Academic Distain for Wargaming

 

Academic disdain for using wargaming as a tool is a classic example of legacy skills being allowed to override innovation in the academic world. This attitude also explains the near complete absence of academics from professional wargaming; one would expect that military historians would be embedded in professional wargaming, bringing their extensive knowledge to bear. As I wander around the strange world professional wargaming I do not encounter many academic historians, especially after Phil Sabin went to South America.

Stating the obvious, the military and supporting civilian services use wargames for training, education, force development, and practising war fighting. The computer industry uses cyber wargames continually to test business continuity. Education uses games as there is a huge track record of application and value. Emergency planning uses exercises; these use many of the techniques from wargaming. Many disciplines use the tools of wargaming and would think anyone challenging their professional use to be very strange indeed. There are parallels in other disciplines where new tools have been resisted by academics for decades.

I remember GIS (geographical information systems, huge digitised maps linked to spatially referenced databases). The established geographers and planners were anti-GIS as they largely did not have the skills to use it. A planning conference had an academic paper by an established academic guru where the latter looked at one case study and demonstrated Green Belts (an area of protected land in the UK) were shrinking rapidly. Along came the PhD student who used a GIS with the maps of all 14 of England's Green Belts to demonstrate that as a whole, Green Belts were growing.  Obviously, the student was failed. It took perhaps 5 years for GIS to become mainstream and 10 years for the planning world to accept Green Belts were not shrinking.

The computer industry of the 1980’s was a complete shambles, but the tool modelling introduced by the new discipline of systems analysis revolutionised the delivery of IT. I remember saying at my leaving speech from the electricity supply industry that there was no point in me trying to communicate with developers who had not been trained in the new tools. Half of the existing staff then failed the training courses in systems analysis introduced after my departure, so left the industry or were redeployed. Some people could not make the transition and academic consultancy to the IT industry went off a cliff edge as the academics did not initially embrace systems analysis

I could give further examples, such as the arrival of UML modelling in computing, the use of big data to replace tiny case studies, etc. All of these initially struggled for acceptance in the academic world, despite mainstream applications of the new technology.

I regularly talk to academic military historians, but I am often sceptical of the views on anything to do with operational history. They are proficient at narrating key events of an individual soldier’s life, but not when it comes to campaigns and battles. When I talk to a serious wargamer I know they have looked at the military geography, the human terrain, ORBATs, weapon ranges, time, space, the weather etc. A wargame is a model that integrates all these elements, subject to abstraction and generalisation. Unless the academic historian has wargamed the topic, I have no evidence they have evaluated all these different elements of war in their narrative. In the computer industry, it would be inconceivable for someone to talk about a new system without their having used the industry modelling standard tools such as UML. I am perplexed how military historians are tolerated who do not model war.

Over the last 12 months I have looked at the academic literature on Operation Sealion (1940, German non-invasion of England) and found gapping errors in it. The issue is the historians do not seem to have a concept of operational and tactical warfare. One example will suffice to illustrate this. A number of academics suggest that all Hitler had to do was bomb the fixed and mobile radar stations to blind the RAF. This sounds plausible, unless you have an understanding of the operational level of war. Bombers missed their targets routinely by many kilometres. Stukas dive-bombers would then be the best option. They actually stood a 1% of a hit per aircraft. Of course, the Stuka attack pattern makes it very vulnerable to even a fixed Bren gun sited to defend the radar station. The nature of the attack, Stukas stacked up in the sky waiting for their turn to dive, makes them very vulnerable to enemy fighters. A Stuka squadron attack v radar might stand a 10% of getting a single hit, but would loose perhaps 4 Stukas and more damaged. If the Germans had started an all-out dive-bombing campaign on a Sunday, by the end of Tuesday, they would have had almost no Stukas left, and most of the radar stations would still have been working. Serious wargamers understand the constraints of the operational, but from my experience few academic historians do.  

So why are academics reluctant to embed wargaming in their curriculum and academic writing? Judging by innovations in other disciplines, many academics would not be able to make the leap. A lot of the existing military narratives in the academic literature would be now judged inadequate when evaluated through the prism of wargaming. University military history courses that used wargaming would be far more engaging and popular with those that did not. There would be staffing changes as a result of academia embracing wargames.

