Military/Combat System - Whatcha Think?

[Mark_Everson]

LOL

Yeah, I don't know how detailed the supply system will/should be. Mostly I was just curious. It gives me something to use my brain cells for other than remembering plots of old TV shows

[Theben]

Regarding ambushes:

-Ambushes: Attacker gets +1 firepower, defender STR is halved if ambush successful. Also pre-emptive strikes by defender; same effects as above. Can only be done from attacks launched from concealment (see below) and as random combat effects when nations go to war (below).
-Concealment: A command given to units. Unit becomes concealed at same rate as fortifying. Unit does not get fortifying bonus (it may fortify after concealing) & does not extend ZOC. Difficult to detect like subs. Allow 'flag' to units to be able to spot them (% chance) such as spies, partisans, scouts. Both land & sea units can conceal. Air units may only conceal at a concealed airbase. Settlers/engineers can construct concealed airbases/fortresses in x2 time. Units may not conceal if location known by enemy. Any attack launched from concealment reveals unit until moves to concealable position again. Some units (spies, partisans, explorer) have 'natural' concealment (allow 'flag' for this as well).
-Random Combat Effects: As Henry Lodge said, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." This would be a scale from 1-100 where 1 represents a military disaster for the attacker & 100 is disastrous for the defender (or something like a 3-18 result using 3 groups of 1-6, so that extremes would be much rarer & combined results of 9-12 would be most common). Applied each and every time units engage in combat. Most of the time results fall in the middle, which has no effect on combat. Extreme results are equivalent to ambush effects described above. Other results give a minor bonus to the attacker or defender. This simulates the confusion of warfare and the random occurrences that affect the outcomes of many battles (bad weather, misinformation). Allow a toggle at game start to turn this effect on or off.

Obviously this is based on civ2 but should be adaptable to Clash. The +1 firepower, 1/2 def could be replaced with +1 "tech level" for the ambusher and -1 for the ambushee.

[JimC]

Well, like I said, Vietnam isn't really anything to go by - nearly all infantry units were airmobile (which of course means HUGE extra numbers of maintenance + logistics men).

Armor, Engineers and Artillery were rendered extremely difficult to use because of the terrain - their heavy equipment couldn't be transported effectively. Most bombardment was by air or sea.

And of course the 1-year 'tour of duty' was an administrative nightmare....

The only 'fair' conventional war in recent Western history which hasn't involved either a massive advantage to one side or ridiculous terrain constraints, must be Korea, so although I don't have any data available, I'd be prepared to accept (reasonably unbiased) figures from that war as gospel for a modern army.

And by army, I mean as oppposed to navy or air force, since those arms have vastly different figures.

I agree that most 'engineering support' troops such as radar ops, signals, maintenance men etc. should be considered non-com but these are a recent phenomenon.

The traditional 'military combat engineer' is very much a front-line troop who would be committed to attacks alongside cavalry (or armor) and infantry, and would be expected to perform offensive duties as well as 'digging field toilets' etc....

Modern artillery also includes a large number of LLAD (low-level air defense) troops which are the main reason NATO refuses to bomb at low levels. These guys would also be mixed in with front-line troops and with modern rocket technology, an Apache is dog-meat against a single trooper on foot.

Does anyone have any definite figures for Korea??

Jim

btw Another consideration - would the US need as many support troops if it was fighting on it's own soil as opposed to half way around the world? Unfortunately (or fortunately) that hasn't happened in recent memory, so we can't know.

