That’s true about it being an introductory game. I am in the Marine Corps. Maybe as the cadets advance in their understanding of tactics and strategy, but I still would recommend the miniatures game for more advanced cadets.
Secondly, I want them to see that the enemy isn’t going to play their game. So playing against human, thinking, opponents has value I think.
Third, I want them to have to work together and come up with a plan as “alliances” (or for my purposes, team members) in order to defeat their opponents.
One method you should consider to accomplish these goals is to play A&A using a two-room/two-board set-up, or some other kind of rule variant that allows for the partial hiding of information from the players. The general idea is that you have a board in one room for use by the Allied team and a second board in a second room for the Axis team, with you serving as the referee / go-between. The purpose of this arrangement is to temporarily hide from each side information about the composition and location of the enemy’s forces (for example: what new units he bought and where he placed them). Conventional A&A games have the defect (from a military simulation point of view) of being “open” games in which both sides always have perfectly complete and accurate information about the enemy’s dispositions. This is not only unrealistic, it also makes deception and surprise – two vitally important force multipliers in real warfare – impossible to achieve. Hiding information would fit with your goal of teaching your students that the enemy isn’t going to play their game. The two-room set-up would also contribute to your goal of teaching them to work as a team as part of a multi-nation alliance, whose discussions are kept secret from the opposing alliance (and vice-versa, since their discussions remain secret too).
I would recommend playing the miniatures for both the land and sea. I think there are more strategical, operational, and tactical decisions to be made.
The A&A miniatures games are essentially tactical in nature and local in scope. They might have a few useful things to teach about the operational arts, but I find it hard to see how they would relate to strategy, which in principle is concerned with the planning and prosecution of wars rather than the fighting of individual battles.
That’s true about it being an introductory game. I am in the Marine Corps. Maybe as the cadets advance in their understanding of tactics and strategy, but I still would recommend the miniatures game for more advanced cadets.
I know you’re Marine Corps, what I meant was specific branch, like IN, AR, FA etc…
@Young:
My comment may be off topic, but I never understood those German officers off playing war games during D-day when they were already involved in a real war.
The best way to understand what they were doing is to rephrase “playing war games” as “conducting a map exercise.” They weren’t in Rennes to have fun at a weekend A&A gaming convention; they were there to study theoretical Allied invasion scenarios and possible German responses to them. So what they were engaged in was a perfectly valid planning exercise. The problem wasn’t what they were doing; the problem was that, by bad luck, it happened to take place on the same day as the Allies landed in Normand, with the result that several high-ranking officers were away from their normal posts. If D-Day had occurred on June 5 (as was originally planned) rather than June 6 (due to weather considerations), many of these officers would still have been at their posts raher than in Rennes.
@CWO:
Secondly, I want them to see that the enemy isn’t going to play their game. So playing against human, thinking, opponents has value I think.
Third, I want them to have to work together and come up with a plan as “alliances” (or for my purposes, team members) in order to defeat their opponents.
One method you should consider to accomplish these goals is to play A&A using a two-room/two-board set-up, or some other kind of rule variant that allows for the partial hiding of information from the players.� The general idea is that you have a board in one room for use by the Allied team and a second board in a second room for the Axis team, with you serving as the referee / go-between.� The purpose of this arrangement is to temporarily hide from each side information about the composition and location of the enemy’s forces (for example: what new units he bought and where he placed them).� Conventional A&A games have the defect (from a military simulation point of view) of being “open” games in which both sides always have perfectly complete and accurate information about the enemy’s dispositions.� This is not only unrealistic, it also makes deception and surprise – two vitally important force multipliers in real warfare – impossible to achieve. Hiding information would fit with your goal of teaching your students that the enemy isn’t going to play their game.� The two-room set-up would also contribute to your goal of teaching them to work as a team as part of a multi-nation alliance, whose discussions are kept secret from the opposing alliance (and vice-versa, since their discussions remain secret too).�
You read my mind. That’s in the works for the future actually.
