Hi Argo, this is a good post for me, because I have never played a video game. I am totally ignorant. I have watched people (kids) play at it, which I thought was shocking. I can't remember when, maybe 15 years ago. The console was hooked to the TV, and they went on-line to find someone to play against, (from another city, or even another country). Then they sneak their token around in the rubble of a destroyed landscape, and when they see eyes peering out they fired a few quick shots. (and get points).
One time I did have an account at "2nd Life". Is that the right title? You engaged with other players in real time on various landscapes (that I think you created yourself), and interacted, trying to build a life with friends, possessions and wealth. You do work for others, buy and sell, and decorate your house and stuff. I remember sitting around a campfire talking, well, I was mostly listening.
You said: "I love video games as a vehicle for ideas." That is probably my main "beef", (objection). In other words, who gives Walt Disney the right to tell my children the difference between good and evil, the basis of conflict resolution, or the lack of it, and when it is proper to use force? Really I boycott everything to do with Disney, and anyone like him. (Sure I watched the Mickey Mouse Club on TV at age 10, but I have never been to a Disney world).
So then we get to cartoons and video games. What on earth is the fascination with prepubescent cartoon girls that carry and point an automatic star-wars laser killing machine, and fly around to save the world from Doctor Fangs? It is so-ooo unbelievably obscene.
Com'mon, IT'S JUST NORMAL, what the frig?
Of course Tanks? You need to know about it. Tanks don't fight other tanks, one in a thousand. First they roll over land mines, second flying drones knock them out by the 100's and third, artillery shells are so accurate that they can drop one in your pocket while you are running. Half the tank crews are dead.
Then Red-Alert; now we get to the COMMIES, it's a billionaire game, to kill anyone that would dare to bring the peasants out of poverty.
Wow, You are being prepared for something. What do you think that is?????
Second Life was before my time - World of Warcraft was the big MMO when I was in that. Friends almost required.
Exploring ideas has two sides to it - gameplay ideas and story ideas. You've got the story ideas down - games have stories that try to put you in the shoes of a character and play out a day in their life. While this is often fantastical, there are plenty of mundane examples - Papers, Please or Stardew Valley kind of do that.
The mechanical ideas are the ones I found more interesting - for example Yggdra Union's own Union system. Unlike other games where you usually get one attack per unit per round (Fire Emblem), you need to pick a Tactics card every turn, that allows all the units in your army to move a particular number of spaces (shared by all) from the pool. It also dictates how much damage you do that turn. This means that you have to choose the right cards for the situation - picking your power cards after you're already engaged with the enemy and don't need to move, and having lots of high movement cards for moving between areas or getting your troops into position.
It goes deeper. Particular cards have abilities you can use, often limited to particular members of your army, meaning you should use their card when you need that character to break the opponent. Run out of these cards and you lose - which adds a disincentive to having too many slow and powerful cards. Compared to other tactics games, this is a very interesting method of simulating battle - rather than a large group of skirmishes, you set up formations with your army for one big push. It's fun.
World of Tanks is a for-fun shooter that is in no way meant to be a realistic simulation of tank warfare. It's a fun arcade game that tries to emulate some elements of tank fighting (War Thunder is the more simulationist one).
Red Alert is the absolute best. I get to play the Commies who have mind-controlled giant squids, double-barreled tanks, and giant war blimp bombers.
I also get to play the Allies with trained enslaved dolphins, prism weapons that fire bouncing beams of light, and a weather-controlling device that summons lightning storms.
The expansion pack has the Yuri faction which has flying saucers, initiates that burn people with their minds, and the Magnetron, which uses a magnetic beam to lift enemy tanks closer. Oh, and mind control.
The sequel (Red Alert 3) has Japanese mecha that transform from ground vehicles to air vehicles, regular troops with swords, and giant stompy robots called King Oni.
I'm here for the lunacy, and the game delivers in spades.
Hi Argo; First of all, I understand that you know about everything, because I see you are most often the first “Like” on Simplicus.
This is a great thread, because we can sort out fact from fiction. Of course, we all know that mortal combat games are only a diversion. Or do we?
