Doing the Math 2 - Logistics and Air to Air Combat in TSWW

Never without a shortage of projects to manage, I think we'll keep Doing the Math around for quite a while. The first post on Doing the Math (found here) was something borne of necessity at the time since I needed more than a pen and paper to make sense of the combat system in TSWW (The Second World War) from Diffraction Entertainment/TKC Games. Now, that being said, and having enjoyed that experience quite a bit, I'm happy to move along to a subject of interest that I find very engaging: logistics! (To round out this rather extended post, I'll move along the the air to air combat (ATAC) system in TSWW as well. For now though, strap yourself in for a discussion of battlefield logistics in the world of wargames).

What follows below is a two-part discussion on logistics. Section I will address in detail the land and air components of logistics and supply in TSWW game series. In Section II, I'll move on to a broader discussion of how logistics and supply are represented in wargames, what I think some systems do well, and what I think some still miss. Section II will address specific games and systems only in passing. My aim is more on how popular systems in general deal with the same problem that all wargames face specific to the topic of logistics and supply: how to represent something very complex, human, and manufactured in the everyday world into the confines of a game that is enjoyable, fun, easy to understand, and fair? Conundrums, conundrums. And finally, to round on this post, I will briefly discuss the air-to-air combat system in TSWW in Section III.

Anyway, onto TSWW.

Section I: Logistics in TSWW

As a rookie in TSWW series, supply and logistics in TSWW approach the mind boggling. But, never to be deterred, we'll approach this topic as a learning experience that, like all other such endeavors, requires us to take it piece by piece, and bit by bit. Again, as with my last Doing the Math, we won't be handling naval supply. I'll include a bit about air supply, but primarily, this will focus on the supply of land forces and airforces via TSWW's Continental Supply system. (Words in italics are terms specific to TSWW game rules. And, just one final note, the rules I reference are specific to the Game Rules as published in 2021 with version 1.6hp [Hakkaa Päälle]).

The game system upon which TSWW has been based approaches something more of a simulation than it does your everyday wargame. It's more simulation than it is game in many ways, and we find this the case with logistics and supply. In all games for the series, both are dependent on proximity to the National Supply Source, which is usually the player country's manufacturing base located in major cities. To account for those bullets being fired on the front lines, Diffraction Entertainment says its's not simple enough to avoid isolation (supply) on the battlefield or stay within communication distance of your HQ, those bullets need to make their way from the factories to the battlefield. Even in the learning scenarios, far as I can tell, bar exceptions that identify X as a supply source or Y as an exception, in every scenario and module, the point of TSWW is to simulate combat, and that doesn't happen without some nod to the National Supply Source. 

Units at the front line must stay in proximity to their supply sources in TSWW, lest they become isolated from their line of supply and/or over extended from their supply sources (in the event they advance too far from their line of communications). Isolation is when units are surrounded or cut off by enemy forces. Over extension is when units are beyond the supply limits originating at the National Supply Source(s). In general terms, this makes sense enough, but recognizing this differentiation in game terms can take a few reads of the rules to fully appreciate. The line of communications, the system connecting the supply sources to the units at the front, is the beast behind the combat system in TSWW. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and confounding configurations. And, as in all other things in TSWW, the weather really throws a wrench into the mix to complicate things.

Railroads are the major source of projecting the line of communications from the national supply source (I can't be bothered to keep capitalizing that term) to units at the front. Unlike other games where a line of contiguous supply must be maintained to a point, with no extensions allowed, daisy-chaining in TSWW is not only a thing, it's critical to extending the base of supply as far forward as possible. We'll discuss other systems of supply below in section II, but in TSWW, eventually, the natural line of communication reaches the extent of it's intrinsic limit and then various logistic and administrative counters/units serve to extend it. The end of the line of communications (LOC) is the LOC head. While the LOC may extend along friendly controlled high capacity railroads an unlimited distance from a national supply source, the length is limited to 20 hexes along low capacity railroads,  and further limited to 10 hexes along roads. As in all things TSWW, this too is further amended by poor weather. From there, the line of supply extends a further distance along the main supply route (MSR) if no other extension can be made. (Caveat: the extent of the MSR is dependent on the chain of supply that it's connected to. HQ MSRs are variable in length, whereas the MSR projected by an LOC head is six hexes in length). Anyway, don't get too hung up on the MSR, the point is that whenever the logistical network reaches the extend toward the front as far as it can to keep units in supply to avoid isolation and over extension, it's the MSR at the very forefront of that network (or the HQ itself). That network is extended, however, by supply terminals, quartermaster units (through extended continental supply), and various headquarters (Corps, Army, etc.). 