[Theben]

The reason engineers were considered 'non-com' is because their mission doesn't include seek out the enemy and destroy it. Army engineers may be armed, they are trained to fight, they might come under fire, but they NEVER are ordered to engage the enemy. Perhaps it would have been better if I called them & artillery 'support' instead of 'non-com', but their mission is still the same.
I'll agree that the Vietnam war ratios are skewed compared to other recent wars, but in this case I was actually being generous. The 1:10 ratio is the average most observers give for combat-support. My point was that Mark had said, "Mongol Horsemen could probably forrage fairly effectively, modern armored divisions hardly at all"; I inferred from this he is planning a variable supply ratio from ancient units to modern times, and between methods of resupply-i.e. foraging, resupply under different economic systems(free-market, totalitarian), etc. I merely wished to give an example in modern times approx. what level of supply will be necessary to field modern units, in this case with a free-market.
Enough ranting. Here's the quotes from "The Perfect War", by James W. Gibson, I refer to. Decide for yourselves if it's relevant:

Take the question of "combat strength," the ratio of combat to logistical personnel. Officially, military tables of organization call for 32,000 command and logistical workers to support one combat division of 16,000 men. [General] Westmoreland's 1968 'Report of the War in Vietnam' claimed great advancement in decreasing this customary ratio of support to combat personnel:

...By constantly analyzing requirements and capabilities...the support ratio was reduced from about 45 percent in 1966 to about 40 percent in 1967.

In his autobiography the general repeats himself, adding that "When compared with the 43 percent ratio experienced in World War II and Korea, this decline represented a remarkable achievement." The Vietnam numbers are highly dubious. Most observers say at most one of ten men in Vietnam was a combat trooper...Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert studied "field strength" of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The 173rd had additional logistical units attached to it. Herbert's study refers to the organic unit:

The 173rd was the largest brigade in Vietnam, with over 10,000 men attached to it. It was, according to the manual, a combat brigade with absolutely no dead weight. But it was a humbug. There were 5 so-called battalions in the Brigade, and not one of them had more than 600 physically present for duty...which means that 7,000 people were assigned to support roles: steakhouses, pizza huts, clubs, headquarters, the General's mess, artillery, engineers, etc...the battalions had their "rear areas" just like the Brigade, with their own steakhouses, their own clubs. Each battalion was composed of five companies, one of them a makeshift outfit responsible for heavy weapons-which left four companies for walking. No company in any battalion in the Brigade had more than 75 men physically present ready to go. Thus, each battalion fielded about 300 combat troopers, except that each battalion assigned one company to guard it's base of operations each day. That left a maximum of 225 men available for the field, or 1,125 on a Brigade basis. And that would have been a good day with everybody out and everybody with a rifle- but everybody didn't carry a rifle. Some toted radios, some stayed back and typed, some worked in company supply, some were "fireflies", the daily heliocopter resupply lifts, and some just plain screwed off. So an average day, the 173rd Airborne Brigade could field approximately 800 men- if all it's battalions were out. In the year I was in the Brigade, all it's battalions were never out.

Assuming four out of five battalions went out on an average day, then the unit fielded roughly 600 men out of 10,000. The 173rd ran at 6 percent combat troop, and 94 percent support troop, not far from the common 10 percent estimate, but far from Westmoreland's figures. Westmoreland's definition is more inclusive than Herbert's focus on combat infantry, but the discrepancy is still considerable. * * *

I'm back. So Westmoreland said that WWII/Korea the ratio of combat vs. support was approx. 57:43, but his numbers are in question. Offically, it's supposed to be about 1:2. Reality made them worse in Vietnam, quite possibly in these other wars as well. Comments?



[This message has been edited by Theben (edited May 17, 1999).]

[Hrafnkell]

Maybe it would have been better to put this in another thread, but, well, here it is, we can move it if it generates many responses.

Mark already has the military system pretty much scetch out and IMO it´s very good, here are some thoughts for how to handle Naval and Air forces. Note that this only touches upon how you use them, not how they fight, I imagine this would be handled by Mark´s system.

The basic idea is that naval and air units are grouped together just like army units, naval formations could be called Fleets or Task Forces the Air formation could be called Task Group or something like that. But as the operations of these units are more specialized they can´t IMHO be moved and used in the same way as Armies. Instead I propose that they´d be given Missions to follow. Here is an idea on what missions would be available. For those who know A3R/RS this should be familiar.

Note that those players not interested in going through all this details can either allow the AI to handle things, or set only a very general orders or use a default setting. In any case, this shouldn´t complicate things much, IMHO make them simpler if anything.