(By the way; FPV drones are Ukrainian weapons. Russia mostly uses the Lancet drones that take out the majority of tanks and armored vehicles. They are lightweight plastic that have a limited radar signature. With a 40 Km range and a 3 Kg explosive charge, they “loiter” overhead, until they spot a target, and are manufactured in the 1,000’s every month. Over 10,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers have been destroyed with drones, land mines and artillery shells, counting both sides. Often the crew jump out and run. Other times they are toasted with the secondary ammunition explosion. I don't know the ratio of survivors.
What are gamers being prepared for? Lancet pilots. They have quick reactions and are intently focused on a screen. They are the single soldiers who take out the most enemy, maybe 4 – 5 kills per day, adding up to 100’s. Their battle life may be several months, until their operation center is discovered, and bombed. Of course, they move a lot, trying to avoid detection.
I have never been to a Communist country, not Cuba, Russia, the USSR, China, Viet Nam (or, are there any others, Venezuela is socialist, right)? Oh, I went to Laos twice. Actually, from the definition, I believe there never was a Communist country, and they probably only used that title to be provocative, or to model the future. Stalin said we are “building socialism in one country”, and China claims “Marxism with Chinese Characteristics”, (for a new age), whatever that could mean?
One feature of the Soviet Union, however, was there were no billionaires allowed. Some of them joined with the socialist system, some moved out to the west, and some (the White Russians) started a war to regain their position and their fortunes. If the Soviet Union had any success, either economically or in providing for its citizens, the whole world would have turned inside-out for the billionaires. (Billionaires is just a shorthand for the elites).
Did Billionaires give a damn about Soviet repression? They also used repression wherever it suited them. I sure don’t think they cared about it, although many of the repressed were the western agents, known as the 5th column. They only cared, that by hook or by crook, the Soviets must not succeed at anything. Combating the Soviets was a 70-year obsession, and now, well, why give up on a “good thing”?
So - We have a game called RED-ALERT. Oh my, how scary. Let’s go get them. I never played it, so I don’t know its redeeming features. I wonder if the present-day Russians and Chinese play it? Video games must be big in China? Do they have a game called Kill-the-Kapitalist? Seems absurd, doesn't it. What would be a good combat game for them then?
How about “Billionaire-Roundup”. The first element would be paying the underworld to get maps of all the billionaire mansions throughout the world. Some players would be trackers and some actionaries. As you gather points you can engage, first with IED’s, Improvised Explosive Device, and you can plant them along the road where billionaires travel. Then move to car bombs, or magnetic explosives snapped to the bottom of the billionaire’s car. Sniper rifles are easy enough to come by, and you could get extra points for long-distance hits.
If you get more points, you can infiltrate private airports and load a suitcase bomb into their private plane. You can hire a Jihad suicide bomber to crash the gate of their mansion with a truckload of TNT. Maybe you can buy manpads (Man portable air defense system), from a Ukrainian surplus store and actually bring down a plane. The details of the game would have multiple exciting options and it would be much more fun to kill someone in power. Normal combat games just kill grunts (slang for common infantry), or maybe a special-ops squad.
Would that be classified as a HATE GAME? (Com’on, it’s all in fun of course.)
Where would your marketing area be? Well, maybe it wouldn’t sell. Pretty absurd, right? That is something only our western civilization could involve with.
But I would say, such a game might change the face of the world.
Simplicius does a lot of good work, pretty balanced, if still tilted towards the Opposition. I think that he's right in the long run, just that that long run will be longer than we hope but shorter than we think. From the other side, shorter than you hope but longer than you think.
Red Alert 2 (and the whole series) is B-movie schlock with time traveling and goofy sci-fi. The whole series occurs because Albert Einstein goes back in time to zap Hitler out of existence to avert WW2, only for successive generations of time travelers to completely botch it. Everyone's an idiot in that series.
The game has a following in China - like in many less advanced countries, we get games late and play this old stuff thanks to nostalgia. Advance Wars By Web has a Chinese community, and that's a lil' old wargame for the GBA, ancient in gamer years.
I'm pretty much on the opposite end as I still love playing a lot of video games (perhaps excessively). Though, I do understand what you mean. If you enjoy other activities more, you should definitely prioritize those instead. it's a hobby, it should be fun.
