COIN Sim: Modeling Civilians in Task Force Series

[kongxinga]

Thanks for that very insightful post. The lack of modelling of asymetric warfare/ political will/ guerilla warfare/ HUMINT and COIN in most wargames bugs me tremendously.

The sad thing about this is that I don't forsee seeing these modelled anytime soon. Grognards are often button counters, people who are more concerned about the number of coat buttons on the xxx Flying Hussars Brigade (or the armor penetration tables of some obscure round against some obscure location), and few people are overly concerned about the larger scale of things.

That said, this simple modelling could be very effective. There are a few things that could be added that might not overly complicate things.

1. Money as another resource. Having people pick up rations for nothing is accurate when the city or village in question is under military administration for blueforce, but does not quite seem right in the disputed areas, where Blue force has only some control. And this is where you need to win the hearts and minds. Directly tied to this is

2. Skill of the civilians. This determines exactly how much rations each produce when they arrive in their workshops, and is randomly distributed in a bell shaped curve. Civilians then receive money based on their productivity. Skill can be increased by picking up rations in school workshops. Skill should be influenced by loyalty (instead of just loyalty determining productivity) and suppression.

3. Ownership. Workshops should be owned by civilians or civilian families, or at least partially owned. Based on the state of the workshop (damaged workshops function worse), the workshop applies a multiplier on the production of rations. So say the full bonus for a factory workshop is 110% and it is 50% damaged. 10 people of full loyalty and skill 10 and no suppression work there. The factory produces 10(labour)*10(skill)*(.5)(damage)*1.1(modifier)=55 rations, but wages of 100 are paid out.

In this example the civilian owners of the workshops are likly to be losing money, which could lead to the factory closing, leading to workers unable to afford rations, leading to them joining the insurgency and bombing another workshop. Of course, the factory could be damaged by the Blue force player accidently because the OpFor intentionally started a gunfight next to it (or launched rockets next to the factory like Hamas). Under optimal conditions, the factory produces 110 ratios for 100 money, resulting in extra rations for the owners of the factory that can be exchanged for money if needed. If Blue Force does COIN well, civilians will be slowly accumulating money, which can be used to build and repair workshops within their fuel range. This results in another workshop elsewhere, that will provide jobs for more civilians whose fuel range previously prevented them from getting anything but a substinence farming job, resulting in more civilians coming over to blue due to increasing loyalty, and the whole expanding inkblot COIN concept.

But in any case your basic idea provides a very good framework for building a model. We can begin to go crazy with this. For example, why not make loyal civilians more likely to reveal enemy unconventional fighters planning an IED ambush