Developed and played during the Cold War, BLOCKBUSTER, is a set of professional wargaming rules written by the American Army. Along with the better known Dunn Kempf wargame rules, they were tools for training soldiers in the 1980’s in the profession of arms.
BLOCKBUSTER is a three-dimensional, manual, battle simulation system designed for the purpose of conducting leader training in Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT). Players employ miniature vehicles and dismounted units on a scaled terrain board according to the Rules of Play. The Rules of Play are designed to accurately simulate the capabilities of vehicles, weapons systems, and personnel. A 6-8 hour BLOCKBUSTER exercise can represent approximately 15-30 minutes of battle. BLOCKBUSTER trains company-level leaders from the squad leader and tank commander up to the company team commander.
The rules are published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of its ongoing work to document the development of wargaming. They are edited by John Curry and David Burden
Did the '6-8 hour BLOCKBUSTER exercise' that represented 'approximately 15-30 minutes of battle' include extensive debriefing on the lessons to be learned from playing the game? Otherwise the ratio of real time to game time seems very disproportionate - I certainly wouldn't want to spend a whole working day to wargame half an hour of combat!
ReplyDeleteSometimes, 30 minutes can be decisive.
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