Big treat for you in this episode. We talk to some of the staff at the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies and talk about how they use wargaming in professional military education.
By David Garvin
One of the many reasons I play Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is because I am a self-professed amateur historian. The history of the Second World War is not only fascinating but is rich and has even to this day many surprises awaiting anyone who wants to dig deep enough. I intend to do a blog post on how ASL is part history teacher.
For example, it is through ASL that I learned of a battle in early 1942 to the west of Moscow, The Battle of the Kholm Pocket. I discovered this epic battle through the purchase of a Historical ASL (HASL) product from a 3rd party producer, le franc tireur. Based in France, this HASL was designed by Andrew Hershey of Virginia. Before doing a blog post about learning history through gaming, I reached out to him and interviewed him. That interview follows now.
By Jim Naughton
PART I gave an introduction to the subject and cataloged the seven weapon systems available to Soviet/PACT Team Yankee players. Today we’ll take a close look at the math that allows comparing weapons. Battlefront’s source books World War III Team Yankee Soviet and World War III Team Yankee Warsaw Pact are invaluable references.
Always remember, a Scientific Wild Ass Guess (SWAG) is a Wild Ass Guess (WAG) done with slide rules, calculators, and spreadsheets. Now for our SWAG:
Team Yankee uses D6 for combat resolution. In an artillery bombardment, you roll to range-in up to three times, and the number of range-in attempts adjusts the to-hit number for stands under the template. Then comes a save for each stand hit, and finally the artillery rolls a firepower test (if required) to kill the target. That’s a lot of die rolls, each with six possible outcomes. Up to three range-in attempts, then up to four more for each team under the template (to-hit, save, reroll save if brutal, firepower). 216 possible outcomes for the range-in procedure and 1,296 possible outcomes for each team.
“This game is so out of date, anybody who plays it would have to wear a leisure suit.”
By Patrick S. Baker
The husband-and-wife team of Ken and Roberta Williams founded Sierra Entertainment as On-Line Systems in 1979 to develop and market business software for the TRS-80 and Apple II. But the couple soon discovered text adventure games and Roberta had the brainwave of adding graphics to such adventure games.
Thus, with Roberta designing and Ken doing some programming, they developed Mystery House, the first graphic adventure game. Released in 1980 Mystery House sold 15,000 copies sold and earned some $167,000 (about $565,000 today). Buoyed by this success On-line Systems shifted from business software to adventure games.
Join Glenn, Tom and guest host Preston Jacka as they talk about the newly released Firelock Video preview, the upcoming Calvert Marine Museum event (deadline for registration is September 9th) and discuss the incoming fall season of gaming and new releases. Thanks for tuning in! and check out our event before time runs out.
By David Garvin
In my previous article, I discussed how the designers of Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) took the characteristics of real-world tanks and then incorporated them into the game. The tanks of ASL all have the same three characteristics as their real-world inspirations: Firepower, Mobility, and Protection.
As promised, this article will tell you, the player, where to find the information to tell you what kind of Firepower your tank has, how mobile it is and what its protection is. The inspiration for these two articles came from a 5-minute conversation with a new ASL player and this was about a week or so ago. He was just learning how to play and he wasn’t sure where to look for information on the vehicles in a certain scenario. This article (and the previous) are the result of that conversation.
By Jim Naughton
Introduction
With the publication of World War III: Team Yankee Soviets https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=7154 the options for Soviet artillery nearly doubled. Battlefront added the BM-27 Hurricane and the TOS-1 Buratino. Opinions about the effectiveness of these new tools vary, and they have a significant AP differential over the older systems.
The recent publication of World War III: Team Yankee Warsaw Pact https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=7455 updates the PACT-unique artillery, providing options for the East Germans that didn’t exist at the publication of Volksarmee several years ago. Also, the issue of black box support for PACT armies is cleared up.
By blending allied forces the PACT player literally has a golf bag of options. A PACT player can choose to array his troops as Soviet allies, and access the newer Soviet artillery, or make his core a PACT force and use the better skill of PACT supporting artillery units.
By David Garvin
The dictionary defines “tank” as “an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.” That much makes sense. Practically every war game depicting combat in the 2nd World War has tanks, and Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is no exception. There are many other iconic weapons and platforms that stimulate the imagination when it comes to war, but none more so than the tank.
There are defining tanks, such as the Sherman, the T-34, and of course the Tiger. I will discuss this in this article, but I’ll confine myself to tanks and try to avoid discussing other Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs), such as half-tracks, tank destroyers, and assault guns. For the purposes of this article, I will expand upon the definition and further demand that tanks have a turret (or turrets) that house their gun. That said, the purpose isn’t to teach players how to use Tanks in ASL, but rather to show how the designers took the real-world use of tanks and translated that use to the game.
Lucky me, I get to sit down with Nick and Sophia from Georgetown University Wargame Society (GUWS) and hear all about who they they are and what they do!
The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever — Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
By Patrick S. Baker
After the huge success of both Sid Meier’s Civilization I (1991) and Civilization II (1996), both released by MircoProse, another sequel was inevitable, however, it was not going to be something as prosaic as a third Civilization (although a third Civilization game was developed and released in 2001).
Instead, Sid Meier, chief developer of the first game, and Brian Reynolds, the chief developer of the second game, decided to go for something different, more of a spiritual sequel than a direct one. That something became Sid Meier’s Alpha Centuri.
The various moves and decisions of MicroProse’s and its parent company, Spectrum Holobyte’s, management, which lead to Meier, Reynolds, and Jeff Briggs breaking ties with the companies and forming Firaxis Games in 1996 have been discussed elsewhere. The Firaxis team had left the Civilization Intellectual Property and name with MicroProse, so despite wanting to do another turn-based, “explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate” (4X) strategy game they couldn’t just do another Civilization. Plus, they wanted a fresh focus other than world history.
