Steel Panthers III – Brigade Command

Its been about seven months since I started developing a set of scenarios for a Steel Panthers III campaign; it was envisioned to model or simulate (within the constraints of the game engine) major actions that the 1^st Infantry Division fought from D-Day to near VE-Day during World War II. Since the beginning I have found that I tend to lean toward the historical accuracy of both game maps, unit formations, and trying to force the AI to do my bidding! The other fun part about this project was the operational research into what actually happened and then trying to model it using the game. Now, most of you are saying, "Oh no, he’s one of those historical fanatics!" You're right, I am - but in reading this article, I hope you will find that the techniques I used are well suited to any type of scenario or campaign you may want to build. So, for completeness sake and because I have a great interest and respect for military history – I’m going to take this type of approach to scenario/campaign development.

The best part of designing scenarios is getting to relive a battle. Visualizing the movement of formations and recounting engagements are all part of the scenario design business. Before you can start building a battle simulation, a great deal of research has to go into it; you have to know what happened in order to model the event. In the next few paragraphs you will find what I have come across as the essentials of operational wargame research.

There are many places to go to get information: the web, the library, or ordering publications from various organizations. On the web there are two design sites that come to mind (this isn’t to say that there aren’t other good sites), the Wargamer's own Scenario Design Center and Wild Bill Wilder’s Raiders site. The next source is your local library and if they don’t have what you’re looking for order it via interlibrary loan. If you are near a military academy and can get access, you will find a great gold mine of information. Ordering publications from the Government Printing Office or the National Archives, is another great way to get data on unit history, tactics, and order of battle. GPO is about the only way to get Center for Military History Publications, unless you are in the service. The last place I have found information for scenarios is from a local military museum. If you are fortunate to have one near or can take the trip to one – do it. I have the distinct pleasure of being good friends with the registrar of the 3^rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Museum at Fort Carson Co. I have found data and records not only dating back from before WW II, but have been allowed to make copies of original material. One example is several allied intelligence reports of German Tank Tactics towards the end of World War II, which I hope to publish someday.

Generation of Documents – You will need your reference materials at hand, it also helps to type up a description of the battle, including who, what, where, why, etc. It also helps if you document some design and setup notes for scenarios and campaigns. You can include these with the scenarios. This is especially important in a campaign, it serves as "Intelligence" material for the player. If you really want to help the player out – include maps or portions of maps with the documentation. For both campaigns it can serve as material for the intro text that the game displays at the beginning of each scenario.

You can’t have a good game map unless you have a real map to work from. The maps included with CMH Publications are outstanding. Some of these are available on-line for the Korean War series. One of the drawbacks to scenario design is a lack of detailed maps. Sometimes you just have to read an account of a battle and guess or visualize the terrain. Hobby publications such as Osprey also have good rendition of battlefields. More on the mechanics of this part of design later, for now let's look at some essential elements.

In Steel Panthers III you have a large surface area to work with. You have to look at the maps and the scale of what actually happened. Get a feel for the actual geography and how it will fit into the Battle Screen.

Forces – Will you have enough space for your forces to maneuver? Where were they positioned, why, etc. How large were the forces; were they battalion, brigade, or division sized. Where were the command posts located? A powerful editor feature is the AUX function. It allows you to program forces into a scenario that don’t have to be purchased. Its primary use is in campaign design when you want to provide extra forces to a player that were an attachment to a division. Of course you still have to watch your formation and units limits, which are 100 and 400, respectfully.

Concept of the Battle – What am I trying to simulate, from whose viewpoint, can I develop the scenario to force the player and AI into a real situation, where did the actual movement and engagement occur, or am I just doing a "what if"? These are important to my map design but require reading what happened and looking at a graphical depiction of the battle (read while looking at the map!)

I’m not going to cover basic editor functions since others have done that already, read the manual and readme file. E-mail me at steelpanthers@wargamer.com if you're having trouble. I will point out those features that are critical in developing maps for your scenario or campaign.

