Article on New Yorker about US officers playing AA40 Global



  • Cool!  The cartoon picture that accompanies it, which expands when you click it, fits nicely with the spirit of the article (in which five American officials are playing A&A) but not with its letter: based on the headgear, the cartoon appears to show one American sailor and two American soldiers playing against two Soviet infantrymen at some sort of race-style boardgame.  But they do seem to be having fun!


  • I really enjoyed that; thank you Hobbes.

  • '22 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    HA!  I was just going to post this!

    good work>!


  • @CWO:

    But they do seem to be having fun!

    But having fun playing Ludo I think?

    Whereas I think the author may actually have played A&A? Perhaps he is a member of this forum? Gargantuan in disguise?

  • '16 Customizer

    @Karl7:

    HA!  I was just going to post this!

    good work>!

    I also came here this morning to post after I saw it on the New Yorker page. It caught me off guard at first. “My favorite game? In the New Yorker?” A happy surprise. Thanks for sharing.

  • '17 '16

    Sounds like another fake news story… they are playing Global 1940 because the US has to wait to declare war, there is a Japanese and Italian player, so clearly Global 1940…

    But they specifically mention there’s only five players… five players and they have a dedicated Italian player?

    Nice try, but fake news strikes again!  :roll:


  • Isn’t the New Yorker a respectable publication that’s been around for almost a century, and therefore an unlikely vehicle for fake news?


  • Somebody’s playing 2 countries and its not mentioned.

    Maybe it’s Gar ?

  • '17 '16

    What game of Global 1940 has five players, and one of the 5 players is “the Italian player”?  Something don’t smell right in that article… I say fake… no self respecting A&A player would set up a 5 player game with a dedicated Italian player.


  • @Wolfshanze:

    What game of Global 1940 has five players, and one of the 5 players is “the Italian player”?  Something don’t smell right in that article… I say fake… no self respecting A&A player would set up a 5 player game with a dedicated Italian player.

    Maybe the Italian player really likes to play Italy and nobody else?

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    c’mon guys, several players weren’t present at game start, they started as early as possible and then got grumpy around dinner time, and someone thought it would be a good idea to commence the day drinking before Moscow fell–-that’s the classic Axis and Allies game at home.

    US military has been rich with nerds and gamers for a long time.  We play with a teacher from the Gen. Staff College from Leavenworth, who plays games for a living and who teaches a class on how wargames and their play can inform the conduct of actual battle.

    Modern wargames are connected to the first Kriegspiele developed for the Prussian General Staff, which may or may not have inspired similar efforts by HG Wells and other 20th century innovators.

    The first wargames were WAR SIMS to prepare for real war, which is pretty sweet because while Chess (and go and other Asian and Scandinavian variants) imitates the grand themes of war and battle, those are not really wargames

    Its a rare example of a type of game that began as an extremely serious and formal exercise that has developed into a hobby or part-time pastime rather than the other way around.  Many other non-game exercises like horse riding were once deadly serious but are now for amusement and exercise however, D&D was not created as a way of training actors or politicians,  Chainmail was not created to train gladiators to fight or figure out which fighters to bet on, Monopoly is not a business school case study or capitalist training exercise that later became a board game…

    But AxA has its roots in real war!

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