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186 points drak0n1c | 3 comments | 01 Dec 23 05:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.711s | source
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baron816 ◴[01 Dec 23 06:37 UTC] No.38483871[source]▶
I’ve been watching a bunch of these videos where they war game realistic and pretty far fetched battle scenarios https://youtube.com/@grimreapers?si=lvRNWBee9RfnkxBI. They’ll cover stuff like a Chinese carrier group vs a US carrier group using slightly futuristic weapons. What often decides the outcomes of battles are the accuracy of ships’ air defenses and how many missiles they have onboard.

Shooting down supersonic, hypersonic, and stealth missiles is hard. You may need to fire multiple anti-air missile just to hit one attacking anti-ship missile. But doing so depletes your magazine faster and it can just come down to who has more ammo.

If you’re able to fire a couple anti-air missiles, and then recover the ones that miss, or have them loiter and acquire a new target, I could see that as being an advantage.

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Maxion ◴[01 Dec 23 07:20 UTC] No.38484085[source]▶
> What often decides the outcomes of battles are the accuracy of ships’ air defenses and how many missiles they have onboard.

I always do wonder how realistic these war games actually are?

They (at least the war games that are public) always assume at least one or both sides are near 100% competent with their systems.

The Ukraine war has at least showed that that is not the case, the best example perhaps being the sinking of the Moskva, or the multitude of times Ukraine has managed to pierce Russian air defenses (who, mind you, has the most AD of anyone).

I'm pretty certain that a lot of these war game scenarios, of played out in real life, wouldn't play out the same way. There'd be miscommunication, technical issues with equipment, massive total surprise on both sides and so forth.

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1. dragontamer ◴[01 Dec 23 17:20 UTC] No.38489317[source]▶
> I always do wonder how realistic these war games actually are?

> They (at least the war games that are public) always assume at least one or both sides are near 100% competent with their systems.

Uhhh... that's not a wargame.

A wargame is when you send actual commanders into the actual field, with their actual troops, and roleplay a scenario.

Yeah, there's walkie talkies that go back to HQ where the top-level generals are rolling dice saying "That unit, you got shot, pretend you're dead", and such, but war-games are a scenario to test your generals, admirals, and chain of command. And often times, require physical movement of the lowest level troops.

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But at a minimum, you're testing the commander's reaction times in these scenarios.

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2. Retric ◴[01 Dec 23 21:23 UTC] No.38492630[source]▶
Those kind of war games are extremely expensive.

More often it’s run like Age of Empires, just with modern units and 3rd party judges.

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3. dragontamer ◴[01 Dec 23 22:51 UTC] No.38493665[source]▶
I presume that when its a big "X loses in Wargame!!!" stories that go around the press... they're at least choosing the expensive wargames, as you'd put it.

Like, I know that F22 fighters actually flew and were being tested vs RADAR systems in a recent wargame. Obviously no one shot anyone, but its not exactly cheap to run this equipment.

Still, its good roleplay / practice for the pilot (and their commanders and crew), so its absolutely worthwhile. Even if the whole wargame ends up being an unrealistic piece of crap, its still worth excersizing / practicing / drilling the fundamentals