Reaffirming Understanding Through Unconventional War Gaming

by Matt GedersWar GamingPosted on 2 Comments

Hopefully by now it should be clear to this audience that we don’t turn our noses up to the idea of War Games.  There is a deep rooted German military tradition of kriegspiele – mastery through wargaming.  This is carried on today in modern military’s throughout the world.  One of the larger war games is Red Flag.  It is an air dominate exercise based out of Nevada that occurs four to six cycles per year.

We also don’t shy away from simulation or virtual war gaming and neither does the US Military.  Since the mid 1980’s they’ve used SIMNET which is a real-time distributed simulator for combat simulation of tanks, helicopters and airplanes in a virtual battlefield.  If that isn’t the first internet video game, I don’t know what would be.

Now what happens when the authenticity and even realism of the simulation system gets peeled away, or at least distorted in gaming?  Do the Principles of War, as most notably defined by Clausewitz, still apply?

I think back to my childhood watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Did the Principles of War apply in this fictitious universe under new rules of physics and relativity?  I think they still do, even with the viewer not fully understanding these rules.  (Although I will never understand why two ships always met in the same orientation.  Who determines which way is “up” in space anyway?)

A close friend Bret, fellow contributor to WarNerds.com and Deputy Director of Training at One Shepherd, invited me to play a different type of game than I’m used to.  As he explained the mechanics, I recoiled because of its basis in fantasy and inauthentic, inconsistent scientific rules and logic.  I don’t have an interest in learning about a system that doesn’t exist.  Because I’m also a math and science nerd who genuinely gets excited over Excel spreadsheets, he insisted I’d love it for that reason as the core of the game mechanics is based on math.  Recalling my earlier attempts at real time strategy games, I wasn’t looking forward to the experience even though this was technically a different classification of game.  There was so much I wanted to control – so much memorization of character stats and abilities that I would become overwhelmed and end up micro managing the few sources of success at the demise of the overall state of my forces.

Under his guidance I gave the game a chance.  He insisted that the Principles of War applied and the game required effective understanding and use of them in order to be successful.  In my numerous failures and the frustration that followed, I challenged his assertion.  How can massing be achieved if the enemy can literally disappear momentarily or move me back in time a few seconds ago?  How can we out maneuver in such a limited number of prescribed geographic lanes?  How is this simple when I have to study a nearly unlimited combination of friendly and enemy compositions and abilities?  At what point in our technological advances and scientific discoveries do the Principals of War cease to apply?

One of the things that stuck out to me was a comment made by another friend of Bret’s who was helping me get started.  I was expressing my frustration with the combat model and how there was no intuition I could use for scenarios and enemy abilities I hadn’t seen and constantly change.  What he explained later ended up being very profound, though at the time it only added to my frustration.  He said something to the effect of, “You’re focusing too much on the combat mechanics.  You have to understand this is an economy game disguised as a physical combat game.  The more you earn early on, the more economic advantage you will have later on which is how you ultimately win.”

In my frustration with the lack of success I said, “So this game is nothing more that two very massive and complex spreadsheets fighting each other”.  Further fueling my frustration and a bit to my surprise, every player in the room responded with a resounding “Yes.”  What follows is a conversation over text message between Bret and myself.

Matt:  “Principals of war don’t really apply.  The concept of massing is not physical.  Maneuver is a pseudonym.”

Bret: “I’m not sure why you would say that.  I believe the principals apply.  Think of using the shadow plane as camouflage and concealment.  As you maneuver you seek to mask you movements in some way in real life.  The game just has a specific way of doing it.

Maneuver is your rotations and covering down on towers and lanes.  We call it positioning a lot.  If you are not in the correct position your lane can be taken.

Massing is physical in game.  If you see an enemy by themselves or defending a tower alone you mass at that site to overwhelm the enemy at that location.  Same thing if you see an enemy massing in a lane you must mass there with your team otherwise the tower will fall.