Supply terminals act as hubs; they can serve multiple different army groups, armies, and corps. They are necessary for the distribution of supply in hostile territory and the trickledown effect to pass along supply functions much the same way. They're also important because supply terminals are required to process LPs. An army group supplies multiple armies, an army supplies multiple corps, and so on. Quartermaster units help extend the connection between supply hubs and LOC heads to HQs and units at the front lines and are a common feature in overseas supply networks. The effect of this system is to simulate a logistical network that is organized to supply various armies, fronts, and theaters in disparate locations on (and off of) the maps in play, representing a trickle-down system of supply that is most dynamic at the nerve centers (national supply sources) and reaching to the furthest extent possible to supply front line units throughs (through the main supply route). 

Air supply in TSWW is closely linked to this system of continental supply. (Again, there are rules that govern overseas supply, but I will not cover these this time around since land and air combat themselves are a bear to deal with for a rookie to TSWW system.) Airbases need to trace a MSR to a source of supply and remain within stacking limitations to ensure all air wings and squadrons remain supplied. That's it. 

The whole raison d'être for the line of communications (again, as far as continental supply is concerned) in TSWW is to transmit general supply points (GSPs) and logistics points (LPs) to units at the front. Expenditure of GSPs by units' HQs or by the units themselves is how units stay in general supply (if they are beyond the reach of their LOC and MSR) and maintain offensive supply. 

But just where are the German Rollbahnen?

Now, one of my qualms about the logistic system that I have with TSWW, which I will not reserve for section II below, is the purpose of GSPs as far as general supply is concerned. GSPs cannot be transported by road or overland, except by QM units. They can only be transported by rail, air, or by ship. Since the use of QM units is rather limited, far as I understand their usage, in that case, how are GSPs supposed to serve as reliable sources of general supply? Unless low capacity rails far outstrip the utility of a logistics network, such that the LOC and MSR reach as far as they can even if the low capacity railroads extend way beyond them to deliver GSPs, how are units supposed to get supply in the interior of the continents? The inability to generally truck or shuttle GSPs on horse and cart seems like a gross oversight in my view. Sure, these units are represented intrinsically by the extension of the LOC along roads. I don't see, however, how this limitation to transport GSPs by road provides GSPs as a reliable source of flexibility to players except to permit them to put combat units into offensive supply. (Note 1 -- reference for below with regard to the supply system in Der Weltkrieg). 

I suppose there is some historical veracity to limiting the distribution of GSPs in this way, but that being said, I raise this point because in some of the scenarios found in TSWW (see this post here on the Battle of Suomussalmi for example), the scenario begins with GSPs placed in locations that they could not legally get to per the main game rules; in the Suomussalmi scenario, the GSPs are placed on road hexes that seem to have neither 1) any access to QM units or 2) been emplaced in such quantities ostensibly by Soviet transport aircraft given the period of the war and time of year. I'm still perplexed about the GSPs are doing there in that scenario. So, if anything, for a series that is insistent on developing a game system -- the legacy product of, and more mature version of, Europa -- that's designed to recreate all of the battles in World War II from start to finish with a built-in logistics system that can accommodate all of the theaters across which the war was fought, I find myself scratching my head trying to understand how the logistics in TSWW can adequately simulate the fringe cases that are out there. Certainly, as far as the production of supply and its distribution from national supply sources are concerned, TSWW system does a good job presenting an image of trickle-down-supply to the units at the front. This is representative of strategic level wargames that play out operationally; TSWW is not, in my opinion, operational. It is multi-theater, and that goes beyond an operational focus when it comes to logistics. But is it dynamic enough for the task set before it? Does a system that's designed with the minutiae of strategic-level warfare for operational consumption play out as well as it should? Only time will tell as I log more games. Consider this an open question. The system of supply and logistics in TSWW is ambitious and, as one of my undergraduate thesis committee members termed, "burrito-sized". It'll take time to chew through the fat. 

(Take as a final grain of salt that I have zero experience with the QM units in TSWW; where are they in the smaller scenarios. I'll revisit this after a longer campaign some time, and maybe then it'll make sense to me how GSPs can be more dynamically transported, but in the absence of heavy QM usage, I fail to see how TSWW plays out in any substance beyond the existing rail networks printed on the map.)

And as a final tidbit on the supply of air units, the rule concerning their logistics is quite simple. Air units are in supply if their airbase(s) is located within six hexes of an LOC. That's it.

Now, should we at the very least dive into an example of logistics and supply to make sure we've gotten a good grasp on the concepts outlined above? I say let's give it a shot. So, let's take a look at the map of lower and central Finland, pictured below. For the sake of illustrating the challenges of supply, let's pick some points on the map to try and supply from both a defending (Finnish) and attacking (Russian) side. We'll also consider our options under optimal weather conditions as well as awful weather conditions.