Naval:
Naval Units always start each turn in a port Square, except in special cases (see below), they then move out during the turn, but (almost) always return at the end of the turn (after movement).

Move: This covers both basic movement from one port to another but also such things as going on discovery trips. Players simply choose their fleet and the destination square. If they choose a sea square at the edge of the ‘known world’ (to them) they automatically search all the surrounding squares, the size of the area dis(un)covered is based on the types and number of ships used, as well as distance from home port. There should be a slight chance that ships sent discovering could be lost, especially if their low-tech ships.

Raid: I don´t know how the Merchant Fleet will be represented, but imagine it will be done in some arbitary way. In this mission the player aims to weaken/destroy enemies Merchant Fleets. He chooses the fleet involved (remember that all units going on the same mission must all start in the same port) and the enemy state(s) he wants to harass. He doesn´t have to choose a square unless he wants to, the computer will compute the best destination for raiding activity for him.

Transport: In this mission players use fleets to transport army units to a distant port. The player simply chooses the naval and army units involved (they must start in the same square) and the destination port, which must be friendly controlled. The distance between the two ports is irrelevant. If we want we could allow the army units to move after they disembark (possibly before they embark), the amount of movement left would be based on estimated time it took them to be sea transported.

Invade: In this mission players transport army units and unloads them on an enemy beach. This mission is a little bit more restrictive than the Transport mission, all units involved must start in the same square and the distance is limited, to ca. 3 to 5 squares, so you cant invade half across the world. When the naval technology is high enough the fleet can also carry out shore bombardment to soften up the defenders.

Sea supply: I´m not sure this mission is needed because the supply is handled pretty much the (computer controlled) merchants, but I put here so at least we won´t forget about it . Also, even if we do include this mission I think the Naval units themselves wouldn´t actually carry the supplies, but transports not represented, so the mission of the naval units woud be to protect the supply run.

Patrol: In this mission players send the chosen fleet to a sea square where they patrol the nearby seas during the turn. This mission can both be used to defend against raiders/pirates/submarines and to control a vital shipping lane or sea (like the English Channel). Players can choose pretty much any sea square as for a patrol mission, but if it´s far away from its home port it operates at limited capacity. The distance would be based on the technology-level of the ships. Players can also choose how dispersed they want their fleet to act, if they allow it to disperse it can cover more area, but might get a disadvantage in a battle.

Blockade: In this mission players use their chosen fleet to block an enemy port, attacking any ships trying to enter/leave the square. Players should be allowed to keep their blockade intact between turns, although not indefenately (unless the rotate fleets).


Air Units:
Players can group their Air units independantly or make them a part of an army or a fleet (once carriers are available). If they´re a part of an army (or Fleet) they can´t carry out Strategic Attacks mission, otherwise their only limits are to operate close to their parent unit (army or fleet).

Ground/surface support: In this mission the air units are used in close co-operation with Armies/Fleets, attacking enemy units. How this is computed excactly depends on the final version of the military system Mark proposed, probably it´ll simply increase friendly CEV and decrease enemy CEV.

Air cover: Also known as CAP (close air patrol), it provides protection to army and fleet units from air attacks. Any enemy air units trying to attack the Army/Fleet being protected must go through the CAP-ing air units first. Independent Air units can fly Air cover mission over enemy territory, in order to gain air superiority for follow-up bombing raids, etc.

Strike Military Targets: In this mission air units attack facilities that help the enemy conduct war, such as command HQs, communication facilites, bridges, railway-stations, munition facilites, etc. In gameplay terms this would disrupt movement, interception (support from nearby squares) and supply.

Recon: Scouts nearby squares for enemy presence. Can increase movement, lessen the likelihood of enemy surprise attack (and increase chances of a friendly), give positive interception modifiers and (for Naval Air) allow Air units to attack faraway naval units. With high-tech electronic equipment (like in the AWACS) this can also increase the efficiency of friendly air units (especially in air-to-air combat).

