All posts by james

James has a keen interest in military history, backed with experience as a TA reservist and a 17th century re-enactor. He has designed and run several face to face social games and is the editor of MilMud, the journal of the CLWG game design group. He is currently working on a book on the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution.
CLWG, design, games, Government, History, megagames, Strategy, WW2

Design Session for "The Lion Comes Home" – Onside report

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This CLWG session yesterday was a very loose and rambling affair with myself and three (or perhaps four) others in John Rutherford’s living room.

Despite the great number of digressions I managed to get quite a few useful pointers about structure, level of detail, team composition and, importantly, how much more research I had to do.

With luck the game will appear some time during 1996 for a first showing, but until I’m nearer completion I won’t go as far as putting a date on it. For those potentially interested in playing the probable format is along the lines of:

Start Point – July 1945

The Labour Government has just come to power and the war is continuing against the Japanese. The basic agenda is to

  • get the war ended,
  • demobilise the armed forces,
  • implement their policies to create a welfare state,
  • rebuild Britain,
  • bring order to British occupied areas after the European war,
  • honour commitments to give independence to colonial states and
  • ensure the security of Britain and British interests abroad.

Game turns

Each game turn will represent one year and will last about 30 minutes.

The only mandatory part of the turn will be the setting of the budget for the following turn at the very beginning of the current turn. This will allow for some of the nature of Government Accounting (GA) to show through.

Other events will be conducted as the players feel it necessary – anything missed will be slipped into the next year (or lost completely as appropriate).

Public Opinion

After each event an opinion poll will be conducted and the Government/Opposition ratings given. This should help the Government of the day decide how effective the people think it is and should give an indication to when elections are best held.

Given that the electorate are a fickle lot, and opinion pollsters not necessarily unbiased, the ratings are at best only a general guide to the trend rather than an absolute.

Other feedback will be provided in the form of press cuttings (i.e. as a headline or suitable ‘printbite’ from the editorial). I hope to have a few of these made up before the game and will dish them out as appropriate.

Changes of Government

As our democratic system requires the Government to hold a General Election within at least five years of the last one I expect that there will be at least two elections during the course of the game.

In the event that the Government loses the election then all those holding Ministerial rank will be reshuffled, this may also coincide with the retirement or resignation of senior officials or commissioned officers.

Teams

Cabinet

The main decision making team consisting of the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary (FCO) and Secretary of State for War (WO).

War Office (WO)

Responsible for allocation of manpower, spending the Defence budget and protecting Britain and her interests abroad.

The team will have three players each representing one of the forces, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) will have the casting vote and will be responsible for reporting to the Secretary of State.

Foreign & Colonial Office (FCO)

The FCO will co-ordinate all external relations and dealings with colonies. One of the main sources of information about the local conditions and factions, also the key negotiators with colonial governments in the run-up to independence.

All major decisions will have to be referred to Cabinet through the Foreign Secretary.

The team will comprise the Head of the Diplomatic Service, two senior diplomats and one junior minister (the Colonial Office).

Cabinet Office

A small team looking after the Machinery of Government (MOG) and domestic policy issues.

This team will have as members the head of the Home Civil Service, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and the PM’s Private Secretary.

Umpires

Apart from myself I expect that three other umpires will be required. Two to keep the War Office and FCO busy with information from afar and one other to deal with domestic issues.

I intend that the information provided to the players will come from three distinct sources, from Diplomatic sources (embassies, experts & espionage), military sources (patrols & photo-reconnaissance) and from news media (print and radio).

These sources may not always agree and may have exclusive coverage of certain events – news media may also be prone to disinformation, political bias or censorship.

Things to tell

As the potential for information overload is very high the majority of colonies will be ignored for a variety of reasons, size, strategic importance/unimportance, lack of conflict, timescale for independence et cetera.

The main thrust of the game will concentrate on not more than half a dozen colonies – probably India, Palestine/Israel (a mandate), Kenya, Malaya and one or two other smaller areas where things could have gone wrong.

