Monday, November 16, 2009

Now What, Lt. Colonel? (fun with ProSim's "March to Baghdad")

I've written before about "March to Baghdad", the free war game from ProSim published by Armchair General.

A battalion-sized task force (blue icons) awaits my commands. From "March to Baghdad", by ProSim, and published by Armchair General.

ProSim game engine was created by a professional soldier (Pat Proctor, BTW now is deployed in Iraq). The scenarios of "March to Baghdad" were created by Curt Pangracs, who works at a simulation center creating and evaluating simulations for the US Army. At least for me, the "made by professionals" stamp really shows. This weekend, after carelessly conducting an approach march to attack the enemy at "Objective Liberty" and loosing way too many assets, I ended with a deer-in-the-headlights look in my face.

-"Now what? Really dude, I have no idea what the hell to do ..."

The best thing about ProSim war games is that you can use real life doctrine publications to approach the scenarios. Most of the times reading field manuals is a bit dull but fortunately for this specific scenario there is an excellent article at the Armchair General magazine (see "Tactics 101: The Deliberate Attack", even though this scenario looks pretty much like a hasty attack).

So many things to consider for my offense on Objective Liberty! :)

Cheers,
at

5 comments:

  1. Gary OwenNovember 17, 2009 at 12:51 AM

    Well since Major Proctor (I think he's a major, maybe lieutenant colonel) is an artilleryman, that aspect of the game is rather important. Prepare to co-ordinate your artilley to simultaneously suppress and destroy targets on the objectives, respond with counter-fires, and move and reload. If you can juggle that, driving the manuever units through the objective is comparatively simple. Just be careful enough not to get stuck and go slow enough to get as much punch from your arty as possible.

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  2. JCNovember 17, 2009 at 8:27 AM

    Hi GO!

    Copy that. The artillery battle is quite important here. Unfortunately, not my forte! :)

    Cheers,

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  3. Pat ProctorAugust 21, 2010 at 2:50 PM

    I am glad you liked the game!

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  4. JCAugust 22, 2010 at 9:44 PM

    Ey Pat,

    Thanks for dropping by. I will add your blog to my blogroll.
    Cheers,

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  5. JCAugust 28, 2010 at 1:30 AM

    Pat! How is going? Are you back? I know you are writing now but I am curious about that new wargame engine you were up to?

    Cheers,

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