Strategic Attacks: In this mission players use air units to attack the economy infrastructure of the enemy, bombing factories and such. Under fascism regime, and the like, civilian facilities can also be targeted, with the intent to demoralize the people. Only independent Air units can carry out this mission.

[Mark_Everson]

Hrafnkell:

First, thanks for starting out on this. I don't have time for a detailed response now, so I'll just state a few quick comments.

Why must ships return to port at the end of a turn? Can you give me your reasoning? Maybe I'd understand better then. I'd had in mind allowing ships to get a realistic range (depending on the age) from a port. They would need to be resupplied (for instance a coaling station) every N turns. N would depend on technology. Ships might need a little indicator on them showing how much time would be needed till resupply. If they didn't make it they would be in limp-back mode with maybe 1/3 combat str and 1/3 movement rate. This is kinda kludgey... Better ideas?

Your mission list is good. You also need escort. Merchant shipping will be handled by (surprise!) merchants. They will take a particular sea path. A naval unit intercepting the path would probably have a chance of "catching" the convoy. Good intelligence could improve this.

Air missions are good too. Actually air support of ground actions works by adding power of air units (and naval) directly into ground unit power.

IMO Any govt should be able to make strategic attacks. The democracies in WWII did this extremely effectively.

[Hrafnkell]

Mark,
>Why must ships return to port at the end of >a turn? Can you give me your reasoning? >Maybe I'd understand better then.

My idea is to base naval operations on distance from friendly bases. This can be more easily accomplished by letting naval units return to port at the end of each turn. Also, this makes it easier to structure the Missions, especially those who dpend directly on how long they most go, such as the Invasion Mission and the Patrol Mission. By allowing Fleets to stay over-turn at sea it would be complicated to compute these Missions. Note that the Move Mission doesn´t force Fleets back to port (otherwise it would be a silly option :-)), and this also applies on voyages of discovery. My idea (which I forgot to put in with the Move Mission) is that ships in that kind of Missions fight at lesser efficiency, if players want to go out to sea to engage enemy ships they should use the Raid or Patrol Missions. Ships on a Move Mission which stay at sea over-turn are at a risk of attrition/sinking each turn, the chances increasing for each extra turn at sea.

>I'd had in mind allowing ships to get a >realistic range (depending on the age) from >a port. They would need to be resupplied >(for instance a coaling station) every N >turns. N would depend on technology. Ships >might need a little indicator on them >showing how much time would be needed till >resupply. If they didn't make it they would >be in limp-back mode with maybe 1/3 combat >str and 1/3 movement rate. This is kinda >kludgey... Better ideas?

Well, IMO my idea is better, but it doesn´t make your idea invalid, lets just see what people have to say. One of the purposes with my idea was to eliminate the silly ratio between time and distance in f.e. Civ, where a ship can take ages to cross the Atlantic. IMO your idea doesn´t better that.

>Actually air support of ground actions >works by adding power of air units (and >naval) directly into ground unit power.

That is understandable, but IMO a bit unrealistic, research has shown that the actual damage done by air attacks in close-support of ground units is minimal, somewhere in the range of 2-3% at the most. However, the same research show that troops enjoying air support have considerably higher fighting spirit and vice versa. That´s why I thought letting air support affect troops CEV rather than the combat factors would be a little more accurate, but either way is fine by me.

>IMO Any govt should be able to make >strategic attacks. The democracies in WWII >did this extremely effectively.

Ah, a small misunderstanding :-). I didn´t mean that Strategic Attacks could Only be made by fascism regimes, only that targeting civilians was limited to fascist, of course I know that Allied powers in WWII used Strategic Bombing to great effects. Remember Dresden?

[xiane]

Hello. I have a few questions about the combat design, and a few comments.

First, you cannot over estimate the importance of supply and logistics in almost all early-modern armies onwards, and most armies of antiquity. There's a saying that goes something like this: "Amateurs talk tactics, pros talk logistics". (That said, is there really any demand for a game called "Quartermaster!".) Still I often wondered in Civ type games how my little unit was spending all that time wandering around in the middle of a hostile civ's territory. And not just in ancient times, where Hanibal did in fact spend years in Italy, but with an armored unit or something. That just shouldn't happen from the early modern period onwards. So supply lines and availability of supply is of prime importance.

