View Full Version : How accurate is ASL?
This is meant as an open discussion about how well ASL matches history and reality.
For example, a few guys (in the forums and in person) have recently pointed out that SMOKE should be effective in rain. A tanker pointed out to me that the Start point is nonsense -- few tanks ever turned off their engines and had to "start" again.
On the plus side, I have always liked the Heat of Battle and Hero rules, as they perhaps best reflect the reasons why I got into this game: those Audie Murphy moments of a single guy or squad changing the course of a firefight.
I'm sure you have more examples. So, what's your pet peeve -- or praise?
You question reveals the "problem"....
Who said a start MP expenditure represented a tank turning off its engine? In all likelyhood it does NOT - it only represents the fact that it took a second or so to get the tank in gear and start moving.
I don't have an answer, because the question is flawed.
ASL can "feel" right - tension - you feel as if your every decision is life or death...
But of course, it isn't... It only is win-or-lose. ;)
Sam
I've always thought it felt more like a very accurate war movie
Ken
I've always thought it felt more like a very accurate war movie
Ken
I don't think either is unrealistic. It takes *time* to start or stop a tank (regardless of whether the engine is shut off or not), and the 1mp represents that. Also, there are times when bad weather significantly hinders the usefulness of SMOKE, and I think the ASL rules reflect that reasonably accurately. In real life, SMOKE would still work in a drizzle, but ASL rains are not drizzles.
Mark -- Thanks. That's in the spirit of how I intended this discussion to develop.
I don't think either is unrealistic. It takes *time* to start or stop a tank (regardless of whether the engine is shut off or not), and the 1mp represents that. Also, there are times when bad weather significantly hinders the usefulness of SMOKE, and I think the ASL rules reflect that reasonably accurately. In real life, SMOKE would still work in a drizzle, but ASL rains are not drizzles.
I tend to agree. The time involved in the start MP would be an abstraction of 1) the commander telling the driver to start and where to go, 2) the time it takes to put the tank in gear (no mean feat in a Russian tank of the WWII era) and getting moving, and 3) the time it takes the tank to accelerate, etc....
It's probably a bit of an abstraction having all vehicles take the same MP cost to start, but not that big of one.
Jeff Leslie
06 Mar 03, 01:08
I can only relate to US tanks that have been manufactured since the M48A5, up to the M1A1. Tankers today don't shut the engine off unless they are getting out of the tank. There is no way today that you could shut off a tank for any length of time and expect it to start again if you're running all the electrical stuff on the tank i.e... the fire control system.
That's not to say that in the WWII era tank, most of which probably did not have much in the way of electronic fire control systems, that you couldn't shut the tank off and still be able to engage the target. That sort of thing is just not done today because fire control systems really suck down battery power, but I could see it back then for the sake of not wanting to give away your position especially if your tank didn't really use any battery power anyway. But, once you fire that first round you might as well crank it up so you're ready to move out.
Face it, tanks are slow vehicles. I can justify the 1MP expenditure for starting, especially in a tank with a manual transmission, to count for the time it takes a tank to get up to any speed that would qualify it as a moving target. Most tanks back then didn't have a great horsepower - weight ratio, which makes them even slower from the start.
As far as the smoke thing in the rain, I might offer a comprimise. Say that all smoke placed during rain is placed as dispersed smoke rather than full up. I have no proof to say that smoke is either not effected or is ineffective during rain, but it seems to me that in any significant rainfall that the effects of smoke probably would be diminished somewhat. I can't imagine that it would be totally ineffective during rain. I might even say that the height level of smoke should be halved during rain, due to the fact that the rain is going to tend to bring the smoke down to the ground.
I do have a personal experience with white phosphorus though. I can tell you that stuff only gets put out by one thing, and that's by burning itself out. Water doesn't put it out unless you can completely submerge the material, because it burns on contact with air. It will start easily combustible material on fire, such as dry leaves, grass, etc. WP is what we use in our smoke grenade launchers mounted on our tanks today, and I happened to be in a tank (hatches wide open) that was in the impact area of another tank that fired it's smoke grenades. I got the stuff all over my chemical suit, my gear, and inside the tank. We had to bail out of the tank to let the stuff burn itself out and I had to strip out of my chem suit to avoid becoming a human torch. It actually burned holes clean through the chem suit, my duffelbag, and our folded canvas tarp. I think myself and my crew failed our NMC...
In connection with this question, I've often thought about what ASL is supposed to simulate. It seems to me that this game puts you in the role of the "squad leader" (or vehicle commander) of every squad (vehicle) on the board simultaneously. You can try to make those guys do whatever you want without any restrictions and usually without any thought of future consequences. ASL provides an omniscient perspective on the battle. The only time you kinda lose control is when your squad breaks, but even then, if you're clever, you can make your guys route towards the enemy or into more danger. It gets fun when your plans start to fall apart during the battle and you have to scramble to plug holes or pick up the pieces. From the standpoint of simulating the chaos of the battlefield I think ASL does a pretty good job. I also think that the relative strengths of the different units are fairly accurate.
Paul Saunders
08 Mar 03, 13:47
Hi Guys,
IMHO not very accurate. The biggest failing is 'Fog of war' we, as players, know too much about the enemy and can co-ordinate attacks with adegree on control that ground commanders of today don't have. That said, it is still the finest tactical boardgame experience around. For more fog of war there is always the combat mission series for the PC, or perhaps a double blind system...
Paul
I played in one of the old "tank rumbles" double blind and it was great fun. Not even knowing how close you were to your objectives, or who was out there, really made you move more like a real tank commander when faced with unknown enemies (ie carefully).
