Psychological warfare

[Henrik]

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 04-27-2001 12:38 PM London was the first city ever to suffer from bombing raids by german Gotha-bombers (1917). Sadly enough there are a lot of examples to name of very harsh and brutal bombing raids from the 1930’s on, Guernica (a bask city which was bombed by the germans during the Spanish Civil War), Nanking , Warszawa, Rotterdam, Belgrad (1941), Coventry, Dresden, Seoul, Hanoi, (…Bagdad… ?!?) etc, etc. (actually, now that I come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a brutal bombingattack by the Russians during WW-II, didn’t they have longrange bombers ??.). In the thread atrocities there was talk about the firebombing of cities like Dresden in WW-II. During WW-II bombing was as much a strategical as a psychological means to fight the enemy. Firebombing in it self is not as much a strategical attack as well a psychological one. It is an element of totalwar which attacks the “homefront”, and is meant to demoralize and crumble the civilian support of the military front(line).

Although terror bombing was used widely during ww2 there are really few examples of it actually working to make people capitulate, in germany the effect of the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden only made the people more determined to fight the invador, the same thing happened in Great Brittain when London was bombed, terrorizing a populutation is something that works great in theory but in reallity all it does is to make a people more hatefull towards the invador.

[N35t0r]

OOT:

The Russian's first planes in WW2 were partly made out of wood.

I think their bombers were actually used to divert the Luftwaffe from ground targets

[Vrank Prins]

Allthough by this time we (the dutch) live (again !!) in a good and true peace with our neighbours the germans, the german bombing of Rotterdam on may 14th 1940 is not yet forgotten in our country. It was a sheer act of terror. The german threat to do this to other dutch cities made the dutch highcommand capitulate overnight, the dutch army surrendered on may 15th.

London was the first city ever to suffer from bombing raids by german Gotha-bombers (1917). Sadly enough there are a lot of examples to name of very harsh and brutal bombing raids from the 1930’s on, Guernica (a bask city which was bombed by the germans during the Spanish Civil War), Nanking , Warszawa, Rotterdam, Belgrad (1941), Coventry, Dresden, Seoul, Hanoi, (…Bagdad… ?!?) etc, etc. (actually, now that I come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a brutal bombingattack by the Russians during WW-II, didn’t they have longrange bombers ??.).

In the thread atrocities there was talk about the firebombing of cities like Dresden in WW-II. During WW-II bombing was as much a strategical as a psychological means to fight the enemy. Firebombing in it self is not as much a strategical attack as well a psychological one. It is an element of totalwar which attacks the “homefront”, and is meant to demoralize and crumble the civilian support of the military front(line).

This kind of warfare against nonmilitary targets has always existed. During the American Civil War in 1864/65 General Sherman looted and gutted his way through the Carolina states, in a pure and succesful attempt to intimated the southern/confederate population. Atlanta and Savannah (?!?) were set on fire and completely burned by the Union army. Not for strategical reasons but mere psychological saying, “This is what will happen to you if you keep fighting us”. There are plenty of these examples to give from what ever war in history (also from dutch history, we’ve been quite a few times the brutal guys ourselves).

In CIV psychological warfare is not yet possible. I would like it if was introduced into the game. (It would be a bit like playing a game of RISK, where you can let your bad instincts have there way. I always get my brother freaking mad, and with that my sister-in-law sometimes cheerfully joins in, which can mean that my wife turns furiously against me. Oooh, I love that !!).

That means that the way of attacking an opponent should be diversified. Now you just . . . “attack”. You either win or loose, capture a city, kill off a unit, or your unit gets killed. And that’s that.
It should become possible to attack and harass an opponent. Only just killing of a unit should change in having the choice to kill off a unit or enslave, imprison it (and starve it), or put it on bail after !!! you’ve captured it. That is what adds the psychological edge.
Capturing a city should give the choice to just take over “peacefully”, killing off half (or more) of it’s population, or abandon the city and deport the population (as slaves).
Bombing a city (in which case now in Civ you loose one populationpoint and city-improvement) but firebomb it and set it ablaze in which half the citypopulation is fried away.

One of the good things of CTP is warunhappiness, which is influenced by the loss of troops and cities. This element/parameter, IMO can be enhanced in Civ by the above suggestions.

Waddaya think guy’s ??
[This message has been edited by Vrank Prins (edited April 27, 2001).]