Hello all, I’m currently an ROTC Instructor at a university and am also an avid gamer. I’ve been playing military strategy board games for years and am truly convinced it has helped me as an Army officer to developed key tactical/strategic concepts of warfare. Plus, it’s a helluva lot of fun!

To the point of my post. As an instructor I’m offering “additional instruction” to any of my cadets who are interested in not only playing the game (global 1940 2nd ed), but also to develope their ability to foresee and understand the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects to the decisions they make. Not to mention key concepts like massing, diversion/feint, logistics/supply, staying power, timing, holding actions etc…essentially all the key things that I think would be useful for an actual military commander to know while putting it in a format that is going to get a typical 18-19 year old cadet to participate.

I’m wondering if anyone has done anything like this before and if they have what were some of the things they did to maximize the limited amount of time they had with their “students”? I’m also planning on incorporating games like flames of war, conquest of the empire, and perhaps a game a friend of mine and I created in college based off of the medieval time period. Ideas anyone?

@wittmann:

You might be right YG.
Cannot remember how many Division heads were at that war games conference in Rennes, but I am sure one died trying to return, if not two. Think it was a 7th Army do, not solely Marcks 84 xxx.
Will have to check who died. Think it may have been the commander of the 711 Static Division.
Rommel was celebrating his birthday in Germany! The Allies really got lucky there.

No disrespect to your thread and original post meant Redleg13A

No offense taken.

A few things on your conversation though…

1. The war was pretty much over by the time of d-day.

2. Soldiers don’t fight 24/7 throughout the duration of a war.

3. The german high command actively condoned participation in such events because they were good for officer development as well as socializing among the officer ranks.

4. Even if it DID cost them the war, so what? That’s a good thing right?

During the little down time I had during my combat deployments I played poker and sometimes strategy war games, does that mean I helped lose the war in Iraq? If you believe that, well, I’ve got some beachfront property to sell you in Arizona! Lol

Let us keep these things in perspective, one shouldn’t assume these officers knew the time and place of where d-day would occur for if they did I’m positive they would have forgone the games and fought the war.

So, I haven’t posted here in a while but I have been doing the additional instruction throughout the semester. Here are some pics and products of what we’ve done. We started with Axis and Allies and moved our way down to flames of war but without them being able to see their pieces.

@Cow:

Try playing Battlefield 4 competitively. It is pretty bad for Joes that have PTSD as the gunshots are realistic and the combat experience is relatively similar.

Good for squad based tactics against an equal size equally equipped squad. America is not always going to be picking on little guys forever. Personally I would never fight the Russians in a war unless the Russians declared it themselves, trust Putin more than Obama, trusted Putin more than Bush 10 years ago, nothing changed.

No….no it’s not. At least not my combat experience anyways which includes the battles of Baghdad and the second battle of Fallujah…the FoW allows for a company sized or more fight. Battlefield can’t simulate lack of logistics, enemy capturing your intel, or you as a leader only working with part of the picture from a map. You can’t use pre planned fires, co-ordinate close air support, or ensure each platoon stays on line to prevent gaps where the enemy can slip through.

Picking on little guys…seems to work just fine for them, if anything we will be fighting “little guys” for the foreseeable future. We’ve been doing it since we started this country. Ever since we’ve had an army there’s been some LT with his platoon all by themselves in the middle of nowhere tasked with doing a job that a battalion should be doing…the formula for success in a big war at the company level is pretty cut and dry. The formula for success in a “little guy” war is much more elusive because it requires finesse, study, and surgical precision direct action.

Read the whole thread.

Perhaps I should post all of the PMs he sent also. Mr cow claims to be a veteran and is apparently really angry with me for being in the military. I have reported many of his posts to the moderators so they can see that he is simply trying to derail this thread and is admittedly trying to troll me. I thought there were repercussions for that kind of conduct on this forum …am I wrong? I thought that part of the agreement that every member signs is that we won’t be discriminatory towards other members. Cow is clearly breaking that term of use…so, where are the mods I ask?

To mr cow, you never served. Claiming to be a veteran when you’re not one is illegal and there is a new fervor in the US to catch these phonies. You’re not nearly as anonymous as you think you are…

@Imperious:

The war starts when China and her drywall fleet of garbage and ex Soviet mothballed carrier try to take Formosa.

I don’t think this is in the realm of possibility without China first dealing with their infrastructure problem, their ethnic identity problems, their economic stagnation, and the very real threat of trying to keep all information censured so their growing middle/ western educated class doesn’t start asking too many uncomfortable questions…among other things.

I’ll wait for it to come out on video. I am not a big Chris Kyle fan and I’m sure the movie is as embellished, or more so, than the book. Time will tell for me.

It’ll be hard to watch knowing how big of a liar Chris Kyle was…

@amanntai:

@Young:

@amanntai:

This post is not meant to be political in any way.

ISIS & ALLIES
A Modern Take On A Classic Board Game!