The academic reluctance to use wargaming has been around a long a time. Paddy Griffith encountered the prejudice of fellow academics against wargamers whilst he was at Sandhurst (1973-1989). Perhaps Paddy’s combination of wargames and military history explains why of all the military history lecturers at Sandhurst from that era, he was the one to influence NATO operational policy. There are real opportunities for academics who can use wargaming; research bids, professional wargaming and student recruitment/ engagement. On a personal note, I am quite happy with the current dearth of academic wargamers; ‘in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’.

Professional Wargaming Reaches Escape Velocity in the UK

UK Connections 2018, the professional wargaming conference

Around the western world, there are a series of professional wargaming conferences where the great and the good of that world gather to talk and play games. Involving a complex mix of games and traditional lectures; the conferences aim to promote and develop the use of wargames for education, training and learning. The UK one is held in London at Kings College London in September each year. The History of Wargaming Project has offered me some insights into this growing community, as they routinely ask questions as they buy books from the ever-growing publication list.

Just a few years ago, if you assembled those directly involved in professional wargaming in the UK around a large table, perhaps 6 large pizzas (with stuffed crust) and some garlic bread would have fed them all. Until perhaps 12 months ago, it was possible to more or less keep track of the main professional wargamers in the UK, what they were focussed on and how this work was progressing. This is no longer possible.

DSTL, the scientific arm of the MOD, has a wargaming team and has other staff that also use wargames on occasion. However, there are now wargamers scattered throughout the MOD, individuals and small clusters, working on a range of wargames. The RAF, Navy and the Army have wargaming teams. Individual serving officers, including in the reserves, use wargames on occasions, as just another teaching method. The Defence Academy and Cranfield University use games. The number of academics using wargames for teaching history, international relations, peace and reconstruction studies and business studies is now many dozens, probably over a hundred. Kings College London, sensing financial opportunity, is in the processing of establishing a wargaming centre. Business is using games for financial advantage. Cyber wargames are routine. Emergency planners use them all the time, for example with the emergency services, hospitals and local authorities.

There is now a pool of commercial talent to support professional wargames in the UK, notably computer software from SCS and Matrix/ Slitherine Games. Both of these companies are of a scale to be dynamic and respond to customer needs.

There is a growing pool of accessible wargaming literature and wargames for people to take up and learn from without consulting the existing wargaming community.

Even more shocking is the rise of European professional wargaming, in particular Germany, France, Sweden and boardgames in Spain. They are not just following the lead of the UK and North America, but are building on the former’s games to make their own purpose-built products. I would suggest that these European countries are rapidly developing their own professional wargaming culture that while not completely separate, is more like a distant cousin. I will give just one example, Urban Operations, designed by Sebastien de Peyret. This is published by a French gaming company, Nuts. It is a detailed modern Fighting in Built Up Areas game that is far in advance anything I have seen in from the UK and North America (https://www.nutspublishing.com/eshop/our-games).

My first conclusion is that UK professional wargaming now has a critical mass and so the method will not disappear. It is too well ingrained as a valuable tool to be neglected. As General Sharpe said, once people feel they have permission, their pre-existing inclinations are released and they can move ahead. My second conclusion is the scale of the development means it is impossible for any one individual to blithely assert they have a good working knowledge of professional wargaming. It is now just too diverse. So, if you meet anyone who says they know all about UK professional wargaming, remember, they don’t.

New book: The Matrix Games Handbook: Professional Applications from Education to Analysis and Wargaming

 

This is the latest book to be published by the History of Wargaming Project

Matrix Games are an established way of running seminar type narrative games in the professional environment. This handbook is the most comprehensive set of papers to date on their use in education, training, research and innovation.

The book starts by exploring the origins of Matrix Games, with contributions on the development of the method.

The second section of the book has a sample game about NATO and Russian posturing on the Baltic Sea. Many wargames explore war in this contested area of sea, but a Matrix Game is used to explore a conflict short of kinetic.

In the theory section, some of the underpinning philosophy of Matrix Games is outlined by Chris Engle, the inventor of the method. Along with some of the emerging themes from using narrative based games.

Education has applied the technique of Matrix Games in teaching. This section includes examples from around the world from language training to military education.

The final section outlines more applications of Matrix Games including operational analysis problems, innovation and using a Matrix Game to explore contemporary conflict by Professor Rex Brynen.

