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From: oscholt@cs.vu.nl (Oscar Scholten)
Subject: Re: AI-friendly war games - PART II
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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:19:00 GMT
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In article <4r02in$kph@fountain.mindlink.net> you wrote:
: If youre playing a wargame, then in order to have a well defined and
: continuous front line you need a lot of units, so the board/screen
: looks something like:

: DIAGRAM 1)          X Y
:                     X Y
:                    X Y
:                   X Y
:                   X Y
:                    X Y
:                    X Y

: where X and Y are units of opposing sides.  If you dont have enough
: units, then gaps appear and you end up with something like:

: DIAGRAM 2)    
:                 Y
:               X

:              X Y
:               X
:              
:               X
:                  Y

: Now perhaps all this demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding
: on my part about the true nature of warfare.  Perhaps Diagram 2 is a
: realistic portrayal of a large scale battlefield with military forces
: on the front line sitting in compact blocks separated by large gaps in
: which there are essentially no military forces.  However, I have
: proceeded from the assumption that this is not realistic.

Although I am not a real expert, I am afraid that diagram 2 is the more
realistic one. Consider the German attack on Russia (operation Barbarossa).
It is impossible to cover the entire front line, which was running from
St Petersburg in the North to the most southern parts of Russia, probably
over 4000 km. So diagram 2 isn't a uncommon situation in large operations.

It does require certain tactics that are different from those used in 
diagram 1, for that is most found in smaller operations I think. I guess
that these two situations are a good example of the difference between
tactics and strategy.

Oscar
--
Oscar Scholten     ( http://www.cs.vu.nl/~oscholt )          o   - _ - _ -
     __o                   Catch me on my                  /_/\     - _ -
   #`\ \_     TREK usa 750                Yamaha FJ600    <_##/#-'  -  - _
__(0)/_(#)________________________________________________(_)_`(_)_________
-- 
Oscar Scholten     ( http://www.cs.vu.nl/~oscholt )          o   - _ - _ -
     __o                   Catch me on my                  /_/\     - _ -
   #`\ \_     TREK usa 750                Yamaha FJ600    <_##/#-'  -  - _
__(0)/_(#)________________________________________________(_)_`(_)_________
