Brigade Combat Team

[jegs2]

Some thought ramblings:



Perhaps such a game already exists, but here are the basics of a realistic military leadership gaming scenario. Game places you in command of a US Army BCT -- fill in the blank: heavy, light, airborne, Stryker, etc., along with all slice elements and a chain of command both above and subordinate with AI that is personality-driven, based on thought-out character backgrounds and development. For example, your boss might be a major or lieutenant general who has a tendency to be tight-fisted and allow little room for mistakes in some situations, while he gives lots of rope to his commanders in others. You have several subordinate battalion commanders, each with his or her own personality, command climate, and work ethic.



The game begins with you and your BCT in CONUS at various stages of readiness. Perhaps you recently conducted a rotation at JRTC or the NTC, or perhaps your soldiers are just coming off of Christmas leave. You may have little warning or a couple months warning. The time would of course simply be stated -- this affecting the morale and combat readiness of your troops. You are handed an Operations Order (OPORD) from your Division or Corps HQ (could even include a formal briefing sequence, depending on how cheesey programmers want to get), including a deployment order and ROE (Rules of Engagement). As the BCT commander, you have at your beck and call a staff of officers (sort of like the advisors in Civlilization) who do much of the nugwork for you and generate your OPORDs based off of your intent (could use a system of check-boxes for this). You approve or change the OPORD your staff briefs to you. The OPORD from higher includes your Area of Operation (AO) which might be Iraq, Bosnia, Haiti, or wherever, friendly units in your battlespace, a country study, enemy order of battle, enemy situational templates (SITTEMP), and all annexes normally found in an OPORD. The threat disposition in the Intelligence annex would also include any known or suspected insugent cells and leaders, terrorist cells and leaders, and non-government organizations (NGO), such as Doctors without Borders, UNICEF, and the International Red Cross (or perhaps Red Crecent).



Here is where the real fun comes in: The population already has a disposition toward US forces based on various factors including active insurgencies, terrorist activities, past actions by US forces, economics, religious constraints and considerations, and any other variety of factors that would affect the population of your AO. Based off of your OPORD, your subordinate commanders carry out your intent (within their limitations, considering they have their own intent for their units and their own personalities and styles of command). Your effectiveness in dealing with insurgencies, NGOs, meeting your higher commander's intent, dealing with terrorist attacks on your own troops and the host nation's infrastructure and any other contributing factors is made known through news reports, local and US polls, soldier morale, and input from subordinate commanders. The game presents you with occasional Officer Evaluation Reports (OER) that serve as a guage for how well (or poorly) you are doing.



You will have the opportunity to go out for public radio interviews or other public affairs events, but security is an issue and your character can be killed if proper precautions aren't taken (if you're killed, then game over). If the situation spirals out of control or you are deemed ineffective, you are relieved (game over). But, if you do all the right things, your subordinates do the right things, and your mission objectives are met, then you win. Rewards can include further, tougher missions or perhaps even reassignment leading to rank advancement. High scores could be sent to a central database for all to see the most effective BCT commander.



Part of the game can include random events such as large-scale insugency attacks, terrorist attacks, large-scale demonstrations or riots, one of your subordinate commanders caught doing something terrible (prison scandal), or other events based on how well (or not so well) you are doing. These random events would be in line with your population disposition and how effectively you are accomplishing your mission. You would be given a myriad of choices that would affect the immediate issue and have long-term consequences affecting overall mission accomplishment.





So........what do ya think?

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Don't think it's ever been done before, mostly because most gamers would give up if they found out how hard officering in the army was...

That, and the fact that it doesn;t have much of the bang-bang action to pull in the action crowd, would eman that it would be a niche simulation. It would probably be called Sim Battalion or something...

[RogueIce]

Sounds good. Still, I think it might be better to get the random start, but at least have some time to build your unit, rather than just egtting stuck with whatever you got and then *BAM* out on deployment you go. Maybe it could vary on difficulty level. Since I know it's likely to happen IRL, still, that's a lot for a novice to deal with. I think Easy could give you time to deal with your unit, and maybe go to JRTC or something, Medium could be more half/half (time to build up, may've already gone to JRTC/NTC with previous commander, may or may not have time for a major exercise, but still get some time to build before deploying), and Hard can be all of the above, plus the chance you just get fucked and you deploy two weeks after assuming command.

All in all, sounds interesting, and if done right would be very nice.

[jegs2]

I like those tweaks, especially using the hard to easy settings method.

[Sea Skimmer]

Just play Steel Panthers MBT. Its all you should ever need.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I really like the idea about random events. Would you add weather into the game? A weeks worth of heavy snow might reduce heavy combat between armor to sporadic clashes between squads of infantry.