Once they get the strategy thing down, I’m actually going to start incrementally bringing their understanding down each echelon so they can really get an understanding of their place in the scheme of things. A good buddy of mine and I are planning on doing the “room” idea instead it is going to be through skype and with flames of war. They’ll get a map, an OPORD, a few “UAV” photos from above, and few “scout” photos on or near their mission objective. Each player will act as a PL with one acting as the CO. I’ll be the acting “BC” and as the OCT. My buddies 400 miles away have the game in front of them and will strictly just move the pieces(all these buddies are prior service NCO’s with combat experience and a VERY good understanding not only operational level competencies but these games as well). The cadets will be required to fulfill their mission objectives with incomplete information, in a “fog of war”, against thinking opponents.
Now, this is at least 6 months down the road. From now to then I’ll just gradually build them up to the point where they can start grasping the “big” picture through basic strategy up through advanced strategy. From there We’ll see what happens.
As an aside, I had my first additional instruction class was last Friday and one of the cadets lamented after playing 1940 Global for a few turns “Wow, I have a whole new appreciation for generals, they have to think about a lot of sh*t!”
As an aside, I had my first additional instruction class was last Friday and one of the cadets lamented after playing 1940 Global for a few turns “Wow, I have a whole new appreciation for generals, they have to think about a lot of sh*t!”
Very eloquently put. I recall that Perla’s book says something about this subject; if I remember correctly, he says that officers who run professional wargame sometimes have reservations about letting lower-level officers play higher-level ones in wargames, for fear that they’ll become so enthusiatic about the higher-ranked job that they’ll lose their motivation to do their real lower-level job.
@CWO:
As an aside, I had my first additional instruction class was last Friday and one of the cadets lamented after playing 1940 Global for a few turns “Wow, I have a whole new appreciation for generals, they have to think about a lot of sh*t!”
Very eloquently put. I recall that Perla’s book says something about this subject; if I remember correctly, he says that officers who run professional wargame sometimes have reservations about letting lower-level officers play higher-level ones in wargames, for fear that they’ll become so enthusiatic about the higher-ranked job that they’ll lose their motivation to do their real lower-level job.
LOL, noted. Of course, any good PSG is going to make that LT understand their necessity and DO their freaking job.
Also, I plan on going over the tedious stuff too, simply because their is certainly a gap between commissioning sources, the school house, and then operational units. I’ll try to cover things like CONOPs, range planning, SI inventories, effectively forecasting and utilizing a training calendar, being an IO, counselings/NCOERs, services/dispatches, additional duties etc…all the ankle biter stuff that normal LTs have no idea about and learn through blunt force trauma at their units. I’d prefer to get these students ready before hand, instead of setting them up for a sink or swim situation.
The way I see it, they have 4 years to prepare themselves to become officers…they need to take ownership and do whatever they can to get themselves ready. Not just be spoon fed crap from guys like me.
LOL, noted. Of course, any good PSG is going to make that LT understand their necessity and DO their freaking job.
And the point could also be made to these young officers that, by doing a good job in their assigned duties, they will improve their prospects of career advancement and of eventually being promoted to the rank whether they’ll get to do the stuff they found so interesting in the wargame as a simulated general (or whatever).
Just got the numbers of those who say they’re going to participate this Friday. I have 39 cadets in my MS 1 class and about 20 of them plan on attending. I may pick up stragglers from the other MS levels but this looks promising. I had 5 last Friday, so it seems the word has gotten out!
The unfortunate thing is that I have to do this on my and theirs “off the clock” times. I start at 1700 and go until completion or until midnight, whichever comes first. I know I likely won’t get beyond turns 3-4 doing of these game with that time frame. But, what I am doing is letting them make their mistakes or successes, annotating every move by every player, then afterwards having an AAR type open format to critique/analyze/ recommend each players gameplay. It’ll be student led with me directing the conversations to teaching points that fall in line with strategic/military principles.
Hopefully with this, I can lay a foundation for them to build off of so they can start understanding big picture concepts. As I scale it down over time they should be able to really grasp their roles as PLs in the grand scheme of things and how their presence, decisions, successes, and failures can ripple all the way up to the strategic level. They may be young, but I think if that can sink in, they’ll take their oath of office and duties and responsibilities much more seriously.
Just got the numbers of those who say they’re going to participate this Friday. I have 39 cadets in my MS 1 class and about 20 of them plan on attending. I may pick up stragglers from the other MS levels but this looks promising. I had 5 last Friday, so it seems the word has gotten out!