Hi guys
IMO, ASL is extremely accurate of representing a game of ASL as that is the only thing it will ever accurately portrait.
Is Monopoly accurate ? Yes, as a representation of Monopoly it is and that is all we can ever ask from a game, that it is fun to play.
So, is ASL fun to play ?
I would say very fun or I would never have invested as much time and money I have done in it.
Peter Rogneholt
Check this out:
http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/hcconline/sci122/SciLab/L5/accprec.html
For what the game system tries to simulate, I think ASL does a pretty good job. If it didn't do what we wanted it to do, we wouldn't find it satisfactory, and we wouldn't buy/play it.
Bryan Holtby
26 Apr 03, 13:55
It comes close to simulating combat, with some minor flaws here and there, but its about as good as you can get in a turn based game. Everything in the game is based on time, and what can be accomplished in roughly 2 minutes.
One thing I have never understood (here goes the reality thing) is why OBA SMOKE fired in the Defensive Fire Phase is placed as Dispersed SMOKE. Now if HE OBA was Area Fire in the DFPh, it would make sense that Dispersed SMOKE is placed in DFPh. But I dont see the reasoning behind having OBA fire at full FP when SMOKE is placed at a reduced value.
With the idea being that it is reaction fire and thus has less time to concentrate on the target.
Smoke is limited in other than the prep fire phase primarily for game-related reasons. Being able to fire "full" smoke in the defensive fire phase allows the defender to set up his next offensive player turn.
Anonymous
26 Apr 03, 16:37
As being so accurate you can claim it is proof of how things really worked on the WWII battlefields, ASL (and any practical wargame) can never hope to come very close to doing. But as for doing a better job of doing it than anything else out there for purchase I think ASL is the very best any one of us could ever hope to play. As somebody who's 1st interest in wargames is gaining a better understanding of what happened during the stress filled times wargames recreate I truly appreciate what ASL can do.
One of the many great features ASL does is bring in the elements of randomness that make life impossible to predict well. Such as weapon breakdown and rolling box cars for rally attempts. You do run into limitations all the time with ASL but they tend to be limited to small scale effects on the game and don't really change the feeling of the games accuracy.
That feeling of accuracy might be a better way to approach this question. Since it is a commercial game and has to be accessable to the larger body of gamers it can't ever become so bogged down in realism that it can't be played as a entertainment choice. But if the rules leave you feeling so disconnected from the action being played out. Or, leaving you feeling incredulos (I spell that right?) about how an action played out then its lack of feeling accurate detracts from the game.
Some examples of how ASL sometimes annoy me is the exaggerated shortness of MMC deployed smoke; the inability to know which tank is carrying at least one shot of special ammo (that's the one I have to bite down hard on my tongue to not grumble loudly about during a game) before the scenario starts; putting all sniper activity into the abstracted SAN effects. But do any of these make such a big difference that game begins to feel wholly unrealistic? No, not even close. That last one is I think a great play improvement from SL to ASL. I think losing the ability to use your sniper as a specilized SMC is true loss to the games realism, but the effect on game play I think has been a great gain to the games enjoyment.
So when it is asked is ASL realistic? No, nothing can even come close to showing you real combat on a gameboard.
Does it let you appreciate what the battles were like? Yes I think it does a very good job.
Is it a fun way to expand your knowledge of WWII combat actions? Yes, better than anything else out there.
I dont know why but the forum logged me out just as I was submiting this post, so if it feels unedited sorry, I'm not able to get back in and clean it up.
NeuroNiky
27 Apr 03, 05:30
Hi guys,
I think ASL is more focused in abstracting the "feel of WW2 fighting" than depicting a correct WW2 fighting. It is not accurate in its single procedures (well, not in all of them) but it recreates correctly the tension of fighting. You can't maneuver a tank in ASL like you'd do in WW2 and hope it will have the same effect. You have to deal with the fact that the first good shot will be taken by the enemy tank if you try to flank him, and that you need to swarm it or to lure it into taking the wrong shot. You have to use defensive fire principle to your advantage when attacking, and so on. You have to skulk if you want to simulate your troops ducking and not exposing too much to fire and so on. But then, the tension is all there, and when you have to deal with a Tiger you fear it and focus on it as if you were there... ASL is great because is a great game, and because it has a great feel of whats depicting. If it was a simulator, instead, it would probably be as amusing as a 10 hour seminary on Geology (no offense for the geologist out there... its just that my girlfriend is a geologist, and you can't understand what's like having a geologist girlfriend until, during your vacations, you arrive to a stoney and rocky place and she starts lecturing... but then, my lectures on that great battlefield we are standing on probably were just as amusing for her). My 2 cents, obviously...
Neuro"Yes, dear, thats a very interesting rock. It's hard, it's flat, and it's grey. Can we go on now please?"Niky
Darkman and NeuroNiky,
Thanks (especially) for your thoughtful responses.
I think losing the ability to use your sniper as a specilized SMC is true loss to the games realism, but the effect on game play I think has been a great gain to the games enjoyment.
You can position a Sniper counter near a command hub (that 9-2 stack, for example), so your "orders" do have some effect on the chances a Sniper will target a key hex. But if he decides to take out a HS in the street instead because it's a safer or easier shot, oh well. So, I take the opposite view: I think the way Snipers are handled add to the realism -- but sometimes frustrate me as a player!
The one thing I appreciate historically about ASL is the lack of control a single mind can have over all one's units, and events. Snipers are just one example. ASL is a great (and unique) game in that regard.
Oliver
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