Ukraine 2022- Why Are Our Wargames Wrong?

 

Some weeks before the war, I designed a wargame about the forthcoming war. It was a manual multi-player solo wargame with all the players on the Russian side. The game was simplistic and focussed on strategic and operational level decisions; there was no element of tactical. To be clear the game was for research purposes, to encompass a complex situation in a single model combining ORBATs, time, space, terrain and cyber; i.e. a wargame.

I have studied the development of wargaming for some decades and so when I presented a session at Connections UK in 2018, Evaluating Wargaming v the Ukraine Experience 2014-15, I was not totally surprised at the negative reaction of some professionals to my work. Having talked to senior figures in the Ukraine military who were in the war 2014/15, I identified various issues with our wargames that were designed prior to the war. Basically, our wargames got it wrong. I then went on to publish a referred journal article with my evidence and submitted it for peer review in Simulation & Gaming Journal in 2020. The article demonstrated major variations in Cold War tactical games (i.e. errors), but the article then summarised the clear academic evidence demonstrating the utility of wargames.

It has quickly become apparent that the professional wargames designed about the impending conflict had got it wrong. Ukraine did not fall quickly under the onslaught of the Russian war machine. In contrast my game was reflected the pace of the actual war and the issues of taking cities. Of course, this could have been by chance (roll a 6 and your game design is right, roll 1 to 5 and it is wrong). The professional games were better designed, included current intelligence, integrated tactical into the operational model and were superior in every way; except they were wrong.

I pondered this and have discussed it with various people and have gravitated towards a potential insight. My design was based on history:

·         the rates of advance were straight out of Dupuy’s Quantified Judgement Model (his tables for this were quoted verbatim by the UK Staff College),

·         history demonstrates that urban combat is slow (so units in urban area saved against a hit on 4, 5 or 6),

·         Russian units were untried and combat ability was determined when entering combat, etc. It is very easy in operational analysis to basis a wargame design on the latest speculative intelligence.

·         Russian logistics are ridiculous.

Rowland, in The Stress of Battle, showed that weapon performance in the ranges (and by implication, the sales brochures) were an order of magnitude better than realistic field exercises (using lasers) and the latter were again an order of magnitude better than actual combat. For example, as a I sniper I get 95% hits at 300 metres on the range, in simulated combat I get 9% hits and in actual battle I get 1% hits.

My insight that is wargames about future conflict need to be informed by the current, but embedded in the realities of military history. Ignore the generals who say this war will be completely different from the last one. Do not believe the weapon sales brochures.

References

Curry J. (2020) 'Professional wargaming: a flawed but useful tool’, Simulation & Gaming, 51 (5), pp. 612-631. http://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/13197/1/13197.pdf

 

Paddy Griffith's Game of War: Reflections on a Lifetime of Wargaming

 

Paddy Griffith’s wargame of Operation Sealion, at the British Army Staff College in 1974, was a ground breaking piece of research. It was a serious piece of academic research, using a wargame to explore a contested area of military history.

Paddy assembled a team of subject matter experts from Britain and Germany to run a wargame to explore what would have happened if the Germans had launched their planned invasion of Britain. To umpire and play in the game, he used combat veterans with senior command experience, including some who were involved in 1940. They included Adolf Galland, the Luftwaffe ace. This is the story of that game, including previously unpublished material such as briefings, analysis, guidance for umpires and post-game reflections. Their conclusions about the outcome of the game, based on using a wargame as an academic tool, were unanimous.

“The resulting analysis of the Sealion Wargame is the most authoritative assessment yet produced of the prospects for this titanic and consequential hypothetical struggle.” Peter Perla

The book is published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of its work to document the development of wargaming. 

 

My latest book- Paddy Griffith’s Wargaming Operation Sealion

 The Game that Launched Academic Wargaming

 Paddy Griffith’s wargame of Operation Sealion, at the British Army Staff College in 1974, was a ground breaking piece of research. It was a serious piece of academic research, using a wargame to explore a contested area of military history.

Paddy assembled a team of subject matter experts from Britain and Germany to run a wargame to explore what would have happened if the Germans had launched their planned invasion of Britain. To umpire and play in the game, he used combat veterans with senior command experience, including some who were involved in 1940. They included Adolf Galland, the Luftwaffe ace. This is the story of that game, including previously unpublished material such as briefings, analysis, guidance for umpires and post-game reflections. Their conclusions about the outcome of the game, based on using a wargame as an academic tool, were unanimous.

