Kill Chain

[WargamerScott]

I just read the SubSim headline article on Kill Chain (http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...c1/sb-navy.htm) and was wondering what Kill Chain can offer that DW cannot?

"“The intent is to make this a multi-mission module, but the initial focus is ASW [anti-submarine warfare],� said Capt. Paul Rosbolt, program manager of ASW at PEO-IWS, which coordinates research, development and procurement of new ASW systems. "

and

"The PC-based simulation has a man-versus-machine, or artificial intelligence, capability, said Byrne."


Talk about inflating you resume.... So does every other wargame I played over the last 10 years!

"Players can choose to be a tactical action officer or a commanding officer of a ship on the red or blue sides. Or, for analysis work, the simulation can be set to run against itself, said Byrne. "

Sounds like DW again. The machine versus machine sounds interesting though.

"During a recent games conference in Arlington, Va., Byrne displayed a demonstration depicting three U.S. ships in battle against three Chinese ships. The war-fighting could be viewed via a 2-D display, known as the Naval Tactical Data System, and a 3-D display, in which players can watch the ships being attacked or ride along with the missiles being fired."

You don't say....

"The electronics entertainment industry spends roughly 80 percent of its development budget on graphics and 20 percent on realism, said Byrne. To develop “Kill Chain,� the design team flipped the equation, investing 80 percent of its resources in realism. "

Hmm...I guess he hasn't played any serious wargames in awhile....

"“How many guys do you think could walk from the bow of a Chinese class destroyer to stern and can talk about all the systems on board? I put a guy in this game, and I make him the CO of that ship, and he’s in battle. By the end of an hour and a half, he’s going to understand what the capabilities in that ship are. And if the next time he plays on the blue side, and he hears that ship on radar, he’s going to remember what’s on that ship. I say, that’s training,� said Byrne."

Sans the Chinese ships, DW does the same for $39.

:hmm: It sounds to me that KC is just a big-budget government sim that mimicks DW capabilities.

BTW: The Kill Chain contract was for $11.4 million. Out of curiosity, what was the development cost for DW?

Also, the article says that:

"Upon completion, the simulation will comprise one million lines of code."

How does DW stack up?
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[TLAM Strike]

How do they stack up? I can compare DW to KC in one sentence;

As a civilian you can buy DW, KC not so much…

[WargamerScott]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

How do they stack up? I can compare DW to KC in one sentence;

As a civilian you can buy DW, KC not so much…

Ah, but if I could, would I want to? That is the question.

[Furia]

I think Dangerous Waters is the answer to the civilian market.
We do not need more complicated sims and belive me if they make it really real we all must go to the Naval Academy
We are taliking about realism in other threads and everybody agrees that we have to have a common gorund to ensure gameplay.
I fly real simulators and I also try the latest commercial PC simulators and well, they are not even close one to the other.
The most realistic flight sim I know, Falcon (now Allied Force) does not draw hords of people because of its dificulty and anyway it is not the real thing about complexity.
I do not think the Navy wants its sailors and officers to have fun while training on this utility so I doubt any of us would.

Anyway for those that are really ready for maximum realism and complexity I strongly suggest you APOLLO 18
There you will be really tested on realism and complexity.
Of course if you can accomplish even to lift off from the ground.

I love the way the sim it is right now.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by WargamerScott

"The PC-based simulation has a man-versus-machine, or artificial intelligence, capability, said Byrne."


Talk about inflating you resume.... So does every other wargame I played over the last 10 years!

You have to understand, a lot of naval officers don't really know much about anything besides how to pound the bejeezus out of stuff, so the more macho you can make it sound, the more likely they are to buy it. They like simple, catchy, phrases with small words, unless it's "utilize" in place of "use" because they think that makes them sound smart. Beltway bandits know this, respect this, and are good salesmen for it.

"Players can choose to be a tactical action officer or a commanding officer of a ship on the red or blue sides. Or, for analysis work, the simulation can be set to run against itself, said Byrne. "

Sounds like DW again. The machine versus machine sounds interesting though.

It can be. It depends. That's the sort of thing I do all day at work, designing and running those types of simulations that just play themselves. It's Monte Carlo for war, just the same as you use for see how well you're doing with your 401k. There's a lot of models out there that do similar things. I guess from a PC gamers perspective, you could use this to see if what you did was really sound or if you just lucked out, or maybe play with things to see if you do better or worse. Honestly, though, I'd rather just sit down and play, than set up a scenario and let it run ten thousand times and analyze the output. People have to pay me for that.

Hmm...I guess he hasn't played any serious wargames in awhile....

This isn't to say that there's not a fair bit of depth to DW, but if you've ever been in the CIC of a real warship, you'd realize there's still a long way to go.

:hmm: It sounds to me that KC is just a big-budget government sim that mimicks DW capabilities.

In all likelyhood, it probably also has a lot of ways for outputting data for later analysis. It probably also includes a lot of stuff DW can't include. There's probably a lot of proceedural stuff included that isn't included in DW to speed up game play. The radar model is probably a lot more detailed. It'd be interesting to see if their sonar model is the navy's standard one or if they did something different. It'd have to accept data from lots of different sources. They'd have to include support for multistatics. There's also a lot of stuff they simply can't include because any time you start trying to make something very specific regarding warfare, in all likelyhood it will be classified. A real life military sim would have a classified database as opposed to a combination of made up and publically available values. Depending on what you're talking about, the differences can be quite large.

DW is a good place to start for a full-blown training aid, though. The basics are there. Don't short change how different it is, though.

