –
in essence any war I lived through personally, yet give me a couple of
panzers to play with and I’m a happy puppy.
Take a game like Panzer Corps – a large part of the attraction of that
game for me is the WW2 setting and equipment – I have to admit that
upgrading those PzKpfw I’s to II’s triggers a feeling of
accomplishment, of doing something that matters, of doing something
that I know makes a difference.
And this last thing might be the key to the ongoing popularity of WW2
in a weird, circular sort of way : we feel at home playing a game set
in a familiar environment and WW2 feels familiar to us because we’ve
played a lot of games set in that environment – a gaming perpetuum
mobile
Thoughts and comments as always highly appreciated
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Ray O'Hara
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f222ff50-1fe6-427f...@j25g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
Hi,
The recent release of yet-another-Bulge-game by White Dog made me
think about a quote I read in a designer diary yesterday : “if you
have two solid games with well-written rules, you'll pick the one with
Formula 1 and not the one about goat grazing.” - Ignacy Trzewiczek.
Strange as it seems after all these years wargames about and set in
WW2 are, instead of steadily declining in public favour, actually
holding their own, and if you believe a recent poll in a wargame
magazine, even strengthening their lead over other time periods. Why
is that ?
===========================================================================
WWII has the coolest stuff.
and the action flows. it is one of the great movement/manuever wars. so
battls were dynamic and that can be reflected in the games.
and who doesn't like the idea of riding a Panzer through Belgium and France
machinegunning helpess peasent trying to flee the onslaught.
ever notice when ground troops shot civilians it's a warcrime but guys in
airplanes get a free pass.
they are allowed to shoot anything that moves. a stuka strafing a refugee
column okay, a tank doing the same its atrocity.
RobP
news:f222ff50-1fe6-427f...@j25g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
Hi,
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
I think there is more to it than just WW2. I think it also goes down to the
level of the battles you are modelling.
It seems that some battles are more popular than others and that some sides
are more popular than others. I think to a certain extent, this is due to
the player needing to identify with the side they are playing. I think for
this reason my copy of COTA never got the outings it deserved - unlike the
follow up...
GJK
What war since WWII had the massive front lines, two fronts, global
conflict ranging from small unit/commando actions all the way up to
massive fronts that pushed the lines all the way to the gates of their
enemy before befalling to the same. Nothing even close since and even
more key - there will never be nothing like it ever again. IMHO.
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> What war since WWII had the massive front lines, two fronts, global
> conflict ranging from small unit/commando actions all the way up to
> massive fronts that pushed the lines all the way to the gates of their
> enemy before befalling to the same. Nothing even close since and even
> more key - there will never be nothing like it ever again. IMHO.
So, it's popular because it was the last biggie ? Could well be -
you'd think that with about 10 million USA-nians having now served in
*other* wars the focus might shift towards more recent conflicts.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Nine Train
Interesting discussion as usual. I think asymmetric warfare isn't
much fun to game. Which leaves Korea. The forgotten war. Also,
there's a Hollywood component to this as well. There isn't anything
more exciting than Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers when it
comes to military history portrayed on TV.
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> Interesting discussion as usual. I think asymmetric warfare isn't
> much fun to game. Which leaves Korea. The forgotten war. Also,
> there's a Hollywood component to this as well. There isn't anything
> more exciting than Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers when it
> comes to military history portrayed on TV.
Just speculation of course, but would the ACW (example) become more
popular if it got the HBO treatment ?
I'm not sure - maybe it's not just one reason why WW2 is the top era
for many wargamers but that there are a dozen good reasons, all
reinforcing one another.
The thing I find strange is that it became the top era right from the
get-go in the sixties and 50 years later it's *still* at the top -
nothing else in our culture has such longevity.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Nine Train
True. I wonder if it is because it is so clear cut. Good v. Bad.
Victory v. Defeat. The myths portrayed about the Wehrmacht being an
innocent but potent enemy have made it accessible to everyone without
taint of genocide. The ACW may be problematic because there's an us/
them situation.
smr
> What war since WWII had the massive front lines, two fronts, global
> conflict ranging from small unit/commando actions all the way up to
> massive fronts that pushed the lines all the way to the gates of their
> enemy before befalling to the same. Nothing even close since and even
> more key - there will never be nothing like it ever again. IMHO.