The principals of war apply, you just have to be open to accepting the alternate rules of physics and find the analogous models for how we apply them in game.”

Matt:  “That last paragraph is where I have some friction.  the game is not authentic in it’s analogous model to that.  It truly is two spreadsheets fighting.  Kinda cool but misrepresented it its’ presentation.

Bret:   “What do you mean by authentic?  It’s an alternate universe with different rules/laws.  What would make the analogous model authentic?  Yes, spreadsheet, but the problem still with that is that it doesn’t account for human error and the application and timing of abilities used.  If you adopt that frame of mind, then every game is two spreadsheets fighting, isn’t it?”

That last sentence took me aback as I believe he intended it as a pejorative comment.  I wanted to say no, though some part of me does recognize that all games can be described and played out with math.  Game theory has far reaching applications and implications.  War gaming is ultimately the medium by which you verify a theory of imposing your will on an opponent.

I approached the game with a new mentality.  This is an economy game disguised as physical combat.  Do not concern your self with the appearance of characters or how abilities are physically represented.  Think only of the mathematical effects and what you can do to maximize your gain while minimizing your opponents.  That change in approach had a profound effect on my understanding of the Principals of War when you break it down to it’s simplest form.  It had a profound impact on my ability to achieve success, and in the cases where I lost, understand strategically what went wrong.

Playing a battle game based on fantasy and alternate physics has not only reaffirmed my understanding of the Principals of War, I can see larger implications of these concepts in other areas of life.  I’m making links between things like personal finance and the Principals of War I had never connected before.  My mind is going back to more authentic war gaming models and I’m seeing them in a new light.  Rather than concerning myself with micro tactics and even tactics as a whole, I’m beginning to see how these principals have a major impact on strategy that I now understand, where I only thought I did previously.  I’m starting to see more clearly above the tactical level of warfare and filter down all of that effort and detail to its simplest elements.

I encourage you to try and find success in something new.  Break things down into their simplest elements and learn what successful people do.  Then emulate that.  Based on my experience, I think you can learn more than you thought possible.

The game is Paragon and is currently free on PC and PS4.  Comment with your in-game handle and come play with us!

Training vs Simulation : Authenticity vs Realism

by Matt GedersTraining/Simulation, War GamingPosted on One Comment

Ever had meaningful small unit tactics training with Nerf guns?  I have.

Being highly involved in putting together the small unit training that One Shepherd provides and a war gamer, I’ve seen confusion and struggle when putting together something under either of these banners.  Gamers often say they want realism in their war games when they usually mean authenticity, and vice-versa with trainers.  Gamer’s ogle over realism when it’s not actually provided, and trainers strive too much for realism when then just need authenticity.  Add in a factor of peoples desire for entertainment and it gets even more complicated.

Let me explain.  First, we have to settle on terminology.  We’ll define simulation and training, and then authenticity and realism.

In this context when I use the term simulation, it can basically be defined as a war game.  According to Merriam-Webster, a war game is a simulated battle or campaign to test military concepts and usually conducted in conferences by officers acting as the opposing staffs : a two-sided umpired training maneuver with actual elements of the armed forces participating.  This understanding automatically puts the focus on the testing and verification of military concepts.  In other words, it’s just not built to being intentionally entertaining.  It’s not really training either.

In the entertainment industry, there are more than a few games (board, video, or otherwise) that claim to do war gaming.  Only a hand full actually do.  I don’t begrudge them for that, because who wants to simulate walking land nav for three hours before hitting your objective of watching an empty valley all night – all while sitting at a computer screen.  At the same time I say that, I can’t ignore game platforms like ARMA (which is the commercial version of Virtual Battle Space or VBS used by the US and forces around the world).  It’s on its third iteration and has a worldwide following of over three million players.  When employed under the banner of war gaming, ARMA/VBS becomes a valuable tool for anything from small unit tactics or as part of the Military Decision Making Process and everything in between.  Here the Premack Principal applies though – very few people engage in a game marketed as entertaining for the specific purposes of training.  They will endure training but only as long as that brings them a more entertaining experience.

