Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)

From: mr-frog@con.Berkeley.EDU (Dave "Human Decompiler" Pare)

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 22:46:41 +0000

Interestingly enough, I was (re)reading Liddell Hart's "The German
Generals Talk" last night and happened upon something which bears on the
subject of formulae.

So the German General Staff were a bunch of smart guys.  Some of the ones
who turned out to be brilliant during the war had no real concept of how
mobile warfare was going to affect the battlefield.  Rommel, for instance,
was a strictly infantry fellow until he "saw the light on the road to Warsaw."
Many others followed much the same path.

Before the war, many on the General Staff were very wary of the tank corps,
and called people like Guderian "tank fanatics" and the like, and were only
converted once they saw the tanks in action.

So what affect did this have on the course of the war?  Well, if the German
General Staff had known the strengths of the various units involved, then
no doubt they would have ordered up more tanks for the Wehrmacht!  As it was,
while they managed to use what they had to kick the snot out of the
French/British, they didn't have enough to win in Russia, where the
distances were vast and the need for more armor more acute.

The British, interestingly enough, had a basically staged experiment where
it was shown that an infantry division could paralyze a tank division.
This happened in 1934, and (as Liddell Hart would have us believe) this
kept the British from buying armored units until 1937!  If they'd only had
the formulae...  :-)

So this doesn't address the "playability" question, only the "realism" one,
but I thought it might be interesting to point out a real-life example of
how commanders didn't really have a clue as to how their units would perform,
and how too many of the wrong units were bought because of that.

Dave

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:13:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
mebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (MsciDave)
Fri, 25 Jun 1993 08:38:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:13:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
mebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (MsciDave)
Fri, 25 Jun 1993 08:38:00 +0000