I think this is it; you had amazing technological advances throughout
the war, far more than two fronts if you think about it, compelling
air/naval aspects...
The only thing that would rival WWII is if we somehow had a global
WP/NATO hootenanny that somehow didn't go nuclear.
--
smr
Jaz
>
> The only thing that would rival WWII is if we somehow had a global
> WP/NATO hootenanny that somehow didn't go nuclear.
>
When it comes to war in every aspect, WWII is the mother of all candy
shops.
Graham Thurlwell
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 jul, 10:28, Nine Train <09.tr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Interesting discussion as usual. I think asymmetric warfare isn't
>> much fun to game. Which leaves Korea. The forgotten war. Also,
>> there's a Hollywood component to this as well. There isn't anything
>> more exciting than Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers when it
>> comes to military history portrayed on TV.
> Just speculation of course, but would the ACW (example) become more
> popular if it got the HBO treatment ?
To be honest, I'm not convinced it would. There's been quite a bit of
media exposure over the years, largely via Hollywood, but one of the
main problems from an outsider's perspective is that it's really just
<Some Americans> vs <Some Other Americans>.
Granted <Some Americans> happen to be one of the biggest gaming
markets in the world, so there is coverage in game terms, but in
comparison to WW2 did it really have that much more impact globally
than the English or Russian Civil Wars?
From a purely gaming point of view, several posters here have raised
problems with certain levels of ACW wargaming including that there
could ultimately be only one winner. OK, you could probably say that
about WW2.
> I'm not sure - maybe it's not just one reason why WW2 is the top era
> for many wargamers but that there are a dozen good reasons, all
> reinforcing one another.
Here's some:-
Most major gaming nations played a part in the war so there's
recognition of your country's part in it. WW2 is basically the last
war you can say that about. Korea is pretty much a forgotten war and
that may be partly due to nobody 'winning' it.
There are major leaps in technology throughout the period but they're
still reasonably understandable to a layman. The technology itself is
iconic - Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters - and most nations have
their own signature designs. There are even ones that transcend
nations.
If you don't think about it too carefully there are two clear-cut
sides - 'Good' and 'Evil' (OK, so the Soviet Union qualified as Allies
because they were the Enemy of our Enemy - and the Finns were our
enemies because they were the Enemy of our Ally).
Let's face it, you have to try /really/ hard to avoid a basic
knowledge of WW2 from either school or TV. Unless you're a moron, in
which case you aren't going to be buying wargames anyway. ;-)
While it's increasingly unlikely that WW2 is within the living memory
of the actual gamer, it's still a war in which a relative or
acquaintance of the gamer served in (both of my grandfathers).
Both sides have recognisable main characters, several of which are
famous across borders, who you can 'be' in a game.
> The thing I find strange is that it became the top era right from the
> get-go in the sixties and 50 years later it's *still* at the top -
> nothing else in our culture has such longevity.
It's probably a by-product of the fact that it's had such longevity in
/all media/. One of the biggest factors in media terms is that there's
just so much footage of the actual events compared with, for example,
WW1 or the ACW.
There are also new facts coming out either through stuff finally being
declassified in the UK or through historians being able to go through
the archives of the former Soviet Union. The latter has been
particularly noticeable in the case of Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces
series.
--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.
nos...@jades.org /is/ a real email address!
eddys...@hotmail.com
> From a purely gaming point of view, several posters here have raised
> problems with certain levels of ACW wargaming including that there
> could ultimately be only one winner. OK, you could probably say that
> about WW2.
Wasn't it McNamara who had precisely calculated by what year the US
was going to defeat the NVA simply based on manpower availability and
industrial strenght ?
That didn't work out as calculated.
War weariness in the North was a real issue in 1864 and Lincoln at one
point in time wrote about being certain to lose the re-election. As
the other guy was a "peace now" advocate it's not such a stretch to
imagine the South winning the ACW by simply outlasting the will of the
North to fight on.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
says...
> > The only thing that would rival WWII is if we somehow had a global
> > WP/NATO hootenanny that somehow didn't go nuclear.
> When it comes to war in every aspect, WWII is the mother of all candy
> shops.
Big Casino. Six solid years of the whole world in flames? How could
this *not* be The Big Dog?
--
Giftzwerg
***
"I think the best way to get an appointment with the president is to
set up a tee time."