The chapters include

Section 1: The History of Matrix Games

The Early Days of Matrix Games in the UK by Bob Cordery

The American History of Matrix Games by Chris Engle     

The Rise of Professional Matrix Games by Tim Price

Section 2: Practical Advice          

Running Matrix Games by Tim Price

Checklist by Tim Price    

Sample Game: Baltic Challenge: NATO and Russian posturing in the Baltic Sea     

The Australian Perspective by Todd Mason          

Section 3: The Theory of Matrix Games

Walking in the Dark: An Allegory of Knowledge by Chris Engle     

The Intellectual Underpinnings of Matrix Games by Chris Engle   

Verbal Algorithms and the Human Machine by Chris Engle            

Emerging Themes from the Matrix Game Based Narrative Methodology by John Curry    

Section 4: Matrix Games and Education

Gaming Multi-Agency Responses by Helen Mitchard       

Using Matrix Games in the Classroom by Dorian Love

Effective Learning at the Swedish Defence University by Johan Elg

Language Training by Neal Durando

Reflections on Military Language Training by Jose Anibal Ortiz Manrique

Section 5: The Professional Application of Matrix Games

Gaming the Wars of the Future by Chris Engle

Operations Research Tools by Ben Taylor

Building Boyd Snowmobiles: Matrix Games as a Creative Catalyst for Developing Innovative Technology by Paul Vebber

Using a Matrix Game to Explore Contemporary Conflict by Rex Brynen    

Further Reading

 

Wargaming at the RSA at Cities 2050 Conference, UK

When asked if I knew anyone who could run a game about the resilience of cities at an invite only conference, I jumped at the chance. I recruited Tom (SO2 Simulations, UK), Stephen (futurologist who deals with the weird as a career) and Russell (disaster planner of apocalypse proportions). The attendees were senior; a few MPs, top executives of major companies, emergency planner for the Nat Grid, Caroline Wyatt (BBC), emergency planner of London, someone from COBRA… The theme of the conference is our cities are getting to become very fragile systems. One problem and the city descends in chaos. The water stops and within 2 days the city will have to be evacuated as it becomes a waterless desert.

 

An extreme example was the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan was protected by a 10m wall, which was good, except the tsunami wave was 12m. In the ensuring disaster, the reactor came close to becoming Chernobyl. If it had, Tokyo would have had to be evacuated- all 30 million people of it.

Rather than death by PowerPoint, the conference organisers (Anquan Ltd) wanted some lectures, followed by some interactive exercises. We provided two of the exercises.

The first exercise was considering how cities could be adapted to become more resilient. The player teams were given a giant map; aerial photo of a city, with hexes on it. The terrain in each tile was the predominant use of that area of the city e.g. middle class housing, retail, slums, etc… That was not to suggest each hex only had one type of terrain in it, it was just the main feature. The photos came from Google Earth and standard software was used to superimpose the hex grid. The hotspot tiles were about the size of a UK beermat, as the map was very large. The players had additional tiles they could add to their city, such as mega blocks (dense concentrations of people living in a single building the size of a small town). They were also given examples of future technologies overlays that could help the city function more efficiently.

 

After exploring their city, they were faced with a problem. Due to rising sea levels, the lower regions of Bangladesh suddenly flood and the UN is faced by 85 million refugees. The UK is allocated 850,000 and each UK major city has another 100,000 people arriving over the next two years. The player teams were faced with the unenviable task of dealing with this crises. Due to their expertise, the problems of where to house, how to provide jobs, health care, education were not abstract to them. They understood the complexity of the challenge. Each team then presented their solutions, some hoping near future technology could be their salvation.

The afternoon session was a red teaming session. The groups all moved round one table (except for one person to explain the city to the new group) and then they had to devise strategies to break the city. Most of the participants were taken aback at this twist, but threw themselves into the exercise with gusto. It would be inappropriate to discuss how this assembled mass of expertise identified weaknesses in our city infra-structure.

The conference then carried on, with the delegates having the example city they had developed (and wrecked) to relate back to. What became apparent was the interdisciplinary nature needed to find solutions to the growing problem of city reliance.

So what are the general lessons? Conferences have to develop from the traditional model of one lecture after another; this fails. Devices from wargaming- the hex map, with abstract terrain based on the predominate usage, worked as a tool for visualisation. Adding counters to the map was an efficient way of communicating. Playing the enemy is a familiar concept to any wargamer. It was a wargaming hex map, with counters and an enemy side. Some elements taken from wargaming had made the leap into a mainstream conference.