Tracing the chain of supply starts with the LOC, originating at a national supply source. The LOC can run an unlimited distance along high capacity rail lines, 20 hexes along low capacity rail lines, and a further 10 hexes along roads (but not tracks). (The limitation along low capacity rails and roads is cut by 50% in freezing weather.) Let's say we want to supply troops in Suomussalmi from Helsinki. We'd trace our LOC to Kuusankowski (4008) and from there 20 hexes along the single tracked rails, north. The low capacity rails bring us to Kontiomaki (4426) and from there, a further four hexes via intrinsic roads to Suomussalmi. The town lies on the LOC (which continues by road north off of the photo's edge). In the case of freezing weather, tracing from Kontiomaki our limited length LOC, we can only trace along the rail line up to Pieksamaki (4017) and then a further five hexes up to the hex in between Iisalmi and Sillinjarvi. With an Army HQ at Pieksamaki (STs cannot be placed at the LOC head because they can only be placed on the rail portion of LOCs), supply can be passed up to a Corps HQ at Kuopio, and a further three hexes from there into Iisalmi itself, one hex beyond the road portion of the LOC head. Rather than drawing supply from either source, though, supply can get farthest through the immediate MSR extending from the LOC head, getting at least as far as Kajaani (4325), still four hexes shy of Suomussalmi. To supply units at Suomussalmi, GSPs need to be transported by rail beyond the LOC. 

Finally, to give an example for the Russians, let's say the Russian commander wants to get his supply as close to Suomussalmi as he can. Starting the LOC from Petrozavodsk (5613) on Lake Onega, the Russian player can freely trace their LOC up to Nadovoitsy (5624), and from there five hexes east along the low capacity rails to Muezerskiy (where a ST may be emplaced) and then a further four hexes along the gravel road to Kostomuksha (4827) on the Finnish border. This is the Russian's LOC head. From here, an Army HQ may extend supply to a Corps HQ, say in Raate. This gets the Russians into supply one hex east of Suomussalmi. From here, a Corps HQ may keep units in general supply in/around Suomussali and also extend them Offensive Supply if available. 

Plenty of other examples abound, but this hopefully gives a satisfactory introduction. 

(Totally unrelated: who's excited for Spaceballs 2?!)

Anyway, moving on.

Section II: Supply and Logistics in Historical Wargames

This is the section that I've been really been itching to write since I sat down for Doing the Math 2.

Logistics and supply go hand-in-hand when it comes to wargames, if they're represented at all. Before you can have logistics, you need to get the concept of supply down for your games. I would say that in many wargames, you have to worry about supply, and insofar as your units don't suffer from isolation, you don't have to worry too much about the mechanics of supplying your troops. The Dark Summer is a good example, since I just finished a play through not too long ago; in Ted Racier's Dark Summer, for a player's combat units to be fully functional, they only need to maintain an continuous line of supply. In game terms, this just means you have to avoid isolation for your units. As the German player, this is the case every turn. For the Allies, it's even simpler; supply is only checked on turns where it's raining or storming. No matter how far the front extends, supply points, depots and hubs, and so on bear no consequence to the game. The entirety of the game's logistics is abstracted in the form of supply determination. At the moment when supply is determined for each unit, players only have to concern themselves with whether or not the units are effectively isolated. That's it. All matters concerning logistics are subsumed in this processes of determining the isolation status, with predictable results if a unit is found to be isolated. Without even referring to the rules at this point, isolation (generally speaking) for systems of supply of this sort has two effects: reduced combat effectiveness and attrition. This is where the key components of logistical consequences rear their heads. With attrition, the isolation status indicates that having been cut off from the main line of supply, combat units are beginning to feel the effects of combat fatigue. Without supplies to sustain them, thanks to their isolation status, combat units are liable to suffer attrition, signaling either the surrender of the unit for want of ammunition, food, medicine, and/or other supplies, the actual death of the unit's combatants (again for want of food, medicine, etc.), and so on. This is of course what we game players should understand to happen. Of course, in game terms where the turns are at one- or two-week intervals, it's hard to appreciate this level of abstraction. If, say, I roll a critical attrition loss of 6 on a single die roll after my first turn being out of supply and isolated, it may feel like I've just lost 10,000 men at the drop of a hat and somehow cheated not only by the dice gods but somehow also by the designer(s). Of course, what I suppose I would have missed with that perspective is that -- to put myself into the conditions on the ground that have been abstracted beyond quick comprehension -- what I've really done is send 10,000 men out on a mission on the far edge of the line, had them hold their position unsupported for 2+ weeks without air cover, enough food, water, or ammunition, and have expected them to last in that position for the better part of a month. It shouldn't be a surprise if, finding them isolated, they don't hold out to the last man. In fact, their loss by attrition is certainly understandable in that case. To bring it full circle then, in games like the Dark Summer, when we abstract logistics to the point that it's subsumed in the system of supply and we're playing at anything other than the most minute tactical scale, we game players only experience the implied extremes; a single die roll is the only thing that can stand between the irrelevance of isolation and counter death, signaling the attrition of 10,000 "at the drop of a hat". 