The unfortunate thing is that I have to do this on my and theirs “off the clock” times. I start at 1700 and go until completion or until midnight, whichever comes first. I know I likely won’t get beyond turns 3-4 doing of these game with that time frame. But, what I am doing is letting them make their mistakes or successes, annotating every move by every player, then afterwards having an AAR type open format to critique/analyze/ recommend each players gameplay. It’ll be student led with me directing the conversations to teaching points that fall in line with strategic principles military principles.
Sounds great – let us know how it goes. Again quoting Perla from memory (his book is very applicable to your situation), I think he states that professional wargames aren’t necessarily played to a predetermined completion point in the game scenario; it’s sufficient for them to be played only as far as is required by the learning objectives. So not getting beyond beyond 3 ot 4 turns isn’t a problem you should worry about. He also says that one of the key differences between hobby wargaming and professional wargaming is that post-game analysis and critique is a crucial component of professional games – so you’re entirely correct in planning for this element.
Should definitely post results and maybe pics :).
OK, so I’ve had 2 sessions since last time I posted about this and there is definitely some progress being made. I had 15 cadets show up on both occasions (over 1/3 of my class!) and they were definitely into the game.
One specific example of a teaching point was when one of the cadets playing Russia decided to put all of his troops he could along the border with Germany before being attacked. I asked if he was sure he wanted to do that and he replied “of course”. So, knowing what would happen I let it play out…which it did as expected. Germany smashed through that line and all of a sudden he had virtually nothing between Eastern Poland and Moscow. At that point I stopped the game for a few minutes and asked everyone what they thought and asked the cadets specifically what he learned…Needless to say, the hamster wheels were burning some midnight oil!
They are also learning about “forecasting” as well. We all know you have to buy your units up front before the combat phase and I witnessed some very interesting buys…or even lack of buys and their consequences as well. After 2 rounds I stopped the gameplay for a minute and talked to them about the duties and responsibilities of being an Executive Officer in a Company or Battalion and that being able to forecast needed supplies, equipment, maintenance schedules etc was crucial for the successful operation of whatever contingent one is working in. Then I explained that when you’re buying your units at the beginning of your turn, that’s essentially what you’re doing. Lightbulbs seemed to go off simultaneously and I started to see much wiser purchases in line with whatever their national/coalition objectives were.
The UK lost his entire fleet around the Isles so decided to buy nothing but Strategic bombers for turns 1-3. He basically just committed himself to bombing the industrial centers in West Germany and Paris which really created a headache for the German player as he got further into the USSR.
The Japanese player was not aggressive at all and only attacked into Russia on turn 1 with a very small force and was actually repelled causing long term consequences for him throughout the duration of the game. He quickly found himself out of position and facing a much stronger China since they had essentially 2 full turns of building infantry to bulk up their defenses.
I think many of them now realize that there needs to be a balance of aggressiveness and caution in order to maximize their effects on their opponents. After I explained that if the enemy is reacting to you as opposed to the other way around it allows you more tactical/strategic flexibility and denies it to a large degree to your opponents.
I think in the in a couple of weeks once these players have a full understanding of the game mechanics and a better grasp on key concepts I’m going to introduce a fog of war. I’m will buy another game board and have the axis play on one and the allies play on the other(in another room or in a divided room). They will only be able to see enemy units in provinces adjacent to ones they own with units in it. That way they will not be able to see what units their opponents buy, or where large enemy formations are unless they border the province where they’re located. I think this will really cause them to have to think about what they’re doing and also try to anticipate what their opponents will do…as we say in the Army “the enemy has a say!”.
More to follow in the next couple of days.
Thanks for the update on how your project is going. It’s great to hear that it’s proving to be a valuable and engaging teaching tool. I like the fact that the game illustrated the principle that a defense in depth is generally superior to a linear border defense when dealing with a mechanized attack. The part about forecasting supplies reminds me of similar principle I once read in a list of advice points intended for Navy commanding officers: “Always know where your next load of fuel is coming from.” Looking forward to hearing about the forthcoming fog-of-war elements, which will add more realism to the exercises because it will let your students come to grips with the fact that, in actual war, commanders are usually working with imperfect information about enemy dispositions, intentions and capabilities: bits of correct information blended with other intelligence that is fragmentary, incomplete, contradictory, or even just plain wrong.
