games, megagames, WW1

Megagame: Iron Dice – Turn 3

1 Comment

The first week in September 1914.

Turn 3 Umpire Map
Turn 3 Umpire Map

BEF Report to the War Office 7th September 1914

Situation

We have moved up into a line between the coastal marshes at DIXMUDE to LILLE. Two corps of the German First Army are on our Right flank and we intend to attack them in the flank. We believe that they have extended lines of supply.

There is a gap between our right flank and the French left. This presents a risk to our troops.

A planned attack towards Tournai / Valenciennes is in progress with a deep recon by the Cav (to disorganize German Supply). Talks with the Belgiums have revealed that they are attacking out of Antwerp as well.

The Royal Navy is requested to change the supply port to Boulogne.

Team Control Gloss

The BEF counters are finally on the map at the beginning of September as they are almost in contact with the enemy, in a secondary defensive line. The Belgians were having a rough time of it and the Germans have battered the Belgian Army almost out of existence.

Although noted in the report to the War Office by the players the fact that there was a gap between them and the French 6th Army they were more concerned about dealing the German 1st Army‘s Left Wing (shown in the middle bottom of the map photo) a decisive blow from the flank.

Turn Two  –  Iron Dice  –  Turn Four

Related articles
games, megagames, WW1

Megagame: Iron Dice – Turn 2

2 Comments

From the second turn onwards each turn covers the period of a week. Turn 2 is 24-31 August 1914.

Turn 2 Umpire Map
Turn 2 Umpire Map

BEF Report to the War Office – 31 August 1914

Situation

The Belgian Army is falling back westwards towards TOURNAI, LILLE and GHENT. The Belgian right flank has been badly hammered by German First Army and the Belgians retired to LILLE. German First Army are at SOIGNES advancing West.

We have moved up into a reserve position in the line between LILLE and VALENCIENNES. III Corps and the Artillery are concentrated at ARRAS.

In conjunction with the Belgians the BEF will move to left along the riverline MENIN-GHENT with a fallback position at YPRES-DIXMUDE. The right will remain at LILLE, III Corps will move into the Centre. This will lock our left on the coast. I intend to fight a defensive battle to inflict maximum casualties on the Germans and stop them. If pressed we will trade space and avoid casualties.

Concern is German breakthrough moving through CHARLEROI towards MAUBERGE. The French have undertaken cover that possibility and our right flank.

Team Control gloss

The BEF counters are deliberately not on the map so as to hide their location until the point when they will be in contact with the enemy. This was intended to give some uncertainty to the Germans on where they appeared as the players had the freedom to depart from the historical deployments of the BEF.

Turn 1 – Iron Dice – Turn 3

Related articles
games, megagames, WW1

Megagame: Iron Dice – Turn 1

4 Comments

The first turn of this megagame covered the first three weeks of August 1914. During this turn the British decided on their plan (K) and mobilised the BEF to France.

British Strategic Discussions

There were three plans considered. Plan F was a landing at Ostend to directly support the Belgians; Plan K landing in France and joining battle in Belgium to the left of the French Armies; and Plan W which had the same landing as Plan K but supported the French on their border with Germany.

Plan F was ruled out as too close to the likely focus of a German attack and if the Belgians overwhelmed there is a very high risk of being cut off and having to conduct an emergency evacuation. The consequence of this would be many casualties and the risk of the BEF as a force in being with an evacuation under egregious conditions.

Plan W was not recommended because both flanks would be under control of the French Army whcih would be a risk that we need to conform to their plans rather than act independently as directed by the War Office. Additionally we would not have a secure flank.

Plan K was recommended because it keeps us with a close link to the channel ports, allows independent operation of the BEF and allows us time to find the Germans and engage them on our own terms. Base at ROUEN and railhead at BAPAUME. We will have a secure flank and gives the option of supporting the Belgians and keep contact with the French.

This was approved by the War Cabinet.

 

Turn 1 umpire map
Turn 1 umpire map

BEF Report to the War Office 23rd August 1914

Concentration movements successful, left flank consisting of I Corps & Cav Divn is at ARRAS. Right Flank with II Corps at CAMBRAI. BEF HQ is at PERONNE.