I do strongly agree with this bit
"playing the game was only part of the fun. Bonding with others, solving the puzzle, or just enjoying the experience"
I have a lot of fond memories playing with friends and talking to them about the games
BEING PREPARED FOR WHAT? Today we can know everything about war, much more than with the narratives of the past. Let’s survey a review of what is happening.
Society is strange in how it approaches its goals. We want to be cohesive as a population, and we want to resist foreign meddling, while not wasting too much wealth on useless projects. (We call them boondoggles), which feed wealth to our cronies.
Games are a useful mode of building social goals. Sports do build cohesion and teamwork. There are winners and losers, but that is life. You have to play for some stakes, or it all seems to be pointless.
The military is also a fact of life, and it also requires teamwork, and more-so following orders. I don't believe military or combat games have a chain of command, so that part is left out. You're not ordered to go head-on to break through a fortified zone. (The charge of the light brigade.) Those games don't have the wounded nor the PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, we could say that they are NOT a preparation for the military. But they are the mentality of ruthless conflict.
They are making light of killing (it’s fun), It is the best game in town, since Cowboys and Indians. Why not kill somebody, maybe it will get your aggression out; OR maybe it will manufacture more of it, but so-what? Besides, who wants to move to "Stardew Valley", just to make a farm?
So far, Biden’s war in Ukraine has killed a million soldiers. This number is irrefutable, we see it in real time. Most of the western populations don’t even blink. They have their ideas of justice. Or is it just that killing Slavic people doesn’t count? Leading US congressional leaders say that it is a “good investment” to kill them. And many people applaud.
We have always been led to believe that in the west, the most important was to save the lives of our comrades in arms. Go in and evacuate the wounded. When you get in a tight spot, call in the artillery or an air strike. Not so any more. This is the first war where we have daily video proof of who was killed and where. Photography drones, quad copters, are flying by the 100's from both sides, and they see and record everything.
The way it works now, either on the offence, or in a counter attack, waves of soldiers are sent in to attack. It could be 20 soldiers on foot, or 100 with a few vehicles. Usually any vehicles are seen (by both sides), and many of them are destroyed with drones and artillery, before they even get to the battle. You hear; 5 waves of attack were all repulsed. What the hell does that mean? What is repulsed? Most usually there are "barrier troops" behind you, so if you turn back too soon (retreat), you are shot dead by your own troops. When are you allowed to (be repulsed)? Certainly, it is due to losses. How many losses? Then the next wave goes in – and it is also repulsed. Five of those happen on 10 battle fronts each day. (It’s 1,000 km long with battles.) Two of them (out of 50) are not repulsed and they hold or regain some territory, also with heavy losses. Cumulative losses from both sides are most likely 1,000, (every day). The least value in the Ukrainian war is the life of a soldier. Put a uniform on a human being, and he becomes a nothing.
This war has taught the G7 (NATO) a lesson. They do not have enough troops for what is coming. The major military “think tanks” project losses of 1,000 a day when NATO goes into Ukraine. In two months, America will lose more men that in 20 years of the Viet Nam war.
The Baltic states have already instituted a military draft. Germany might be the next to reinstate the draft and all of the EU countries are talking about it to get the populations used to the idea. America will have to have another draft army, especially when they go into China. If Taiwan goes independent it will join NATO and a very hot war will start. Then all of Southeast Asia will be forced to build their armies. What for? Because soldiers will be killed daily by the thousands. But nobody blinks.
Countries used to play the middle, to get advantages from both sides of the cold war. Now the non-aligned movement has all but disappeared. India is still in the middle, claiming its own interests. Singapore and the Philippines have gone into the western camp, too dependent on the dollar I suppose. The Philippines has reopened the American military base, and is building ships to fight over the South China sea. When real hostilities start, they may be the first to lose sailors.
Besides making videos, other FPV (First Person View), drones have a small 1kg warhead, and that is enough to disable a tank, or fly into a fortified trench and kill a handful of soldiers. Others have grenades with an electronic release. They fly directly over a target and drop it. They can even drop into a tank where the hatch cover is left open. Hatch covers are all left open, for one or the other side to destroy it. Nobody wants the opposing side to reclaim it. There are 1,000’s of these drones used every month.
