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Decisive Action

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Decisive Action

My thoughts / review

  • Comparison to Combat Mission:

    • It’s interesting that DA has wiggly phase lines and boundary lines, while CM has perfectly straight map limits.

  • Misconceptions I had about the game before going into it:

    • I thought the maps were significant / affected gameplay, like they modeled actual roads like you’d see in Command Ops 2. But the maps are window-dressing, roads aren’t modeled.

    • I thought the game was without hexes like Command Ops 2 and it seems like it is for unit positions, but the underlying terrain is mapped in 1km squares like how CMx1 maps are broken into square-sized areas.

    • I thought it would model elevation, but it doesn’t (apparently it does model it in a simple way to allow aircraft to mask their approach).

From reading the manual

  • Even though a unit’s footprint may extend over many different types of terrain, the center-point of the unit is what is used for the purpose of calculation. So if brigade has a big 20km-radius footprint but there’s a single 1km hex of heavily-defensible terrain like urban terrain, the entire brigade would be considered to be in urban terrain if it was attacked. Seems very game-able.

Reviews

  • https://www.combatsim.com/memb123/htm/2001/10/decisiveact/

    • Decisive Action requires the player to take on the responsibilities of a division or corps commander. This larger scope distinguishes Lunsford’s game from the other two fine modern wargames, TacOps and Brigade Combat Team.

    • a two-hour time scale and a one-kilometer per square scale for movement

    • Each icon has a “footprint”, representing the area the unit affects. The size of the “footprint” is dependent not only on force size, shrinking as casualties are taken, but also on which of the five postures a unit assumes. (…) An enemy unit within a “footprint” causes combat and becoming tangent with another friendly unit’s “footprint” creates “friction”, slowing movement. With this one concept, Lunsford demolishes the old, zone-of-control and replaces it with a realistic, dynamic depiction of the frontage and depth of a military organization.

    • A line of communication must be traced back to a HQ and line-of-communication unit in order to be re-supplied

    • planning is aided by another innovation, called “graphics”, (…) a module that allows the player to actually draw on the maps. Formation boundary lines and various phase lines can be drawn, (…) Named Areas of Interest (NAI) and Targeted Areas of Interest (TAI) are placed to enhance intelligence and support fire respectively. At the beginning of each game, fortifications, bridges and minefields can be placed using the graphics module.

    • With a rough idea of goals and available resources, the player performs the first of many reconnoiters. He studies the map closely to see which terrain can be used for maneuver and which will probable contain enemy positions. Using his initial impressions. He places his NAIs where he needs to know more and TAIs where high explosive probably needs to rearrange terrains. He then attaches artillery, engineering and air defense units to combat units to form either blocking, flanking or breeching formations.

      Independent artillery units are positioned to soften things up for advance. Mech cav units are positioned forward to reconnoiter and screen while helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) receive plots via drag-and-clicks to check out the situation deep in enemy territory. HQs are positioned to keep up with lead elements, assuring satisfactory command control. Brigade boundaries are drawn to minimize friction and the first phase line is laid down just in front of the suspected enemy outposts. Here, formations will be reorganized and new orders issued, if necessary. A mistake made in the set-up phase can be hard to overcome so map study becomes extremely important.

    • Pressing the “Next Turn” button starts the simultaneous move (WEGO) system. The map comes alive with air units zipping across the landscape as ground units crawl toward phase lines.

    • If an electronic warfare unit is available, enemy intercepts can be read in an archive.

    • Small flaws:

      • The enemy units are too small for easy viewing; a zoom-in level is needed.

      • The turn messages follow each other at lightening speed, impossible to follow.

      • the graphic module, used to mark further phase lines, TAIs and NAIs, [sometimes] fails to show units.

        • I actually saw SmartWargames seem to run into this issue in one of his YouTube videos, where a Spetznatz battalion wasn’t showing up on the map and then seemed to reappear some distance away a few turns later.

    • Clicking on an artillery unit will allow general orders to be given as to its three major roles: support, interdiction and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). These three choices reveal the threads of victory. Support allows ground troops to occupy the ground but interdiction starves the enemy of supplies and reinforcements before the coup de grâce. SEAD is vital not only in protecting precise air strikes on the frontline but also to protect the all-important blows against command centers. The weave that holds these threads together is timing. SEAD missions must be timed to coincide with helicopter and fixed wing strikes. Interdiction must precede the grinding of ground attacks to minimize casualties. To facilitate this intricate coordination, targets can easily be targeted with cross-hairs from the tool bar. Each target can be hit with high explosive, mines (FASCAM), and gas. Multiple launch rocket system can blanket enemy rear areas. Combined with long range recon and air strikes, artillery determines the tempo of action.

