The Nitpicker’s Guide to Ancient Warfare: Wargames

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @David Flin here

This is the last of these nitpicker's guide article to be posted here. If you want more, buy the book, which should be out soon. Once the book is out, I will post a link here and then, a few weeks later, delete all these articles.

 

[David Flin]

I'm just finishing off chapter 9 of 10.

One more chapter, a conclusion, and the interior art, and I'm there. Hopefully in time for Christmas.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Charles EP M.]

There were war/crisis games at the last con I was at and oh god, oh god, even in one room the lines of communication were a major issue and half the time was trying to find who was saying what so we didn't accidentally go to war or override each other. The official war games sound like you're rolling a Natural 20 every time even the outdated message shows up

 

[David Flin]

There were war/crisis games at the last con I was at and oh god, oh god, even in one room the lines of communication were a major issue and half the time was trying to find who was saying what so we didn't accidentally go to war or override each other. The official war games sound like you're rolling a Natural 20 every time even the outdated message shows up

Maybe I need to expand and clarify that bit.

When the lines of communication work, there's usually no problem. Things take a while to filter through, but when it's reliable, it's usually reliable.

However, as soon as the lines of communication break down, it all goes to pot. If you get someone who doesn't put where a message originates from, whoever receiving the message has no idea where it has come from. If someone is too busy to bother with messaging when trying to fight a battle, no-one on their side has a clue what is going on.

When things run smoothly, it's not a problem.

Battles are not conducive to things running smoothly.

 

[Death's Companion]

Maybe I need to expand and clarify that bit.

When the lines of communication work, there's usually no problem. Things take a while to filter through, but when it's reliable, it's usually reliable.

However, as soon as the lines of communication break down, it all goes to pot. If you get someone who doesn't put where a message originates from, whoever receiving the message has no idea where it has come from. If someone is too busy to bother with messaging when trying to fight a battle, no-one on their side has a clue what is going on.

When things run smoothly, it's not a problem.

Battles are not conducive to things running smoothly.

That's why its so important to keep things loud, clear, and unambiguous.

 

[Death's Companion]

On the circumstantial nature of leaving a line of retreat, I think the state of the art these days is "Always leave them a line of retreat, just make sure its mined and under artillery fire" killing a lot of trapped well armed soldiers is hard work after all, letting them leave you all their shiny kit and drag their battered bloodied bodies away from the battlefield desperately not wanting to fight another day does most of the job of leaving them ineffective with just a bit less effort and casualties on your part. Sometimes doing it all in one go is worthwhile, other times nothing wrong with settling for the most cost effective win if less total win.

During the world wars enemies that fought to destruction were a troublesome problem for even much stronger and better trained or experienced forces because its a draining and expensive process to liquidate them and well trained or mechanized forces can easily breakthrough or break out of anything but a very strong encirclement or even encircle the encirclers.

You need very good war games to get that particular balance and judgement right or practical experience. A good plan going on schedule and achieving all its tactical objectives actually handing you a first rate defeat is probably not what most commanders expect but it happens.


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On passage of communication, I was on one table top game where I ended up taking my objective for the game on the very first turn and then ended up having to hold it against counter attacks far longer than expected with my reinforcements controlled by another player then spending most of the game trying to reach me whilst the Tommys hit me with every artillery piece in Christendom.

I've also witnessed war games about naval battles which even with huge amounts of cheating was eye opening for the fog of war. Reading the enemy's mail doesn't help if they have less of a clue what they are doing than you do.

==

Finally, the practical side of war gaming. See Ukraine where the Ukrainians had a concept their political leadership felt was needed for domestic and foreign policy matters but the military leadership felt was impossible. So they put together an alternative proposal and then sent that to partners in the UK and United States who war gamed it for weeks until it was refined into something within the Ukrainians means and in line with the situation at the front (made possible by the Ukrainians opening up all their intelligence and reports from the front so the allies had an unprecedented view of facts on the ground) this staff study then led to the greatest feat of arms since 1991.

On a worm's eye view of things, professional soldiers by and large do not do fancy or complicated things, often they would be doing the same things as raw recruits and poorly trained conscripts, they just do those things well by doing them over and over, in training but also immediately before specific operations. Everything, the most basic motions, again and again.

War Gaming done right is yes more arcane and at a higher level conceptually then this, but it still should teach basic reactions almost as a mental muscle memory and stress test your processes until your plan doesn't need to survive contact to work.