Helicopters also take out tanks and artillery positions. The new rockets have about a 15 Km range and the helicopters hang low out of sight, then pop up and fire, and then hide again behind the trees. Most tanks are single use and then throw-away. Even if you want to drive it back, you’re likely to get hit with an artillery shell.
"Geran" loitering drones have maybe a 50 kg warhead, can fly about 1,500 miles, at 115 mph. One or two of them can take out a foreign mercenary barracks or a training camp. With overhead vision (also night vision), they know who is going in and out of what building. Many Geran's have taken out high level NATO officer's meetings, very far from the battle line.
Multiple rocket launchers have 12 or 15 tubes and can saturate a zone with rocket fire in a matter of seconds. One is called a "thermobaric weapon". It releases a cloud of very hot fire. 15 rockets can completely cover a football size field in 20 seconds. Nothing survives. Dozens of salvos are fired every day in Ukraine.
The smallest glide bombs are 250 Kg. Glide bombs are way cheaper than missiles. They're launched from fighter jets, and small wings pop out, they glide a very long way, and are guided to targets. The point is that while launching, the jet is out of range of counter fire. FAB 500 has at least 300 kg of explosives. (Fab is a= Russian acronym, F for gliding and Arial - Bomb). The heavier the bomb, the less it glides, and it has to be launched closer to the target. Russian drops many Fab 1,500's sometimes 50 in one night on the same city. Fab 3,000's are now in serial production. Some say there will eventually be a Fab 9,000, can you imagine, a 9-ton glide bomb?
Then there are missiles on both sides, the Storm shadow Franco-British cruise missiles, with a few other models and the HIMARS American rocket launcher. HIMARS are effective because of their longer range, they can sit way back from the combat line, and can last longer. Even HIMARS missiles are shot down before they reach their target. Some get through. And Russian missiles have such fast entry speeds that they can penetrate any defense. Missiles are usually fired in a swarm attack to overcome air defense.
Naval drones take out ships. Ukraine has no navy so they have no losses because of this sinking.
In the West the military is for show, doing giant military “exercises”. Then all adversaries are frightened to death and they fall into line. Or they "carpet bomb", which now is out of the question. In the East the military’s only purpose is to kill enemy soldiers, and they are very good at it. When western leaders threaten with this and that, the East says “Let them try”.
If the claim here is that video games are a gateway drug to becoming a milsperg, that's exactly the pipeline I went down. Unfortunately, their chosen weapon also makes us unfit enough to be unusable as soldiery. I'd wash out of boot camp, or, if I was pushed through, become a pogue, fobbit, or get shoved into rear area services, no questions.
I said all those things, because really, I never knew either. We drift along in a false perception, in the balloon of imagined safety that is given to us. But our actions (or lack of objection), do have consequences.
I don’t blame anybody for unconscious acts, and especially those that seem fun. Competition is fun, in whatever form it is offered to us. But then there comes a moment of being conscious to the real motivations, and what it all means. It has really become evident in these last two years.
I don’t say, because you played war games, you will be drafted and a percentage of you will be killed. But someone will be drafted and they will be forced to go where they don’t want to go. Someone will have to pay. Someone completely innocent.
You can be sure that I will never be subject to any draft. (I was already, and I hated it). That doesn’t make me complacent. Even more I want to shout. The Vietnam war memorial is a wall with 60,000 names etched into it. You can’t get near it or even think about it without choking. And America was the killing culprit, the atrocity leader in Viet Nam. So it is not about guilt or the lack of it. I can’t imagine what the Viet Nam war memorial would be like or the Russian Kremlin wall of heroes.
We don’t need any new walls of heroes. In your country or anywhere else.
Thanks for this thread where we can talk about these things.
Hi Argo, this is a good post for me, because I have never played a video game. I am totally ignorant. I have watched people (kids) play at it, which I thought was shocking. I can't remember when, maybe 15 years ago. The console was hooked to the TV, and they went on-line to find someone to play against, (from another city, or even another country). Then they sneak their token around in the rubble of a destroyed landscape, and when they see eyes peering out they fired a few quick shots. (and get points).