The more complex games are, the more they approach something akin to a simulation as opposed to a game, and the more that they draw out the systems of supply and logistics, the less that we wargamers experience these extremes. 

Now I think I'm not alone here when I say that as far as historical wargames are concerned, not every game needs to account for logistics in the way that those like the TSWW series does. In many respects, those like the Dark Summer are sufficient in their design. Much like there's a measure of relative complexity and playability between a game on one side of a scale and a simulation on the other side of the scale, the complexity of how supply and logistics are represented in historical wargames is very similar in that respect. On the game side of things -- where everything is gamified, abstracted, adjusted to match playability and so forth -- I'd expect to find the system of supply and logistics simplified in one small section of the rules. Clean, simple, and effective are the guiding rules of design. Then you encounter at the opposite end of the scale something like the system found in TSWW: supply lines and lines of communication that determine whether or not a unit can survive where it's located, totally separate to the provision of munitions and other necessary paraphernalia for executing an offensive. Supply is tied to, yet distinct from, logistics. At least in my view, such is how games, broadly defined, eventually blend into something like simulations when it comes to historical wargames.

Two additional points worth noting here. This is a simple way to think about supply and logistics and how they're represented, but it's not universally applicable. The subject matter itself has a significant bearing on that representation, whether it's more abstract and/or simplified, or more true to real life, and complex. Scale and time period have a lot to say about how a wargame should be designed. Firstly, as far as all historical wargames out there are concerned, the period being represented plays an important part in how supply is represented. It's no surprise to many of the wargamers and grognards out there that warfare in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century and the first half of the Twentieth Century heavily depended on the use of railroads. It features prominently in the provision of supply in OCS and TSWW series and the movement of supply points, GSPs, and LPs in those series. Take a game on the campaigns of Alexander the Great or Europe's conquest of the New World and the issue of representing reality looks very different. Time period has a lot to say about what is represented and how. Scale presents its own problems on top of this. 

And secondly, on the issue of scale, perhaps the games that best distinguish this fact come from The Gamers/MMP. At least to begin with, their games offer a great entry point to this topic. While the design for what (supply and logistics) is represented in their games stays pretty consistent to a particular sort of core rule design, the representation in game terms is still distinctly unique. (You can tell that even across the different series, the design of the core rules is pretty consistent and only deviates based one series complexity and scale). Of the series produced by The Gamers/MMP, the Operational Combat System (OCS) plays very differently from the quartermaster point of view than does the Standard Combat System (SCS). 

A lot of creativity comes with scale as well. The granularity of abstraction in historical wargames offers a lot of flexibility. Some of the highest level games come at the level of theaters. Think World in Flames by Australian Design Group or the Totaler Krieg series of games that has finally culminated with Axis Empires. Not only are the games trying to represent the combat on the ground, but there's entire political economic and social policy spheres that are represented into one singular package. At the far opposite end of the spectrum, we encounter games like Advanced Squad Leader from AH/MMP, where the issue of logistics and supply has very different gameplay effects: the breakdown of weapons as opposed to the breakdown of say an offensive. In ASL, for instance, one of my favorite mechanics has to be the reduction of the breakdown number for support weapons due to not only mechanical frailty or poor design, but a lack of ammunition as well. In the historical modules as well, additional rules govern what the lack of supplies does to the multi-man counters. Having never played any of the HASL modules with those rules though, I won't comment further. 

The point of this entire discussion though is that while there is indeed a scale of complexity for historical wargames and simulations that aligns well with how supply and logistics are represented, there isn't necessarily a one-size-fits-all sort of rule here. While I'll certainly say that there is an ideal sweet spot, it's dependent on multiple factors (including scale and time period, and not just intended complexity). 

At this juncture, I'd like to dive into a few examples to make this as obvious as possible. Operational-level games offer one of the best indications of how the representation of supply and logistics can make or break a game, and it has to do with the supply of armaments, munitions, and miscellaneous other equipment to the units conducting offensives. And the first indication for why these are important concerns at the operational level is located in the distinction between two definitions.