We intend to advance through LENS to the East of LILLE. Both Corps will maintain contact. The right flank will rest on VALENCIENNES with the left on LILLE. Cavalry Division will carry out forward recconaissance towards GHENT. RFC will carry out air recconaissance towards BRUSSELS.

We are expecting III Corps and the Heavy Artillery to concentrate at ARRAS.

Information has been received from the French press that British troops have been reported, we would like the War Office to liaise to ask the French not to report British troop movements in the press.

Team Control gloss

After the players complained about the reports of their movements in the French press the Foreign Office lodged a protest about the egregious breach of operational security and asked the French to censor future reports.

At this stage the BEF was doing some liaison with the French, who were initially reluctant to provide them with enough rail transport to move their entire force, but this was overcome when the matter was escalated to command level.

Iron Dice – Turn Two

 

Related articles
games, megagames, WW1

Megagame: Iron Dice

11 Comments

“If the iron dice must roll,
may God help us”

– Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Chancellor, 1st August 1914.

Later today I will be the British Team Control for the Megagame Makers Iron Dice game of the opening moves of WW1. Here’s the blurb from the Megagame Maker‘s website.

Megagame Makers are marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War with IRON DICE, a high-level operational megagame by Jon Casey (designer of Home Before the Leaves Fall).

IRON DICE covers operations in France and Belgium between August and early November 1914. Historically, this was the period from the German invasion of Belgium to the end of the “Race to the Sea” and the First Battle of Ypres.

Players will be a member of a national High Command, an Army Commander or staff officer.

Megagames are an immersive experience, and there are no breaks in them when they start, but if I can I intend to try and record the reports that the British team send to the War Office at the end of each turn. Possibly these will be uploaded during the day, but that depends on wifi/data signal and time. If not then you’ll see them over the next few days as I find time to retroactively update them.

Here is the first of the turn by turn reports for Iron Dice.

Related articles
Books, History, Iraq Wars

Book Review – Zero Six Bravo by Damien Lewis

Leave a comment

Zero Six Bravo: 60 Special Forces. 100,000 Enemy. The Explosive True StoryZero Six Bravo: 60 Special Forces. 100,000 Enemy. The Explosive True Story by Damien Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I make a point of reading first hand accounts of special forces operations. I started with world war two tales of the SAS and have worked up to the present time. Since the Bravo Two Zero fiasco I don’t expect much from tales of recent events.

This particular book tells the tale of a Special Boat Service mission in Iraq in 2003. It suffers a bit from excessive hypebole, presumably to garner sales. However it is actually very readable, and although much of the outcome is telepgrahed in advance the way it’s done is through a good hook to keep you reading to find out the detail of how/what happens. Well before all the debates in Parliament in 2003 M Squadron SBS were training up for their mission, changing their role from maritime operations to being vehicle borne. They then went into Iraq just before the air war started in 2003 with an attempt to contact a major Iraqui army formation to persuade it to surrender.

You know when you start to read it that the mission isn’t going to go well. In fact without even knowing anything about it I picked up that it must have gone horribly wrong. However I also knew that it couldn’t have gone that far wrong, because otherwise I probably would have heard about it since I have an interest in current affairs and military operations.

The story follows the perspective of one SBS Sergeant who was the lead navigator for most of the mission. Mainly it focusses on what he sees, and the actions of his three man vehicle crew. On the whole it is an interesting narrative and it gripped me enough to read longer than I normally do.

There’s a clear thread running through it of the forebodings, that may well have been how the central character felt, but are laboured to the extent that it comes across as 20:20 hindsight. There are also some rather strained references to Bravo Two Zero and the similarities with that patrol (both seem to have been compromised because they refused to shoot a child goat herder). That doesn’t really wash with me because the goat incident in Bravo Two Zero wasn’t repeated in the other books about the patrol and The Real “Bravo Two Zero” gives another version of events (apparently two Iraqui veterans of the Iran-Iraq War spotted the patrol, not a child goat herder).

