Very interesting, Mr. Marc. We have some friends here in Kansas City that work/teach/study at the Leavenworth staff college and we were just discussing a few weeks ago the German Staff College Kriegspiele Game and how these original 19th c. simulations are the origin of modern wargaming, with many of the modern conventions reflected, such as dice, complex ruleset, modular setup, special rules/exceptions, piece types, attempted realism, etc. The professor in our group spoke about how he uses modern wargames to teach modern warfighting and what games/rules they emphasize, he’s basically a professional gamer (jealous!).
I find it interesting that many of the older Jules Verne style early wargames, like the one you describe, required some measure of dexterity in order to fire at your enemy as opposed to dice based games that simulate the hits/misses/damage. Real naval gunfire has some element of timing/patterning/watching your misses in order to zero onto your target, there are some different considerations than trying to fire a pog or something. I think we would hate to lose to people who are simply better shots than we are rather than better generals.