TWO: Mobilization Demobilization and the cost of war.

If you want to have a realistic model of cost of waging war and the effects of mobilization several things seem necessary to me.

A. A realistic model for public sector finance and national borrowing. Almost no nation saves enough pennies to go have a big war. Most civ type games allow for a full treasury to finance things like wars or major building projects. From my readings of history very few nations break open the piggy bank and pay out cash they have been saving. They borrow money, from whomever will lend it. If you want to be really realistic, think about the king of England borrowing money from Italian bankers to fight France in the forteenth century, and so forth.

Most games make debt something no country can afford to have, when most countries can afford at least some borrowing. But heavy wartime borrowing can then demonstrate the historical reality of financial ruin resulting from war, not only from destroyed provinces, but from ruinious debt and devalued money.

(Digression: Will banking and finance be a civ. advancement? That will be great, and on that note, think about dividing advancements in a manner that recognizes the difference between purely intellectual advances and intellectual/infrastructure advances. E.g. Everyone in the world may know about the industrial revolution and how it works, but wouldn't have the infrastructure to implement it, but universal sufferage doesn't require infrastructure (or much of it). Most advances are not a matter of one civ simply not understanding something (as word spreads quickly even in ancient times) but simply not having a government or infrastructure capable of utilizing advances.)

B. Back to mobilization: Ramp up effects. At least in modern times or early modern times, nations go from a low capacity to outfit units to a high one, as industry and production adjusts and increases capacity and efficiency in mobilizing men and outfitting them for war. So it should be that if you start a military build up that in turn one you produce one unit, and so on until the the third turn of the build up when you can produce two (assuming you have manpower and resources) and three the next turn and then four and so on up to a maximimum capacity and mobilization level. This way you can account for something like the weight of US industrial capacity coming to bear on military production in WWII.

C. What kind of army?
The conscript & professional citizen army, paid regularly, commanded by officiers chosen by high command based on ability and carrying standard equipment, wearing a standard uniform, and receiving standard training is a very new invention.

There have been some professional armies in history, and as a rule they have been successful. But it will be interesting to see if we can model the government and military effects of feudal levy armies, their political/economic and military effects on a province and a civ. That is, until you develop a different army structure you might be dependant on your provincial lords to muster troops. What happens to the province when all the nobles and half the men are campaigning and what sort of troops are they and what happens when they knock off for the winter, or to harvest or plant? How much political power do you cede to the nobles to get those armies into the field at all?

Whew, this is a lot to read, so I'll stop, but there are so many ways to make warfare more than just an exercise in buying the best tech and building the biggest forces, as historically it wasn't nearly so easy...

[xiane]

Thanks for the reply. On point B of my last post - military ramp up- will there be a way to account for the fact that only certain places will produce certain troops or army tupes? This was true in ancient times, where certain peoples were known for being slingers or archers or light cavalry or skirmishers or whathaveyou. In modern times only certain regions can produce certain equipment. How many parts of the USA can produce equipment for armored divisions? How many can produce combat aircraft? What would it take for the region around say, Miami, to produce a nuclear submarine? Quite a lot unless the facilities were there.

So what does this mean? First every province should not be able to produce the most advance troop types unless that capacity was either inherent as "special feature" of that civ (i.e. all mongols are horse archers) or the capacity has been paid for in some way.

Second, troops should not necessarily "muster" in the region that produced them, or produced the equipment they use. That is, even though boening makes airplanes, USA air formations don't appear in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe production should be a case of capacity to make the unit in question being located in the civ and a military installation "improvement" being present within a certain radius to bring an actual combat unit into being.