- Senator John Thune
Michael
...
> Granted<Some Americans> happen to be one of the biggest gaming
> markets in the world, so there is coverage in game terms, but in
> comparison to WW2 did it really have that much more impact globally
> than the English or Russian Civil Wars?
Sure. Without a united united states WW1 and 2 would have looked
different. Who would have saved Englands ass?
> If you don't think about it too carefully there are two clear-cut
> sides - 'Good' and 'Evil' (OK, so the Soviet Union qualified as Allies
> because they were the Enemy of our Enemy - and the Finns were our
> enemies because they were the Enemy of our Ally).
And Mers-el-Kebir? British sinking the ships of their allies to prevent
something that the french themselves promised (and kept) to prevent when
they later sank their own fleet...
>> The thing I find strange is that it became the top era right from the
>> get-go in the sixties and 50 years later it's *still* at the top -
>> nothing else in our culture has such longevity.
>
> It's probably a by-product of the fact that it's had such longevity in
> /all media/. One of the biggest factors in media terms is that there's
> just so much footage of the actual events compared with, for example,
> WW1 or the ACW.
And of course that there hasn´t been WW3 yet that would let former WW´s
appear smaller as WW2 did to the "Great War to end all wars".
Paul Ney
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote on 18.07.2011 09:58 GMT the message
news:f222ff50-1fe6-427f...@j25g2000vbr.googlegroups.com
> The recent release of yet-another-Bulge-game by White Dog
> Strange as it seems after all these years wargames about and set in
> WW2 are, instead of steadily declining in public favour, actually
> holding their own, and if you believe a recent poll in a wargame
> magazine, even strengthening their lead over other time periods. Why
> is that ?
The availability of documentation -- on military events and equipment of
any kind, of OOBs etc. -- also plays a major role. Let us consider the
European theatre: the West Front (June 1944 - May 1945) and the East Front
(June 1941 - May 1945). There are no wargame models of several major East
Front battles or campaigns, partly because of the lack of appropriate
documentation.
> Can't be for patriotic or political/emotional reasons - there's not
> really a link anymore with the world we live in today and even the
> Good Guys / Bad Guys connotations have faded.
Such reasons still play a role. And there are also the great
comemorations, e.g. 200 years American War of Independence or French
Revolution and Napoleonic Times etc. Some study on related wargames
(business) would be of interest. Do the comemorations have some influence
on the demand for such wargames?!
> I only have to look at my own interests - apart from Nato vs WP which
> never happened, I'm not in any way interested in any war after 1973 -
> in essence any war I lived through personally,
I do not set such limits, a true wargame enabling a good understanding (of
events and of the theatre of war) is always good and welcome. I am also
interested in -- more or less ;-) -- contemporary conflicts.
Regards, PY [Paul_Ney/at/t-online.de]
Ray O'Hara
"Michael" <Conjure...@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:j09sfe$ka0$1...@tota-refugium.de...
> Am 20.07.2011 01:15, schrieb Graham Thurlwell:
> ...
>> Granted<Some Americans> happen to be one of the biggest gaming
>> markets in the world, so there is coverage in game terms, but in
>> comparison to WW2 did it really have that much more impact globally
>> than the English or Russian Civil Wars?
>
> Sure. Without a united united states WW1 and 2 would have looked
> different. Who would have saved Englands ass?
>
>
>> If you don't think about it too carefully there are two clear-cut
>> sides - 'Good' and 'Evil' (OK, so the Soviet Union qualified as Allies
>> because they were the Enemy of our Enemy - and the Finns were our
>> enemies because they were the Enemy of our Ally).
>
> And Mers-el-Kebir? British sinking the ships of their allies to prevent
> something that the french themselves promised (and kept) to prevent when
> they later sank their own fleet...
>
would you have trusted the French if you were in the Brits position?
eddys...@hotmail.com
>
> would you have trusted the French if you were in the Brits position?
Better "Copenhagen" it then - right ?
They got lucky Vichy France didn't declare war on the Allies
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Graham Thurlwell
> Am 20.07.2011 01:15, schrieb Graham Thurlwell:
> ...
>> Granted<Some Americans> happen to be one of the biggest gaming
>> markets in the world, so there is coverage in game terms, but in
>> comparison to WW2 did it really have that much more impact globally
>> than the English or Russian Civil Wars?
