Wargaming: A Unique Way to Experience Military History

Brian King | October 31, 2003  | 0 comments  | Print  | E-mail

Now lets take the scale down a couple of notches and simply focus on a single battle. In his scenario called Two Weeks in Normandy, designer Brett Turner gives us the chance to recreate one of the most critical battles of the 20th century. If we play as the allies, the goal is to get inland as far as possible and do better than their historical counterparts General Montgomery and General Bradley. If we play as the Germans, we must overcome some huge deficiencies and somehow find a way to hold the allies close to the beach in time for Field Marshal Rommel’s reinforcements to arrive. Of course this has been done on board games such as Avalon Hill’s The Longest Day, but playing on the PC eliminates the problem of finding opponents or having to set up stacks and stacks of unit counters on flimsy map boards. The computer age has given us this remarkable tool,  and we can study the entire war in Europe with nearly as much detail as we can study one particular battle. The outcomes are always in doubt when we sit down to play, and it is this doubt which brings history into the present, forcing us to make and understand the choices of those that commanded each side in the historical battle.

Utah Beach

Finally, we can use TOAW to study a modern day hypothetical conflict such as a Russian invasion of Finland and Sweden. Seem unlikely? Of course it is! However, as long as we can get an accurate accounting of Russian and Scandanavian forces available, we can easily enter that data into our scenario and have the two sides slug it out. It has been said some military planners would be shocked at the level of detailed information some wargame designers have compiled about their force strength and capabilities. This is a tribute to their skill and dedication to "getting it right." In his scenario Nordic Light, designer Pelle Holmen postulates what might happen if Russia was so bold as to attempt to invade Scandinavia. What if Russia spared no effort invading Finland, could that nation survive? What if Russia was too slow in its invasion of Sweden, could or would NATO come to the rescue? What if the nuclear spectre reared its ugly head, where would the conflict end? By studying the situation and playing the scenario, we get a pretty clear idea of the geo-political ramifications of this attack and thankfully we can arrive at an answer without a shot ever being fired. Just as students of military history can study past possibilities, they can also study future probabilities. Wargaming is serious play.

Nordic Light map

The designers of these scenarios and wargames in general do all the necessary research and testing, creating simulations that at times border on obsessive for detail and accuracy. The best designers make sure the end result of any given battle is not pre-ordained, and give the player the option to conduct the battle in whatever way he or she sees fit. The serious students of history will be more intrigued by what could have happened and will push the battle in new directions to see alternate endings. So when someone presents the question "What if?" a wargamer doesn’t turn to a book to find the answer, he sits down at the computer and plays out the scenario. It might take a day, a week or even months to play out the question but the student will eventually emerge with a perspective which is unique, and thus valuable, to military history. Like military re-enactors or battlefield visitors, wargaming allows us to interact with military history in a very real way.

You might be asking yourself why I didn’t answer any of these "really important" "What if?" questions for you. If you are curious about knowing the answers, it probably indicates you are a student of military history and are predisposed to this type of exploration. I invite you to enter the dynamic world of computer wargaming to find your own answers to the "What ifs?" I have presented here. You might be surprised by how much you learn.

by Brian King
October 18 2003

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