Strategic vs Operational vs Tactical

[Kithikor]

As the title states, do most wargames and wargames companies make a distinction between the 3 or are they just lumped in all together?

[Shad]

Wargames are most easily classified into those 3 groups by looking at the turn length.

• Tactical - 15 minutes or less "real world time" per turn
  
• Operational - 1 hour up to 1 week
  
• Strategic - 1 week +
  

[cjsiam]

There is another dimension too, based on the size of the units on the board

Tactical -- man/squad/platoon --- some say company(the WWI Infantry attacks which I have not actually seen/played is an example from AVLP)
Operational -- Battalion to Division
Strategic  -- Division to Army

and other considerations come in at higher levels ...Operations/Strategic often have supply issue show up, some times predominantly.
Production shows up in strategic games sometimes....

And the above are really in a WW2 context.....

If we were Napoleonic...tactical would be Battalion level games....
Operational would be Division to Corp
Strategic Corp to Army...

what a great frigging hobby, no?

[plloyd1010]

I think of the 3 levels as the Fight, the Battle and the War.

The Fight is about how you deploy and use men and weapons.
The Battle is about how you use your formations.
The War is about you use resources and theater/national capacity.

Of course all these overlap in different ways in different games. PG is mostly fight with some battle.

[joe_oppenheimer]

I like to explain the distinctions this way:

Tactical - do we flank that machine gun nest or launch a frontal assault?

Operational - at what point on this river line should we try to cross?

Strategic - Do we invade Sicily or Greece first?

[Kithikor]

WOW! Thank you all! It is ALL good info.
I stumbled across a blog and someone was talking about the different classifications, but was just wondering. :cheers:

[Greyfox]

All, 

      To some extent that discussion is based on time period.  For most of recorded history, there was no such animal as the operational level of war.  Also there is currently a major debate as to whether or not there are levels of strategy (i.e. theater strategy vs. Grand strategy, or whether strategy is all-encompassing).
       From a modern U.S. Army perspective (which can be applied to WWII) the following is a good rule of thumb:

Tactical -  The Division is the largest Tactical Formation in the U.S. Army and allows flexible task organization to conduct combinded arms maneuver. So  anything Division or less can be considered tactical, though in a few rare instances, a reinforced division can be established as a Combined, Joint, or Combined Joint Task Force -- making it an operational level HQs. 

Operational -  Corps, Armies, and Army Groups could be considered Operational Level HQs in WWII.  In modern times, Corps is the lowest level operational level HQs.  Armies can be used Combined, Joint, or Combined Joint HQs as well.  

Strategic -  During WW II specific HQs (e.g. SHAEF) would have been designated as in charge of all operations in a theater - in essence a Strategic level HQs.  For the Modern U.S. Military - that is the function of the Geographic Combatant Commands.


Mike