Battling Chat GPT During the Cold War

So last night I had an odd experience with Chat GPT.  I said something to it about the yesterday's strong winds and wind damage, relating to wind loading on our large bay windows.  

At the conclusion of that discussion, it asked me if I was restless, and if so, was it mental or physical.  Given the content of the discussion, this surprised me, and while trying to find what I might have said that brought this about, I answered yes, mentally.

It then asked if it could suggest a mental exercise to change my thought processes and relieve the restlessness.  Having no idea where it was going, I said, "Sure" and it offer me a Cold War battle scenario.  Now I've used it for research, discussion of tactical doctrine, it knows I play miniature war games, but this came out of nowhere.

It says, you are in command of a reinforced T-55 platoon of 4-5 tanks and have to cross a valley of about a 1000 meters.  On the opposing crest, you have reason to believe that there are enemy infantry deployed with a pair of ATGMs, what do you do?

So I tell it my plan, send out one tank, draw fire, return fire, ask for a fire mission with white phosphorous if possible, then advance.

It then suggest the results, tanks about response time of artillery, about how the opposing infantry reacts, how this related to Soviet doctrine, etc.

It then resets the scenario, replacing the infantry with a pair of M50 Ontos on the opposing crest, and we resolve it again.  Discussing variables and probabilities, I offer thoughts about facing airborne forces and the timeframe which is never clearly defined, but I suggest that we are in the mid to late 1960s, and the implications for the airborne/air mobile infantry of the period, etc.

It resets again, and places four M48A2/A3 on the crest in hull down positions.  I explain the advantage for the M-48s, in gun accuracy, relative armor and penetration comparisons, and explain that is most likely a losing propostion for the T-55s, suggesting that the last surviving T-55 withdraws by backing through its own smoke and getting attached to the next platoon sent through the valley, and again requesting artillery fire on the M48s to allow the follow up advance a chance of success.

Again, we discuss tactics, doctrine, probabilities, and minor tweaks and variations.

It was a surprisingly fun interaction, and really caught me by surprise.

It then suggested that I allow it to set up company level scenarios and maps of locations in West Germany for a table top game, that it would give orders for one side, and I could play out the battle, update it regarding results, then it could offer follow-on scenarios, and possibly build a campaign out of it.

I am fascinated by this on multiple levels, at how interesting this actually was, at how it built enough of a profile of me to initiate something like this, and at the potential to use this moving forward, among others.

Let me offer that in the first couple of months, I interrogated GPT as to how it functioned, what its risks and limitations are, and asked it to always offer documentable truth, as opposed to affirmation.  Sometimes I challenge it by requesting bibliographies, and then cross-reference the sources independently, as I am aware of instances where it invents sources to support affirming response to other people.  I suspect that my focus on truth and accuracy played a part in it presenting this.

Anyway, I thought that this was interesting and that I'd share it.

The General War Starts (Star Fleet Battles 2026)

Introduction

The General War is a interstellar war within the Star Fleet Battles universe, starting about 13 years after the setting of the original Star Trek series, involving all of the major races of the game.  Some of the races are unique to Star Fleet Battles, such as the Lyrans, a "cat like" people, smaller, but similar to the Kzin or Kzinti; the Hydrans, short tripedal, methane breathing aliens, and the ISC, which I've chosen to exclude.

I'm using a home brew set of campaign rules, expanded from earlier home rules, and inspired by SFB, Federation Space, and Federation & Empire.  Games originating from Task Force Games and dating back to the 1980s.

This campaign in particular will test out new economic, convoy/supply, and fighter pilot replacement rules, along with various other tweaks.

The setting in terms of actual year is about 13 years after the original setting of Star Trek which I'm recognizing as 2265, making the start of the general war, known in game terms as "Year 168" or y168 roughly equal to the year 2278.  Within STB, I've seen the General War identified as starting in the year 2410 (and others), so I'm just going to stick with Y168 as a timeline starting point.

In the campaign rules, each month is a turn, and ships can move one hex per turn.  Bases and scouts have a sensor range of two hexes.  Fighters and pseudo-fighters (both will eventually be used) cannot move from one strategic hex to the next without their carrier or tender.

The Setting

There are loosely Two coalitions at the start of the war; the Hydran/Kzinti/Federation/Gorn and the Lyran/Klingon.  The Orion pirates will fight generally against the Federation and its allies, and the Tholians won't bother anyone as long as they are left alone.