> Sure. Without a united united states WW1 and 2 would have looked
> different. Who would have saved Englands ass?
We would have won WW1 anyway, but not as soon, and WW2 would probably
have ended up as a stalemate. While the popular phrase is "Britain
stood alone", it's missing the fact that we also had an Empire.
In any case, who's to say that if the ACW had ended with the CSA
remaining intact that both them /and/ the Union wouldn't have supplied
Britain anyway?
>> If you don't think about it too carefully there are two clear-cut
>> sides - 'Good' and 'Evil' (OK, so the Soviet Union qualified as Allies
>> because they were the Enemy of our Enemy - and the Finns were our
>> enemies because they were the Enemy of our Ally).
> And Mers-el-Kebir? British sinking the ships of their allies to prevent
> something that the french themselves promised (and kept) to prevent when
> they later sank their own fleet...
By that point the fleet was controlled by the /Vichy/ French, who were
reluctant allies of the Germans. In any case, the fleet was offered
very generous terms which they chose to reject. IIRC the main British
concern wasn't that the French themselves would set the fleet against
the RN but that the Germans would seize it - which, eventually, they
tried to do.
>>> The thing I find strange is that it became the top era right from the
>>> get-go in the sixties and 50 years later it's *still* at the top -
>>> nothing else in our culture has such longevity.
>>
>> It's probably a by-product of the fact that it's had such longevity in
>> /all media/. One of the biggest factors in media terms is that there's
>> just so much footage of the actual events compared with, for example,
>> WW1 or the ACW.
> And of course that there hasn�t been WW3 yet that would let former WW�s
> appear smaller as WW2 did to the "Great War to end all wars".
And thank God (or thermonuclear weapons) for that. Everything since
then has generally been wars with a limited number of nations involved
and/or of a small size or hasn't leant itself to gaming.
Graham Thurlwell
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 20 jul, 01:15, Graham Thurlwell <nos...@jades.org> wrote:
>> From a purely gaming point of view, several posters here have raised
>> problems with certain levels of ACW wargaming including that there
>> could ultimately be only one winner. OK, you could probably say that
>> about WW2.
> Wasn't it McNamara who had precisely calculated by what year the US
> was going to defeat the NVA simply based on manpower availability and
> industrial strenght ?
I don't really know much about the Vietnam war to be honest. I do know
that there was a considerable chance of me not having been born if
Britain had made the mistake of fighting another war there. When did
he predict he'd win relative to what actually happened?
> That didn't work out as calculated.
What was the quote from Red Storm Rising? "We will surely win."
> War weariness in the North was a real issue in 1864 and Lincoln at one
> point in time wrote about being certain to lose the re-election. As
> the other guy was a "peace now" advocate it's not such a stretch to
> imagine the South winning the ACW by simply outlasting the will of the
> North to fight on.
A stalemate? I suppose technically the South would 'win' by the fact
of their continued existance as an independent country.
Graham Thurlwell
<snip>
> The availability of documentation -- on military events and equipment of
> any kind, of OOBs etc. -- also plays a major role. Let us consider the
> European theatre: the West Front (June 1944 - May 1945) and the East Front
> (June 1941 - May 1945). There are no wargame models of several major East
> Front battles or campaigns, partly because of the lack of appropriate
> documentation.
In some respects a lot of former Soviet documentation is now coming to
light and is being gone through - I think I mentioned the Aircraft of
the Aces series elsewhere on this thread - but historians have
probably only scratched the surface. It's been available for a short
time relative to information on the Western Front.
I'm quite surprised at the amount of British stuff from WW2 that's
still being declassified.
Paul Ney
"Graham Thurlwell" <nos...@jades.org> wrote on 02.08.2011 22:13 GMT the
message news:2042a2fc...@d.thurlwell.btopenworld.com
> On the 23 Jul 2011, "Paul Ney" <Paul...@t-online.de> wrote:
>> The availability of documentation -- on military events and equipment
>> of any kind, of OOBs etc. -- also plays a major role. Let us consider
>> the European theatre: the West Front (June 1944 - May 1945) and the
>> East Front (June 1941 - May 1945). There are no wargame models of
>> several major East Front battles or campaigns, partly because of the
>> lack of appropriate documentation.