Training on the other hand is defined as the act, process, or method of one that trains.  People train to lift weights, type faster, and win at monopoly.  It’s important to note that the objective of training is not necessarily reflected in the training itself.  Training in push ups is useful for wrestling but it doesn’t show up in a match ever.  What is important here is context provided by a good instructor.  Training to shoot shapes and colors on a target as fast as possible on the instructors command doesn’t at all translate to a gunfight whatsoever.  When re-framed in context of an exercise used to get the brain thinking about something other than the mechanics of shooting, that training becomes more tolerable.

The second set of terms that are often confused are authenticity and realism.  These mean two very different things when it comes to training or war gaming.  Authenticity is defined as conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.  Realism, on the other hand, is concerned for fact or reality.

In both training and war gaming, the goal of training or war gaming must be clarified.  This will help go a long way to align participants expectations.  If you were a reenacting group, you would certainly align yourself with realism, usually down to the stitch.  Authenticity has a different approach.  Realism says, “That rucksack is the wrong color and doesn’t have the correct buckles!”  Authenticity says, “He has a rucksack.”

This works both ways.  Authenticity can take things too far as well.  “My air-soft rifle holds ammunition”  Sure it’s authentic in that it holds ammunition, but realism says, “A single magazine holes 300+ BB’s therefore you won’t need to reload during this CQB scenario and that isn’t realistic.”  This is also true.

The best recent example of this was watching a master instructor teach mobile defense to a few squads.  Rather than placing their practical exercise in the field with weapons and blanks, he chose to use Nerf guns on the FoB (Forward Operating Base).  This constructive exercise was authentic with respect to the terminal learning objective.  Due to the short range of the engagements along with a few other stipulated rules, the students were able to grasp all of the working parts of a mobile defense because they could see it.  Without that condensed range, the students would have been left in small groups in the field without any situational awareness as to what other units were doing.  They would have also wasted a lot of time with some groups not even engaging.  They would only learn later through storied conversation as to what happened.  By having an exercise that authentically positioned the students in a mobile defense within the confines of the game and associated rules, they were able to reach an real understanding of the lesson very quickly.

The relative assignment of training, simulation, authenticity, realism can be rather subjective.  With that in mind, we’ll use the following graphic to summarize these points with a specific outcomes or objectives in mind.

 

Civil War Re-enacting, when taken completely seriously, is very realistic.  It’s also very much a simulation in that they are testing (or in this case re-testing) specific military concepts.  MDMP war gaming on the other had doesn’t necessarily care to have a completely realistic realm by which to test a concept.  It might be entirely software based or quite often hashed out through dialogue among the battle staff in a room somewhere.  ARMA based land nav is  fun considering you can do it in an air conditioned room while eating a pizza.  More fun than actually walking for hours on end through rough terrain.  It’s authentic in that it can drive home the major points of land nav.  It’s not very realistic in the sense that your pace count is always perfect regardless of slope or fatigue and you don’t have to worry about magnetic declination or interference.  An F/A-18 Flight simulator is a 1:1 replica of all the working functions of its real counterpart and is therefore appropriate for most training oriented towards the operation of the aircraft controls and functions.  It would not be appropriate for G-force training or how to fly inverted as these platforms are often motionless.

Whatever camp you are in, make sure you define your objectives clearly for all parties involved.  This goes for instructors and participants.  Training objectives should be clearly defined as an instructor and should be communicated somehow to the students.  This can be done directly, or culturally through community expectations like the example found in kids sports teams that don’t keep score.  Participants should also clarify their expectations and desires.  Are you there to experience a realistic simulation or would you be better off framing your experience as  authentic training for what you are wanting to accomplish?  Be honest with yourself, but don’t be surprised when authentic training means you put down your rifle and pick up Nerf guns every once in a while.