What distinguishes a tactician from a strategist? While a tactician sets out to achieve set (incremental) goals by the means and tools afforded them on the ground, a strategist focuses on the grand-scale achievement of long-term and picture-goals. Insofar as the strategist is concerned with the work of the tactician, the former works to provide the ideal means and the necessary tools to the latter. (If I were sitting in at a corporate board of directors meeting right now, I'd probably boil this down to big-picture thinking versus concern for the minutiae of day-to-day operations.) In other words, one is ultimately much more concerned about the concert of logistics than the other. Care to take a guess which one? 

Tactics depends on supply and logistics, but it's not directly concerned with the provision of either (provided of course the quartermasters and generals are doing their jobs, which is a lot to ask in this day and age). The tactician shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they have enough hand grenades or mortar bombs to accomplish the mission; that's a job for the strategist. I may of course take some flak for this proposition; strategists aren't only concerned with supply and logistics (that's primarily what quartermasters are for I suppose), but supply and logistics -- the provision of both, the strengths they afford armies, or the frailty they can imbue -- certainly play into a strategist's thinking, and their planning. After all, strategists don't only think about their own supply lines, they think about their adversary's supply lines, their own supply strengths and weaknesses, and the best strategies with which to bring them down, or maybe avoid them completely. Strategy involves many things, but if it doesn't involve supply and logistics, then something has gone horribly awry, or is liable to go FUBAR right quick. 

Wargames evoke the tactician and strategist in every player, and without hashing out the various possibilities we get when we come across variation in scale, period, design, and so on, there are games that try to cater to both; there are tactical systems and a grand, strategic scale (like the aptly titled Grand Tactical Series from MMP) and there are operational games that provide a granular view of the field (though much harder to accomplish with cardboard; the video games produced by Eugen Systems like the Wargame and Steel Division franchises give a good indicator of what I mean by operational and still granular). That being said, though, operational games by the necessity of their design (again, take that last part with a grain of salt) force players to put on their strategist cap and confront the challenges of the quartermaster; this is primarily because operations are not infinite. Operations and offensives start and they stop. They are by what armies measure their progress, hopefully in terms of miles and not yards (I've measured my life by kilometers once, and I'll never do it again). And, most importantly, when we talk about logistics, the provision of supplies, shells, and machine gun bullets are most consequential when pulling off an offensive, or repelling one. While fighting may happen year round, it's not a slugfest 24/7 with constant massed bombardments, persistent hand to hand combat, or the movement of millions across continents. When we play theater-level or global-level games (think Uncontional Surrender by GMT Games or World in Flames) or tactical level games (like Combat Commander or Squad Leader), we sometimes don't have the right scale at hand to appreciate this fact. But operational games bring out the best (and worst) in wargame supply and logistics, and that's what we're here to discuss. Hopefully now you at least have an appreciation as to why this is what I've chosen to discuss.

Are you getting winded yet? We're just getting to the good part, I assure you. My briefing isn't over yet, so stay with me.

In my view, the mark of an excellent operational wargame is one that mimics the challenge of maximizing logistical networks and the provision of supply to achieve the objectives of an offensive. Very often, history shows, it's not the training of the men, the quality of the generals, or even the number of gun tubes that matter in the end. Wargame designers have, after all, spent half a century perfecting the abstraction of these qualities in their wargames. Instead, it is very often the lack of munitions (and in particular the right kind of munitions) that matter in the end. Operational wargames that fail to account for this in my view do a disservice to the players.

Anyone who has played the Operational Combat Series by MMP/The Gamers knows that very often, the availability of artillery units is not wanting on the board; it's the supply points needed to expend artillery shells that they often lack. In Tunisia I, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Germans still had plenty of troops, armor, and artillery on the board even though the Afrika Korps was in it's death throes at that point in 1943. I could hold back the British 8th Army with relative ease, if only I had the supply points necessary to maximize the force I had at hand. Throughout that game, I never once brought any of my nebelwerfers or heavy artillery into the fight in defense of the Mareth Line because there weren't enough shells for the gun tubes I had on hand. Take a look at any conflict over the last several centuries and you'll find that very often, the ratio of ordnance to munitions is almost impossible to get right. 

Remember when the United States began to send Javelin anti-tank missiles to the Ukrainians fighting the Russians in 2022/2023? (No? Well, I do). Critical ammunition shortages for the supply of those munitions were readily apparent when news came out that while Ukraine was expending 500 Javelin missiles a day, it took a Lockheed Martin assembly line a whole year to produce just 2,100 of them. (For you fact checkers out there, this is the article I remember reading). See a problem? It doesn't matter if you own the technology, have the right combatants to operate them, or even have enough missile launchers to fire at every Russian clanker trundling down the road at you; if your soldiers don't have the missiles to fire on those tanks, you're going to have a problem. 