Geodesy – You’re going to become a cartographer, and you need to build a map as they do. Laying in the oldest terrain features is first, flat terrain. You need to add fields, high grass etc. at this point because they don’t work after you place terrain that’s elevated. Second add hills to the terrain, start with level 1 and add higher terrain as appropriate. You need to add rough terrain at this point. If you have a swamp add it now. Then apply streams, rivers, and canals. Be careful of the conversion buttons for rivers and canals. Lay the streams you want to be rivers and covert. Then if you need a canal lay in another stream and convert. Finally, lay in your streams. If you screw up don’t erase the whole thing – use the basic terrain button and rework the area you don’t like. At this point I add villages and city hexes. Then you can add the roads and railroads in a connect the dot (cities in this case) fashion. One frustrating thing that happens is the building of bridges for roads and railroads. If you don’t work it just right you get 5 bridges instead of 1. The trick is to start several hexes away from the stream or river and end the action several hexes on the other side. Go back and "trim" any blockish looking features with the basic terrain button enabled. This gives your maps a more realistic look. Rework areas like roads, streams, etc., afterwards. Finally, name the major features of the map just like the reference map. Do one final look after this and rework as required. Save!, Save!, Save all the way through the process – after each step is sufficient.

Measurements – Here are the measurements of each major feature of the maps in SPIII:

Considering that the map design is one of the most important features of a scenario, hills are a designer’s judgement issue and depend on the map effect you want to create. In the hilly part of a map, I use the scale of the map I’m referencing. Then I lay in the effect whether level 1, 2, or 3. In the OMAHA beach part of Normandy, I used 1 and 2 level hills to create 50m and 100m high hills. You can reverse the effect for valleys, lay in all your groundwork as a level 3 hill and work backwards.

The large map is 99 (Length) x 79 (Width) hexes. Each hex represents 200 Yards. Rounding up that makes the conversion to miles 10 Miles x 8 Miles. Ten hexes would equal 1 Mile, 5 a half a mile, and so on. The only difference is the medium map width is 6 Miles and the small is 4 Miles.

A note on the Editor - Read the manual and Wild Bill's scenario editorial on map building. Also, do like Wild Bill says…SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! I learned the hard way…several times.

Place Names – This is as simple as looking on a map and using the editor to type in the names. Label everything that has value to the scenario. This includes rivers, hills, key roads, and even objectives. For the hardcore gamers, you can even place unit boundaries to some extent.

Reinforcement & Retreat Points – I would place these at realistic points according to whatever scenario you are working on. In addition, don’t forget to designate the reinforcement/retreat points with the editor. You do this by entry point and turn. There are flags located on each end of the map, blue for the left side and red for the right. They are numbered 0-9. You must place them while in the map editor. Go to the map editor and click on the hex you designate a "retreat" hex. For blue, type "0". For red, type "1". Now, any units that retreat will exit the map at this hex. Blue reinforcement flags are numbered 2-5. Red reinforcement hexes are numbered 6-9. Click on a hex you want your reinforcements to enter from. Then type "6" (Red). Then go back to the deploy screen for units. You can then attach the units you wish to that reinforcement hex.

This is where you end up working with the scenario editor versus the map editor. This doesn’t mean you don’t go back to the map editor if you need to. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, in Steel Panthers III, modeling a triangular Iraqi defensive position would look like this:

Realism – What you are trying to do here is to place forces as a real adversary did or would have positioned his forces. If you have a detailed account and you have some record of what the tactics the force used, this shouldn’t be a problem. In reality, placing units for Steel Panthers III, would be just like any unit in any military – check for good fields of fire, locate observation posts, ensure a withdrawal route, etc. Do this from the friendly and enemy side.

