Peter Guilders
Wargames Holiday Centre 1984
A recent post on TMP prompted me to consider just what are we all trying to achieve, and what is the best way to go about it. The question asked why do most rules have what he called “myths”. For example on the table cavalry move about twice as fast as infantry, though in real life they can move many times more. This type of question has been raised for many years, and is an attempt to justify Wargaming as a serious attempt to recreate real battle.
I started Wargaming in 1969 when I found a copy of “Charge, or how to play wargames” in the local library. This was long before the age of the internet, so I have no idea how other wargamers felt, but I assume that like me they just accepted the rules without question.
At the same time I discovered Don Featherstone and Wargamers Newsletter. I bought each of his books as they were published, plus any other books available in England. I guess I was about as informed as most wargamers. I particularly remember Don writing something along the lines of “wargames can never be the same as war – it is a game”. This idea has had a long lasting effect on my approach to Wargaming. Not just because Don has served in the army in WW2, but because it just seems so obviously true.
WRG rules was the first attempt to turn our playing with soldiers into recreating history. Very complicated rules requiring pages of charts to add or subtract from a dice throw attempted to cover every situation encountered in warfare. They overlooked the fact that as soon as you use a dice you abandon any attempt to recreate warfare. I used them for many years, but they were long winded and created not very enjoyable wargames.
It has always seemed obvious to me that if you want to refight historical battles they best way to do it would be using a board game. This is similar to the military Wargaming, which was used extensively to test battle plans, however not with any great success. I served in the military and was well aware of expression “the best laid plans are discarded when the first shot is fired”.
I suspect that most of us are drawn to Wargaming by the visual spectacle of large numbers of well painted model soldiers on attractive terrain. However that is the diorama effect, not the wargame itself.
All wargame rules must compromise with historical fact to be playable. You have only to consider that most of us play on a table 6x6 foot or less. Those of us who use 28mm figures are faced with the most serious compromise. If we wish to have any space to manoeuvre we must restrict each army to about 300 figures per side. The obvious answer is that we would stick to skirmish style games, but most of us really want to be Napoleon or Wellington. Attempting to fight Waterloo on a 6x6 foot table with 28mm figures in never going to end well!
Wellington v Soult
on my table 2024
It is however possible to enjoy multi corps Napoleonic wargames with 28mm figures on such a table, but you have to accept that to do so you are playing a game – not recreating Waterloo itself. I have done so for more than 20 years, and continue to do so. I enjoy my Wargaming, but consider it a game of chance, with a pleasing visual effect.
I suspect that those who try to justify Wargaming as a serious attempt to refight historical battles are trying to convince everyone else that they are not just playing a complicated game of toy soldiers. If they really wanted to recreate the tactical problems encountered by Wellington and Napoleon they would do so using computer or board games.
Trying to justify wargame movement rules for cavalry and infantry movement is never going to work.
Great post and spot on in my opinion, you have hit the nail on the head, very good read.
ReplyDeleteHi Donnie
DeleteThanks for your comment
It's surprising how heated this subject can become
Obviously we all want to have a flavour of historical tactical problems
And most want to reward the use of historical tactics
But claiming that a wargame is anything other than similar to a historical battle is hard to support
Regards
Paul
'As soon as you use a dice you abandon any attempt to recreate warfare.' is a statement with which I believe neither von Clausewitz nor von Reisswitz and the Prussian General Staff would agree!
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that Prussian General Staff wargames was useful for training staff officers, but failed miserably to predict the outcome of the actual fighting in WW1. This despite the fact that the participants were senior commanders and they could create the conditions in which they would command real battles.
DeleteHowever this post is intended to summarise my thoughts on how accurrate a Napoleonic wargame fought by civilians on a very small wargames table can recreate an historical Napoleonic battle. The compromise required in relation to ground and figure scale alone makes it almost impossible. And the fact that all combat and morale is decided by the roll of a dice cannot hope to recreate the complex conditions of actual warfare.
I take your point that the 'traditional' tabletop game involves so many compromises in terms of ground and time scales that the game bears only a resemblance to reality, and would not disagree. However, since von Reisswitz's 1824 Kriegsspiel employed dice - not just 1d6, but several different special d6s, from which the umpire would select the appropriate one to reflect the odds Red:Blue according to the relative strengths of the two sides and the tactical situation - to determine the outcome of fire and combat, and that his wargame was praised by von Muffling and adopted as a training aid for officers, would suggest that such dice-based resolution produced credible results at the Prussian Brigade (divisional) level. The issue was not whether the Kriegsspiel could recreate a particular historical battle, but whether it could generate credible outcomes requiring the players to make the sorts of decisions that officers at that level of command would have to make. Since it is the only wargame designed by an officer with experience of the Napoleonic Wars, and was admired by higher-ranking veterans of the same conflict, it must have some validity.
DeleteFrom the perspective of a brigade or divisional commander, what matters is that the XVI Regiment came under fire and retreated - there is no time to undertake a detailed analysis of why (which may never arrive at a certain explanation anyway) - and what he is going to do about it.