zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) (01/08/91)
From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) At winter war in CU this weekend Frank Chadwick had a Desert Field Fact Book that his company (GDW) had put out. It seemed very nicely done and a pretty complete description. It includes a glossary, maps, tactics, OBs, equipment descriptions and the most likely attack options against Iraq. It concentrates on the ground forces, rather than the air war (but then that is probably where the greatest doubt about what will happen is). There is also a list of naval forces active in the area. We also ran a bathtub* version of a U.S. desert sheild attack on Kuwait and then Iraq. While U.S. loses were heavy, there was nothing in the Iraqi arsenal that could actually stop a U.S. attack. The U.S. decided to use a direct attack on Kuwaite followed by a drive to the West of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to get to Baghdad. The fighting around Habinyia against the Iraqi guards cost the most. Non Cuniculus Est, Tom H. *bathtub - taking an actual situation and scaling it down to managable size. For example, our game was scaled down by about 1 to 500 but this allowed us to have a table that covered all of Iraq and allowed for Turkish, Jordanian and Syrian intervention from the appropriate borders.
randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) (01/12/91)
From: randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) writes: >From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) >We also ran a bathtub* version of a U.S. desert sheild attack on Kuwait >and then Iraq. While U.S. loses were heavy, there was nothing in the Iraqi >arsenal that could actually stop a U.S. attack. Can you tell us more about this? In your senerio, did the Turks, etc. actually intervene? How did the air force do? Were the Saudi's useful? -Thanks -Randy -- ============================================================================= My feelings on George Bush's promises: "You have just exceeded the gulibility threshold!" ============================================Randy@ms.uky.edu==================
jdnicoll@watyew.waterloo.edu (Brian or James) (01/12/91)
From: Brian or James <jdnicoll@watyew.waterloo.edu> I hope this works. Forgive me if this goes astray, please. >From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) >At winter war in CU this weekend Frank Chadwick had a Desert Field Fact >Book that his company (GDW) had put out. (Description of DSFB deleted) >We also ran a bathtub* version of a U.S. desert sheild attack on Kuwait >and then Iraq. While U.S. loses were heavy, there was nothing in the Iraqi >arsenal that could actually stop a U.S. attack. The U.S. decided to use a >direct attack on Kuwaite followed by a drive to the West of the Tigris and >Euphrates valleys to get to Baghdad. The fighting around Habinyia against >the Iraqi guards cost the most. I'm sure this doen't need to said, but I'll say it anyway; be very leery of trying to evaluate how a real war will go, using a wargame, or wargaming suppliment. GDW, like most companies, often simplifies situations to make the resulting game playable in a reasonable amount of time. In this case, they have produced a non-game suppliment based on what they knew at the pringting date, and while I do not doubt that they tried to make it as accurate as they could, it may very well *be* inaccurate in important areas. The US winning a simulation of a Iraq-US-lead alliance may simply indicate pro-US bias or incomplete information or imagination on the part of the simulators. As an exercise for the reader, compare and contrast the simulations the Japanese ran of Pearl Harbour and Midway, and why the Midway simulation was not as useful to the Japanese as the Pearl Harbour simulation. James Nicoll