One time I did have an account at "2nd Life". Is that the right title? You engaged with other players in real time on various landscapes (that I think you created yourself), and interacted, trying to build a life with friends, possessions and wealth. You do work for others, buy and sell, and decorate your house and stuff. I remember sitting around a campfire talking, well, I was mostly listening.
You said: "I love video games as a vehicle for ideas." That is probably my main "beef", (objection). In other words, who gives Walt Disney the right to tell my children the difference between good and evil, the basis of conflict resolution, or the lack of it, and when it is proper to use force? Really I boycott everything to do with Disney, and anyone like him. (Sure I watched the Mickey Mouse Club on TV at age 10, but I have never been to a Disney world).
So then we get to cartoons and video games. What on earth is the fascination with prepubescent cartoon girls that carry and point an automatic star-wars laser killing machine, and fly around to save the world from Doctor Fangs? It is so-ooo unbelievably obscene.
Com'mon, IT'S JUST NORMAL, what the frig?
Of course Tanks? You need to know about it. Tanks don't fight other tanks, one in a thousand. First they roll over land mines, second flying drones knock them out by the 100's and third, artillery shells are so accurate that they can drop one in your pocket while you are running. Half the tank crews are dead.
Then Red-Alert; now we get to the COMMIES, it's a billionaire game, to kill anyone that would dare to bring the peasants out of poverty.
Wow, You are being prepared for something. What do you think that is?????
.
Second Life was before my time - World of Warcraft was the big MMO when I was in that. Friends almost required.
Exploring ideas has two sides to it - gameplay ideas and story ideas. You've got the story ideas down - games have stories that try to put you in the shoes of a character and play out a day in their life. While this is often fantastical, there are plenty of mundane examples - Papers, Please or Stardew Valley kind of do that.
https://papersplea.se/
https://www.stardewvalley.net/
The mechanical ideas are the ones I found more interesting - for example Yggdra Union's own Union system. Unlike other games where you usually get one attack per unit per round (Fire Emblem), you need to pick a Tactics card every turn, that allows all the units in your army to move a particular number of spaces (shared by all) from the pool. It also dictates how much damage you do that turn. This means that you have to choose the right cards for the situation - picking your power cards after you're already engaged with the enemy and don't need to move, and having lots of high movement cards for moving between areas or getting your troops into position.
It goes deeper. Particular cards have abilities you can use, often limited to particular members of your army, meaning you should use their card when you need that character to break the opponent. Run out of these cards and you lose - which adds a disincentive to having too many slow and powerful cards. Compared to other tactics games, this is a very interesting method of simulating battle - rather than a large group of skirmishes, you set up formations with your army for one big push. It's fun.
World of Tanks is a for-fun shooter that is in no way meant to be a realistic simulation of tank warfare. It's a fun arcade game that tries to emulate some elements of tank fighting (War Thunder is the more simulationist one).
Red Alert is the absolute best. I get to play the Commies who have mind-controlled giant squids, double-barreled tanks, and giant war blimp bombers.
I also get to play the Allies with trained enslaved dolphins, prism weapons that fire bouncing beams of light, and a weather-controlling device that summons lightning storms.
The expansion pack has the Yuri faction which has flying saucers, initiates that burn people with their minds, and the Magnetron, which uses a magnetic beam to lift enemy tanks closer. Oh, and mind control.
The sequel (Red Alert 3) has Japanese mecha that transform from ground vehicles to air vehicles, regular troops with swords, and giant stompy robots called King Oni.
I'm here for the lunacy, and the game delivers in spades.
Hi Argo; First of all, I understand that you know about everything, because I see you are most often the first “Like” on Simplicus.
This is a great thread, because we can sort out fact from fiction. Of course, we all know that mortal combat games are only a diversion. Or do we?
