Historical Simulations

Pete Martinson | March 01, 2004  | 0 comments  | Print  | E-mail

From the beginning, military professionals have calculated their chances of success in future war by evaluating the available statistics on past wars. From Sun Tzu and Machiavelli to Jomini and Clauswitz, men have tried to capture the essence of war and provide formulas, principles and theories on how it can be waged successfully. Generally, this has been done by reading about or participating in historical battles, analyzing them in one form or another and then extrapolating the results to future war. Some observers, like Jomini, were more concerned with identifying unchanging principles and patterns while others, like Clausewitz, were more interested in the philosophical aspects of war. Still others have spent their lives attempting to understand the historical lessons of war by quantifying them. In other words, they think in numerical terms when conducting military analysis. The idea is that by quantifying warfare they may better understand the complex relationship between such things as the number and type of weapons and manner employed by each side and the number of casualties suffered. For the military professional interested in understanding and applying the historical lessons of combat as derived from quantitative military historical analysis, the historical simulation has been and will continue to be a very powerful tool. But what is a historical simulation and what specifically does it provide to the military professional that a good history book, film or staff ride does not? Before answering that question it is first necessary to understand some of the history of military simulations.

Picture from the first European Chess Essay by Alfonso El Sagon (1221-1228)

In the beginning . . .

Military simulations, or wargames, have been around for a very long time. Chess, considered to be one of the oldest surviving ancient wargames, goes back thousands of years. It is a highly abstracted simulation but it is relatively accurate for the period it covers, the pre-gunpowder era. Each of the pieces has its own capability and starting position. The board itself is flat and featureless. Players may move only one piece per turn. While simple, these rules represent the fact that soldiers in ancient battles also had clearly defined roles, typically fought on clear flat ground and because command and control was so poor, could only control a small portion of their forces at any given time. ^[1]

Frederick the Great

As more education and technical sophistication developed over time, military simulations became more advanced. In the 17th century the first "modern" wargames appeared. Many of these early simulations were nothing more than sophisticated variations of chess but they now used playing boards that represented real terrain and playing pieces that more accurately portrayed contemporary soldiers and their capabilities. By the early 19th century, the Prussians developed what has been described by one author as "the first detailed and realistic wargames." ^[2] Used for training, planning and testing military operations, they were developed by carefully studying actual historical battles. By 1871, most European armies had followed what the Germans were doing with wargaming, however, few took it as seriously or derived as much from it. Although most military simulations during this period confined themselves to single battles, larger operations were "gamed" but were more likely to be an administrative exercise of moving men and material to the right place at the right time. ^[3]

World War II and beyond . . .

During World War II, the Germans continued their practice of conducting military simulations and regularly gamed historical, current and future operations. In fact, the manual simulations they used are very similar to current manual wargames. The British, Russians and Japanese were also active in this regard and gamed most major operations in one way or another. Unfortunately, in the United States only the Navy regularly used military simulations. ^[4]

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