"I'll bet we do this as well without noticing it" Topic

When you know the historical conclusion it is hard to imagine any other. That is the interesting part of our hobby. You learn that the out come of a battle or war is never assured in the real world.
We play out the "what ifs".

I'd say that's pretty keen.

We have the advantage of being able to take a known situation, with a known outcome, then change up the variables.

"What if they had a tank platoon?" "What if the third platoon had held its ground?" etc. etc.

As a model, it has a lot of benefits compared to a hypothetical.

We have the advantage of being able to take a known situation, with a known outcome, then change up the variables.

Quite so.

But I also find great interest in the known situation, with a known outcome, when we do NOT change up the variables.

This is also part of what I read into the OP. That the lessons we learn from the actual history of an event can be challenged when we look into the mechanics of the event.

I know this is the Land Boards forum, but for a moment allow me to introduce some scenarios of greater interest to the Sea Boards crowd, just as digestible examples.

Re-play Midway a few times. Depending on the rules, you may or may not find that the USN wins some, all, or almost none of the times. On a more tactical scale play Bismark vs. Hood a few times, and see what happens.

We may draw conclusions from history, but gaming known events with known outcomes allows us to explore not only the what-if of changing the scenario, but also the mechanisms that drove the event to known outcome. Was it just a lucky one-in-a-hundred shot that sent the Hood up in flames? Or was it reasonable outcome given the differences in design or crew training / op procedures between the two combatants? I can read the history and draw my conclusion, but gaming it lets me explore the mechanisms that might have lead to one result being more likely than another.

This is one reason I lose interest quickly when wargames abstract too much of the combat mechanics. I understand that actions in time is also a key combat mechanism, but really if the rules do not give me the reasons that a company of PzIIIs could beat a battalion of T-34s, I just can't get into the rules. Tell me a PzIII was 4x more effective than a T-34 and I yawn and walk away. Let me explore how a company of tanks with better trained crews, with better command and control, and with better tactical doctrine, could consistently out-fight superior numbers of tanks with better guns, better mobility and better armor, and you have my interest!

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

@Mark 1
Very good points. At what level could the operations have affected the out come?

Ironicon wrote:

When you know the historical conclusion it is hard to imagine any other. That is the interesting part of our hobby. You learn that the out come of a battle or war is never assured in the real world.
We play out the "what ifs".

Yes! It is far easier to simulate the past than it is a possible future… As Weasel wrote:

"What if they had a tank platoon?" "What if the third platoon had held its ground?" etc. etc.

As a model, it has a lot of benefits compared to a hypothetical.

Mark 1 wrote:

Quite so. But I also find great interest in the known situation, with a known outcome, when we do NOT change up the variables.

Very true. I would imagine that is a primary reason we play historical wargames instead of 'just games' such as The Settlers of Cartaan or Warhammer?

This is also part of what I read into the OP. That the lessons we learn from the actual history of an event can be challenged when we look into the mechanics of the event.

Wouldn't that depend on the quality of the wargame and its ability to mimic that historical environment?
Absolutely!

Further to my earlier comment … examples from wargames played long ago come to mind.

Case 1: I recall lamenting to a more experienced gamer on how how I felt the rules had let me down in one WW2 wargame. I mentioned that my readings convinced me that tanks had a hard time dealing with AT guns, and yet my US M5 3-inch guns had been shot to pieces by his tanks without achieving any results. Seemed "A-historical" to me.

He replied that I should go back to my readings again, and look for the details. Yes, well-sited dug-in AT guns could give tanks a very rough time. But I had driven my guns out into the open and tried to get them into action in plain view under fire. No, that's not a shortcoming in the rules. That's just poor tactics!

Case 2: A US infantry-heavy combat team facing off against a Soviet motor rifle battalion with tank support. I knew I'd have trouble in my M113s against his BTR-60s, but felt that my infantry, dismounted in town, with lots of AT weapons (2 Tow vehicles, Dragons and LAWs) could at least give a good fight. But I was confident I had the advantage in better armor.

My 5-tank US M60A1 platoon faced off against his company of 10 Soviet T-62s. I engaged at long range. I thought I would have the advantage, as I was hull-down, stationary, and had better (stereoscopic) range finders. Yes indeed I started scoring hits pretty quickly. He decided to halt and return fire, standing in the open. I thought for certain I had him. But my 105mm APDS rounds bounced. His 115mm APFSDS rounds didn't. In a brief exchange of fire I got shot to pieces.

Going back to my reading afterwards, and talking to a few guys I know who spent office-time in the M60, my mistake became clear to me. US tankers (and more credibly Israeli tankers), until the advent of long-rod penetrator rounds (APFSDS) and before the emergence of ceramic composite and reactive armor, preferred to use HEAT at long range. Harder to hit perhaps, but more likely to kill. And now I knew why.