>
> In some respects a lot of former Soviet documentation is now coming to
> light and is being gone through - I think I mentioned the Aircraft of
> the Aces series elsewhere on this thread - but historians have
> probably only scratched the surface. It's been available for a short
> time relative to information on the Western Front.
The military history as well as the wargaming "space" is expanding in
[*.ru], some websites provide English translations (web translators?) too.
> I'm quite surprised at the amount of British stuff from WW2 that's
> still being declassified.
You say it, the British still have stuff to disclose. AFAIK some other WW2
participants still protect the secrecy of their files...
Regards, PY [Paul_Ney/at/t-online.de]
Paul Ney
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote on 02.08.2011 07:40 GMT the message
news:332a8db9-adef-4860...@en1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com
> Vichy France didn't declare war on the Allies
It is sufficient if the protector of a protectorate declares the war...
Regards, PY [Paul_Ney/at/t-online.de]
smr
> By that point the fleet was controlled by the /Vichy/ French, who were
> reluctant allies of the Germans. In any case, the fleet was offered
> very generous terms which they chose to reject. IIRC the main British
> concern wasn't that the French themselves would set the fleet against
> the RN but that the Germans would seize it - which, eventually, they
> tried to do.
I wouldn't call them "reluctant allies of the Germans". They were
enthusiastic allies of the Germans. They resisted every single attempt
by the Allies to do anything that could be viewed as infringing on their
sovereignty, yet, every time the Germans did, they bent over backwards
and begged for more. I'd argue that they fought harder to save Syria and
Lebanon from the UK than they did to save metropolitan France from
Germany to begin with.
The entire history of France, all Frances, be they the original
Republic, Vichy, Free France, the Fourth Republic, etc., can be summed
up with "Shittiest. Ally. Ever".
The Brits did the right thing at Mers-al-Kabir; if the Germans had
demanded the French fleet, the French answer, based on all other
historical record, would have been a simple "oui".
--
smr
Michael
> On 8/2/2011 4:04 PM, Graham Thurlwell wrote:
>
>> By that point the fleet was controlled by the /Vichy/ French, who were
>> reluctant allies of the Germans. In any case, the fleet was offered
>> very generous terms which they chose to reject. IIRC the main British
>> concern wasn't that the French themselves would set the fleet against
>> the RN but that the Germans would seize it - which, eventually, they
>> tried to do.
>
> I wouldn't call them "reluctant allies of the Germans". They were
> enthusiastic allies of the Germans. They resisted every single attempt
> by the Allies to do anything that could be viewed as infringing on their
> sovereignty, yet, every time the Germans did, they bent over backwards
> and begged for more.
Sure. You would have done the same when you had just lost the battle for
France and when the german army was located inside your borders and your
former british allies would preserve their strength to defend their island.
I'd argue that they fought harder to save Syria and
> Lebanon from the UK than they did to save metropolitan France from
> Germany to begin with.
> The entire history of France, all Frances, be they the original
> Republic, Vichy, Free France, the Fourth Republic, etc., can be summed
> up with "Shittiest. Ally. Ever".
> The Brits did the right thing at Mers-al-Kabir; if the Germans had
> demanded the French fleet, the French answer, based on all other
> historical record, would have been a simple "oui".
You shouldn�t simply make such statements without knowing your history.
The germans did not only demand the french fleet, they tried to seize
it. And the french did sink it - just as they had promised the british
to do. Mers-el-Kebir had been a needless butchery of allies because the
british did not trust the french.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_French_fleet_in_Toulon
smr
> Sure. You would have done the same when you had just lost the battle for
> France and when the german army was located inside your borders and your
> former british allies would preserve their strength to defend their island.
Definition of cowardice to me. Their treaty with Germany did not
obligate them to fight the UK for their colonial possessions, yet they
fought harder against the Brits than they did for their own homeland.
> You shouldn�t simply make such statements without knowing your history.
> The germans did not only demand the french fleet, they tried to seize
> it. And the french did sink it - just as they had promised the british
> to do. Mers-el-Kebir had been a needless butchery of allies because the
> british did not trust the french.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_French_fleet_in_Toulon
You say "needless butchery of allies" I say "they weren't allies at that
point and had the fleet at Mers-el-Kebir been available to the Germans,
Torch might've been a bit dicier, nu?
--
smr