How about another example? There's an interesting memoir by a Russian political officer from the Second World War that was published in English some years ago called Through the Maelstrom. The author, Boris Gorbachevsky, if my memory serves me right, started the war off in a mortar platoon, but seeing that there weren't enough mortars for his unit or mortar bombs for what tubes they had, high command converted his unit into an infantry outfit and sent him to the Rhzev front. Serving on the front until the end of the war, he survived long enough to observe that whereas every mortar only had 10 rounds per tube at the start of their war with the Germans, by the war's end, there were more than a hundred rounds available per tube. Here too, the ratio of ordnance to munitions was left wanting. 

Let's have one more example, shall we? There's a great autobiography of a soldier named Joseph Plumb Martin who served in George Washington's army during the American Revolution. Among the many interesting things that Martin discusses, including how they treated illnesses and the more primitive forms of vaccination back then, Martin does make some passing reference to the issue of munition supply at one point early in his narrative. I don't have the book with me, so I can't say during what battle he makes reference to this fact, but somewhere early in the war, Martin says that their cannoneers were hard pressed to lay their hands on enough cannon balls. To help remedy the shortage, Martin and many of his compatriots would run into the open ground, slipping and sliding in the mud to look for intact and expended cannon balls. If they could return any of them back to their lines, they were rewarded a ration of rum for each ball. 

I could go on. Suffice it to say that in many an offensive, stockpiles play a role. It's up to designers 1) if they choose to represent that fact at all and 2) if they do, how they choose to represent that particular challenge of supply. It's not enough to get the troops their soup or hardtack, but they have to be supplied with the munitions to fight a war, and sometimes that means launching offensives that consume more than the otherwise average daily expenditure of munitions. 

I've already mentioned OCS. OCS does an excellent job bringing the gun tubes and not enough munitions. To be sure, too, it's not just heavy ordnance, but even the little things, like machine gun bullets. The consumption of commissary supplies, medical resources, small arms ammunition and heavy ordnance munitions are all covered by the rules governing the movement and expenditure of supply points in OCS. Any newbie to the system will probably tell you that the system is a bear to get a hold of; while it's simple enough (your units cannot survive or fight in many locations on the maps without supply points), understanding where they can survive and how efficiently the combat units can fight is tricky to get a hold of; even so, as far as series rules are concerned, OCS does a nice job putting something together that lets players recreate the operational constraints of different battles/theaters using the same basic rule system. Once you get the knack of shuttling your supply points around, it makes it pretty easy to understand; no, you can't daisy chain HQ units together to throw supply up ahead, etc. Wrapping one's head around those sorts of rules takes a couple of reads. 

TSWW approaches something similar; you've got different types of supply counters that get sent to the front lines and then consumed by combat units. As far as streamlining those rules into effective gameplay mechanics, though, I would certainly say that OCS is much more playable. There's only one type of supply in OCS (supply points) versus multiple kinds in TSWW (LPs and GSPs). Again, on the spectrum between a game and a simulation, OCS feels very much like it's on the game side of things whereas TSWW falls more to the side of a simulation. Then again, this is simply a relative appraisal between the two. To the casual board gamer who thinks the rules to Catan, Root, or Twilight Imperium are needlessly complex, they'd probably offer me a piece of their mind for suggesting OCS doesn't feel like a simulation. And maybe they'd be right -- after all, I've played my fare share of OCS by now; and maybe after another 100 hours with TSWW, I'll feel differently. But that being said, my point is hopefully clear enough; how wargame designers actually design the supply and logistics systems matter a great deal to the playability of operational wargames. Some feel more streamlined, other's clunkier in the name of simulation.

Some systems, frustrating as they can be to play, near perfectly mimic the battles they've been designed to represent. In this category, I'd place SPW's Der Weltkrieg series of games on the Great War. The games produced under the Der Weltkrieg banner are a case-in-point of how offensives live and die by the resources available to the combatants. Especially for the battles of the Great War, SPW does a fantastic job recreating the limited success that many offensives were able to achieve. Attackers, with their stockpiles of precious shells, can move the frontline a few miles this way or that, but with little to no exception, they can forget about achieving some illustrious, war-winning breakthrough. This wasn't the war for that; it's a grind, and Der Weltkrieg replicates that grind of men and materiel well. I won't speak for the campaign game in Der Weltkrieg; I haven't played it, but the individual scenarios use a simplified supply system that requires players to expend supply points for divisions to fight at their full fighting strength. When done right, attacks can achieve local breakthroughs and a shift in the general line this way or that, but by design, most scenarios prevent players from doing more than what their logistical limitations will allow. I've seen reviews by players saying this is a disappointment in gameplay terms because without their precious supply points, offensives grind to a halt. This is not a point to be deducted from Der Weltkrieg if you think about it, but rather a very nice plus in favor of the system's merits. It adds color to the strategic picture of an operational wargame; combat tactics aren't the only conundrum thrust upon the players. They also have to confront the challenge of supply. In my view, that's what makes a great wargame. Never mind the fact that the designer decided to make the maps compatible with a WW2 series of games that as of this date hasn't been published ...