(By the way; FPV drones are Ukrainian weapons. Russia mostly uses the Lancet drones that take out the majority of tanks and armored vehicles. They are lightweight plastic that have a limited radar signature. With a 40 Km range and a 3 Kg explosive charge, they “loiter” overhead, until they spot a target, and are manufactured in the 1,000’s every month. Over 10,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers have been destroyed with drones, land mines and artillery shells, counting both sides. Often the crew jump out and run. Other times they are toasted with the secondary ammunition explosion. I don't know the ratio of survivors.
What are gamers being prepared for? Lancet pilots. They have quick reactions and are intently focused on a screen. They are the single soldiers who take out the most enemy, maybe 4 – 5 kills per day, adding up to 100’s. Their battle life may be several months, until their operation center is discovered, and bombed. Of course, they move a lot, trying to avoid detection.
I have never been to a Communist country, not Cuba, Russia, the USSR, China, Viet Nam (or, are there any others, Venezuela is socialist, right)? Oh, I went to Laos twice. Actually, from the definition, I believe there never was a Communist country, and they probably only used that title to be provocative, or to model the future. Stalin said we are “building socialism in one country”, and China claims “Marxism with Chinese Characteristics”, (for a new age), whatever that could mean?
One feature of the Soviet Union, however, was there were no billionaires allowed. Some of them joined with the socialist system, some moved out to the west, and some (the White Russians) started a war to regain their position and their fortunes. If the Soviet Union had any success, either economically or in providing for its citizens, the whole world would have turned inside-out for the billionaires. (Billionaires is just a shorthand for the elites).
Did Billionaires give a damn about Soviet repression? They also used repression wherever it suited them. I sure don’t think they cared about it, although many of the repressed were the western agents, known as the 5th column. They only cared, that by hook or by crook, the Soviets must not succeed at anything. Combating the Soviets was a 70-year obsession, and now, well, why give up on a “good thing”?
So - We have a game called RED-ALERT. Oh my, how scary. Let’s go get them. I never played it, so I don’t know its redeeming features. I wonder if the present-day Russians and Chinese play it? Video games must be big in China? Do they have a game called Kill-the-Kapitalist? Seems absurd, doesn't it. What would be a good combat game for them then?
How about “Billionaire-Roundup”. The first element would be paying the underworld to get maps of all the billionaire mansions throughout the world. Some players would be trackers and some actionaries. As you gather points you can engage, first with IED’s, Improvised Explosive Device, and you can plant them along the road where billionaires travel. Then move to car bombs, or magnetic explosives snapped to the bottom of the billionaire’s car. Sniper rifles are easy enough to come by, and you could get extra points for long-distance hits.
If you get more points, you can infiltrate private airports and load a suitcase bomb into their private plane. You can hire a Jihad suicide bomber to crash the gate of their mansion with a truckload of TNT. Maybe you can buy manpads (Man portable air defense system), from a Ukrainian surplus store and actually bring down a plane. The details of the game would have multiple exciting options and it would be much more fun to kill someone in power. Normal combat games just kill grunts (slang for common infantry), or maybe a special-ops squad.
Would that be classified as a HATE GAME? (Com’on, it’s all in fun of course.)
Where would your marketing area be? Well, maybe it wouldn’t sell. Pretty absurd, right? That is something only our western civilization could involve with.
But I would say, such a game might change the face of the world.
.
Simplicius does a lot of good work, pretty balanced, if still tilted towards the Opposition. I think that he's right in the long run, just that that long run will be longer than we hope but shorter than we think. From the other side, shorter than you hope but longer than you think.
Red Alert 2 (and the whole series) is B-movie schlock with time traveling and goofy sci-fi. The whole series occurs because Albert Einstein goes back in time to zap Hitler out of existence to avert WW2, only for successive generations of time travelers to completely botch it. Everyone's an idiot in that series.
The game has a following in China - like in many less advanced countries, we get games late and play this old stuff thanks to nostalgia. Advance Wars By Web has a Chinese community, and that's a lil' old wargame for the GBA, ancient in gamer years.
https://awbw.amarriner.com/
In answer to your call for games from other perspectives, Fursan Al-Aqsa exists.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1714420/Fursan_alAqsa_The_Knights_of_the_AlAqsa_Mosque/
So do Papers, Please and Workers & Resources.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/784150/Workers__Resources_Soviet_Republic/
While these aren't directly made by the opposing powers, there's certainly an undercurrent of exploring different perspectives, which I love.
