WORKSHOP: Universal Simulationist Military System

Retroactive deletion.

Bumping this to make sure it doesn't become too obscure.

Still reading and re-reading all of this. Very interested in the possiblity of a useful excel sheet for this though.

Well, it appears your research is done. Where is the model where I enter data for the two sides and get a result?

Retroactive deletion.

Symphony D. said:

If you had the decency to read the material, you would find it there spelled out for you. I didn't say it was going to be automated, I simply said there would be a system--and there is. You can do the calculations yourself right now on any number of scenarios if you wish to. If you want to do something more with it than crank out calculations by hand, you're advised to look at the focus questions and either begin running battle calculations on key pre-Napoleonic battles for the former, or begin meditating on the latter.

Only when it is known precisely how the two methods of unit entry will be structured and how far back the model is applicable is it possible to construct a military framework around the combat model to complete a military system with all of its requisite inputs, and thus to translate the QJM into a digitized, automated form. This is a linear, methodical process.

I did not post this thread simply for the fun of it.

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I did read it and I will do the calculations. Thanks.

i fail at maths
but other than that good job symphony

Its an interesting read, but I would never calculate it like this.

carmen510 said:

Its an interesting read, but I would never calculate it like this.

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Why not? Providing, you know, a reason for your statements is always appreciated.

It's just very time consuming and frustrating for our primitive 13 year old minds. Isn't that right, carmen?

I just wish to express my appreciation...

My connection somewhat fails when it comes to opening multi-megabyte PDFs. From what I have seen, this seems a very thorough system, though I'm not sure about its implementation... If a mod is going to decide all the subtle social/political/economic issues anyway, how do you get the best out of a system like this? (EDIT: noticed a certain other thread)

Dachs said:

a reason for your statements is always appreciated.

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But not when you post in my threads right?

How will Mission Accomplishment (page 13 of QJM-AppendixA.pdf) values be determined?

Retroactive deletion.

Warning: Stream-of-Consciousness Thinking Follows

How does this system help in the resolution of combat in a particular NES? It appears to me that the main focus of the formula is in predicting the resolution of battles. However, unless your time resolution covered in the NES is very low, battles are less important than campaigns or, in even higher time resolution, wars. Thus, unless you hold to a Great Battle theory, where the winner of a Great Battle will win the campaign/war, it seems to have limited usefulness.

A possible solution seems to be proposed in the OP (if I understood it correctly), to calculate a Combat Effectiveness Value (CEV) for prepackaged units of a nation’s force. So, to take numbers from random:

Nation A: 1 regiment=1.5; 30 regiments are available for campaign; 45 CEV
Nation B: 1 regiment=1.3; 40 regiments available; 52 CEV

Thus Nation B would “win” not the battle but the campaign.

There are still some problems with this solution however. First, it ignores localized superiority that can be achieved. For example, what if Nation A was able to outmaneuver Nation B in a campaign, leading to Nation B’s forces being split? Then, instead of 52 CEV, it might drop to a localized 30 CEV, leading to Nation A victory (for a historical example see Napoleon’s use of interior lines in his First Italian Campaign of 1796). Secondly, what does “winning” the campaign mean, does it mean Nation B’s force is destroyed as an effective fighting force, that Nation A force Nation B to retreat, and thus gains land, that Nation A gains all its objectives (which could merely be a raid). Thirdly, how does one recalculate the baseline CEV scores to show changes during the campaign such as in leadership (as leaders die or are replaced), changes in strategy (should a guerilla strategy boost Nation B’s CEV, and if so by how much); changes in troop quality (unless it is a short campaign, troops will need to be replaced and units grow more elite); tactical changes (a strategic attackers takes the tactical defense) and localized changes (changes in supply, terrain, weather, morale, etc.)?

Symphony D. said:

It was rated in the example baseline by individuals familiar with the outcome of the given battles and their place and importance in the overall campaign in which it occurred. In other words, a few (likely a dozen or so) historians got together and determined it by consensus on a 1-10 integer scale, according to the aims of the combatant being scored (ie: they are rated based on the achievement of their own objectives). We don't have one professional historian, let alone a dozen of them, but we have some very skilled amateurs, and a sampling of 3-4 of them that tends to line up in about the same area will give a good enough approximation for our needs in determining the verity of the model back in time.

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Outside of using it in historical battles to justify the equations, isn’t this (Mission Accomplishment) useless as it is only measurable in hindsight, not as a predictive value? Looking over chapter 11 it seems to be useful more as a corrective for the equation rather than something that is useful for predictive purposes. And since to be useful in a NES setting, we need the equation to be predictive not descriptive, isn’t this useless, needing to be replaced by a more helpful corrective that can be used in a predictive sense (for example one of the “intangible factors” that are not calculated such as leadership, training/experience, morale, momentum, intelligence, technology, and initiative [see pg 33])?

Retroactive deletion.

Good, that is helpful in delineating what exactly we expect this system to be able to do. With us agreeing that using it in campaigns is useless, I have a few more statements/questions:

1) This system seems only to be useful for low temporal resolutions in which it is practical to cover campaigns rather than wars. Otherwise resolving wars in the way suggested (going battle-by-battle to resolve campaigns; then repeating for each campaign in war) is going to be prohibitively time and labor intensive for the amount of effort put in.

2) How will the battle-by-battle method handle Fabian strategies, guerilla warfare, and sieges?

3) To adequately simulate campaigns in the manner you describe won’t highly accurate terrain, city, and period road/rail maps be needed?

QJM is not QJMA. QJM is used to calculate theoretical values. QJMA is calculation of actual values. When theoretical matches actual, QJM has succeeded in describing the factors at play in the battle--QJMA is just quantification for benchmarking.

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Thanks, that clarified it for me.

Retroactive deletion.

Retroactive deletion.

Symphony, the system depicted here is terribly cumbersome and remninds me of trying to make sense out of a very complicated spreadsheet created by someone who is not around to answer questions.

Most battles resolve themselves around a pretty defined set of parameters that could probably be agreed upon:

Troop strength
Troop quality (training/experience)
Middle level command ability/experience (tactics)
Senior command ability/experience (grand tactics)
Personalities
Weapons type differential
Imbalance of troop types
Terrain
Whether or not an army is attacking or defending
Odd effects: weather, chance, etc.

The very complex mathmatics used by QJMA seem very unnecessary, especially in a NESing environment. Why not just weight each factor used and work out a simple comparison either as odds or a differential, then apply a chance factor to create the final result?

Retroactive deletion.