SAW:��First impressions

[TheBigRedOne]

[Nikb]

I agree - it is quite different. Fun though :) The game has certainly won me over.

I'm still coming to grips on how lethal some of the weapon systems are.

[Ozgur Budak]

It needed adjustment for a designer too. First of all in guerilla warfare the military objective is not a village, hill or a river. Guerilla's objective is to harrass the opponent to claim political power. There are few situations Mujahideen sought conventional military objectives -like operation ghashey scenarios- but even that is regarded as a failure since real strenght of guerilla is not its military power on a battlefield; but the very idea or danger of insecurity any place or any time. Thus as Lester Grau put brilliantly; it is better to destroy a truck a hundred different times and places than destroying hundred truck in one battle.

Another difference is objective points. Some scenarios have small intervals between victory points. Afghanistan was a war of poor. Mujahideen always sought economical ways to make life tough for the Kabul government. You cannot see hundreds of men fighting for ambitious military objectives. Most of the times the terrain and Mujahideen evasive tactics resulted comparatively low casualty numbers comparing conventional wars. Loosing 40 mujahideen to defend a village was a fatal mistake Mujahideen rarely made. Thats why killing 10-20 Mujahideen was a real achievement for Soviet forces. Such a thing would be trivial in mechanized warfare.

I like those rally voices too. Some of them are in Dari some of them are in Arabic I guess. I only understand "Yallah" which means "comeon" in Arabic. Turkish is completely a different language; though we have lots of Persian and Arab words imported. Mujahideen consisted of different ethnic/language groups: Uzbek, Tajik, Pathan, Arabic, Persian. Hard to make a standart.

[Riley D. Smith]

Interesting points from both of you.

Oz...as usual you are wealth of knowledge. Very insightful your points relating to casualties. That (and any guerilla fought war) are so different in how the defenders view losses.

And of course, guerrilla warfare (as well as actions employing terrorism) rarely revolves around taking objectives. It is about leaving your opponent wondering "why did they destroy that building?" or creating the total uncertainty what/where/when deaths or destruction may occur. This warfare is much more mental than physical, although it of course takes on aspects of both.

The mujahideen were (and are for that matter) so successful at this. As were the Viet Cong (and the Viet Minh before them). The Vietnamese villagers were FAR more concerned with crossing the VC/VM than they EVER were with the consequences of not cooperating with the US miltary. Were they largely hated? Of course. But if you see your village chieftan carted away and his family brutally murdered it is pretty easy to see how you would say "no...no VC here".

Of course, the real losers in these sort of confilicts are the indigenous population as they are stuck square in the middle.

[Ozgur Budak]

Tactically we had no choice but follow the Soviet criterion while deciding the victory conditions of scenarios. That is, how many Mujahideen Soviet commander killed or captured. Nearly in all of the Soviet battle reports officers define victroy or defeat on the Mujahideen corps they got. Maybe there is no alternatife tactically. However even this criterion is misleading in guerilla warfare since gureilla can always find new soldiers committed to the cause if they can maintain the political link between the party and the people. So head counts never worked in Afghanistan. It was a loosing war from the beginning. The linkage between the resistance and the people was the real enemy. Even brutal Soviet methods such as depopulization of the rural areas and destruction of the farmlands didnt break this link. One can derive many lessons for today's conflicts.

[Gasbag]

It sounds like I made a worthwhile purchase. Hope my copy comes soon.

[general_solomon]

hello everyone, just found this forum. I have SAW on the way. this is my first John tiller game.

aside from the screen shots, I dont know what to expect. I am currently playing close combat, east front gold series(talonsoft), TOA and Panzer Command. I tried combat mission and did not like it much.

how detailed is this game and I dont mean the graphics. Afghanistan has mountains. how are they represented in the game.

Do you folks know if the game comes with a guide book?

thanks,

[Ozgur Budak]

hello everyone, just found this forum. I have SAW on the way. this is my first John tiller game.

aside from the screen shots, I dont know what to expect. I am currently playing close combat, east front gold series(talonsoft), TOA and Panzer Command. I tried combat mission and did not like it much.

how detailed is this game and I dont mean the graphics. Afghanistan has mountains. how are they represented in the game.

Do you folks know if the game comes with a guide book?

thanks,

Welcome to the SB community. Hope you enjoy this wonderful tactical wargame. SB is an easy to play game with quite simple interface and userfriendly mechanics. However this simplicity is misleading. It is a very tough game to master. Some wargamers quit playing it after a couple of hours since they get frustrated in the tactical ground level combat. The reason is, they fail to grasp the realities of squad level fight because majority of the games in the market are in operational level. I too, as Panzer Campaigns player, had let my first SB cd dust in a shell for a year for this very reason when the series first released. However if you put your energy and dedication you will inevitably sense the depth of the series and get addicted as we are.

I recommend reading the pdf manuals coming with the game in detail. After feeling competent in terms of game mechanics I highly encourage reading the tactical articles in this page. They contain invaluable info on company level tactics:
http://www.wargamer.com/hosted/squadbattles/id117.htm

Feel free to ask anything. We'll be glad to help.

[general_solomon]

thanks Usgur I will read up and we can get a battle sometime in the future.

Do you know how many people can play online at the same time?

[Ozgur Budak]

Frankly I never played this game online. My time zone has disadvantage for setting online matches. I always played Pbem. Maybe other guys can help you here.