Operational simulators

[sheek]

Any games that model the detail of supplies (food, ammunition, spare parts, medicines), casualty break down (# of injured, injury degree) of a military force over more than a few days?

It seems there is a disconnect in wargame strategy between covering battles in detail but not what happens in between them, and grand strategy where details are abstracted and the focus is on a national/world wide level.

 

[Mefi]

Not that I know of.

War in the Pacific does cover supplies better than most games, but then they are abstracted to a great extent. It also does split up units' losses as 'damaged' and 'total losses' with the damaged portions of units capable of being rehabilitated with a bit of care. But that's as close as you'll get to a game which will cover the operational side of things without retarded supply rules (eg Panzer Campaigns which are probably the best operational level games which don't spill over into grand strategy).

I can't think of a single game which models logistics in any way realistically. And other than at squad/company level strategy games, I think most games shy away from trying to attempt modelling losses in detail too.

 

[puke]

i havent played it, but "The Operational Art of War" springs immediatly to mind. published by Matrix, who i think are also the guys that sell "War in the Pacific" and "War in Europe", but by different development studios.

I've heard good things about "warplan orange" which is also operational in scope, but i dont know how much supply chain management it has. Matrix has a product search feature that can be set to list only their "operational" level games, if that helps you.

generally this is something you see more in 4x games. I saw some talk over in that "knights and merchants" LP thread that there was detailed supply chain management there... might not be exactly what youre after though.