I intend to produce a compendium of colonies. This will represent the distilled wisdom of the FCO in the form of:

  • a brief history of the colony,
  • its political/religious/tribal factions
  • faction attitudes to the British, independence, the other factions, communism, and the economy.
  • The economic implications of withdrawal
  • an estimated timetable for establishing a stable native government.
  • The relative strategic importance of each colony
  • projected consequences of its loss for the viability of other colonies.

Although the compendium can be relied on absolutely for history it only represents the belief at the time it was prepared for projected future outcomes and attitudes of factions given are those perceived by local diplomats and colonial civil servants.

Cold War Perspectives

At the start of the game the hot war is still in progress. The Americans have developed the Atomic Bomb, but have not yet used it.

As we depart from history before the Bomb is dropped it may not be, or it could be a bit earlier or later. One major point of focus for the latter part of the game (from around the third turn) is relations with the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

Although I intend to fudge history a little to prevent hindsight from being 20/20 the general attitudes of the superpowers will remain as they are.

One of the drivers of the British decolonisation must be to reduce Defence spending whilst maintaining sufficient forces in Europe to fight World War Three. In the race to go home the government must do its utmost to ensure that none of the colonies fall into communist hands.

This should have a major influence on policy and put a brake on the speed of decolonisation.

Also worth considering is the effect that the cold war has on defence spending. Britain will have to consider its independent nuclear deterrent and the method of its delivery to the target. It will also have to consider the type of conventional forces to be deployed. A list of unit types and costs will be given to the War Office and will be updated as new technology becomes available.

Military Operations

A level of commander competence will be assumed for all military operations. All that the War Office/Cabinet will be expected to provide are

  • rules of engagement,
  • directions for operations (e.g. low intensity counter revolutionary warfare, aggressive patrolling, high profile guarding of government & commercial assets),
  • the level of manpower and any extra funds necessary to conduct operations.

Obviously many of these will be dependent upon the funds and total manpower available to the armed forces. Too many conflicts breaking out in the same year will quickly drain the treasury.

Government Accounting (GA)

GA is a very horrible area to deal with. I intend to produce a simple chart for both expenditure and income.

The income chart will show probable yields for a number of taxes at several rates – these may not fit any economic models anyone has ever studied but should give a reasonable indication for the Chancellor to plan his budget.

The expenditure chart will show Public Spending as a series of categories – some controllable and others immutable. For the controllable areas, Defence, Welfare State and Foreign & Colonial spending a chart will give approximate costs of certain activities, programmes and military units.

This should give the three planning teams a chance to tailor their activities to the funds available. It is my intention to have a laptop available to do the number crunching – a bit out of period but rather necessary given the number of factors that can be altered.

Like real GA there will be no requirement to balance the budget, nor to stick with it if it is insufficient. There is also the contingencies fund to play with as well as the ability to take supplementary estimates during the year. The only constraint that will be applied is that the original budget be delivered at the very start of the previous turn.

The first action in turn 1 (1945) will be a post-election budget setting the turn 2 (1946) budget. This introduces a time lag between setting a budget and starting to work with it of one whole turn, not that far from real GA where the budget is set in the Autumn for the following April.

Mechanisms

I have deliberately not mentioned any mechanisms for two reasons, the first is that they will remain hidden on the day and the second is that I haven’t yet worked them out well enough to explain.

I do have some very useful ideas which were supplied from the design session and I will happily explain them after the event. It is a bit of a cop-out but then we are not necessarily aware of what drives real political events and I would rather keep those playing much in the dark regarding detail of the opinion polls etc. Anyone with a burning curiosity should talk to me about it quietly and I will explain so long as they promise to umpire.

Conclusions

I am aware that I have rambled a bit about what I hope the game will look like and have in its details and mechanisms. This is because I am typing this immediately from memory and a few incoherent, illegible notes the evening after the session.

All this detail is fresh and if not typed now will doubtless be forgotten, hence the stream of consciousness style of narration. Hopefully by the time of the game it will have coalesced into a more coherent whole and the details will all be readily available for my compendium of colonies.

If all goes smoothly I hope to put the first version on at an all day venue sometime in late Spring/early Summer. The game will require around 20 people to run, of which around three or four will have to be umpires.

If you are interested in playing or umpiring then please let me know and I will try and give you plenty of advance warning of the intended date and your probable role.