Let's collect ourselves for a moment here and think about the three systems I've just discussed (in varying degrees of comprehensiveness): TSWW, OCS, and Der Weltkrieg. I've listed them in descending order of complexity. TSWW is the most complex; OCS probably has the largest cult following, and Der Weltkrieg has the simplest rules and system of the three. Despite the varying degrees of complexity, each game affords their players a finite view of the options available to them when it comes to expending supply points. The expenditure of resources and munitions using the supply and logistics rules in each game is calculable. Some scenarios/campaigns have variable supply level rules (like some OCS scenarios/campaigns), but for the most part, players watch their supplies trickle down, or occasionally trickle up.

Occasionally, however, there are supply and logistical systems for tracking munitions that are based more on variability than a system for distributing supply point chits to different HQs across the board (as in OCS). In my opinion, the model system in this category is the Grand Operational Simulation Series by Decision Games. In GOSS, artillery units are always on the verge of ammo depletion thanks to an ingenious system that abstracts the supply of munitions between the opposing sides. Rather than expend supply without regard for the potential for waste (where's the X-inefficiency values?), GOSS has players roll for ammo depletion every time their artillery units fire. The ammo depletion number serves two purposes. First, it's reduced occasionally to replenish ammo; second, it's used to check for possible depletion. If players pass the check against their depletion number, the artillery fires without penalty; if it fails, it's marked as ammo depleted. Once depleted, batteries can't be fired until players refresh the supplies. To do so, they have to diminish the ammo depletion number by 1, thereby making future rolls riskier. Players strategically have to decide if they want to replenish their ammunition stocks early to bring as many guns to bear in bombardment, or they can delay and fire with what units haven't been marked as depleted to conserve their depletion value.

In my experience, with the luck of die rolls, I've had several sections of the front lose artillery support in GOSS thanks to this system. Wanting to conserve my ammunition in the other sectors, I willingly went without support in certain sectors to retain a higher depletion rate in the others. This system offers a different way to deal with the issue of supply and logistics, and it makes game play a little smoother in my opinion compared to shuttling around SPs, even if I do enjoy that aspect of certain games.

To be sure, though, supply and logistics isn't just about blowing things up; it's more than just munitions. An important part of the equation is rolling stock and the movement of troops, trucks, and tanks. Sometimes that means horses, sometimes that means trains, and sometimes that means trucks or cargo planes. In the most complicated of games, you get all of those. The ones that streamline it and make you forget about pesky rules, though, are the rare few that thread the needle well and produce something magnificent, as opposed to the bloated, clunky, and unnecessarily complicated. 

Here too, I've got an example for you all. In Ernst Kern's War Diary, Kern chronicles the four years that he spent as a mountain trooper on the Eastern Front in the German army during WW2. At one point, I recall a passage where he talks about retreating across the Soviet Union when his unit came across transport trucks very close to the frontline that should have been much farther in the rear. In his surprise at seeing the trucks so close to the front, he determined that somewhere there must have been a "colossal mess," as he put it. Even in war, the management of transportation plays a strategic role, and I suppose in Kern's case, someone had clearly overlooked where those trucks were supposed to be.

Better yet, even, where are the games that mimic the movement of trains as in Heinrich Böll's Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train was on time)? Trains going to the rear were always slow in arriving, but the ones returning to the front were always punctual, always on time. Again, this is just food for thought. Not all railways are the same, but I don't know that many wargames out there need to take that into account.

Similar to how ammo depletion is held in GOSS, a mirrored system of abstraction for mobilizing foot units in that series of games governs the use of transport points. Unlike GOSS, by comparison, OCS provides truck point counters for this purpose to shuttle both supply points and troops (if my memory serves me right) around the map. 

At risk of perpetuating this discussion ad nauseum, I'll just offer by way of conclusion a couple of thoughts. First, supply and logistics should be a serious design consideration in wargames, especially the more complex and strategic they become. But, unless the designer has a simulation in mind as opposed to a game, the mechanics of the system of supply and logistics should empower players to harness their penchant for strategy and not inhibit them. That's not to say the more abstract the better; on the contrary, some of the best games out there require careful tracking of resources and supplies. It's all about threading the needle between complexity, realism, scale, era, and mechanism. 