“The resulting analysis of the Sealion Wargame is the most authoritative assessment yet produced of the prospects for this titanic and consequential hypothetical struggle.” Peter Perla

The book is published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of its work to document the development of wargaming. 

A talk about this book is now available on YouTube  YouTube

 

 

Public health practitioners respond to a wide variety of disease events.   Professional games place responders in situations where they face the decisions, conflicts, and challenges that they would experience in a real event. Playing professional games can help everyone understand the complex, inter-agency, challenges that often come up during these situations.

In this book we describe how to design professional games for disease response.  We cover all forms of disease, from chronic and non-infectious diseases to bio-terrorism events.  We intersperse discussions of game design with examples of games, from games on mental health services to naturally occurring infectious disease outbreaks.  In addition we discuss aspects of disease response that you need to understand in order to avoid common pitfalls in designing these games.

Professional game designers are often called upon to design games that involve disease outbreak.  Public health professionals can find themselves playing in, or sponsoring, games on disease response.  Both groups can benefit from an understanding of the basic concepts of game design, disease response, and gaming disease response.

The book is available direct from Amazon 

This book is the first of a new series, each volume explores a particular area of warfare through the use of wargames. Each game has been crafted to examine different aspects of the conflict. Playing these games, along with reading the supporting designer’s notes, aims to help the reader actively develop their understanding through experiential learning. The goal is to help them develop a deeper understanding than from just reading primary and secondary sources about the war. Reading memoirs and commentary is essential, but so is making command decisions, such as looking at the conceptual map of the Falkland Islands and pondering how close to move the British aircraft carriers to the land action. It is in this space that wargaming rules supreme in the taxonomy of interactive learning techniques.

This book contains four games:

Game #1: Matrix Game- where it is possible for the wider conflict to be resolved without a land battle on East Falklands.

Game #2: The Falklands War: Task Force Commander- looks at the decisions made by the Royal Navy to support the amphibious landings and subsequent advance to Stanley. It is essentially a game about naval risk management.

Game #3: Battalion Commander- explores the land battle; often decisions in the planning stage set out the path to subsequent success or failure.

This includes a sample scenario the Battle for Goose Green

Game #4: The Falklands II (1984)- was a professional wargame designed Paddy Griffith about a potential second Argentine invasion several years after the Falklands War. It includes a detailed model of Cold War air combat. The game demonstrated that a second Argentine invasion would initially be successful.

The book is published by the History of Wargaming Project as part of ongoing work to document the development of wargaming.       

New book- A Practical Guide to Medieval Warfare: Exploring History through Wargaming

 

New book by Richard Brooks and John Curry. 

I started work on this book approximately 30 years ago in a series in the Nugget, the Journal of Wargame Developments. As a result of lockdown, the book is finally published. 

It is available from Amazon and other online book stores, including for the Kindle.

Medieval warfare is part of our culture. However, there are severe limits to our current understanding of the conduct of military campaigns culminating in sieges and pitch battles during the medieval era. This book is an attempt to develop further understanding of some aspects of the medieval military reality, in particular around the operational and tactical scale.

It looks at the medieval operation art of war such as the numbers involved, scouting, logistics, march rates and the length of the campaign season.

Then it looks at the medieval battle; how armies deployed, advanced, fought, won and lost. The many topics include dressing the ranks, the advance to contact, battle cries and pre-battle speeches.

The third section explores sieges and street fighting. such as the lengths of sieges, success rates. and the practical details involved in storming a castle.

The fourth section of the book includes five sets of rules to allow the reader to create interactive models of medieval warfare on the tabletop for them to explore. From pitch battles, to skirmishes, raids and retreats, the games allow the reader to create interactive models of medieval warfare on the tabletop for them to explore.

This book is written from the perspective that there was a medieval art of war. War took time, effort, planning, logistics and skill to initiate, conduct and win. We assume that the medieval warrior largely knew what they were doing and if we do not comprehend the decisions they took when waging war, this reflects our lack of understanding, not theirs. This book aims to fill some of the gaps in our mental models of the medieval warfare.

Game #1: Middle Aged Spread - Battle level rules 1066-1485

Game #2: Sword and Spear: Wargaming Low-Level Battle Tactics

Game #3: Once More unto the Breach: Skirmish Rules

Game #4: Gaming Retreats: Cymerau (1257)ar. It includes a detailed model of Cold War air combat. The game demonstrated that a second Argentine invasion would initially be successful.

Game #5: Gaming Cattle Raids: The Night Belongs to Paddy