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A Young Officer’s Guide to Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA)

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Belgian soldiers during an exercise
Belgian soldiers during an exercise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I promised that I would do a bit on Fighting In Built-Up Areas (FIBUA) because I thought that I would be able to add one or two bits of my experience to the pool. Because of laziness I thought that I would just provide the following extract from an Aide Memoire I acquired whilst an Officer Cadet.

There is much more from where this comes. Also possible is the section on Counter-Revolutionary Warfare (CRW), the chapter on use of artillery and the ever-useful Close Quarters Battle (“Fix Bayonets!”) chapter useful for those awkward occasions when you wake up to find that you’ve accidentally dug-in in the middle of an enemy position.

Chapter 11 – Fighting in Built Up Areas (FIBUA)

Following lessons learnt in the latter part of WWII where many young officers were killed, maimed, or lost the confidence of their men in house to house fighting it was decided that all officers had to be trained in the techniques of surviving FIBUA with their reputations intact. The following points should always be borne firmly in the front of your mind every time you and your men enter a Built Up Area (BUA).

Entering Buildings

MILES simulation (note the laser emitters atta...
MILES simulation (note the laser emitters attached to the rifles’ barrels, and the laser receptors on the soldiers’ helmets and harnesses). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Don’t run at a plywood door and then try to open it by giving it a good kick right in the middle. It is highly probable that your foot will go straight through the door. Not only is this uncomfortable it will not inspire confidence in your men. Let your platoon fool do this instead, it will be very good for morale.

2. When someone suggests that you stand atop a ladder while four of your men hold it and run at a first floor window remind them that you cannot adequately control the battle from atop a ladder and that your platoon sergeant would be a better candidate.

3. Don’t go in first, or second, third, fourth or fifth, in fact if possible wait until the building has been declared clear before going anywhere near it. Best of all is to sit a couple of hundred metres back and ask to have the village shelled flat for an hour or so before going in.

4. If you must go into a building avoid using holes anyone else has made – this includes doors and windows, especially doors. Always do it quickly with full auto selected, along with a nervous paranoiac disposition if you can manage it. (It must be stated that this cannot ever be real paranoia because the people in the building will be out to get you.)

5. Avoid windows with wire across them – wire tangles – the less said about this the better.

In the Building

1. Remember to give whoever is in the room you are about to enter the respect they deserve – at least one grenade and the contents of your magazine. This is where plenty of practice at the game “I bet I can empty my magazine faster than you” really pays off.

2. When you’re in a fortified house always remember that your helmet makes your head bigger (or your beret if you’re a Para) and avoid all those beams and ammo-box sangars inside the building. Especially worth remembering if your command post is set up under a table.

3. Whatever you do remember not to brew up with your hexy stove on wooden floorboards! If you need smoke then it’s much more effective to pop a signal grenade.

4. Keep all your smoke grenades inside your jacket, or at least securely taped up with the pins bent. Smoke indoors is an absolute bitch and the little buggers tend to catch on doorways, wire, etc and go off. If they do you need to wear a respirator or get out fast, neither is to be recommended.

5. When the building is safe stay in it, any excuse will do – local defence, protecting a flank, establishing an OP, setting up a Command Post, organising resupply, guarding prisoners, treating the wounded. All good officers should be able to think up something original and appropriate in order to let their men carry on without them. Besides, everyone knows what soldiers think of their officers and they would far rather they weren’t there. If all else fails a simple “Well done Sergeant – Carry on” will do the trick. It’s worked for generations, there is no reason why it should fail now for you. (Possible exception here being lack of intelligence on the part of Paras requiring their officers to actually lead them and thus risk their lives. Not a recommended course of action – but then anyone foolish enough to leave a perfectly serviceable aeroplane when it isn’t on the ground must be rather suspect.)

Leaving the Building

fibua1. Avoid if possible, if not use the back door. This is the only circumstance in which you should lead from the front. Make sure that you have identified some good cover within five metres or so of the door or window you intend to leave from. Once you have get up and run as fast as you can and dive for the cover rolling into it to present the smallest possible target. This will undoubtably have alerted the enemy and any poor sod that follows you will almost certainly get shot at, the more that follow you the higher their chance of being hit. Hence the advisability of leaving first.

