Using Miniature Wargaming to train real worl Military officers

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**Lordhat**

Just found this site while browsing the web:

http://www.commandoperationscenter.com/index.html

Command Operations Center, LLC

Command Operations Center is an organization dedicated to helping our clients practice making critical decisions. We allow our clients to do this during realistic simulations which are intended to test their decision-making abilities as accurately as possible in a slightly stressful or full blown crisis situation. Arguments over what generation to which warfare has progressed are irrelevant if your combat leaders can't make decisions when it counts. The longer it takes a combat leader to decide what to do the greater the chance there will be combat losses while the warriors waiting for orders stand around...

I always knew that TT wargaming was a part of officer training at some level, but I had always figured it was more of a 'hobby' situation. I imagined it would be like a league where ROTC members would test and hone some of their theories and methods against each other.

I had no Idea that somebody could actually make MONEY using toy soldiers to train real ones!

**Fafnir**

So, does that mean Space Marines play 40k in their spare time?

**malfred**

Fafnir wrote:So, does that mean Space Marines play 40k in their spare time?

They're supposed to be tactically awesome. They play a different game.

**Lordhat**

does this answer your question?

**cygnnus**

Lordhat wrote:Just found this site while browsing the web:

http://www.commandoperationscenter.com/index.html

Command Operations Center, LLC

Command Operations Center is an organization dedicated to helping our clients practice making critical decisions. We allow our clients to do this during realistic simulations which are intended to test their decision-making abilities as accurately as possible in a slightly stressful or full blown crisis situation. Arguments over what generation to which warfare has progressed are irrelevant if your combat leaders can't make decisions when it counts. The longer it takes a combat leader to decide what to do the greater the chance there will be combat losses while the warriors waiting for orders stand around...

I always knew that TT wargaming was a part of officer training at some level, but I had always figured it was more of a 'hobby' situation. I imagined it would be like a league where ROTC members would test and hone some of their theories and methods against each other.

I had no Idea that somebody could actually make MONEY using toy soldiers to train real ones!

Let's see...

Probably the "original" TT wargame was Kriegspiel, created to train the Prussian officer corps. You can find copies of the original rules online if you're interested, but it's very different than the "roll a fist-full of dice" model that dominates these days.

The Imperial Japanese Navy, as I recall, used Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame rules to play out possible scenarios against the US Navy in the 1930's.

In the 1970's, the US Army came out with Dunn Kempf as a tool for training. Got to play that once in an ROTC class. Fun, but the guy running the game was an Artillery officer and arbitrarily changed the rules to make artillery reflect *his* vision of how powerful it was...

These days, computer wargaming seems to have displaced table top gaming as the primary means of training, but it certainly has a long, and illustrious past!

Vale,

JohnS

**99MDeery**

Wargames have been a part of military training since the invention of Chess basically,

if you want to know more start by looking at TT games such as Kriegspiel and the like, however the military also uses different types of wargames to train troops, British officers use something called a TEWT (Tactical Exercise Without Troops) which is basically making a makeshift area with enemy positions marked on it and using your "troops" you have to give orders in which to overcome that particular situation (for example fire team A when squad B advances give covering fire and then move forward to consolidate ground)

their are a few companies in America that have made alot of money from Wargaming some hire retired senators and generals to act out particular situations (such as if Russia had ever initiated in nuclear war with the US) and they collate the data from these "games" and "simulations" to give current leaders an idea on how to act in a particular situation.

this is a very basic overview but its been used for years and has so far proven quite useful in training officers and for handling real world situations like the Cuban Missile Crisis for example

**Grignard**

And no surprise. War is a game, if it happens to be the most serious game there is.

**Ratbarf**

Go read "From Sun Tzu To Xbox: Games in Military Theory" or somethign like that. (I know the first part is correct.) Pretty much it goes through the history of games and their use as strategic or tactical trainers or aides. Apparently one of the early Emperors of Prussia actually carted around his Kreigspeil table, (A giant sandbox, literally) and its peices so he could play whenever he wanted. Which was pretty much whenever he could.

**Kilkrazy**

Wargaming as an exercise has a long and illustrious history.

Harry Pearson's 'Achtung Schweinehund' has buckets of info on the topic.

**Kilkrazy**

BTW the Kriegspiel rules and maps have been reprinted by Too Fat Lardies

http://www.toofatlardies.co.uk/

**Grot 6**

Two types I use. The first is comparable to Video games on par with Battlefield 2 with weapons attached, and the second is an interlinked room of computer games interlinked with other people around the world...( Sound like something you've seen before???)

As for mini's.

We play games every weekend, or I paint down at the local shop with our crew here.

When you use a sand table, thats as close to using minis as you get.

Just food for thought.

**Gavin Thorne**

H. G. Wells developed Little Wars - based on Kreigspeil - to take advantage of the miniature cannon he had on his desk.

That was also a far cry from the TT games we play today, but possibly the first publication of a wargame solely for entertainment.

Little Wars can also be found online - for free, no less.

**Kilkrazy**

**Dave47**

Kilkrazy wrote:Copyright doesn't run out until 2016 on Wells's works.

A quick search suggests that it's in the Public Domain in the United States.

EDIT: But you appear to be in the UK, so perhaps we're both right.

**Ratbarf**

Uh-Oh, conflicting copyright laws.... What will Killkrazy do? Get his mod on and banhammer the link? Or get his mod on and Suggest that its all good in da hood yo?

**Kilkrazy**

Copyright in the US is Life + 70 years, same as the UK. Wells died in 1946.

I wish Wells was out of copyright because there's tons of his books I would download.