Circling back to the OP topic of Old CW, vs. New CW, I found an fascinating nugget of game design philosophy tidbit buried in a powerpoint presentation on the Harpoon game's website:
Quote:
Historical wargames tend to fall into two major camps- Design for Cause: identify the major causal factors that impact an event and put them into the game design so that the event is likely to occur if the players’ follow the same steps.
- Design for Effect: identify the “effect” or the outcome of an event and design the game mechanics such that the players’ results is consistent with the historical data used as examples.
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https://www.admiraltytrilogy.com/pdf...n_HarpoonV.pdf , page 17.
They go on to say that Harpoon very intentionally uses both in different places. Neither is "right" or wrong" per se. They tend to use design for effect, particularly when the real-world process they're modeling is not fun - i.e. mathematically hard fire control solution calculations.
I would say that CW4e (as well as SFB, Battletech, etc) is a prime example of design for cause, while CW6e is a prime example of design for effect.
[I also think a lot of the philosophical divide underlying differing houseruling approaches is a result of some players wanting to houserule better simulation of a process into a game, vs wanting to design houserules for a particular desired effect.]