You still have to make decisions based on the parameters in front of you, use the situation to your advantage, work with others for common goals, mislead the enemy, attack where the enemy is weak, defend where you are weak, etc. I think there is some value in these basic skills. Also, A&A is a great “gateway” for new players who may want to move on later to more complicated games. I think what you are doing with the ROTC guys is a great idea!
@rjpeters70:
A and A is at best a game of grand strategy. It has zero operational or tactical utility. Hence, I’m not sure why you’d use it for ROTC guys, who will be doing tactical stuff for well over the first decade of their career. They won’t even start to think about operational stuff until they are 05s at the earliest.
Most of the games/exercises I run are at the strategy to grand strategy level. I am going to an operational to strategy level game in Newport in a couple months. We’ll have Blue, Green, Red, Orange, Yellow, and White (control) cells all playing in separate rooms over five days. About a hundred of us. Kind of excited, as the most complex game I’ve played is a forty person, three cell game over three days.
But for ROTC? A and A is borderline useless as a training tool. Fun? Yes. Educational? No.
I think you’re absolutely wrong in your assessment on the training value of using this as a training tool.
These kids are first year cadets, it’s about the concepts, not the strategy. There are fundamental concepts that work from the squad all the way up to the Army level that can be displayed through this game. Also, If you had read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that over time, I plan on scaling back the scope of the games to the point where they’re working at a platoon/company.
As a matter of fact, just this last weekend I playtested a concept using Flames of War as a base for being a commander in an operation. A Marine friend of mine shot me an WARNO/OPORD 2 days before the “operation” with a map he made displaying my “battle space”. He then took “recon” photos of the surrounding terrain and of a village I was to defend against an opponent that vastly outnumbered me. I deployed my forces through either Facebook instant message or text while they updated via the same devices, rolled the die, moved the individual pieces, and acted the part of squad leaders/ platoon leaders when reporting. I had a time limit to make decisions based off the intelligence I had on hand. My opponent was 400 miles away doing the same thing with his force simultaneously to me. It worked out brilliantly.
Eventually I’m going to work this all out. My concept is that if they see where they fall in the big picture, then it will become easier to understand the consequences of the decisions they’ll make as platoon leaders/ company commanders. In today’s current COIN/stability operations type setting, a platoons or even a teams actions can very much have strategic consequences. THAT’S the training value of it. Not to mention it is going to develop the portion of their brains that causes them to execute good judgement and being able to foresee 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects to the decisions they make. Let’s face it, how much practice does an 18 year old kid have at making good judgement calls? It’s a learned behavior that needs to be exercised just like anything else. 1st year curriculum for ROTC is not going to give that to them. This way, I can ask those questions about what their thought process is while at the same time give them tidbits on how it matters at the company level.
@rjpeters70:
And Redleg, my comment is really less pointed at you, and more at those on these boards (not going to name names) who seem to think that because they play a lot of A and A, they would have known the correct thing to do in World War II, or could have done a better job of it, if they were simply made warlord of a particular campaign, that’s all.
Peter Perla mentions this problem in his book on wargaming, and he likewise cautions against it. I think he calls it “the Rommel delusion” or something along those lines.
I know it is an A&A forum and i Think your project is great. Since A&A covers the global war, you should give � try to Memoir’44 by days of wonders for the local war
The basic game is quite basic but can get tricky with some extensions (go to days of wonders site and see for yourself). If you put 2 boards togheter (overlord) you can make them experiment � chain of command (especially with USSR).
All of the battle are real scenarios of WW2, so there’s also an historical value. The replayability is already infinite because There are � huge community who post scenarios on the official forum.
Defenitly worth a look and it will complete the A&A teachings (strategic and tactics with A&A and tactics and operational with M44)
Also, the game never last more than two hours (with an overcrowded overlord)
@rjpeters70:
"There are fundamental concepts that work from the squad all the way up to the Army level that can be displayed through this game."� Which ones?� Honest question.� I’m just not sure what concepts could be learned from A and A that can be transferred to the platoon/company level.