D - A bit off topic. In one of the postings on the web site you mention that you did not like it when you could bully civs in civilization that you had little to no chance of actually doing harm to. To further that, could we have a civ that is not bordering another one by land actually check the transport capacity of a civ and its allies to see if they could actually transport troops to them in sufficient quantity to cause a problem? (I guess that is also a question as to how troop transport is to be handled. It bears thinking about, as it is a crucial issue historically.)

Thanks again,
X

[Mark_Everson]

Hrafnkell:

OK, lets give your naval system a try. The thing I was worried about from my reading of your prev post were:
1) a mismatch between sea and land movement rates
2) I think even your ranges for amphibious attacks are too large. Until modern times the effective distance for an amphibious operation was usally a max of 200km from port. Maybe you've already got that in there.
3) "Move" ships that can't reach a port by the end of turn could still carry troups but at a far reduced rate.

Anyway, your model looks generally very good, maybe with a few examples for different time periods it would have clicked more with me...

On air support of ground actions, Yes the air
kill rates are usually low, but there is the effect of reduction of enemy mobility etc. If the air effects were only a few percent No One Would Bother With Air Power So I think you are understating the effectiveness substantially.

Well, IMO the democracies implicitly targeted civilians in the firestorm campaigns, whether they admit it or not. It was total war, where I just think there's not so much of a distinction to be made in the actions of diffenent governments in such a war... Perhaps I'm too cynical.

Xiane:

HI. Supply is indeed in there. A) is already in there. You can borrow from other governments or merchants who have capital. Maybe upper classes too... havent got that one figured out yet.

B) I've thought about before. Its doable, but a pain with individual weapon types, and I'm just not sure its worth modeling. If we aggregated all military production and had that ramp up, maybe that would be doable

C) we're already talking about. there's some on the old BB on this too.

-Mark

[Mark_Everson]

xiane:

On localization effects for army types / weapons systems... This is getting to a level of detail that IMO is too great. Rest assured you don't necc. assemble armies just where the weapons systems are made. If you move the weapons around you can muster an army wherever you want. In ancient days mercs will be of whatever type the culture that made them likes, so some of the effects you want will be there.

I had given some thought to letting the first place that builds a particular type of weapon, fe iron cannon to be a 'center' for this activity and get some benefit in building that particular weapon. That would be a fun mini-game that would add some spice to an arms race...

>D) Well, it depends on what the AI knows. If at least the AI knows the distance to the player and the general tech level of the player, an educated guess can be made. In ancient times it was much harder to move troops over large distances so the AI will be biased towards believing you're not a threat if you're too far away. This of course isn't always true, Its a mistake that was made by historical rulers many times.

[don Don]

While I can understand the doubling of attack with each tech level in most cases, I can't see the doubling of defense at each tech level. E.g., 18th C. Musket is tech 4, Early 19th C. Rifle is tech 5. But defensive strategy v. musketeers/fusileers didn't change: straight lines of men firing into parallel lines of advancing opponents until they engage with bayonets. So an antequated unit of musketeers (or an ancient unit tactically familiar with muskets) would automatically defend as tech 5.

Defensive strategy v. cavalry did change to the "square," but that isn't included in the partial table. Then in the mid-19th (Civil War) defense v. cavalry regressed to pre-Napoleonic straight lines easily subject to overrun attacks. There must be other exceptions that may be tricky to model.

[Mark_Everson]

don Don:

Thanks for looking the system over at this level. I think you are right that in general there will be some mismatches in offensive and defensive tech levels. Although, we could debate the specific case *. The system is clearly not perfect. I think we could easily bring in the early rifles with the same defensive tech as the muskets. There might be a further "tactical combat" advance to get to defensive tech 5.

If you think the limitations of the system are only down at this level, I'm very happy indeed... At least I think the still admittedly large inaccuracies in this system are Very small when compared to what happens in Civ2.

-Mark

* I think the case here might be made that the infantry is genrally going from the 3-man to the 2-man line in this period. This change certainly gives defensive advantages (and some offensive ones as well).

