Happy Father's Day to ALL,
As I mentioned on TMP the other day, I am doing a couple wargame seminars at this year's Historicon in July. I thought the TMP membership might be interested in hearing about and discussing a couple of topics I'm presenting.
References: (for the TMP 'Game Police') ;^)
1. Wargame: A physical or mental competition in which the participants, called players, seek to achieve some objective within a given set of rules.
2. Historical: 'Having once existed or lived in the real world',..as opposed to being part of legend or fiction or as distinguished from religious belief
3. Historical Wargame: A wargame based upon or reconstructed from actual events, documents, customs, styles, & etc., emanating from the real world domain.
4. Historically 'Valid' Wargame: The end product of validation. Which relies upon real-world facts to conduct a comparison intended to validate a model or the results of a simulation. These data come from empirical sources such as test ranges, live exercise results, or historical records, from outputs of other simulations that were previously validated, or from the knowledge of Subject Matter Experts (SME).
"The Three (3) Apostles of Historical Wargaming"
In my 30 years working in the US Army/DOD Simulation & Analysis community, I've noted that the majority of the Combat Models & Simulations being designed & produced were the products of these three (3) Players (i.e., Apostles):
1. Historians – Researching/Documenting Historical data
2. Analysts – Operational Research & Analytics
3. Military – Doctrine, Corporate Culture & User Experience
Granted, many of these individuals may possess more than one of these disciplines, but rarely do you see all three (3) disciplines in one person.
In addition, Paddy Griffith identifies two (2) design/influences/approaches (that may also be present within the three Players listed above), that he calls: 1) Hardware (i.e. numbers, weapons, tactics) as exemplified by COL Dupuy's work and the 2) Compassionate (i.e., focusing on human factors & combat experiences) such as SLA Marshal's work, but recognizes that neither of these approaches on its own, can give us good tactical history.
Each of these Players have their own strengths (Pro) and weaknesses (Con) especially when it deals with the three (3)
Problem solving & Research related 'States of Nature' listed below:
1) Known-Knowns: Recognized, reliable data/information
2) Known-Unknowns: Identified data/information shortfalls
3) Unknown-Unknowns: Lack of awareness, due to knowledge and/or experience shortfalls.
HISTORIANS
PRO:
- Knowledge of 'Primary' (existing) data/information sources.
- Human factor focus (i.e. People, make History).
- Possible foreign language skills (e.g. French)
CON:
- Limited knowledge/experience outside field of expertise
- Limited mathematical skills
- Limited knowledge of military doctrine/culture.
ANALYSTS
PRO:
- Math/Analytical Skills
- Formal Modeling & Simulation skills/training
- Formal Problem Solving skills/training
CON:
- Focused/limited field of knowledge/experience
- Limited 'Human Factors' knowledge/experience
- Quality of Products are often impacted by available resources (i.e. time, money and customer objectives/bias)
MILITARY
PRO:
- Soldier's Perspective
- Combat, Weapons, Tactics, & Doctrine
- Military 'Corporate' Culture (i.e. insiders perspective)
CON:
- May have limited Analytical/Math skills
- Knowledge/experience may be affected by short tenure in job/duty assignment
- Subject to Command Influences
As I mentioned before, a particular individual may possess more than one Apostles' knowledge, skills and/or traits, However,..the collective perspectives, strengths, knowledge and experience of ALL three (3) of these Apostles is a powerful factor in researching, designing/developing successful 'historically valid wargame' systems.
Which is my purpose in making this known to you.
Regards,
James