Despite this I still think it’s worth a read, especially if you get it for the knock down price of 99p as I did.

View all my reviews

Related articles
CLWG, design, games

The 200 Foot General

2 Comments

This is the third post on my Operational Research driven wargame rules (and it’s probably about time that I came up with a catchy name for them, ideas in the comments section most welcome).

One of the most unrealistic things I find in most commercial wargames that I have read or played is that it is very easy for players to change their plans and give new orders to their troops every turn. This is so common that there’s even a name for it, the 200ft General.

What is the Problem?

The concept being that the player is like a General with perfect perception and control of his troops, and he can react to things that they aren’t yet aware of because the player can see the models on the table.

Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the Operational Research that demonstrate why this is a problem.

“a detailed, well-rehearsed plan blocks acceptance of the quick orders rattled out over the radio ten minutes before an attack starts. This mix of friction and mental block can be seen to play a part in nearly half of all mission failures.” Murray in Brains & Bullets

“complicated plans were much more likely to fail.” Murray in Brains & Bullets

So this gives a constraint to the game design. A successful OR driven wargame will ensure that it isn’t easy to change orders and that the more complicated a plan is the more likely it will be to fail.

Potential Solutions

This isn’t a new problem, many wargame designers have grappled with it over the decades that wargaming has been popular. Lots of games have mechanisms of one sort or another to counteract this, ranging from hidden movement and deployment through to complex activation systems. All of these have problems, but at least they’re trying to solve the core problem of limiting player decisions to those that are reasonable for a commander on the ground.

  • Hidden movement & Deployment. This is a very good solution, and one that lots of games try to implement. It has difficulties in that you either need to trust the other player or have an umpire. Failing that some pre-game organisation to produce maps that can be annotated helps. It tends not to be used for competition wargames.
  • Written Orders. This is what real armies do, and so far as I’m aware only one commercial game has attempted this (Spearhead). It slows down the game, or increases setup time. Possibly producing a pro-forma might speed things up.
  • Unit activations. This seems to be common in popular rules. The actual mechanisms vary considerably, but the gist of it is that as a player you cannot be sure whether or not particular units will be activated. About all you can be sure of is that you cannot move your entire army. A good example of this is the DBA PIP system. A general gets 1d6 unit activations each turn.

I think that a good solution would be streamlined and easy to implement by players. Something like this is likely to have a major impact on gameplay speed, and we’re looking for ‘fast’ as a default setting. Each game turn needs to take 5-10 minutes to run through so that a whole game (including setup) can happen in about 2 hours.

Do you have any other potential solutions to this problem?

Related articles
CLWG, design, games, Iraq Wars, WW2

2D Morale Chart

1 Comment

Further to the previous post Faith in Morale I’ve tried to synthesize the varioius readings on military psychology into a set of morale rules that might give a realistic ebb and flow to an engagement. I’ve not had a chance to test these yet, but here’s what the chart looks like.

v01 of the 2D Morale Chart, (c) 2014 James Kemp
v01 of the 2D Morale Chart, (c) 2014 James Kemp

Reading through the various OR type publications it seems to me that morale is affected by proximity to both friends and the enemy. The closer solders get to the enemy the more they seem to do things other than follow orders. This is not really a surprise, but it’s nice to see the research back up the gut feel.

Where I can find hard numbers for things I have used them to construct the 2D morale chart. In some ways this is sort of arbitrary, the numbers aren’t comprehensive enough to complete it. I’ve taken distance from the enemy as one axis and propensity to fight as the other axis. Probability isn’t as straightforwards as counting the squares, as I’ve chosen to use a 2d6 roll on this chart. This tends the answer towards 7 and I have used the probabilty of a given result (or greater) as the method for putting the shading on the boxes. Where certain conditions make something more or less likely the difference from the probability of 7 or more is what I’ve used to decide whether the die modifier would be +/- 1, 2 or 3 (most end up as +/-1).