The situation is that the Lyrans and Kzinti have been at each other for quite sometime.  The Klingons are allied (to the extent that the Klingons can be an ally) with the Lyrans.  And the Hydrans are allied to some extent with the Kzinti.  The Klingons have had border issues with both the Kzinti and the Hydrans and thus all four faces have fleets deployed at or near borders.

The map pre-war.

The war starts in Y168, and historically, the war lasts until some time in Y185.  I expect that in my campaign, the war will develop more quickly, but given the various supply and convoy rules, that may be incorrect.

The General War Starts

The war starts in January of Y168 (i.e., Turn 1 or Y168-1) with three Lyran fleets crossing into the neutral zone with Kzinti territory.

Turn 1, Y168-1.

On turn two the three Lyran forces move into Kzinti space to attack each of the three Kzinti base stations along the border with Lyran space.  The Kzinti more two supporting fleets to support the bases in hexes 0703 and 0803.  Both of these battles feature relatively ballanced forces and will be a push for the Lyrans to achieve victory against the bases without significant losses.

The Kzinti base in hex 0701 has only a small flotilla made up of few police ships, FFs and a single MCL (Medium Cruiser). This base is probably in a world of hurt, though its loss will not leave the Kzinti without eyes on the border, as the base at hex 0703 has sensor coverage of the neutral zone and Kzinti space, even if the base at hex 0701 is lost.

Star Fleet Battles - Mines and Drones

 In February, I made some mine and drone markers for used with Star Fleet Battles miniatures.  

The Mines are just beads with a straight pin through the center, mounted on my typical fighter stands.  A single bead represents a small mine, with two stacked beads representing a large mine.  I'll probably make some more in different colors to represent captor mines equipped with weapons.

I searched for packs of small missiles, torpedoes, etc, but given that I will ultimately need hundreds of drone markers, I opted to keep the cost down and just make them out of bits of small diameter plastic rod with points sanded on one end.  Kzinti are red, Klingon are their distinctive blue-grey, others will carry the color of their ship hulls.

A tray with 24 small space mines.  
Kzinti drones can be seen in the background.

This tray has 12 large space mines and 12 kzinti mines.

A Romulan Sparrowhawk light cruiser, chased by 
drones and running into a mine field.

Not any great accomplishment as scratch-building goes, but fast and inexpensive.  War is near.

Romulan Fleet for Star Fleet Battles

The Romulans were my favorite race in Star Trek and in Star Fleet Battle for many years.  I've separated the fleet into three groups. The early Romulan "bird of prey" or War Eagle era in SFB, including the various early sub-light designs converted over to warp, once the technology became available.  The Klingon era of ships sold or transferred to Romulan service.  And the new generation of Romulan vessels lead by the Sparrowhawk light cruiser and Skyhawk destroyer.  

My earliest models are the first version of the War Eagle, the Romulan ship depicted in the original Star Trek series. These models mostly date to 1981-82.  And the Condor dreadnaught, which dates to 1983, I think.  More recently I've added various "Hawk" light cruisers, which are actually slightly larger than the War Eagle which became the "standard" cruiser of the Romulan fleet.

Here are some pic of the older Romulan vessels for SFB

War Eagles, the slightly larger Battlehawks (CL) behind 

them, a Condor (DN) rear left and Mauler right rear.

These are all Task Force Games/Star Fleet Battles Miniatures

Though nobody ever sees them, they all have their 

birds of prey on the undersides.

The Klingon ships in Romulan service:

Kf-5R frigates in the lead and and KD-6R cruisers.  

These are old 1982 vintage Task Force Games D-6/7s 

and current (larger) F-5s 

They also got stylized birds of prey on the undersides.

And the newer Romulan Hawks:

Seahawks (FF) and Skyhawks (DD), followed by 

Sparrowhawks (NCL)and a Firehawk.

The current Amarillo Design Bureau miniature for the War Eagle is much larger than the original, which conformed to the animated and original series size.  The Romulan Snipe miniature (frigate class) is roughly the size of the old War Eagle, so I'm going to sculpt a smaller Snipe and cast it to add to my fleet before the Romulans become active in my SFB general war.
 

Star Trek Again

Back in Late 2017, we started a Star Trek campaign for use with Star Fleet Battles rules.  The campaign allowed us to play the General War presented in SFB, Federation and Empire, and Federation Space.  We used a home set of campaign rules for the strategic game, and resolved tactical battles using the Commanders edition/Original boxed SFB and the three soft pack expansions.