And lastly, a word on the Campaign for North Africa (the famous 1979 simulation?/game? designed by Richard Berg). Talking about supply and logistics, I'd be remiss not to mention this one; not because I want to discuss the intricacies of its design or because I am a member of the cult following. I am not. What I hope to dispel is any thought that there's something that needs to be discussed about CNA in this post. The game is a wonderous feat from the design perspective; its genius is not in playability, but what it allowed wargamers to do in 1979. Before us wargamers had the computing power and resources of the computer and information age available to us, all of the complexity involved in calculation had to be done by hand. We simply didn't have a way to streamline computation. Richard Berg's CNA is the game par excellence that presaged the age of computerized wargames, whether it was something like the Steel Panthers franchise or the mammoth productions by Gary Grigsby (War in the East, War in the West, and War in the East 2). CNA is a genius feat because it found a way to employ that level of detail into something that was, ostensibly, playable. It's the simulation if there ever was one, but it's clear that it was an important step on the long winding road of wargame design. That being said though, you'd be crazy to think we need another one like that. In my opinion, we don't need another CNA, but we needed it then. The challenge today is threading that needle between complexity, realism, scale, era, and mechanism. There are still many designs to be tested in that regard, and many that have come out wonderfully so far. 

Anyway, let's get moving on, shall we?

Section III: Air-to-Air Combat in TSWW

To conclude this second post on Doing the Math, I'd like to take a final few moments to discuss the air-to-air combat procedure in TSWW. For a game that goes to great lengths to simulate the ground combat of the Second World War, the aerial combat that accompanies the ground combat is surprisingly abstract. As far as I can tell, without any exceptions, air units are treated either as squadrons (reduced strength counters of around 20 aircraft) or wings (full strength counters of around 40 aircraft). Counters fly to assigned destinations for whatever missions they've been assigned to (more on that below), perform air-to-air combat against any aircraft that oppose them, resolve anti-aircraft fire (if any), and then resolve their mission assignment. 

Now the missions themselves, and the flight of wings and squadrons to fulfill those missions, approach -- I would say -- the closest thing to a simulation of air roles for the air forces of the Second World War. Flight distance and mission type have an impact on the performance of aircraft and the effect that those units have on the battles raging on the ground (and/or at sea). I won't go into an in-depth discussion here on the variety of missions available to players of TSWW; but it would seem to me that by comparison with the level of thought and detail that went into designing the various air missions that one can assign to air forces in TSWW, air-to-air combat is itself abstracted to the extent that it's only meant to facilitate combat between air units that matter at a operational-strategic/theater level, whereas the missions those aircraft are performing are really the more consequential component to conflict on the ground/at sea. In other words, air-to-air combat is not going to be simulated the same way that ground combat is. Maybe I'm wrong in this assessment, but to me, it would seem to make sense that for TSWW, it's the air missions that don't involve air-to-air combat that matter more for gameplay's sake than the actual engagement of aircraft v. aircraft. 

There are two mechanisms that determine air-to-air combat outcomes in TSWW. The first is the Air CEV (which is an abstraction of factors like unit cohesion, training, leadership, and so on at a national level). The second is a material rating between the offensive armament and features of the aircraft engaging in combat and the defensive armament and features of the aircraft. The difference in Air CEVs between both sides is calculated as a die roll modifier for the combat and then the difference between the offensive & defensive capabilities of the aircraft involved are calculated as a differential that's used to determine the column on which combat is rolled for each aircraft. 

For example, if Player A attacks Player B's bomber (Attack 1, Defense 2) with a fighter (Attack 4, defense 3) and Player A has an Air CEV of 2 versus Player B's Air CEV of 3, the combat is calculated as follows: Player A receives a -1 DRM for his/her combat (2-3) and Player B receives a +1 DRM for his/her combat (3-2). Then, Player A rolls for the attack against the bomber on the differential column of +2 (Attack 4 - Defense 2, assuming no other modifiers), with the -1 DRM. Then, Player B does the same (his/her bomber "attacks" in kind in response to the fighter: Attack 1 - Defense 3, assuming no other modifiers), with a +1 DRM. Assuming a die roll of 5 on the +2 Differential column, modified to 4, Player A would effect an "R" result against Player B's bomber. For Player B's part, in response, assuming Player B rolls a 5 on the -2 differential column, modified to a 6, the result would also be an "R" result. 

After a little practice, this is quite an easy system to grasp and get a hold of. The result is a system for combat in the air that doesn't feel as involved as it does for ground combat. In part, this is result of scale for the type of combat, and it also has to do with the objective envisaged for air units in TSWW in the first place.

By way of conclusion, hopefully this gives a good impression of how logistics and air-to-air combat factor into the gameplay of TSWW.