[Diodorus Sicilus]

- First Post-
Mark: Want to apologize for taking so long to get to this, but this past weekend was the biggest local Historical Miniatures convention, so I spent my time playing games and selling painted lead - gotta do something to pay for the computer!
Reference the use of the CEV/Dupuy system for a CoC Combat System. The CEV is an artificial term used to group a bunch of 'soft' factors not easily quantifiable. It was primarily designed to account for the vast discrepancies between projected performance and actual performance in Dupuy's HERO Institute's combat studies of WWII and later actions, Might I suggest that to cover the wide range of historical units and actions it is likely to be inadequate.
The primary factors in the CEV can be summarized as:
Doctrine: What the troops are supposed to do in battle
Training: How well the troops can do what they are supposed to do in battle.
Morale: How much the troops feel like doing what they are supposed to do in battle.
Morale can change from minute to minute. During the battle it is usually most affected by casualties: as Trotsky put it so succinctly, "The quickest way to demoralize the enemy is to kill him in lare numbers..."
Starting Morale, which is important in the scale of game that Civ approaches, is most affected by past performance (especially against a specific foe), supply or lack of it, confidence in the commander and leaders, and training (or lack of it).
Training can change during a war, and may vary widely between units, but there are certain levels that can be standardized historically. Some units and weapons require virtually constant training: the Legion, the Phalanx, Knights (armored shock lancers), Samurai (professional swordsmen). In ancient terms, they are gong to require the spare resources for either a class with the leisure to train (Greek middle-class citizen Phalanx, Knighthood), or a society with the resources to afford full-time soldiers (the Roman Legions). ith modern weapons, you may have 'part-time' conscripts or draftees, but you MUST HAVE a full-time, professional cadre to train them. You can divide every modern and recent historical force into those with a professional NCO corps, and those without. Those without are road kill to those that have: see the Kuwait 'war' for the most recent example: near-equal numbers, near-equal technology in tanks and artillery, no professional NCO corps, and the Iraqi army inflicted statistically 0 casualties on their opponent while being annihilated. And please don't ascribe all of this to airpower: I've seen the figures (I was in the Army at the time), and airpower destroyed almost no artillery and durn few tanks until the Iraqis were forced to retreat by ground attack.
Doctrine is the most permanent factor. It permeates an army, and is very difficult to change. Certain units are defined, in fact, by their doctrine rather than their weapons: the Republican Roman Legion was a collection of spearmen, swordsmen, and skirmishers, no different in weaponry from other forces but with a Doctrine of Flexibility, an organization into small units (maniples, later cohorts as the fighting unit), and excellent Training, they were practically unbeatable.
And, of course, variations in Doctrine, Training, and Morale allow a smaller force to trounce a larger one, something that happens all too often in historical battles and all too seldom in games.
Surprise, Ambush, etc. can be simulated by including Scouting Points in the units. Light Cavalry, Barbarian Foot, Specialized Units (Light Mechanized Infantry = Recon unit in modern terms) with possibly even Special Technologies (Night Vision, Ground Radar, Light Aircraft in modern times, Hired Barbarian Scouts, Hussars in older periods). Give each Army a Scouting Score as a result of its composition, and if the score is higher than the opponent's by enough, he has the option of attempting Ambush, Surprise Attack or simply getting information on the enemy's composition and disposition.
This can be related to Mlitary Advances:
Camouflage - a French development in WWI
Maskirovka - a Soviet development in WWII
Camouflage would give an army extra Defensive Scouting Points, Maskirovka would allow you to Hide X number of units from the enemy until they hit him on the tactical display.

