Wargaming Small Wars

[nichols]

Originally Posted by jcustis

I just sat through a tech div brief at the Combined OAG, and that prompted me to find and download the FO sim and CAPT. Interesting tools, although there has to be a better way of navigating to a single point on the portal, and downloading one zip file that has everything. It seemed like files were saved haphazardly.

I've had a strange 'task organized' three weeks. I pulled booth babe duties on Monday for the OAG (black Trasys shirt). That Friday was booth babe duties at HMX-1 hangar for the Congressional Staffers. The week before that my boss decided to take me out of my swim lane and throw me into a completely different swimming pool. I attended a Hybrid War wargame, I ended up in Col Walters group. I was kinda hoping that he would post something in here. I pushed to get rid of the yellow footprints in bootcamp

Referencing your comment on the portal, no excuses, we need to dedicate manpower to that. We have been running it haphazardly since we took it out of the .com domain. The Tactical Language site is running pretty smoothly but, it is .com.

If you find some time pop an email to Maj Mcdonough JP, Capt Dmochowski, and myself (paul.nichols.ctr@usmc.mil). TechDiv and Trasys are getting ready for the summer PCS moves so the sooner you get this in....the better.

S/F

Paul

[Silento]

Originally Posted by Steve Blair

I've used TACOPS as well, but I've been interested (with no luck) in getting my hands on CCM to use with the ROTC course that I'm developing dealing with joint campaign planning. I preferred the CC game engine to TACOPS, and it would work better for simulating some of the small unit action that we're bound to need (the actual map exercise runs on a battalion+ level).

Interesting.

We are using (partially) TACOPS currently in a SADR CITY MOUT MBX (http://www.opcon.org/SadrCity/), check the "MOUT in TACOPS" icon to the left.

This said, I am still recruiting (MBX just resumed after summer pause).

FWIW,

Silento

>> EDIT: Added players guide link:
http://www.opcon.org/SadrCity/BLUE/S...ayersGuide.pdf

[Rex Brynen]

We've started adding a series of reviews of insurgency/counterinsurgency/contemporary civil war boardgames at PaxSims. You'll find the first two here:

Liberia: Descent into Hell (2008)
Battle For Baghdad (2009)

While you can typically find many more reviews in places like BoardGameGeek, we focus on the potential usefulness of such games in education and professional training settings. Comments welcomed!

[AdamG]

I searched the thread to find any prior reference, but it's with a certain sense of irony that I find no mention of H.G. Wells' LITTLE WARS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

Little Wars is a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers, written by H. G. Wells in 1913. Its full title is Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books.

See also
http://books.google.com/books?id=M9d...page&q&f=false

plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

[M-A Lagrange]

wargaming "tiny wars"

http://micromutants.canalblog.com/ta...nts/p10-0.html

Over simplistic? May be but at least the very first funy wargame I played.(And I love wargames boards, roll the dices, pushing the fig and watch the face of the adversary is much funier than talking to a geek in a mic behind a computer...)

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange

Over simplistic? May be but at least the very first funy wargame I played.

I think that's the simulation model they may have used to initially prepare for Phase IV operations in Iraq...

[William F. Owen]

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

, we focus on the potential usefulness of such games in education and professional training settings. Comments welcomed!

What is the "peacemaking" thing that they speak of? Is this another word for Victory or Surrender?

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by William F. Owen

What is the "peacemaking" thing that they speak of? Is this another word for Victory or Surrender?

Wilf, you would like the Liberia game we reviewed earlier on PaxSims--in it ECOMOG steals cars, feuds with the UN, keeps randomly shuffling force commanders, and has a "heavy firepower" option that is quite effective but costs you politically for what the rules term "embarrassing civilian casualties." That's quite apart for the rules for hostages, transvestites, lobbying Monrovia prostitutes, looting the national library, US evangelicals, naive Scandinavian aid workers, cannibalism, the Butt Naked brigade, etc. (the list goes on).

M-A, we've just done a review of a wargame of the Algerian war of independence, Ici, c'est la France. Great game (and historical simulation), although it takes a long time to play through the full campaign. We'll be doing a review of another Algerian wargame as soon as I can find time to play it.

[M-A Lagrange]

Rex:
Are you talking about that one?
ALGERIA
http://www.reservoir-jeux.com/wargam...rs/algeria.php
Just saw it on my favorite dealer website.