I'm pretty much on the opposite end as I still love playing a lot of video games (perhaps excessively). Though, I do understand what you mean. If you enjoy other activities more, you should definitely prioritize those instead. it's a hobby, it should be fun.
I do strongly agree with this bit
"playing the game was only part of the fun. Bonding with others, solving the puzzle, or just enjoying the experience"
I have a lot of fond memories playing with friends and talking to them about the games
BEING PREPARED FOR WHAT? Today we can know everything about war, much more than with the narratives of the past. Let’s survey a review of what is happening.
Society is strange in how it approaches its goals. We want to be cohesive as a population, and we want to resist foreign meddling, while not wasting too much wealth on useless projects. (We call them boondoggles), which feed wealth to our cronies.
Games are a useful mode of building social goals. Sports do build cohesion and teamwork. There are winners and losers, but that is life. You have to play for some stakes, or it all seems to be pointless.
The military is also a fact of life, and it also requires teamwork, and more-so following orders. I don't believe military or combat games have a chain of command, so that part is left out. You're not ordered to go head-on to break through a fortified zone. (The charge of the light brigade.) Those games don't have the wounded nor the PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, we could say that they are NOT a preparation for the military. But they are the mentality of ruthless conflict.
They are making light of killing (it’s fun), It is the best game in town, since Cowboys and Indians. Why not kill somebody, maybe it will get your aggression out; OR maybe it will manufacture more of it, but so-what? Besides, who wants to move to "Stardew Valley", just to make a farm?
So far, Biden’s war in Ukraine has killed a million soldiers. This number is irrefutable, we see it in real time. Most of the western populations don’t even blink. They have their ideas of justice. Or is it just that killing Slavic people doesn’t count? Leading US congressional leaders say that it is a “good investment” to kill them. And many people applaud.
We have always been led to believe that in the west, the most important was to save the lives of our comrades in arms. Go in and evacuate the wounded. When you get in a tight spot, call in the artillery or an air strike. Not so any more. This is the first war where we have daily video proof of who was killed and where. Photography drones, quad copters, are flying by the 100's from both sides, and they see and record everything.
The way it works now, either on the offence, or in a counter attack, waves of soldiers are sent in to attack. It could be 20 soldiers on foot, or 100 with a few vehicles. Usually any vehicles are seen (by both sides), and many of them are destroyed with drones and artillery, before they even get to the battle. You hear; 5 waves of attack were all repulsed. What the hell does that mean? What is repulsed? Most usually there are "barrier troops" behind you, so if you turn back too soon (retreat), you are shot dead by your own troops. When are you allowed to (be repulsed)? Certainly, it is due to losses. How many losses? Then the next wave goes in – and it is also repulsed. Five of those happen on 10 battle fronts each day. (It’s 1,000 km long with battles.) Two of them (out of 50) are not repulsed and they hold or regain some territory, also with heavy losses. Cumulative losses from both sides are most likely 1,000, (every day). The least value in the Ukrainian war is the life of a soldier. Put a uniform on a human being, and he becomes a nothing.
This war has taught the G7 (NATO) a lesson. They do not have enough troops for what is coming. The major military “think tanks” project losses of 1,000 a day when NATO goes into Ukraine. In two months, America will lose more men that in 20 years of the Viet Nam war.
The Baltic states have already instituted a military draft. Germany might be the next to reinstate the draft and all of the EU countries are talking about it to get the populations used to the idea. America will have to have another draft army, especially when they go into China. If Taiwan goes independent it will join NATO and a very hot war will start. Then all of Southeast Asia will be forced to build their armies. What for? Because soldiers will be killed daily by the thousands. But nobody blinks.
Countries used to play the middle, to get advantages from both sides of the cold war. Now the non-aligned movement has all but disappeared. India is still in the middle, claiming its own interests. Singapore and the Philippines have gone into the western camp, too dependent on the dollar I suppose. The Philippines has reopened the American military base, and is building ships to fight over the South China sea. When real hostilities start, they may be the first to lose sailors.