I’ll post up more of this, along with some ideas on how I expect it to work, in a later post. Broadly though each glob of troops will have a marker on the chart showing their current morale state. Each time morale is tested they will roll 2d6 and modify. Scores of 6-8 (about 45%) will remain unchanged. scores of 9-11 will improve morale and 12 will improve it and move the unit closer to the enemy (except for defenders in prepared positions). Scores of 4 or 5 will decrease morale, a 2 or 3 will decrease morale and cause the soldiers to give ground back to cover.

 

Related articles
CLWG, design

Faith in Morale

8 Comments

An Army Padre in Afghanistan with a CrossI’ve been reading operational research on the psychology of combat recently. It got me to thinking about the role of religious faith in morale of soldiers. I’m not personally religious and don’t have an axe to grind on this. What I am trying to do is build a game design model that properly accounts for relevant factors.

The thought that struck me was that combat is very stressful and that soldiers are called on to do unpleasant things to others. This isn’t an every day thing but it does happen. The after effects can be very severe, PTSD isn’t pleasant for anyone and can last for years after the traumatic events have finished. Psychological casualties are as real as the physical ones, they just have a delayed onset and are harder to spot.

Faith in Morale

Looking at rational human reactions in combat and life threatening situations you can see that the belief system of the individual plays a strong part. If you read first hand accounts enough you begin to understand this. Heroes often do what they do because they don’t see other options that they find acceptable.  People run into burning buildings or stay at a point of danger to help others. A selfish rational view would get you out of there. This often comes down to helping other members of the in group, not letting others down or not being able to live with themselves if they hadn’t tried to help. It is rare to hear patriotism cited, although often modestly you’ll hear ‘I was just doing my job’. That last is rarely true from a technical perspective but it reveals that the person that said it was driven by their belief system.

You’ll have noticed that I’ve been writing about a belief system here rather than faith. That’s deliberate. Faith is a kind of belief system but isn’t all of it. Everyone has a belief system, even atheists. Not everyone has faith.

So where do belief systems come from?

They are a product of our upbringing and life experiences.  Religious faith has a major part in shaping them, as does the dominant culture in the society that we live in. Even those that consciously reject those are shaped by it in their rejection.

Some examples. Homophobia is driven by belief systems. The dominant culture in the UK has taught us that it is a bad thing. Some religious groups disagree, and there is a high level of support far that point of view from the older members of society and those that have arrived from other cultures that don’t share the same belief as our dominant culture.  In the main the driver for homophobia is the classic out group of psychology.  Humans form groups of similar outlooks and turn against other groups. It’s animal instinct and manifests in many places and in many ways. Civilised humans learn to control the behaviour it drives and accept that other people (mostly) aren’t a threat. Being indoctrinated from birth into thinking about things makes this much easier.

Back to combat. The fundamental beliefs that go on here are about harming others and self preservation.  Religion tends to have a view on both of these. Typically it is don’t harm others and you need to make earthly sacrifices for a heavenly reward.

The combat calculus every combatant goes through is pretty much ‘does the risk to me outweigh the benefits of what I’m doing?’

If you are an atheist with no belief in an afterlife then you aren’t going to be as keen on checking out as someone expecting a massive reward for furthering the cause of their chosen religion (and it is the individual combatant’s interpretation that counts here, not the orthodox view).

So perhaps you get something like this:

Belief harm to others self-preservation Overall result
Atheist Only if its within the rules of engagement I don’t want to die Avoids taking risks where possible, but is ready to kill to do the job at hand. Unlikely to operate outside the rules of engagement lest there is an earthly punishment.
Humanist Do unto others as you would have done to yourself I don’t want to die Kills only when there iis no alternative. Will stay well within the rules of engagement as it is what their belief system demands. Won’t take unnecessary risks but will do what they can to help others.
Orthodox Christian/Muslim Killing is wrong, but God accepts that sometimes it is necessary. I don’t want to die yet, but there will a reward in the afterlife if I do good work. As with the Humanist avoids harm to others, but if it him or me will kill the enemy. Will self-sacrifice to save/help others but tries where possible to preserve their ability to continue to act.
Religious Fanatic God wants me to kill unbelievers If I do God’s work I will be rewarded in the after life. Disregards personal safety to achieve the mission objective (which implictly includes doing what God demands and converting or killing the unbelievers.

