The Bomb and the Computer: The History of Professional Wargaming 1780- 1968

172 Pages·1969·1.87 MB·English

by  Andrew Wilson

Andrew Wilson’s
The Bomb and the Computer

The History of Professional Wargaming 1780-1968

Edited by John Curry
Copyright © 2014 John Curry and Andrew Wilson
This book was first published as The Bomb and the Computer in 1968 and then
reprinted as War Gaming in 1970.
The rights of John Curry and Andew Wilson to be identified as Authors of this
Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise without the prior written permission of authors.
Books edited by John Curry as part of the History of Wargaming Project
include:
Peter Perla's Art of Wargaming book, A guide for professionals and hobbyists
Thomas Allen's War Games professional wargaming 1945-1985
Innovations in Wargaming Vol 1, Developments in hobby and professional
wargames
Army Wargames: Staff College Exercises 1870-1980.
Contact! The Restricted Canadian Army Tactical Wargame (1980)
Dunn Kempf: the Tactical Wargame of the American Army (1977-1997)
The British Army War Game (1956)
The British Army Desert War Game (1978) MOD Wargaming Rules
The Wargaming Pioneers Including Little Wars by H.G. Wells, The War Game
for Boy Scouts and The War Game by Captain Sachs
1898-1940 Early Wargames Vol. 1
The British Kriegsspiel (1872) Including RUSI's Polemos (1888) Early
Wargames Volume 2
More Wargaming Pioneers Ancient and World War II Battle and Skirmish
Rules by Tony Bath, Lionel Tarr and Michael Korns Early Wargames Vol. 4
See The History of Wargaming Project at www.wargaming.co for other
publications.
Cover photograph, by Tim Price, of the entrance corridor of a UK government
bunker somewhere underground.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. The Prussian Legacy
W - - H ' - V - O -
AR GAMES IN ANTIQUITY WAR CHESS EDWIGS GAME ITURINUS PITZ
- R – ‘ ’
ORIGINS OF MODERN WAR GAMES VON EISSWITZ EMERGENCE OF FREE WAR
- S W - A - L - W. M.
GAMES PENSER ILKINSON EARLY MERICAN GAMES IVERMORE
L US N W C .
ITTLE AT THE AVAL AR OLLEGE
2. From the Marne to Midway
S - B 1905 - E -
CHLIEFFEN THE RITISH WAR GAME OF SPREAD OF WAR GAMES IN UROPE
T — M ’ - W W II -
ANNENBERG VON ANSTEIN S GAME GAMES IN ORLD AR POLITICAL
T W I , T - A Y
GAMES AT THE OTAL AR NSTITUTE OKYO DMIRAL AMAMOTO AND THE
J M .
APANESE IDWAY DISASTER
3. The End of Amateurism
T - 1939-45 - ‘
HE BEGINNING OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH APPLICATIONS IN EXCHANGE
’ - H- -
RATES AND OTHER CONCEPTS PROBLEMS OF THE BOMB MODERN WAR GAME
- - -
DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS ANALYSIS MATHEMATICAL GAMES WAR GAME USE IN THE
S U .
OVIET NION
4. Politico-Military Games
T US J W G A - ‘ C W ’ -
HE OINT AR AMES GENCY OLD AR GAMES ORIGINS AT THE
RAND C - MIT - ‘R ’ -
ORPORATION GAMES AT PROBLEMS OF PLAYING ED GAMES AT
S R I - - .
THE TANFORD ESEARCH NSTITUTE LIMITATIONS OF POLITICO MILITARY GAMES
5. Tacticians and the Laboratory
T - US M C L F G -
ACTICAL GAMES ARINE ORPS ANDING ORCE AME WAR GAMES AT THE
UK D O R E -
EFENCE PERATIONAL ESEARCH STABLISHMENT TACTICAL NUCLEAR WAR IN
E - US N E W S - ‘T ’ -
UROPE AVY LECTRONIC AR IMULATOR HEATERSPIEL TRANSITION
- .
FROM MACHINE ASSISTED TO COMPUTER GAMES
6. Computer War Games
D - B ’ A M - ENIAC -
EVELOPMENT OF THE COMPUTER ABBAGE S NALYTICAL ACHINE
- - -
BINARY NUMBERS HOW COMPUTERS WORK PROGRAMMING MODELS IN SIMULATION
- –
GAMES TO ASCERTAIN OPTIMUM TANK ARMOUR THE FLIGHT SIMULATOR AS A WAR
- AFWET .
GAME
7. The War-Gamers
M C - STAGE - P - RAND
ONTE ARLO RESIDENTIAL DECISIONS OPINIONS AT THE
C - STAG - NEMO COBRA - US A F .
ORPORATION AND IR ORCE WAR GAMES
8. The Systems-Analysis Debate
G L M - - A R
ENERAL E AY MISSILE UNCERTAINTIES DMIRAL ICKOVER AND COMPUTER
– - - - M N C H
ERRORS PLANNING PROGRAMMING BUDGETING AC AMARA AND HARLES ITCH
- - .
CRITICISM OF COST EFFECTIVENESS STUDIES
9. Gaming the Ungameable
A - - AGILE - T 1972 W T - ‘A
NTI GUERRILLA WAR GAMES HE AR IN HAILAND GAME
’ - - - 15 ‘
TO SOLVE THE UNIVERSE GAMES FOR SCENARIO GENERATION FUTURE WORLD
’.
TYPES
10. Game-theory
B - ‘P ’ D ’ - ‘C ’ - R ’
ASIS OF THEORY OF GAMES RISONER S ILEMMA HICKEN APOPORT S
S C - R S - B ’
TRATEGY AND ONSCIENCE APOPORT VERSUS CHELLING RENNAN S CRITICISM
R — R .
OF APOPORT APOPORT REPLIES
11. War Games on the Campus
B - - L U
USINESS GAMING SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH SIMULATION ANCASTER NIVERSITY
- I N S - ‘A S D G ’ - -
NTER ATION IMULATION IMPLE IPLOMATIC AME DATA MAKING IN
I R – - .
NTERNATIONAL ELATIONS THE ANTI SIMULATION CASE
12. Vietnam – The Game that Failed
R V - -
OLE OF WAR GAMES IN THE IETNAM WAR EFFECTS OF FAILURE PROSPECTS OF
‘ ’ - - ‘ ’ -
PEACE RESEARCH RE DEFINITION OF DEFENCE A CONSTRUCTIVE USE FOR
.
MILITARY ANALYSIS
References
Foreword
Andrew Wilson’s 1968 book was probably the first to bring together in a
systematic way a comprehensible account of the strategic wargames that were
played in the dark corridors of offices of the war planners around the world. In
the days of the Cold War, the world was on the brink of World War III.
Wargames were being played to refine warfighting plans, but also to help
develop political strategies to avoid getting into an Armageddon-type
confrontation. These strategists had written about their work, but usually in
obscure journals in language only suitable for others of their craft to
comprehend.
Wilson’s book started with a description of the early kriegsspiel game
played by the Germans as a tactical training tool. It then showed how wargames