Formations – In Steel Panthers III, you get down to platoon and squad formations. For World War II and Korean war scenario’s I haven’t found much in the way of formations for any armored or infantry force. On the other hand, formations for modern day forces are available and were derived from past experience. Some good references on American forces are at the Army Training & Digital Library (http://www.atsc-army.org/atdls.html), specifically, FM’s 7-8, 7-7J, 71-1, 71-2, and 71-123. Information on other countries can be found with little trouble. Here’s an example of three platoon formations in a wedge:

Figure 2 – Example of an American company team in wedge (with different platoon formations)

You can have single vehicles in Steel Panthers III (Steel Panthers II on a large scale), so this example is still valid as well. You will find that these basic formations are found in each echelon of command from platoon, company, battalion, brigade, and division. Many countries use these basic formations with little or no variation.

This flexibility with scenario design allows a greater range of options for a designer. You can now model many forces more realistically as well as provide the human opponent a better opponent with the AI settings increased.

This area of force placement is one of the more difficult things to design into a scenario. It's time consuming and most gamers don’t think about the consequences of force placement. But a well-planned placement can balance a scenario that is otherwise unbalanced. As with the offense your placement of defensive units is critical. Defensive formations need to be studied and copied if the scenario is to have any historical weight. You also, need to look for secondary defensive locations and place entrenchment’s there if your defenders are planned to withdraw. Again, FM 100-40 is an excellent guide in addition to historical accounts.

If you're placing forces realistically you will set up both for your player and the AI in positions that correlate to proper formations and tactics for the situation and terrain. For the first time in the SP series you have maneuvering room. Of course you need to understand what tactics are and how to use them. An excellent reference for tactics on this scale is the DRAFT of FM 100-40 from the US Army's Command and General Staff College. It's downloadable, once approved it will be posted on the ATDL page as a field manual.

While the offense is the most decisive category of combat operation, the defense is not to be forgotten. The basic task of the defense is to force the human enemy to attack under unfavorable circumstances. The designer wants to pick the place where the fight will occur. The place of defense should deny the human opponent the ability to obtain adequate intelligence and allow the area over which the battle will be fought an advantage to the AI or defender.

Amphibious Operations – This is an area that can drive you nuts. When building an amphibious scenario you have to worry about the game trying to load your units for you. This is where your skill at map building and using both editors comes in handy. In a large scale scenario you can’t afford to not let the game provide landing craft, but what you can do is increase the size of your craft in the editor (you would do this with AUX units for a campaign), and if you still lack enough craft, build a strip of beach about half way to the landing area to use as a marshalling area. This allows you to ferry troops and equipment to the beach. In a sense it’s a place to simulate troop ships. This is provided that your adversary doesn’t blow too many of your LCVP’s out of the water! Here’s a sample from the 1^st ID campaign.

Naming Conventions – You can chose to name your units or not, but most folks like the feel of naming units. It gives them an identity on the battlefield and you're suddenly more interested in what happens to them…especially after spending hours researching and then typing in the names with the editor. You can use whatever convention you want, but be consistent. Also, you only get 15 characters for each unit. Here is some American examples:

1^st Battalion, 16^thInfantry, 1^st Division = 1-16Inf/1Div or HQ1-16Infantry
2 Platoon, Company A, 1^st Battalion, 23^rd Infantry, 2^nd Division. = 2/A/1-23Inf
HQ Company A, 745 Tank Battalion = HQCoA745TankBn

It also pays to be realistic in how you name and number your forces. The British had a similar system to the Americans, but they had Troops and Squadrons in the armored units.

Battalion or Squadron	Company or Troop
1^ST	A
	B
	C
	D - Heavy
2^ND	E
	F
	G
	H - Heavy
3^RD	I
	J
	K
	L - Heavy

The battalions (Infantry or Engineers) or Abteilung (all other units) were designated in two manners: with Roman Numerals such I Battalion, II Battalion, etc. if they were part of a regiment; or they were numbered with Arabic Numerals such as 102^nd Battalion, 355^th Abteilung, etc., if they were independent (usually implies attachment to a Corps or Army, etc.).

The companies, unlike there American and British counterparts (who used letters), were designated with Arabic Numerals such as 1^st Company, 2^nd Company, etc.