I use to know another wargame on Bien Dien Phu, but I this is the only one I could find recently.
Advanced Tobruk System : combats tactiques en Indochine
http://www.agorajeux.com/684-ats-dien-bien-phu.html

Have no idea if it’s good or not. (It’s the last they have. Must not have been a hit).

I also think that this one is perfect for small wars wargaming:

ALL THINGS ZOMBIE
Each counter represents one survivor or one zombie. You choose your star, your “mini-me” if you will, and arm him or her with one of four weapon types. But you’re not alone as you then recruit a few other survivors to form your group.
Then it’s off to explore a beautifully detailed map representing deserted cities, suburbs, and rural areas. But are they really deserted? Not if you count the zombies, the seemingly endless hordes of zombies. But soon you realize that the zombies may be the least of your worries as you run into other survivors. Are they friendly or hostile? Well, the game mechanics determine that. With luck you can recruit them to use in future games. But sometimes it spins out of control

HTTP://WWW.AGORAJEUX.COM/JEUX-DE-SOC...GS-ZOMBIE.HTML

Unfortunately, I do not have much time and also opponent where I usualy spend my days...

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange

Rex:
Are you talking about that one?
ALGERIA
http://www.reservoir-jeux.com/wargam...rs/algeria.php
Just saw it on my favorite dealer website.

That's the one. Brian Train--who sometimes posts here at SWC--is the designer.

[M-A Lagrange]

Having been working in Liberia “after” the war and before the second one and the final push for peace, I find a little frustrating (I did not play it) that such game is limited to 2 players. Reality was may be not more complex but had several players (at least 4) as Samuel Doe died in the beginning of the war and Taylor’s forces split in various small groups. Also you had several independent groups who entered in the game after this.
I also would be less reluctant than you on the horrific side. After all, for teaching purposes, I prefer to use something that would shock the nice and cute hearts.
Saying so, I found this interesting as it gives an opportunity to simulate real modern conflicts as they are.
Cannibalism was not limited to Liberia, was somehow popular in DRC; taking and selling hostages was a common shared game in Chechnya; resources based motivation is common to almost all modern wars; attacking refugees camps is a daily practice in Darfur…
I would say it is refreshing that board games actually can transcript what small wars are.

Finally, game must have an end and taking Abuja as the end of Liberia war is one option. But reality has shown that it was not the real end of the conflict which erupted once again in 2003.
Also, what seem to be missing are the diamond, rubber and iron companies which were funding the warlords. They did have a role in the war and the “peace” that followed. But as you said in your review, it is a complex context and war to resume in a game.

A game based on resource control (industrial plants and illegal market) and/or services delivery (through NGO and UN agencies and donors funds) on the soft side and troops’ deployment (that includes also violence over civilian to feed them, peacekeepers in safe places...) and sabotages (understand looting, terror… all the panoply) on the hard side would also be interesting. And Liberia may provide an interesting context for such base. Or DRC… Especially as they give opportunities to simulate real small wars which were somehow simple as less known.

By the way, Gen Bud naked was one of my favorite crazy men. But the Taylor boys I met were definitively as crazy as it seems they are simulated.

Will be a hell to find it in France (just forget it in Sudan) but I’ll test it with pleasure, listening some Luckydub, drinking dirty cane juice and smoking AK gunpowder mixed with weed… Just to feel at home.

[AdamG]

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

Wilf, you would like the Liberia game we reviewed earlier on PaxSims--in it ECOMOG steals cars, feuds with the UN, keeps randomly shuffling force commanders, and has a "heavy firepower" option that is quite effective but costs you politically for what the rules term "embarrassing civilian casualties." That's quite apart for the rules for hostages, transvestites, lobbying Monrovia prostitutes, looting the national library, US evangelicals, naive Scandinavian aid workers, cannibalism, the Butt Naked brigade, etc. (the list goes on).
.

That's brilliant!

[slapout9]

Wasn't sure where to put this but it shows some advantages of board games. This one a BP oil spill board game for told the possibility of our present disaster.



http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_new...ster?Gt1=43001

[Wargames Mark]

Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

That's the one. Brian Train--who sometimes posts here at SWC--is the designer.

I played a few of Brian Train's games. Liked them all.