"As a matter of fact, just this last weekend I playtested a concept using Flames of War as a base for being a commander in an operation. A Marine friend of mine shot me an WARNO/OPORD 2 days before the “operation” with a map he made displaying my “battle space”. He then took “recon” photos of the surrounding terrain and of a village I was to defend against an opponent that vastly outnumbered me. I deployed my forces through either Facebook instant message or text while they updated via the same devices, rolled the die, moved the individual pieces, and acted the part of squad leaders/ platoon leaders when reporting. I had a time limit to make decisions based off the intelligence I had on hand. My opponent was 400 miles away doing the same thing with his force simultaneously to me. It worked out brilliantly."� That’s great.� There’s real learning opportunities there for ROTC members.� But that’s not A and A.
"In today’s current COIN/stability operations type setting, a platoons or even a teams actions can very much have strategic consequences."� Except we will not be doing large-scale COIN/stability operations for at least another decade.� The NSS and JOC make that clear.� A2AD fights will be far more central to our national posture.
"THAT’S the training value of it. Not to mention it is going to develop the portion of their brains that causes them to execute good judgement and being able to foresee 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects to the decisions they make."� Possibly, but wouldn’t chess do the same thing?
I guess for me, I’d much rather my 01s and 02s be focused on the tactical and developing leadership qualities.� By 03, start learning about the actual things that make our military successful (logistics and an empowered NCO corps).� By 04, doing staff work.� 05, learning the Joint world and operational art.�
I just think that 18-22 year old ROTC folks need to focus on the tactical, because that’s their job.� The game you described sounds like a good way to do that.� I’m a proponent of games, so long as game designs are linked up to specific learning objectives.
How about, in the absence of orders a ANY decision is almost always better than no decision.
Having a reserve for exploiting local success or for shoring up hard hit portions of the line is pretty freaking useful.
The enemy has a say no matter if I’m a TL or 4 star.
I have to account for the unknown and anticipate my enemies strategies.
Timing and surprise are crucial to success and can compensate for many initial disadvantages.
Does it make sense to attack a position if it will become untenable once taken?
Or how about just asking the question “Does it all add up?” or “does this make sense?”
I can create teaching points out of these off the top of my head by using Axis and Allies and I’m not going to overwhelm them with all the details necessary to be proficients at all the Battle Drills or everything the is going to be covered in FM 3-21.8 or learning the very complicated rules necessary to play a game like FoW. I have to build up to it in order to garner interest so the cadets will trust that when I’m doing something they’re not familiar with, it’s going to be worth them giving up their Friday night.
If you think COIN or Stability operations are dead…well, I think you may be off base there a bit. The US has a real bad habit of assuming the enemy is going to comply with us wanting to break their Army in a Fulda gap type setting and it’s just not going to happen that way. More wars that we’ve fought have been the small, obscure, ugly wars by far. At this moment is seems the Army is purging its institutional knowledge that has been gained over the last 13 years just like it did after Vietnam. A2AD is a concept we have and will continue to employ no matter what i.e. that whole cold war thing we did for half a century. Same thing in Iraq after the 1st Gulf war with the NFZ etc. I’m referring to the shooting type of war or the occupation type war…they aren’t going away and even before 9/11 we were heavily involved in them.
Seems everyone wants to be the first to jump ship on the grunts and gravitate towards the “cyber war” or “drone war” or “insert fancy gizmo that’s going to replace the grunts”…and it never happens. Then that LT is out there all alone, under trained, under equipped, utterly ignorant of his/her surroundings because the enemy decided to not fight our fight. I’m preparing them for that moment. I think if they can understand the complexities involved in COIN/Stability/ low-medium intensity conflict…everything else will come easy.
@rjpeters70:
And Redleg, my comment is really less pointed at you, and more at those on these boards (not going to name names) who seem to think that because they play a lot of A and A, they would have known the correct thing to do in World War II, or could have done a better job of it, if they were simply made warlord of a particular campaign, that’s all.
Understood, and that’s where my training as a historian comes in. Objectivity is the key here and they need to be able to understand that. Besides, if they start to exhibit the symptoms of hubris I will quickly do the sharp shooter rhetorical questions that will punch holes in their hubris logic! lol
I’m trying to convey that wisdom and maturity isn’t knowing everything…it is realizing how much you DON’T know…