So for 2^nd Platoon, 3^rd Company, 1^st Battalion, 726 Infantry Regiment = 2/3Co/I-726Reg

Time and Visibility - Time is a relative thing in the Steel Panthers III world. You don’t have the luxury of briefings, pre-combat inspections (except with the deploy screen), and use of assembly areas as you would in the real world. In the first few pages of the Steel Panthers III manual, it says the game time scale is one turn equals six to thirty minutes of real time. I’m going out on a branch and tell you that time can be whatever it needs to be for the scenario. This is true in Steel Panthers III. Take the Normandy invasion: you can design a map with objectives that weren’t reached until the second day. That’s 48 turns for 24 hours, and since you can figure assembly and movement to contact is assumed to be done for game purposes, this isn’t reasonable. These activities do not need to be modeled, just the results. In some instances you could reach those objectives in as little as 5-10 turns. So time is a relative thing, I find that going beyond 26 turns is boring.

Objectives - The setting of objectives is important for not only the units but also for the AI as well. Once you have built the map placed the units, you can set the victory objectives, and then assign forces to those objectives. First the setting of the victory hexes and the point value should be the actual location of your (or the adversaries, or both) forces objective and equivalent points allocated for the importance of the objective. I tend to assign more victory points the deeper you go into your adversary’s terrain, or for key terrain such as hills and cities. Next you assign forces to each appropriate objective in the deploy screen. Don’t forget to do this with AUX and AI forces as well.

The AI can be a worthy opponent or a contender you knock out in the first 30 seconds of a match. It all depends on how you program the game to act. Generally speaking, you can increase the level of difficulty by setting the AI level higher in the preferences screen. Try 200 sometime…

Use of computer control – I use this for moving forces (e.g. recon patrols) in a scenario that I have programmed waypoints for in a division sized battle to allow me to focus on maneuver of key forces. You can also set both sides to computer control in a two player game scenario to test the scenario for AI Level settings or to check key aspects of a battle your developing. You can do this with campaign scenarios before linking them together, to check force size or feasibility.

Waypoints – Programming these are mandatory for AI forces if you want the scenario to be a real gripper. This is where you get to play both sides, use reinforcement hexes and turns in conjunction with waypoints to get the AI to simulate a worthy opponent. It also pays to program waypoints for reinforcements, that gives you about a 60 to 70 percent chance that they will go where you want them to go. Use of waypoints alone will be a great benefit if done right. And make sure that you aren’t programming a unit to go to an objective that it’s not set for. Realize that the AI will still use the easy route to the objectives.

Reaction turns – Set these to the turn your reinforcements arrive or the turn you want forces already on the map to start moving. Be careful to observe realistic start times for your action. Look at what happened in the real battle and set the reaction turn accordingly. For instance, if forces didn’t arrive for 24 hours, place the reinforcements entry and reaction turn to near the end of the scenario. Most times the game will allow you to go beyond the set turn limits to see how these new forces do.

Against the AI – Set the Scenario up and toggle to computer control for both sides and observe the action making notes about key things that caught your attention. Change the things you didn’t like and do it again. Another way of varying the outcome is to raise or lower the AI settings and see what you get.

Against yourself – This is really the only way to initially test a campaign, as you only get to play one side. On a scenario, do it from both sides and note the things that need to be fixed, then fix them and move on if your satisfied.

Against another opponent – This part of play testing can be fun as long as your test opponent knows that it’s a test.

Independent evaluation – You can do this with scenarios and campaigns. But you need to be able to take criticism, and appreciate where your tester is coming from. If you have questions, ask them, but don’t rebuff a critique or you may find that you will have one less tester in the future to work with. Don’t forget to mail all the files for the campaign, its difficult but you can tell which files need to go by looking in the SCEN folder. With campaigns, include a text file and campaign references so the tester can understand how to set up the campaign editor.