One day, I'll have my AIR-based (Adobe Flash for desktop) counterinsurgency game ready to sell. I think it will be well-received.

I've thought about doing one that lets the player take the side of the insurgent, but I'm not crazy about trying to sell that (future) version to the entertainment market.

[Rex Brynen]

Originally Posted by Wargames Mark

I played a few of Brian Train's games. Liked them all.

We've now reviewed it (http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/review-algeria/). Good game, and a good COIN simulation. He's currently working on a multiplayer variant, based on the same game system, that looks at COIN operations in Kandahar.

[Brian Train]

M-A Lagrange, les regles, cartes etc. pour jouer ma jeu Algeria sont disponibles en francais a:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/51637/algerie-pdf

Merci,

[Brian Train]

Thanks Wargames Mark, it's nice to meet a player.
I'd like to know about your thoughts on making a game in Adobe Flash - I've been thinking about using VASSAL for the same purpose. A gaming friend has constructed VASSAL modules for my Tupamaro, Shining Path, and Algeria games (available at www.vassalengine.com).

[Rex Brynen]

Warning: geeky wargaming posting ahead.

I'm playing around with the idea using a wargame to illustrate the basics of small unit warfare as an ancillary element of a course next year. (This probably falls into the category of "ideas I'll be too busy to follow up on," but there it is.) I could go with a computer simulation... but there are certain challenges in teaching from that in a group. I could go with a boardgame, but they're rather dry, abstract, complicated, and non-visual for non-gamers. The third option (assuming it doesn't fall into the trap of "my prof plays with toy soldiers") is to use a miniatures-based wargame, which allows you to lecture as the game progresses (to a small group at least).

The question is, however, what scale?

Hobby wargamers largely game COIN/IW operations in 15mm, 20mm ("Airfix" or 1/72) or 25/28mm scales. Even though the ground scale of the rules need not equal the visual scale of the figures, for aesthetic reasons you are confined to 3-4 city blocks (or equivalent) at most, meaning that the tactical decisions involved are not much more than "do I go left through those building, or right around those?"

You can also wargame this is 1/285 (or, in the UK, 1/300) "microarmour" scale. With the ground scales used in most rulesets, a 4x8" table will give you something like 2.5 x 5 km of simulated battlefield, which allows you to get much more in to approach routes, overwatch positions, blocking forces, IED placement, etc. On the down side, infantry are so small as to almost be invisible (although depicted as fire teams with several figures to a "base", they're still very useable).

Of course, the fourth option is to do what I do now, and just lecture from powerpoint. That might actually be the most effective of all (although arguably considerably less fun for the students).

[M-A Lagrange]

Playing a lot (when I am at home) whith 25/28mm scale, I would say that it’s not the best scale for what you attend to do. This scale goes really fine and is extremely visual and friendly used but 3 or 4 blocks means a very large board: around 2x2 metres. This in the idea that you have 4 blocks with let say 3 to 4 buildings per sides.
I would rather recommend that scale for a village position with a 1x1 m board and something like 5 to 6 houses and 1 mosque/church… Plus some surrounding country area.

For what you plan, the 1/72 scale seems the most adapted. Also it will be the cheapest option. You will be able to create your building easily with cookies boxes and beer canes (eat and drink first ) and vehicles are easy to find. Toy cars (matchbox or other brand) for civilian vehicles and miniatures from Heller or Airfix (or any other brand) military vehicles but you will probably have to assemble them.

It is extremely visual and shows well (if you have veteran with you) what does work on paper and not in reality. There is always a crazy angle you find in miniature that basically is blind in reality just because there is a tree, a civilian, a donkey or some garbage some where…

The pb you may find with the 1/72 scale is that players cannot really “see” what the soldiers can see. With a 25/28mm scale, it’s easier for the players to jump in the suite of the “combatant”. This because figurines in 1/72 are too small so you do not necessarily pictures the head of a guy above a wall.
The good point with that scale is that you can find easily civilians by going to the small train section. That you cannot find in 25/28mm (or more difficult).

Also, do not forget, those games are time consuming. Average 30 min/player/turn. With the 1/72 scale you can move a lot more figurines in the same amount of time.

The best would be 10 or 15 mm but it’s a hell to find and it’s definitively not made for neophytes. The visual effect works on large scale operation where you play a division.

[BayonetBrant]

http://www.ambushalleygames.com/