2. When making your mad, frantic dash for cover remember that bushes can conceal barbed wire. Also watch out for loose cartridge cases, they tend to be very destabilising on concrete/roads. Going arse over tit will not do your reputation much good.

3. Remember to take all your kit with you, and tie it down so that you don’t lose it on the way out either. It can be rather frustrating to find that you have left your hip-flask behind, and one does not want to have to risk one’s life more than is necessary. If you leave something behind send a soldier back for it – they are expendable, you are not.

Being Outside

1. Don’t do it – unless you’re a few hundred metres back and have access to artillery. If you do then you can have some good fun – especially if you mix White Phosphorous (WP) with delay High Explosive (HE). The WP sets the buildings on fire and the delay either explodes inside them or weakens/collapses drains and cellars. It should be borne in mind that using WP for anti-personnel or incendiary purposes is against the Geneva Convention.

2. If you must be outside get in cover. Nowhere is truly open and if you can’t find cover you’re not scared enough. Puddles always lie in low ground. Gutters provide decent cover if you are being mortared or shelled, but bugger-all if it’s a sniper. Cars are okay, but most high-velocity rounds will go straight through them – although they’ll stop 9mm quite happily (at least on the way out). As high-velocity rounds go there is not much you can hide behind – an old fashioned stone built wall or building is your best bet. If it’s a fifty calibre machine-gun don’t bother hiding, just pray that he’s a lousy shot and none of the rounds come anywhere near you.

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CLWG, games

CLWG Games Weekend 1995 – Sunday

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Sunday

Military Spin

Sunday dawned a new day and I had done my homework on the Charge of the Light Brigade. The reason for my homework was Jon Casey’s game at lunchtime which involved each one of the participants being given a piece of paper with a great military disaster.

As originally set this had to be glossed over and presented in a positive light, the only prohibition being outright lies. A late rule change, which I missed, was that it was to be unidentifiable so others could guess which defeat you had been dealt.

It was very entertaining, whether or not the defeat was disguised, and it shows the possibilities for deception without lying. I like the idea of this game, perhaps it has other outings ahead of it? Although I wrote several versions of what I needed the one I used in the end was as follows:

“In an audacious action Lord Lucan lead the Light Brigade against enemy artillery. The Light Brigade attacked & captured, unsupported, a Russian Battery defended by a numerically superior force. In so doing a large hole was created in the enemy line which the enemy reacted to by committing a sizeable counter-force. Overwhelmingly outnumbered the Brigade withdrew taking relatively few casualties.
 
Never before has such an action occurred and it is unlikely that any other cavalry would have contemplated a similar action, let alone been capable of succeeding in what our cavalry achieved. The bravery & tenacity of the Light Brigade in pressing home their charge under heavy artillery fire will be forever burned upon the pages of history.”

Retreat to Victory

In the morning, before going to the festival of truth I joined in Nigel Howorth’s planning session for a game called “Retreat to Victory”. This was interesting for me as I hadn’t seen a design session before.

As far as I recall it the session was quite wide ranging with several people contributing ideas. Almost every angle was discussed, at what point to start, how the teams should be structured etc.

I was amazed by the level of detail gone into, although it was also reassuring the everyone was keen to help. I hope I get a similar response when I have to plan my game. I hope Nigel’s game is around in the near future as I’d like to see how it turns out.

Incidentally if anyone wants to help I’m interested in doing an end of empire game starting in 1946, or alternatively an economic game, a military restructuring game or even all three rolled into one, although that would perhaps be a bit too ambitious.

Breakers are Breaking

The game I remember most about, and have the most useful criticism for was Phil McCarty’s “Breakers are Breaking”.

I managed to get the briefing on Saturday and had a good chance to look through it beforehand. I played Admiral Canaris in the plot against Hitler.

Although I know a fair bit about the Second World War I didn’t really know anything about the July plot other than it happened and that a bomb had been left in a briefcase under the table in Hitler‘s briefing room. I also knew that Hitler was saved by the table.

With this scant background my briefing seemed quite good. With hindsight there were one or two things missing. None of the resistance team knew what scale the plotters organisation had, things that the characters certainly would have. This in turn affected how we saw certain cues and how we acted. Just a little more detail would have turned round how I played the game.