      • This is interesting because it introduces tactics that are unique to this scale.

      • It’s not clear to me based on this description if there’s any recommended order of the three roles of artillery or if it can go back-and-forth between the different roles. I guess what could be said is: if your ground forces are still too far away from the objective / enemy to need support within the next 1-2 hours (the length of one turn), that might be a good time to do some SEAD missions in combination with airstrikes.

    • An extremely powerful editor allows modifying existing scenarios, including changing the order of battle and every other aspect of the game. Creativity is encouraged by a map import application. If a player can turn a map into a BMP file, he can fight on that area.

  • https://www.retromags.com/files/file/7031-pc-gamer-issue-090-november-2001/

    • Screenshot of the review: image-20240805-032342.png

    • Wow, when I saw that Decisive Action was reviewed in the November 2001 PC Gamer I thought to myself “Wow that’s the same month OFP was released”, but the review is literally on the next page after the review of OFP, which they hilariously gave a score of 70% to (complaining about minor issues without giving even 1% as much credit as they should have for how revolutionary the scale of what the game modelled was). DA actually got a higher rating of 83%.

    • Quotes

      • It models, with utmost fidelity, what the Army calls the seven primary BOS (Battlefield Operating Systems): maneuver, fire, intelligence, air defense, mobility/survivability, command and control, and logistics.

      • Decisive Action is turn-based, but pulse-based within each turn…

      • The game offers “only” nine scenarios, all set in an exercise-unspecific “Red vs. Blue” campaign.

      • the best way to learn the subtleties is to…take notes on your failures and weaknesses, and study-up on them between games.

    • The same issue also has a separate opinion piece giving strategy advice for the game:

      • image-20250412-045404.png

      • How to mount a successful attach helicopter operation:

        1. Identify the critical targets you must attack, producing what’s called a High Pay-Off Target List (HPTL). Mark them with TAI (Targeted Area of Interest) symbols.

        2. Launch the attacks at night for best results and survivability.

        3. Carefully select the routes to avoid air defense artillery (ADA). You can get updated information about those units by planting NAI (Named Area of Interest) symbols one to two turns in advance (doing so focuses your intelligence-gathering resources on those particular areas).

        4. Plot routes to/from the TAIs. For best results, plot the final approach leg for a flank/rear shot. Don’t forget to plot a safe return route to the airbase! I forgot to do that for some of my squadrons, which is why one of them “surrendered”--it simply loitered over enemy territory until it ran out of fuel!

        5. Develop a fire support plan to “blow a hole” across the FLOT (Forward Line of Own Troops). Use air strikes, SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) fire missions from your artillery, and electronic warfare (EW) assets to overwhelm enemy defenses along the route and over the target.

        6. Whenever possible, have your AH units fire from just outside the enemy units' “footprints”. This gives them a “stand-off” advantage. Plotting an attack directly over the target may result in higher enemy casualties, but it will certainly result in higher losses to your choppers.

      • Some lessons I learned from three years of simulations use at CGSC, with some of the finest officers in the world as students:

        • Despite all our bravado, most of us, including me, are averse to risk.

        • Too many critical decisions are made late because we always want complete information. We have to force ourselves to make the call at the right time.

        • Unless we overcome that risk aversion, most of our plans turn out to be fairly predictable.

        • Often, commanders on both sides think that they are losing, when in fact one side is definitely winning. Fog-of-war can create jaundiced perceptions.

        • Often, when we set out to deceive, we only deceive ourselves. Deception operations are particularly difficult and under-studied.

  • https://kriegsimulation.blogspot.com/2010/01/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-command.html

    • I'm not really a fan of this sim because the AI and the limited amount of scenarios available.

      The AI feels like the one in TacOPs: the OPFOR will smack its head against a wall of your forces and it's not able to do anything it's not programmed to do (i.e. doesn't adapt to the player's actions).

      The vanilla simulation has only three maps and eight or nine scenarios.

      I keep coming back because of the quality of the simulation. The level of detail is deep but not overwhelming. Some things are abstracted very smartly. It's a great simulation of grand-tactical combat.

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