[Mau]

SeaQueen wrote:

''You have to understand, a lot of naval officers don't really know much about anything besides how to pound the bejeezus out of stuff, so the more macho you can make it sound, the more likely they are to buy it. They like simple, catchy, phrases with small words, unless it's "utilize" in place of "use" because they think that makes them sound smart. Beltway bandits know this, respect this, and are good salesmen for it. "

I will not take it personal since I am an officer in the Canadian Navy....

[OneShot]

Same goes here ... just different Navy. You know Officers are generally choosen and trained to think and at least in the german navy are suppose to have a pretty broad horizon (if you know what I mean). :rotfl:

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Mau

I will not take it personal since I am an officer in the Canadian Navy....

To date, I've only met one Canadian naval officer. He was a P-3 pilot. My sample sizes with respect for other navies are limited.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by OneShot

Same goes here ... just different Navy. You know Officers are generally choosen and trained to think and at least in the german navy are suppose to have a pretty broad horizon (if you know what I mean). :rotfl:

Well... ya know... I think a lot of it is that I deal with people at the Pentagon, which is all about pissing contests, politics, and power games. I really liked the people I met when I was at sea. A lot of thinking people don't have patience for that kind of nonsense, and so they do well at sea, but not necessarily at the Pentagon.

The worst are the Flag officers and former Flag officers. They have the best gig going, though. They have a career of 30 years, then make SERIOUS money as "consultants," to Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, etc. I met this one former admiral, his wife had the most beautiful fur coat I think I've ever seen.

[Wildcat]

The funny thing is that even realistic sims are considered games by the military. The air force did a huge writeup about Falcon 4 and in the end concluded that Falcon 4 is still just a game, not a simulation.

DW is very good but I think intentionally has not been given the same kind of capabilities the military would use for training.

The only actual military simulation that I know of that is available to the public is Steel Beasts and its variations. It is used in its unmodified state to train tank crews of various armies throughout the world.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

The funny thing is that even realistic sims are considered games by the military. The air force did a huge writeup about Falcon 4 and in the end concluded that Falcon 4 is still just a game, not a simulation.

DW is very good but I think intentionally has not been given the same kind of capabilities the military would use for training.

The only actual military simulation that I know of that is available to the public is Steel Beasts and its variations. It is used in its unmodified state to train tank crews of various armies throughout the world.

Harpoon 3 has a professional edition that the Australians use.

[WargamerScott]

Some interesting replies here. My main point was that the line between professional and hobby wargames is starting to blur. Sure, the professional stuff will have access to all sorts of classified info and may be optimized for teaching sessions, but the point remains that the "games" we are playing today, like DW, TACOPS, CMAK, et alia, would have been military grade just a few years ago (and in the case of TACOPS and CMAK, they are both used by various military orgs around the world). To play any of these games is to get a real education in real world strategy and tactics. I wrote a blog entry on this called "Enter the Martial Matrix" that explains this a little better (visit my blog to read it). Ironically, that entry was inspired by a particularly tense sension of SH3. In fairness, I guess I need to come up with a DW inspired entry. Point is, from the POV of being a player or being a designer of modern hobby wargames is no longer that far removed from working with the professional stuff. Heck, look at DW---it is made by Sonalysts---a professional military contractor. This fact sort of sums up our contemporary state of affairs. Makes you wonder where it all may lead some day.... :hmm:

[LuftWolf]

So, basically you are saying that commercial simulations won't disappear off the face of the earth (eg. there will be at least one in each catagory that is worth playing) because the military still needs people with the skills to make such programs and provides the economic incentive to do so in one way or another. :hmm:

Interesting Marxian argument. I like it.

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by WargamerScott

Some interesting replies here. My main point was that the line between professional and hobby wargames is starting to blur.

I think that's fair. There was an interesting conference recently on "Serious games," with some people from the Center for Naval Analysis speeking. They also had a good article in a National Defence Weekly about it.

To play any of these games is to get a real education in real world strategy and tactics.

Potentially, however, as a "pro" who plays wargames for analytical work as well as for fun, my experience is that scenarios I create for the purpose of studying real world tactics are frequently boring to entertainment oriented gamers. They play slower and they're usually very difficult. I think the biggest thing is patience. ASW sims are potentially really bad in this respect.

Point is, from the POV of being a player or being a designer of modern hobby wargames is no longer that far removed from working with the professional stuff.

The difference has always been very blurry. Look at James Dunnigan, besides being a long time defense analyst he also has been heavily involved in wargaming as a hobby. Frequently, while the DATA is often different, the METHODOLOGY is the same or similar. The methods of operations research, modeling and simulation are not classified and they've been around a long time. You can order books on it from the Military Operations Research Society (MORS). You can find pictures dating back to the first world war of a bunch of mathematicians and naval officers gaming things out on table tops with miniatures.

P.S. I found out someone at work has the demo version of Kill Chain. I'll let you guys know how it's different. It looks kinda neat. At first glance, though, it's definitely a tool before a game. The graphics aren't quite as flashy as you see these days and there's a lot of stuff for outputting data. I can't wait to play with it.

[WargamerScott]

Originally Posted by LuftWolf

So, basically you are saying that commercial simulations won't disappear off the face of the earth (eg. there will be at least one in each catagory that is worth playing) because the military still needs people with the skills to make such programs and provides the economic incentive to do so in one way or another. :hmm:

Interesting Marxian argument. I like it.

Er, no that wasn't my point---but that was a valid leap of logic that you made! And I agree with it completely! Although I would consider it capitalist logic (Marxist logic would seem to dictate that there will not be any sims unless the government funds a sim design bureau. LOL!).