Marxism is an ideology.

"Marxian" describes a school of economics and social theory that posits the relation of society and economics is one of a social superstructure built on top of an economic foundation, to suggest that all social activity is the result of fulfilling economic needs by the means of production.

Can you give an example using DW? How would you create a professionally-oriented scenario using DW?


A good book to explore the history of wargaming, especially naval wargaming is R. Perla's THE ART OF WARGAMING. It is a very informative and entertaining read, be you an amateur or professional.

Do let us know about Kill Chain versus DW! I am really curious to learn the differences. :know:

We're not going to have an argument about dialectical materialism, are we? Then I need to brush up on J.W.F. Hegel---the root of all Marxist thought!

But I still think your arguement is a better example of Adam Smith's free market at work. As long as there is a demand, some one will step up to the plate and meet that demand with a supply of Product X. As a result, a skilled workforce will form and make the product for monetary gain.

In the case of military sims, the government is willing to buy them at top dollar, so even people who might not be inclined to produce such a product will develop the necessary skills to make them. During the course of normal affairs, some people will branch off and make hobby games for more money or to seek an area of lesser competition. Eventually, the two communities will begin to feed a cycle of cross-pollination which will benefit both parties. As long as a demand remains, the cycle will continue---hence SH3 and DW. :D

Well I was thinking more in terms of the role that socially construed consumer forces are generally thought to play in the gaming market, "X consumer has a preference for Y type of game because of socially determined factor Z."

Your argument includes an economic factor sustaining the simulation gaming community, the need of the military for these types of programs, which then in turn drives social forces that lead to the existence of those who make simulators and those who play them.

So Smith and Marx agree on this point, as long as someone is willing to pay money for a simulator, there will be those making and using them. :yep: :-j

One probably wouldn't use DW for doing the kind of analysis that I do at work, at least not routinely, because you can't automatically run the same scenario over and over again using different seed numbers for the random number generator and compile statistics. The technique is called Monte Carlo. It's very hard to compile statistically useful data from DW.

Professionally, we use wargames to try to answer a specific question. Suppose there is a new sensor that the Navy is thinking about buying. The sensor might not even exist yet, except on paper. It's just an outline of some things some engineers think they can pull off. The person in the Navy in charge of giving these people money wants to know how the new sensor fits into the Navy they anticipate having when this sensor will be done, and how it will contribute to winning battles in the conflicts we anticipate having at some point in the future.

We try to identify a potential scenario where the sensor will matter most if it matters at all, and then play that scenario through over-and-over again on a computer to develop some kind of measurement of how well we do. Next we take the sensor out and compare results. Sometimes it matters a little, sometimes it matters a lot, sometimes it doesn't matter at all. From that we can make recommendations about whether we think it's something worth funding or not.

Usually, the scenarios are pretty simple. Since I do mostly ASW stuff, we're almost always modeling area clearence or barrier patrols. The other thing people do is model entire campaigns.

Yes, it's a very good book.

The demo I saw was just a movie. Superficially, it isn't all that different from Dangerous Waters, at least that's how they're marketing it. It LOOKS really cool, but I'm actually kind of disappointed in their marketing because I think they're undermining their ability to sell it as an analysis tool. If they make it look too gamey they'll make some people think it's not really useful. I think they need to emphasize what it produces besides just cool graphics, because it's fun to be able to show people these kinds of cinematic visualizations but somehow we need to also show them some numbers.

There some stuff that I wish we had in DW, like VTUAVs and MPF-F ships. I think they spent more time on the way they model EO/IR sensors. There is provision to output data. As far as I can tell there's no support for multistatics in Kill Chain either (bummer). That's about all I can tell. *shrug*

Here's their web site:

http://www.kill-chain.com/

Then he was either in the Air Force or full of it. The Canadian Navy proper only supplies surface/subsurface guys. The Air Force supplies the zoomies, and the CP-140 (P-3) guys have very little to do with the surface fleet, at all.

It's ironic that they take ASW much more seriously than the skimmer community, when we are the guys actually facing torpedoes in the water...

Multistatics?

Monostatic acoustics is when the source and receiver is co-located. Examples: DICASS buoys, SQS-53, SQS-56.

Multistatic acoustics is when the source and receiver are not co-located. Examples: EER buoys ("bangers"), and similar techniques used for oil exploration

Oh! I forget you guys organize things similar to the British (the Air Force gets the MPAs).

Why do you think that is?

Ah I see.

I can only speak for the USN in this regard but: To put it bluntly, ASW is considered boring.

From what I've heard, it was taken much more seriously during the Cold War, but since then, strike warfare (ie. launching Tomahawks and dropping bombs) has taken precedence, while AAW kept it's previous level of prestige. Part of it is the nature of ASW, you can't just "play-through" a series of ASW scenarios during a practice GQ, like you can with STW, ASuW and AAW, nor do they mix well. AAW and ASuW just fine when put together, but ASW requires an entirely different approach. The fog of war is strong, it's less procedural, more of it relies on intuition and experience than any other warfare area and (at least in the engineer-dominated USN) they don't like leaving things to intuition and experience. They want a checklist of steps and a big red button to push.

But when you are flying a MPA that can only do ASuW/ASW with a very limited strike capability, you tend to get good at what you know. Design a surface ship with no VLS, no large caliber gun, but a fantastic sonar suite and you'll probably see a big focus on ASW.

Thank you for providing that explanation. While I have been playing hobby wargames since I was 13, I never had an opportunity to really learn how professional wargames differ in usage (other than from books). Your explanation was very informative! And I envy you.... ;)

Maybe they have an eye on both civie and military markets at some point in the future? Like TACOPS?

Thanks for the recon!

Very interesting and sort of what I expected considering modern times. I have to be honest: one of the big reasons why I put off buying DW for so long was because I am getting tired of buying sims/wargames that are great at modeling a form of modern combat that is very unlikely in the future. I hate to say it, but when the Cold War ended, so did a big portion of my interest in modern combat. Naval warfare is a little bit different because, while it is *highly* unlikely to see a large scale ground war with an opponent comparable to the USA (such as the former USSR), the navy is always in contact with some lethal platforms owned by a large cast of wacky characters.

Your ASW point is a good example. The only large ASW threat at this point is China with lesser threats from Iran and North Korea. So I can see why ASW is becoming a forgotten son. Of course, if we ever do face an active ASW threat, we could find ourselves playing a painful game of catch-up. But such is the nature of warfare.

Well, before I put out too much doom and gloom, there has been a recent resurgence in surface ASW. Starting to crack the whip and put their money where their mouth is, as it were. Still not as much as it could be, but that's life when your service is playing second fiddle in the war.

We actually made a Monte Carlo version of Fleet Command "back in the day" (AI vs. AI with numerical inputs)... I believe the USN still uses it for visualization and analysis.

Not sure how good it was, of course, but I think they liked it. Boy, I sure hope all of this wasn't classified... :oops:

Cool! Did it have a different name?

The one thing that keeps me from ever showing anyone any of the scenarios I make is that I'm scared to death of making something just a little TOO close to things I've seen. It's awkward, really, because someone who hasn't seen the same things, but reads the newspaper and has a brain, could come up with some of the same things and it would be safe.

I wonder how other people who are into wargaming as a hobby and as a profession manage.