Extremists threaten the globe!
Lead the coalition forces of Iraq, Syria, the Peshmerga, and Hezbollah into battle!
Or rally foreign fighters to join the cause of Islamic State!
As the coalition, order US airstrikes.
As ISIS, win the war on the internet to radicalize the West.

Change the course of history… as it’s being made!

What do think? It could happen, right?

Anything can translate into a board game, but sometimes you just gotta wait a few years while things blow over, and this idea might be one of those times.

Obviously, in real life this would have to be done way after the events, to avoid it being called pro-ISIS or offending ISIS or anything. It’s one thing to make board games featuring Nazis or Soviets, another to make one featuring terrorist groups. You’d have to do it carefully.

Will it be made? Probably not. Could it? Yes.

I’m not censoring anything for those douche bags…both Daesh or the PC crowd. F*ck em!

Don’t worry though, it won’t be long before US combat soldiers find their way back over there going “weapons free”. If that happens, the game wouldn’t be terribly interesting since it would be unbalanced and a seperate game dedicated to counter insurgency and wide area security probably wouldn’t sell too well either.

@aequitas:

@ABWorsham:

@wittmann:

RedLeg: do ISIS really have T55s and T62s and Artillery?

Yes, they have heavy weapons.

wich scale? 1:35?

Only in Tamiya or Dragon brands. If you want anything else it has to be in 1/72nd…

@JWW:

@Redleg13A:

Because that is so easy to do over there�.

What is so easy to do over there?

@Redleg13A:

it’s not like there isn’t any national interest over there either.

what political interest are you referring? Please don’t say oil�.we currently don’t import any from the middle east…so gas prices world wide would rise�we are currently paying craizy money per day just to bomb the savages now�there isn’t a justifiable fiscal comparison to be made and this doesn’t even take into account the human, american toll such action would have.

@Redleg13A:

We all know isolationism works, just put our heads in the sand�

I don’t believe I advocated that�Perhaps this later point wasn’t clear�.Kill everyone, salt the earth?

@Redleg13A:

while true evil prevails, because good men with the right equipment will do nothing…

It sounds like in your estimation, only “good men” can be found in this country? I don’t agree. There should be good Turks, Saudi’s, Egyptians, Iraqi’s, Jordanians etc�etc…They certainly have the equipment. We bought it for them and gave it to them already.

Utilizing your logic, there shouldn’t be any place in the world where we should not intervene militarily to thwart evil�…This argument is naive and this objective unachievable.

Most middle eastern militaries cannot force project at all. Not to mention how fragile any alliance would be without either the UN or another coalition of the willing to keep everyones eyes on the ball. They lack adequate training and there would be too many conflicting agendas if left to their own devices.

We helped create this mess. We need to help clean it up. It isn’t going away any time soon and there is a very real potential for there to be “splash effect” if we don’t.

The “so easy” comment was about the extermination bit. What you are advocating is genocide. We are supposed to be the good guys, remember. The problem is much more complicated than you are making it out to be and it will require coordination, leadership, and a clear understanding of the ins and outs of the areas. We have been successful at this before with AQI in al anbar circa 2006-2007, the same can be done now. Trust me, veterans of that war are chomping at the bit to right this wrong….myself included.

@JWW:

I say let the middle east burn itself to the ground�That part of the world, the people, the religion, their societies, their culture cannot be saved by anyone but themselves�…

I say we stop having our people rush into that burning building�.

And if some remnant of a society emerges over there, great, if it happens to be the religious nuts that want to live in the 10th century and force their societies to live in the middle ages, so be it�.the people in that part of the world get what they sow�.

And if this 12th century, islamic fundamentalist backwards society emerges from the ashes and attacks any democratic modern nation�.for any reason, including jihad etc�.well then we do what the Romans did to the Carthaginians. Kill everything, salt the earth�Job done

Because that is so easy to do over there….and it’s not like there isn’t any national interest over there either. We all know isolationism works, just put our heads in the sand…while true evil prevails, because good men with the right equipment will do nothing…doesn’t sound very American to me…but in practice it so is…

I prefer to try and think about what one modern US armored brigade could do in WWII on the Western front. With all its attachments….

Sometimes some wall to wall, wall to floor counseling is in order for knuckleheads. But there are many ways to motivate soldiers and in my mind the best way to do that is to be out in front of them. Taking the same risks, sleeping in the same mud, showing you know what you are doing. Simply giving a crap about the subordinates, and them knowing it, will breed quite a lot of loyalty and trust. Of course, a corporal in wellingtons army would never be given the responsibility that corporal today has….unless you are one of Sharpe’s men of course!

Maybe back then they did…today, if your men fear you then you will just get fragged. NCOs on the other hand…yeah, joes should fear them…

You just learn to accept it and try to salvage what you can. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

There is such a thing as rushing to failure…I  honestly would prefer more time to give guys like me more time to prepare and train…rushing over their, letting our emotions drive us and then lead to failure would be exponentially worse than creating a solid plan, mobilizing the needed forces, establishing lasting alliances, and ensuring proper funding and support so the slaughter can come to a stop in full. If it sounds cold and calculated, it is…it also saves lives.