Rework – Once you have compiled the results, go back and fix the things that needed fixing. You don’t do extensive retesting, just check those parts that were the problem. In a campaign, unless the changes were minor, I would play the campaign all the way through again.

Campaigns are fun to design. You should look for actual campaigns to model. Pick a regiment or a division and read through the history of what happened. Look at your references, do you have accounts that cover the scenarios you want to build? Which battles? Do you have maps to build your game maps from? You can also build campaigns for hypothetical battles such as the USSR attacking through the Fulda Gap, the Chinese invading Taiwan, etc. You can also model a set of battles for an entire corps using different divisions (if you don’t care about naming your core forces or just make them all AUX!).

Research – I’ve already touched on research before, but with a campaign you have to use more resources, more maps, and more forces…more time! A ten scenario campaign, with a wife, two kids, being a graduate student, and working a full time job = 7 months of research and design work, another 2 months of testing. Not something for the fainthearted I’m afraid.

Design – Map design is difficult if some (or not all) of the scenarios occur over overlapping pieces of terrain. Use of AUX forces is critical if you're going to do a good job of simulating a real campaign. And remember, to name and set your AUX forces in place before you save your scenarios, or you won’t be able to move them in the deployment phase. This also means reassigning to new HQs as needed.

Selecting "Significant" Battles – When you are reading through texts and poring over maps, look first for a thread of action with the unit(s) you are modeling. Then determine if there is enough significant detail for you to reconstruct the sequence of events over several battles. If you want an example check out the soon to be published 1^st Infantry Division Campaign – Cross-channel to Germany, on Steel Panthers III page at The Wargamer.

Integration – Finally, link the scenarios together and set the points and such. Then start up the campaign and select the core forces, deploy, name them, and …

Test and Evaluation – Run through the fruits of your labor…man that sounds corny…go to battle, yea that’s the ticket! Really, you have to run through once by yourself to find the big kinks (Alpha Test), then ship it out to willing victims and wait for their feedback (Beta Test). Once you have their thoughts and have clarified any questions, rework, and test again at home until you are satisfied. If you really like it, send it in for posting to The Wargamer!

Order of Battle Editors – There are two out there and both are great although I’m partial to one…that’s my business…yours is to get one and build more realistic orders of battles. There are a few flaws in the Kobs that people are trying to remedy. Beware, if you use a modified Kob you should include it with any scenario you build. One other word of caution, check out the Wargamer first, the work may have already been done for you.

SHP Editor – Will somebody help me hack these things! Fred Chlandra is a brave soul who broke the code on the SHP files. He has figured out the header files, the height and width of the images within the SHP file are fixed. This means that you can work anywhere within the available space of the existing image. I’m currently getting artwork done for a Steel Panthers II Mob42 project, thanks JAGER 6!. This Mob will have all the Special Operations Forces not currently in place in the Steel Panthers II arena; in addition, it will have Aircraft not included as well. I have already taken out a bunch of scum-sucking terrorists with a F-117A, with the target being lazed by a Team from 1^st Special Forces Operational Detachment D, or as better known…DELTA, inserted by an USAF MH-53J! Once the Steel Panthers II world is liberated, We should be able to use the same images in the Steel Panthers III world. By the way, there are shps in the Icon0099.shp file in Steel Panthers III, and they are waiting to be hacked. One last note on the SHP area, if you build new icons post them on your webpage or send them in to The Wargamer so others can enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I would like to thank a some folks for helping in this effort. Mario Kroll for letting me rant and rave at The Wargamer, Tim Maushardt for being the patient editor and chief of the article, Wild Bill and crew for blazing the scenario design trail, and finally my two 1^st ID Campaign Testers – Bill Wilson and John Malcom – You guys deserve sainthood or at least a medal for your patience and advice. Thanks to all wargamers for the time and have fun with the Steel Panthers III. If you need help or advice you can contact me at:

Steel Panthers III – Brigade Command Scenario & Campaign Development

Steel Panthers III – Brigade Command
Scenario & Campaign Development