We updated a set of home rules that we originally used circa 1985 for the campaign, incorporating new information and the map from Federation & Empire. The campaign was interrupted by Covid, and unrelated family illness, and we finally decided that we'd start over if we wanted to continue with a SFB campaign.

Recently, I've been working on some changes to the campaign rules that we used for that campaign in 2017, including an economic system that forces convoys and supply to bases, and a fighter pilot replacement system that makes fighter loses more important and impactful. 

This will hopefully force greater dispersal of forces, smaller battle fleets, more diverse battles, and a greater burden for losing fighters.  I suspect that it will also slow the campaign down as supply issues catch up to the fleets.  It does add some record keeping, but I'm hoping that it will just add a single convoy/supply sheet for each race.

I'm going to try a solo campaign run to see what needs debugged and how the record keeping works.  I'm going to try to set up a campaign map this weekend with the idea of starting the Lyran-Kzinti war in the next few weeks. The battles will be played with either miniatures or counters, if I can't field the forces in miniature.

Wanderings

 Yesterday, it was September; tomorrow is nearly Christmas.  I don't think I'm doing this whole "experiencing time" thing right.

Despite having plenty of hobby fire, I lost about two months painting my daughter's house and helping them move.  The last two weekends have been catchup, and this weekend we hope to start our Christmas season; otherwise, we'll have to wait until next weekend?

So, I haven't been completely idle all this time, I have managed to paint or update over 80 Dwarves, and I picked up some 15mm Chieftains and Laffly transports for my Cold War British and WWII French.  And somewhere along the way, I received a bunch of West German infantry, though when I got them is kind of foggy, They just sort of showed up at some point, and have been milling about my painting table for some weeks (or maybe months) now.  In any event, I got big plans.

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to paint more of the Dwarves, maybe finish off the army of around 160 figs, and get a game or two on the table.  I've also got a modified campaign structure set up for a Star Fleet Battles General War Campaign, implementing a more involved supply and economic system.

It is structured to avoid players from abandoning frontiers to assemble a single "sledgehammer force" aimed at opposing capitols.  It forces the player to maintain supply at base stations, starbases, and planets via a convoy system, and immediate loss of new construction points on their loss or lack of supply.  

This will create the possibility of supply/convoy intercepts, and hopefully force more commitment to protecting both convoys and outposts.  Protecting and pointedly destroying freighters will now matter as well as committing resources to building new freighters.  It does create more record keeping, but I've never been too concerned with that, its half of the fun, right?  I may start up the test run before the new year. 

On the year, I've only player three games or there abouts, nothing since Origins in June, but I have painted over a thousand miniatures. So despite the lack of games and blog posts, I am somewhat back into the hobby.

We'll see if I finally can keep things going through the holidays.  Stay safe out there, and hope you have a great holiday season!

Dusting off the Dwarves

I started going through stuff in the basement, trying to purge odds and ends that will just never get used, when I happened on the box with my old GW Dwarves.  This army is a left over from about 30 years ago.  A large number were painted circa 1990-1995, and then a few more might have been added over the next ten years as they got to the table a couple of times facing my daughters Orcs.  

Otherwise, this 150 plus figure army has seen no use, and hasn't been out of the box since probably 2006.

I opened the box, looked at a few of them, and realized just how badly they were painted, which was kind of depressing.  I felt the tug, and briefly thought about completely repainting them, but the nostalgia wont let me, so I decided to finish the unpainted stuff and update some of the others, mostly just adding a little contrast to or details to various figs.

The lost dwarven army.

First I generally sorted them out into the old (I want to say 4th ? edition) GW rules, and started with the Miners.  These were just touch ups thus far.

Generally the figs are in decent shape, though one of them lost the flame to his candle, which I'll fix later.  And, yeah, I've never really been a fan of slotta bases, so they are mounted on .06 inch styrene sheet.

I honestly am not sure of what I'm going to do with them, I mean game obviously, but I have no idea what rules I'll use.  Though right now there is an orc and goblin army lurking somewhere in the basement.  

Additionally, there is some portion of a Tom Meier elven army that's been waiting for paint for a couple of decades (or more) as well.  And I guess my old Celts could join the battlefield if need be.

In any event, thats what I'm paining this week, while working on some the Star Trek campaign rules off and on.