Besides making videos, other FPV (First Person View), drones have a small 1kg warhead, and that is enough to disable a tank, or fly into a fortified trench and kill a handful of soldiers. Others have grenades with an electronic release. They fly directly over a target and drop it. They can even drop into a tank where the hatch cover is left open. Hatch covers are all left open, for one or the other side to destroy it. Nobody wants the opposing side to reclaim it. There are 1,000’s of these drones used every month.
Helicopters also take out tanks and artillery positions. The new rockets have about a 15 Km range and the helicopters hang low out of sight, then pop up and fire, and then hide again behind the trees. Most tanks are single use and then throw-away. Even if you want to drive it back, you’re likely to get hit with an artillery shell.
"Geran" loitering drones have maybe a 50 kg warhead, can fly about 1,500 miles, at 115 mph. One or two of them can take out a foreign mercenary barracks or a training camp. With overhead vision (also night vision), they know who is going in and out of what building. Many Geran's have taken out high level NATO officer's meetings, very far from the battle line.
Multiple rocket launchers have 12 or 15 tubes and can saturate a zone with rocket fire in a matter of seconds. One is called a "thermobaric weapon". It releases a cloud of very hot fire. 15 rockets can completely cover a football size field in 20 seconds. Nothing survives. Dozens of salvos are fired every day in Ukraine.
The smallest glide bombs are 250 Kg. Glide bombs are way cheaper than missiles. They're launched from fighter jets, and small wings pop out, they glide a very long way, and are guided to targets. The point is that while launching, the jet is out of range of counter fire. FAB 500 has at least 300 kg of explosives. (Fab is a= Russian acronym, F for gliding and Arial - Bomb). The heavier the bomb, the less it glides, and it has to be launched closer to the target. Russian drops many Fab 1,500's sometimes 50 in one night on the same city. Fab 3,000's are now in serial production. Some say there will eventually be a Fab 9,000, can you imagine, a 9-ton glide bomb?
Then there are missiles on both sides, the Storm shadow Franco-British cruise missiles, with a few other models and the HIMARS American rocket launcher. HIMARS are effective because of their longer range, they can sit way back from the combat line, and can last longer. Even HIMARS missiles are shot down before they reach their target. Some get through. And Russian missiles have such fast entry speeds that they can penetrate any defense. Missiles are usually fired in a swarm attack to overcome air defense.
Naval drones take out ships. Ukraine has no navy so they have no losses because of this sinking.
In the West the military is for show, doing giant military “exercises”. Then all adversaries are frightened to death and they fall into line. Or they "carpet bomb", which now is out of the question. In the East the military’s only purpose is to kill enemy soldiers, and they are very good at it. When western leaders threaten with this and that, the East says “Let them try”.
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If the claim here is that video games are a gateway drug to becoming a milsperg, that's exactly the pipeline I went down. Unfortunately, their chosen weapon also makes us unfit enough to be unusable as soldiery. I'd wash out of boot camp, or, if I was pushed through, become a pogue, fobbit, or get shoved into rear area services, no questions.
Only good for tail, no good for teeth.
I said all those things, because really, I never knew either. We drift along in a false perception, in the balloon of imagined safety that is given to us. But our actions (or lack of objection), do have consequences.
I don’t blame anybody for unconscious acts, and especially those that seem fun. Competition is fun, in whatever form it is offered to us. But then there comes a moment of being conscious to the real motivations, and what it all means. It has really become evident in these last two years.
I don’t say, because you played war games, you will be drafted and a percentage of you will be killed. But someone will be drafted and they will be forced to go where they don’t want to go. Someone will have to pay. Someone completely innocent.
You can be sure that I will never be subject to any draft. (I was already, and I hated it). That doesn’t make me complacent. Even more I want to shout. The Vietnam war memorial is a wall with 60,000 names etched into it. You can’t get near it or even think about it without choking. And America was the killing culprit, the atrocity leader in Viet Nam. So it is not about guilt or the lack of it. I can’t imagine what the Viet Nam war memorial would be like or the Russian Kremlin wall of heroes.
We don’t need any new walls of heroes. In your country or anywhere else.
Thanks for this thread where we can talk about these things.
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