When a modern wargames becomes real - Ukraine Crisis 2014

For interest I was gaming a potential crisis in the Ukraine. The scenario was an East West confrontation over dividing the country.

At that point I did not know that Ukraine, while not a member of NATO, had a memorandum of understanding with NATO. The question of whether this is legally binding to commit NATO to military action if Ukraine is attacked is one for international lawyers. However, there would be huge moral pressure on NATO to support an ally under attack.

So I was a little surprised to find the real world crisis is starting to resemble one of my wargames. Obviously, in my game, Russia could not stand up for long against a determined effort by NATO based in Poland. When faced with defeat, Russia started to deploy its heaviest weapons and my game stopped at the point of the crisis becoming Armageddon.

It is a somewhat surreal experience to see one of ones wargames played out in the real world. I just hope the politicians are operating at their finest to avoid this crises escalating down a one way path to a confrontation neither NATO nor Russia wants to face.

Cyber Wargaming at CDANS Conference January 2014

The situation. I was at a major IT security conference that focused on strategic issues including cyber-warfare. The first three days demonstrated most countries are developing plans to deal with the threat and many, including the UK, are building cyber weapons as fast as the programmers can go. A new cold war based in the cyber world has started.

The conference organizer strode up to me with a look of despair. One workshop presenter was still on the plane between Switzerland and the UK. So with an hours notice to prepare a session, what could I do? The answer was play a cyber war matrix game.

International audience, most not gamers, generals, civilian analysts all grappled with the idea of playing a game. Fortunately, I had the second edition of my latest book with me. Co-authored with Tim Price, Dark Guest, Training for Cyber War, gaming internet based attacks, vol 1 has the simplest possible training games around this new domain of warfare. So I pulled the matrix game out of the book, prepared some briefs and off we went.

The game was loud, confused, engaging, the audience loved it. They asked me back next year to present some more cyber wargames. My only comment is that some of the countries representatives were very quick to think of offensive cyber war tactics...

Trading at the Penarth Wargaming Show, wales UK, Sat Jan 25th 2014

I will be at this show with a large range of wargaming books.

25th January 2014 at the Cogan Leisure Centre, Cardiff - See more at: Show website

Tales from the Cold War: Assault on Bunker RGx.x

It was the early 1980’s when the peace protesters planned their assault. The aim was to attack one the ‘key’ components of Britain’s nuclear arsenal, a regional government wartime headquarters. Their aim was to enter when the Air Observer Corps were starting an evening training session, overwhelm the few who arrived early and enter the bunker. Inside they would ‘trash’ the bunker and on the way out, they would put stones through the windows of the cars of the militaristic Air Observer Corps parked outside. The assault was planned with military precision, include hoax phone calls to distract the police and delay the police response.

The Monday evening arrived and the peace protesters moved silently across the fields. They had formed up in the layby used for the odd visitor to the adjacent historical battlefield. A voice challenged them in the dark as they approached the entrance to the bunker. They charged towards the blast doors, stumbling in the dark. They were moments away from their objective.

Unfortunately, that evening the Air Observer Corps were present in force. All three crews were assembled, 450 in all, plus a contingent of the RAF Regiment. The intruder alert came out on the bunker tannoy and there was a rush outside. The Observers lined up and marched across the somewhat surprised peace protesters. Unfortunately, the odd peace protester person might have stumbled in the dark and might have hurt themselves in their panic. Apparently the RAF Regiment tried to intervene in the chaos, but someone in civilian clothes told them to ‘get lost’ and take a smoke break round the back of the bunker.

The police and ambulances arrived to find a lot of peace protesters who claimed they had been assaulted in the dark by hundreds of people. However, when they approached the bunker, the only person they could see was an elderly caretaker who said no-one was in the bunker and anyway, anyone could see only a few people could fit it inside (most bunkers are small on the surface). The blast doors were shut and he did not have a key. Eventually, the police left, somewhat bemused.

With hindsight, it was interesting to note that by sheer chance the protesters choose to assault the bunker on the rare occasions it was fully crewed. One wonders who suggested the assault and that date to them. Surely, Special Branch had not set the peace protesters up?

Some of the cold war was grim, but some of it was funny.

Early Wargaming II

Inspired by the discovery of Colonel's George Alfred Keef’s army and 60 pages of a campaign history from perhaps 1878-1882, I have been researching the start of hobby wargaming with toy soldiers. Colonel Keef's games seemed to be dependent on gunpowder in toy cannons, so were truly in the toy end of the wargame spectrum. 

Polemos (1886) published in Early Wargames Volume 2 was the earliest contender for a toy soldier based wargame, however I have now found an earlier game. 

The game is from approximately 1860 and was discovered by the late Hans Roer (an expert on early German figures). The two photo's below are reproduced from his book and are copyrighted to Hans Roer. 

This is clearly the earliest example of a hobby wargame with toy soldiers found to date. However, as I write this I already have more information arriving about even earlier wargames. 

My thanks to Brian Carrick for further information about the game. Brian is one of the editors of Plastic Warrior that marvelous hobby magazine all about collecting plastic soldiers.

Fields of Glory- Ancient Warfare Card game now available.

At the UK Conference of Wargamers in 2012, played Martin Wallace's card game, Fields of Glory. This was a card game about ancient warfare and was highly amusing.

The first part of the game was about choosing your army and the second part was fighting the battle. Of course, you have a number of tricky decisions to make during the game.
Martin's games are always worth looking at for interesting ideas to borrow when designing games.

The reason I mention it is the game is only available from the Tree Frog website and is not going into general distribution. http://www.treefroggames.com/field-of-glory-2 (I am sure there is a story there).

The site also lists all of Martin Wallace's games; some of which are classics in terms of giving players multiple choices to make.

Early Wargaming Rules

Following the discovery of Colonel Oliver Keef’s collection of lead soldiers and wargaming campaign diary from around 1882, there has been some interest in early wargaming with model soldiers.

Many people think HG Well’s was the first with his classic book Little Wars in 1913. Some know about the classic article about Robert Louis Stevenson’s toy soldier game from an article in the Scribiner dated 1898. My book on Early Wargames volume 1 has some further details about the Stevenson Game. It is possible that the actual Stevenson rules may yet reach the public domain. Both The Great War Game (1908) and The Game for Boy Scouts (1910) predated Well’s game.  (See Early Wargames Volume 1 link

Volume 2 of the Early Wargames series has the Captain Baring’s simplified version of the German Kriegspiel  (1872). Also included in the same book is the semi-legendary game of Polemos, This was first published in 1883, although I have reproduced the rules from a slightly later edition. Polemos is probably the earliest current contender for a wargame with model soldiers. It has the distinction of being a hobby game and realistic enough to be played at the RUSI the Royal United Services Institute in 1885.

There are other early wargames such as the game of war (1858) which uses counters on something like graph paper to arbitrate movement and the Invasion of Britain Wargame 1888 with its draughts like movement. The invasion of Britiain game was the first I have found with its clear political messages of do not build a channel tunnel and Britain is vulnerable to invasion.
Polemos may not keep the title of the earliest model soldier game. 19^th Century Europe also had model soldiers and wargames. So perhaps the ‘New War Game of the War in Italy’ from 1860 with its 30mm semi-flats made by Allgeyer, might yet prove to the earliest wargame. I have not yet found a copy, so I reserve judgment at the moment.

I have several other early wargames from the 19^th century and in the new year I will strive to get them into print.