WORKSHOP: Universal Simulationist Military System

[Perfectionist]

I find that quite hard to believe given the physical distance between the town-center of Agincourt (Azincourt) and Tramecourt is about 800-1000m.

No, it isn't. It's about 2000 m. As to my numbers, try here and here, and also Curry's book and Barker's book. I think Dupuy even gives a similar number in his encylopedia, though I'd have to check that. It's irrelevant anyway, because you can't deploy a thousand men in four ranks in a 70 m space, let alone six thousand.

What's the difference between running up a flight of stairs and walking up it? Same work. Different power. An orderly English advance would have taken roughly ten to fifteen minutes. This is not the same as a French charge conducted in three to four minutes.

So the English advance was a leisurely stroll, despite the fact that if the French reacted before the English got set up again, the English were dead. I find that hard to believe. In fact, so do you, apparently. The English had to go about 750 yards, while the French had to go 250. Using your times, the French were advancing at a rate of 63-83 ypm, and the English were advancing at 50-75 ypm. Not much difference.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactive deletion.

 

[Perfectionist]

Which suggests 380m minimum width for the highest ground.

That's more reasonable. I still don't like it, but there's no point arguing any more. Incidentally, since you saw the episode, do you know if there's a reason they picked the contour they did for the out-of-bounds line?

The point is not so much to say "This is why the English won," the point is more to say "The English victory can be accounted for by the system," even if you have to jiggle the numbers to your liking to try and account for what is a relatively very complex battlefield situation (again, like Thermopylae).

You're right, of course. Arguing over specifics is beside the point, no matter how much I hate it when French apologists try to make Henry V less awesome. The critical point, I suppose, is that I don't like having to rely completely on exogenous factors to produce the right result. It's unsatisfying.

By the way, any thoughts on Pavia, and specifically whether d'Alencon's men should count?

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactively deleted.

 

[flyingchicken]

force-spreadsheets

Text files. Loading up text files formatted in a certain fashion for either a program or a spreadsheet (I dunno about anything other than MS Excel 2007, but loading up text files works there) to open. You'll have files like "AK47.txt", "M16inVietnam.txt", "HTHWeapon.txt", "16thCEuropeanCrossbow.txt" and so on with just numbers inputted like so:

60
1
0.4
1
0
0.95
1.0

(for a HTH weapon, in this example)

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactively deleted.

 

[flyingchicken]

Ho-hum. Something like this?

NAME "1st Infantry Division"
FACT "USA"
PSTR 20000
WPNO 1.3
WPNN 20000 (or a reference to a weapon file)
MCHO 14.0
MCHN 500
MRTO 200.0 (or a reference to a weapon file)
MRTN 100
ARTO 1600.0 (or a reference to a weapon file)
ARTN 20
CAVO 0 (or a reference to a weapon file)
CAVN 0
ARMO 150.0 (or a reference to a weapon file)
ARMN 5

That's been lying around in my folders for quite a while now... That is to say, I'm sticking with my original statement in a new light: text files! But I'm not sure if spreadsheets can modify those, but IMHO they're a lot less difficult to maintain and build than spreadsheets.

If the players are forced to maintain OBs, they may as well be directly useful rather than having to be translated for every battle.

Like... character sheets?

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactively deleted.

 

[flyingchicken]

I view write-to functionality as critical.

After a quick Google, I can safely say that text files can easily be written to with a macro or two.

Last I checked you didn't hand your character sheet to the Mod during a battle for him to scribble all over only for it to be flung back at you looking terribly altered with you having to scrape together the blasted remnants of your shattered forces into new impromptu command structures.

If one doesn't see a transfer and just a bunch of calculations and results, one could say that there is little difference between a moderator giving the new numbers for a military and a game master telling his players that their characters just lost all their hitpoints because the dice and his conscience for the poor NPCs said so, but this is all very tangential.

Incidentally, general player involvement in bookkeeping for a game seems to me like that it would require the threat of physical harm to be of any useful degree.

 

[Symphony D.]

Retroactively deleted.

 

[BananaLee]

Alright, now here's the all-important question. Now that I want to play with QJM and all the original data is missing, does anyone happen to have them?

Cheers.

 

[Dachs]

Hm. That Brit WIA number, as you noted, is weird. Do you think it would be a better idea to keep it as-is and assign some kind of effect to "having more KIA+WIA than your entire army", like "total postbattle disintegration of the unit" or something? Or insert a threshold for the casualty numbers, double-checking them against the original?

The error isn't too terrifically removed from Wiki to be worried about - certainly nothing like the Great Siege of Gibraltar error. I agree with most of the assumptions - neutralizing CEV, for instance. But I'm curious about what effect flatter terrain than "rolling" bare would have. The area around Isandhlwana is dominated by one really weird looking rock (on which they didn't fight), and the rest is more or less flat. At the same time, most of the paintings I've seen of Isandhlwana make note of a medium-heavy fog on the battlefield. Have you run it already with those two things changed up? If not, could you try that?

 

[Kraznaya]

Is there any way to split up CEV into more factors?