International Treaties
From the General Staff:
With the purpose of this site being that of training mere Lieutenants to be strategic flag officers, we submit and recommend the following Treaties as stock Treaties that can be decided upon prior to commencement of a War. The objective of having the Treaties is to make the War more realistic in some cases, but also to limit the quick and easy victories that certain tactics give. These will effect the game playing time substantially as one can see from the real world applications. General McArthur would not have spent 4 years stalemating the First Southeast Asian Wargames of the 1950's had President Truman signed off on the nuclear strike. We came in Second Place in the Southeast Asian Wargames of the 60's and 70's because the U.S. Government limited the rules too heavily and did not really want to win. As to the reasonableness of agreeing on these Treaties before playing a game, consider this. There was warfare's equivalent to accounting's Generally Accepted Accounting Procedure from the dawn of time. In the general rules, among other things, noncombatants were not targeted and if a country lost, then the country ceased fighting. You have heard of the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Convention. Some of the original War Treaties go back to the late 19th Century. In these Treaties was outlined the treatment of POW's, and the fact that only solid bullets were to be used against infantry. How many times have you heard the line, "name, rank, and serial number". That is also why military rifle and pistol rounds don't expand or explode. When the Ruger .22 Pistol was used in the Southeast Asian Wargames of the 60's and 70's, a hardball .22 round was developed to conform to the Conventions.
Treaties are a part of real War. And even if not explicit, acceptance of procedure through demonstrable practice can work as nearly the same. During the Third Franco-Prussian War, the Allied side was prepared to conduct chemical warfare as was Pruessen. However, on the hunch that if I don't gas them, maybe they won't gas me, a de facto treaty existed that neither side would gas the other. Consider it the same using the following Treaties or any other consideration that you might make during a game. Quite often during gaming, I and my peers will not spend on nukes, AAD, aircraft until we see another opponent up the ante. It is not unusual to have a no nuke/no aircraft game simply because no one wanted to spend on the equipment and escalate the technology expense. A de facto Treaty is in place until the first silo or airfield. Then it is 1906 all over again.
Read carefully Lieutenant and you might make something of yourself....
SALT:
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
Simply put from the gamer's point of view, no nukes. The original SALT of President Carter's Administration was to limit the number, size, deliver types of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and the C.C.C.P. In the game there is a choice of one, thus it is eliminated. The reason is that to simply standoff and nuke them into submission can be too easy if the map forces densely packed bases. Maps such as Trio and L'Indochine are two prime examples of a map forcing a dense base. Also for historical purposes, L'Indochine should not have nukes either. Battle of the Line practically requires a modular base as outlined in the 1946 book "The Absolute Weapon" and thus it is a matter of the gamer's personal preference.
Washington Treaty:
After the end of the Second Franco-Prussian War, which involved the whole world eventually, the political issues stemming from Asian colonization (which was replacing African and Middle Eastern Colonization) caused Secretary of State Hughes to suggest limits on capital ships to force near parity thus giving no Nation a clear naval advantage. (U.S.-5, Britain-5, Nippon-3, Italia-1.75, France-1.75) From the gamer' perspective, the objective of the Treaty is to prevent spending everything on naval units and forcing a "Tank Rush" of ships. With a naval parity, the emphasis will return to the amphibious assault, air superiority and strategy. The agreed to limits as a stock Washington Treaty are the Allies having 3 CAs, 5 DDGs, 10 PGs with the Soviets having 10 SSNs and 3 SSGNs.
Neutral Trucks
This is a hard one to maintain and sometimes takes periodic violations to force your opponent's compliance. The concept is that if a truck is ahead of the Fronts and in No Man's Land, then they are NEUTRAL and not to be attacked. If they are behind a Front they are valid targets since they should be protected at that point. In practice, however, generally they are still ignored as a matter of "courtesy" to avoid an expensive truck killing war. The reason is that in real War, your supply line is behind the Front. Only in this game is your supply line in front of your Front. This is a concession to reality. It also forces proper investment of ore fields. To attack an enemy truck anywhere inbetween Front lines per this Treaty requires a legitimate investment of the ore field. Now the players have to decide to fight over the ore field itself to maintain or deny investment.
MiG-Gap
This is a concession to the power of the MiG and the irritating factor of the Gap Generator. Flights of MiG's are just aerial tank rushes. What ever they target is gone in one pass. The equalizer is the Gap Generator. We do NOT like not being able to see the map once recon'd so to eliminate the Gap Generator would require eliminating the MiG. This Treaty is not based upon fact at all, merely a personal preference of the players involved.
ChronoSwipe
This is a unilateral Treaty by which the Allied side agrees not to Chronoshift an enemy unit into a prepared killing field. If there are more than one Allied General then it can either be unilateral or bi-lateral. However, at this time, Sowjets are giving up nothing in return.
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