Case 3: My platoon of US M10s took up hull-down positions, on overwatch. He decided this could not stand (his God's eye view told him my M10s were there). So he sent a platoon of 5 Tigers up a hill to the crest to engage. I won the exchange. My tanks were stationary and hull down, and his tanks were neither (the rules required a turn of adjusting to achieve a hull down position, so you could not just drive up to it). And the slope had slowed his tanks in their drive to the crest, so that only 2 crested the hill the first turn. 4 stationary vs. 2 moving. I hit with 2, and yeah I bounced 1, but I got 1 kill. Then the other 3 crested. 4 stationary and hull-down vs. 3 moving and 1 stationary in the open, and second shot at that range for me. I hit 4 times. Yeah I bounced 2, but I got another 2 kills. His return fire, against hull-down targets with only 1 stationary Tiger, failed to get a hit. He reversed back over the hill. His Tiger platoon had been wasted for nothing. He objected, spouting about the uber-ness of the Tiger and how such a thing could never happen. Much complaining, but you know, the rules played it right. Tiger drivers not only had good tanks, they also had appropriate tactics.

Case 4: He advanced two platoons of Pz IIIj's, then halted in the edge of a woods. I brought two companies of T-34s up to engage. He shot me to pieces. What's this, you say? We all know the Pz IIIj (with the short 50mm, no less) is inferior to the T-34. Right?

But the rules (ODGW's Mein Panzer) gave him a higher rate of fire and a better hit probability, due to his crew quality and unit cohesion. And he had a limited number of APCR rounds .. not a lot, but enough. And I did not pay enough attention to concentrating my force in space and time … my tanks did not all arrive at the same time. So as they pulled into firing position, 3 or 6 per turn, his 10 tanks shot them to pieces, and after 4 turns I had lost 12 tanks and he had lost 1, and I no longer out-numbered him and my tanks were clearly NOT superior, even though they had better armor, better mobility, and better guns. And this is my favorite ruleset now, because for the first time I got to experience how the Pz III managed a 10-to-1 kill ratio against T-34s in 1941 and 1942.

Just some examples from my memory.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

"I'll bet we do this as well without noticing it"

Based on Mark's examples, I'd suggest that we aren't 'doing this' when we don't notice it. Certainly the examples in the article didn't find participants successfully using the simulations 'unconsciously.'

For simulation to inform, to teach, to work, the participants need to be aware of what they are doing at some point. Otherwise, it's just a game.

This topic seems interesting but people are coming at it from differing directions and it's confusing me!

I am reminded of when people start to play 3rd Reich and can't break out of the historical chronology, merely repeating the strategies while trying to do better.

The same often goes with refighting any battle on the tabletop. Napoleon will not wait half the day at Waterloo because he KNOWS the Prussians will turn up at teatime.

Transposing the battle to another era so the same problems exist but neither side knows they are at Gettysburg or whatever can help I guess.

Ideally wargames should give us a toolkit to shine light on what actually happened and see what might have made a difference. If the toolkit is broken, biased or just a fantasy designed to give a 'fun' game then we are never going to learn anything of value. [Though I don't begrudge people their fun]

I contend that the newer [last 20+ years] trend of 'top down' designs is flawed because it will produce rules that may reproduce historical results but will never tell us why.

I prefer a better 'bottom up' design that focuses on what actually mattered rather than what we happen to have readily available.

We have much more information available know than the early games designers of the 1970s and 1980s had. We also have the option to use smart phones and tablets to handle the data and mechanics when in the 70s is was all 'O' level maths and hand written/typed charts.

Personally I go for a simultaneous bottom up/top down design. Working upwards from known data or consistently applied definitions and then downwards from what we know about how combat unfolded to meet in the middle. Then review the premises until we get closer to the result needed.

This is best done without taking sides – I think we can all identify rules that seem to give one side a huge and undeserved advantage.

Ideally wargames should give us a toolkit to shine light on what actually happened and see what might have made a difference. If the toolkit is broken, biased or just a fantasy designed to give a 'fun' game then we are never going to learn anything of value. [Though I don't begrudge people their fun]

Andy:
I can understand the confusion. We could come at the question from a number of directions.

The article was about better understanding war through simulation/wargames. As you said, if the toolkit is broken, you ain't going to learn much of value, and possibly the wrong lessons.

Players are placed in a simulation game environment that produces some of the same dynamics as the real world. [Emphasis on some] To play and learn, we need to know which of those aspects of reality are that *some*--designer's choice.

A simulation can't *make* you think like Napoleon or Wellington unless it forces you to do very ahistorical things or work under conditions not found in any historical situation. A simulation CAN provide an environment that responses like the historical battlefield in ways that can illuminate the decisions the actual generals did make.

We can recreate all the elements of the unknown that Napoleon faced at Waterloo or Gettysburg. However, we just can't 'recreate' all of them for a recreation of the actual battle. It's kind of an "Edge of Tomorrow" or "Groundhog Day" kind of thing, knowing what is going to happen.

On the other hand, we play partly to know what they did face and what other options they had, the 'what ifs'.

All of it can be 'gamed', just not all in the same wargame or simulation.