Let me know what you think in the comments thread.

Related articles

Related articles
Books, design, Iraq Wars, WW1, WW2

Book Review – Bullets and Brains by Leo Murray

1 Comment

Brains and Bullets: How Psychology Wins WarsBrains and Bullets: How Psychology Wins Wars by Leo Murray

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Brains and Bullets is an excellent and very readable book which tries to put some hard numbers on a variety of psychological tactics that can be used to persuade your own troops to fight and the enemy to give up.

This is an excellent work on what happens in combat and why. It is very readable, structured into bite sized chunks on the key phenomena and then some joining up when it has all been explained. Each chapter opens with an account from a real soldier who experienced that psychological effect in combat. This is then analysed and explained, pulling in other examples as required to show that it isn’t an isolated incident but a general effect. Those examples range from the Napoleonic Wars right up to operations in Afghanistan, and they’re the products of proper scientific research not just a collection of war stories from unreliable sources.

That said there is no need to be an operational researcher, or scientist to understand the book. The language used is straightforward and direct, each of the concepts is very well explained and it forms an excellent introductory work as well as being well researched. The target audience is ordinary people without a technical or military background (although the author hopes that many military officers and civil servants will read it and think about it). Here’s my favourite line from the end of the book “if you are paid to be a military analyst, don’t forget that you work for the Crown (or the people) and for soldiers. You owe no allegiance to your cost centre manager. Crack on.”

If you do have a serious interest then it is worth saying that this isn’t fluffy pop psychology (I like those as light reading, having read Psychology at uni). All the conclusions are backed up with hard numbers from years of solid operational research. The author is hoping to influence army officers to use tactical psychology to make them more effective, so for example “even the hardest-fought flank attack seized ground with a smaller force, captured more of the enemy and caused fewer fatalities on both sides. flanking attack was six times more effective than a frontal attack.”

I’m not going to summarise this book like I did for the Stress of Battle, it’s way more available and affordable. Go buy it yourself (or borrow from the Library) and enjoy it. I certainly did.

View all my reviews

Related articles
Books, History

Book Review – Spies Under Berlin by David Stafford

Leave a comment

Spies Beneath BerlinSpies Beneath Berlin by David Stafford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very well put together story of the Berlin spy tunnel, and some of the context that lead up to it being dug. It looks at the contemporary views and also re-evaluates the impact of the tunnel and whether or not it could be considered a success.

The tale is an interesting one, because the existence of the tunnel was betrayed to the Soviets before it was even dug. Blake took the minutes of meeting that decided to build it, and told his Soviet handler about it. Despite this the KGB didn’t share the information as they wanted to protect Blake as a source, so they couldn’t stop the tunnel until there was a reasonable excuse from another source. For two years the British and Americans taped all the traffic on the cables they’d tapped (it was a joint operation, but the US took the entire blame when it was discovered because Kruschev was on a state visit to the UK at the time).

At the time the tunnel was seen as a great US success, which was changed to a dramatic defeat when Blake finally got caught. There was a feeling that the KGB had used it for strategic deception. This belied the point that the purpose of the tunnel, as with all espionage at the time, was to ensure that there were no surprises leading to a nuclear war. In that respect it had succeeded, whether or not the KGB fed disinformation.

Looking back with fifty years of hindsight, the Cold War ended, and much of the intelligence declassified (at least on the US and Soviet parts if not by the British) it is clear that the information gained by the tunnel was real. The KGB were too scared of giving away Blake to be able to do anything to manage the information. It also took them some time to work out a way of finding the tunnel that wouldn’t lead to Blake as the source. It was only heavy rain and flooding that allowed them to arrange a systematic check along the cables for a damaged section. Once this was triggered there was still no guarantee the tunnel would be found as the KGB had deliberately not briefed anyone about what to look for.

View all my reviews

Related articles

face to face game design, war, politics, history & science fiction gaming from two player to megagames!

Follow

Get the latest posts delivered to your mailbox:

%d bloggers like this: