Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Interview: James Sterrett, Professional Wargamer - An SoW Mention

[FLGibsonJr]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11 ... -wargamer/

I haven't seen anyone post a link to this article yet. It is a very interesting discussion about PC gaming and the professional military. There is a mention of SoW as well as some SoW screen shots. I also found it interesting that he mentioned SPI, Avalon Hill, and Kriegsspiel. Take a look, I think most of you will find it interesting.

Regards,

Gibson

[Jim]

This is a very interesting article about how the Army is using a variety of sims including SOW for training. This organization is training people for division and corps level staff officer positions. The most interesting part for me personally was this section:

"RPS: Putting aside the stuff games can’t simulate (responsibility for actual flesh-and-blood soldiers, personal danger, Napoleon’s haemorrhoids etc.) are there aspects of military command that, in your experience, most games simulate poorly?

James: We usually don’t plan very well when we play games as civilians, not least because good planning is hard work! However, leaving aside the difference in the consequences of our decisions, and the fact that the real world doesn’t allow for setting up the pieces for a second try at the scenario, there are three things gamers usually do not have to deal with.

First, we usually have far better knowledge of the situation than is possible for real armies; consider that one of the key pieces of information from ULTRA decrypts was the Axis order of battle in various theaters – simply knowing what units the Axis had was a major intelligence coup, but such information is routinely handed to players. Moreover, the scenario usually tells us what the friendly and enemy win conditions are, while those are often less clear in real life.

Second, in nearly every game, our forces do exactly what we tell them to do, exactly when we tell them to do it. In the real world, subordinate forces need time to conduct their own planning so they can carry out our orders, and they may not go about the task exactly as we envisioned. (The best game I’ve played for experiencing these challenges is Panther’s Command Ops series with the Command Delay set to the maximum value. I’ve also heard good things about Scourge of War in this regard but have not personally played it.)"

-Jim

[Saddletank]

Nice to see the Kriegspiel group getting a mention!

[Martin James]

Nice to see the Kriegspiel group getting a mention!

Yes indeed. We should post this link on the Kriegsspiel News Forum, as James is too modest to do it himself.

Martin James

[norb]

Very cool. SOWGB has been used at that school. I'm not sure if it's in regular use, but we had a lot of discussions with an instructor there.

[Martin James]

Very cool. SOWGB has been used at that school. I'm not sure if it's in regular use, but we had a lot of discussions with an instructor there.

That would be Mike Dunn, I think, who's in James' team. Mike is a Gettysburg player and, like James, also runs occasional face-to-face kriegsspiels in the USA. I think he did one at Historicon this year.

Martin