Naval:
You're going to need Naval Ranges, because that's the easiest way to show the real limitations of historic naval vessels. The difference between the Cog and the Caravel of the late Middle Ages was that the Caravel added multiple masts to the same hull and had a much greater 'at sea' capability: both were true open ocean ships, but the caravel allowed the globe-girdling voyages of exploration that were impossible before (at least to Europeans).
On the other hand, one Modern Naval Advance is the Floating Fleet Base, developed by the US Navy in WWII, which allowed the replenishment and resupply of ships while at sea from a mass of support vessels - extended the fleet range immeasurably.
Support, Logistics, and excessive Divisional Slice is best shown by Maintenance Costs for the Army/Unit: the further away from a Base it is, the higher the maintenance cost. Absolute Distance Limits will be needed on land, because until the advent of railroads, NO ARMY could be supplied by a land route more than 100-200 miles away from the supply source. Reason: any wagon/cart had to be pulled by animals, who would eat up the contents of said wagon/cart after a few days. The only way to transport bulk goods (food, fodder) any distance was by riverboat or ship. Reason Holland is the Cockpit of Europe is it has lots of rivers- armies could be supplied there and so they fought there.
Railroads, later motorization, freed armies to operate more flexibly and further from base, but it requires lots of Support Costs to keep it up: trucks, repair, road crews, traffic control, construction engineers, and HQ to control all of it.
In WWII, the Red Army operating inside Russia using almost exclusively railroads for supply got by with a division slice of 22,000 men: 7000 in the division, 15,000 in support, and most of those in other combat units: artillery and tanks. The US Army had over 67,000 per division slice: 15,000 in the division (approx), 52,000 in support, because Support included an Over Ocean supply line leading all the way back to the States. Those are probably your two modern extremes of Support costs.

There are Singularities in warfare, identified by Dupuy in his Dispersal Factors: when troops had to take up less battlefield space to avoid dying in large numbers. The interesting thing is that these change by an Order of Magnitude at certain very specific times in history:
Ancient/Medieval= 1
18th Cent (Muskets)= 10
US Civil War (Rifles)= 25
WWI (Machineguns)= 250
WWII (air-artillery)= 3000

In other words, from non-gunpowder to gunpowder is a Singularity in battlefield Lethality. From rifles to Machineguns and modern artillery is another, and from machineguns to tanks, airpower is yet another. This, by the way, corresponds rather well to the changes in 'Hit Points' in CivII: anybody know if that's coincidence?

Finally, for effects of Engineering or Fortification. In another Dupuy study of Prepared Fortifications in Modern War, using examples ranging from Kursk 1943 to Golan Heights 1973, the effects of an engineering prepared defense were summarized as follows:
Attacker's Rate of Advance goes to 1/5
Attacker's Losses go to 500%
Attacker's Tank Losses go up 13 times

How you integrate that into the game is another story. From a detailed syudy of Kursk I can tell you that the slowing of the attacker's rate of advance allows the defender to react with reserves, and that turns any attack into a grinding battle of attrition, which the defender usually wins.

Well, lots of stuff there, I hope everyone finds something useful in it...

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[Mark_Everson]

Diodorus Sicilus:

Thanks for the detailed post. I did indeed get several very useful things out of it, and a great deal of background information. If you didn't get a chance to read the detailed link at the top of the thread, I'd like to hear your opinions on that too.

On the use of a Dupuy-based system, I simply have no other source that dares to give information related to how units throughout the ages might fare against each other in battle. If you'd like to suggest an alternative (but it would have to be quick to meet our timeline) I'd really like to see it. On the issue of CEV the intention had always been to try and include as many of these factors explicitly as possible. I think we can include all the ones you cite:

Doctrine - as "tech" items
The more you fight with a new weapons system the closer you will get to the successful doctrine for using units with that weapons system. This is obviously a gross simplification, but those sort of things are mandatory in a game of this type.

Training - handle explicitly; high cost

Morale - as you point out several factors influence it in a strategic-type game. The one I hadn't thought of was history of success against the opponent

Leadership - You didn't mention it but we will include it in some way. Probably with 'characters' for the really superb leadership types.

Another thing you brought up that I think we should include is recon. (and we've spoken about it before too) I am tempted to just make it another 'superiority' factor that gives a bonus on the strategic combat level, but which would have specific effects if/when we do a tactical combat system.

Naval: Yes we will include ship effective ranges

Supply: Already got it in mind. Although we may loosen the historical realities a bit if play suffers too much.

Thanks again for your contribution.

-Mark