Another major factor which influenced the resistance team was that the briefing said that the turns would last four days, this meant that we didn’t really try to plan the immediate post-explosion takeover, instead we planned for contacting the Allies to negotiate a cease-fire and the post-coup control of Germany.

We took it as read that if we offered the Wehrmacht control of all ground forces that they would follow us. Had we known that the turns were actually to be one day long we would have taken a less strategic view and probably planned the immediate stuff. I’m not saying that the outcome would have been different but we would have planned differently.

All in I enjoyed the game, even though I quickly decided to leave Germany. Originally to talk secretly with the OSS and latterly permanently (or until the Allies had won the war and made me head of the new Abwehr) when an arrest warrant was issued for me.

I think the game itself worked fairly well, the idea was engaging and the format worked. All it needs is for a slightly expanded briefing for the resistance (I can’t speak for the others) and an agreed turn duration. We had a fairly extensive debrief and most of this was talked through, so I’m sure Phil has his new improved version waiting on the shelf for another outing. I’ll look forward to it.

That’s all, at least for now.

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CLWG, games

CLWG Games Weekend 1995 – Saturday

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This was the first Chestnut Lodge event I had attended and I must say that I enjoyed it. I was fortunate enough to have read the last few editions of MilMud. So I had a vague-ish idea of what was going on. I managed to find Chestnut Lodge eventually and turned up in the middle of the first turn for the Origins of World War One.

Origins of World War One

This was a rather intriguing game, with a good dash of paranoia all round. The game went quite well, although the timing was a bit confused. It wasn’t clear to the players what year it was, although I am sure that the umpires knew quite well. This wasn’t a serious problem in the sense that everything happened when it happened and not in any particular time sequence. At least that’s how I perceived it to be, I may be wrong. I’ll say no more as I’m sure others are better placed to offer more constructive stuff.

Pickles’ Railway Game

The next thing I was involved in was Jonathon Pickles Railway game. From talking to Jonathon this started out as a time-filler and grew into a behemoth so fast that he was forced to put it out of its misery on the Saturday evening.

It was a very good game as it went, although I thought that it went a bit slowly. Jon blames that on the lack of mechanical counting devices and help in sorting out the railways. Doing everything manually took time and contributed to the sudden demise of the game.

That apart the game would be worth doing in it’s own right, it was fairly engaging and involved as much activity as one was willing to give it. About the only concept that I didn’t quite get to understand was exactly how the stock market was operating, but then I never actually asked anyone to explain it.

The rest of the game seemed very obvious with only a minor skim through the brief, which seems ideal as I understand that not reading briefing is common. (Government Ministers certainly don’t read their briefing, so why should anyone else be expected to?)

Watch the Skies

As a blow by blow account of what I did at the games weekend I ought to mention Jim Wallman’s game, well he brought it along with him anyway. It was an MB game that Games Workshop could have written, the less said the better. Especially as my side (the baddies) got wiped out.

I did play in Jim’s trainer for Watch the Skies which I enjoyed, and managed to get landed with command of the SAS team. In the process of the operation we saw lots of strange stuff, reported it all back to Hereford, and didn’t fire a single shot!

This lead on nicely to the evening session of Watch the Skies. I had arranged with Mukul to join the Chinese team and looked after their operation. I managed to cause a fair amount of paranoia amongst some of the other teams, especially the Brits.

After peacefully resisting any attempt by the British to board my container ship, during which no-one was hurt or threatened by any weapon, the British shot a dozen or so of my crew after attempting to abseil onto the deck of my ship.  I had handcuffed the first two down. After such severe provocation I was forced to retaliate by shooting down the helicopter.

I also engaged the frigate with an ATGW, successfully hitting it amidships. Unfortunately a freighter is no match for a warship, however small, and I had to allow the Brits aboard before the 4.5″ shells hit something vital. After we got the fire out and the Brits had searched the ship, and found nothing with which to justify their piratical actions they apologised and withdrew rapidly.

I have learnt my lesson, there is no paranoia at Chestnut, everyone is out to get everyone else. Next time I’ll have anti-ship missiles.