became broadly accepted as a military planning tool during the 19th century. It
should be remembered that, in 1968, Wilson was probably unaware of the
wargaming movement that was being galvanised by the writing of Donald
Featherstone and others. Wilson argued that wargames can be invaluable
planning tools depending on the game mechanics and the nature of the
assumptions made to produce the rules.
Wilson then moved onto how operations research influenced the senior
commanders in World War II, paving the way for greater use of games in the
new Cold War of the 1950’s onwards. The book describes how the drive to
mathematically-based games sometimes produced games that were less effective
than believed. His account of the political military games, such as those by the
RAND corporation, was particularly interesting. Few accounts of these games
have made their way into the public domain in an understandable format.
Thomas Allen’s book War Games (also published by the History of Wargaming
Project) covers some of the same ground, but not in such a detailed and
analytical fashion.
The book also discussed the growing role of the new computer technology
in supporting and even replacing manual wargames. It is interesting to note that
at the time of reprinting this book, there is a resurgence of manual wargames for
training and analysis. Modern armed forces are starting to use a ‘blended mix’ of
technology and manual wargaming methods to fulfil operational analysis and
training needs. The new generation of manual based wargames with their maps,
counters and combat tables would be familiar to anyone who had played SPI or
Avalon Hill wargames of the 1970s onwards.
The work concludes on a personal note, with Andrew Wilson observing
how the wargames had produced successful strategies for American forces on
the battlefields of Vietnam. However, he noted that these wargames did not take
account of the toll of civilian casualties, the slow destruction of the agricultural
base of the country and the demoralisation in the South Vietnam capital of
Saigon. His worlds were prophetic: America won on the battlefield, but lost the
war due to a failure of morale. It was only later developments in wargames in the
1980’s and 1990’s that started to take greater account of these human factors.
This work is a useful addition to the History of Wargaming Project and it is
hoped the modern reader finds this early work about those strategic wargames
that could have led to Armageddon of interest.
John Curry
Editor of the History of Wargaming Project
Introduction
About six months after the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the London Times
carried a story from Washington which read:
FIGHTING WORLD NUCLEAR WAR BY COMPUTER
The Defence Department has just completed a war game on computers,
which, according to reports, confirms the belief that the United States would
prevail in total nuclear war . . .
The war game, known as Simulation of Total Atomic Global Exchange
(STAGE), is said to have taken nearly three years to prepare and five months to
play. Electronic symbols representing missiles, bombers, decoys, interceptions
and the like were recorded on magnetic tape, and the game was played by
feeding punch cards with instructions into the machines.
Altogether 160,000 instructions were given and the computers determined
which strikes were successful and what losses suffered. The specific results are
still being tabulated and will remain secret.
STAGE, The Times pointed out, was the second electronic game of its kind
to be played. The first, completed three years before, had presumably been
fought on the intelligence calculation, subsequently proved incorrect, that the
Soviet Union had a preponderance of missiles. This had led to a rapid increase in
the defence budget.[1]
Anybody reading this must immediately have been struck by a number of
questions. For example, how can a machine take account of fear, despair and
other human factors which must play a role in anything so cataclysmic as a
nuclear war? Who designs and operates such machines? How much reliance is
placed on them by governments? Are they used to predict the outcome of other
events, such as wars to ‘pacify’ South-East Asia?
Such questions are the starting-point of this book. But computer games are
only one of the methods by which today’s military planners seek answers to their
often unanswerable questions. Their use can be explained only by reference to
other methods such as Operations Analysis, Systems Analysis and Game-
Theory, to which they are complementary. Moreover, the quest for certainty in
military planning is not new. In the eighteenth century attempts were made to
reduce the craft of war to a study of geometry, and in the early nineteenth to a
question of railway timetables. To see modern war games in perspective it is
necessary to observe earlier games, and the disasters to which they occasionally
led. Again, one cannot describe the military use of war games without touching
on the use of similar games for academic research in international relations and
social science, as well as in business and for economic studies. Finally, computer
games are used not merely to seek answers about today’s and tomorrow’s
weapons systems, but also to generate ‘scenarios’ about the possible shape of the
world in general in ten, fifteen and twenty years’ time.
These aspects of operational research have led me further afield than my
starting point might indicate. But in the end they all point to one question: have
we the intelligence to master the environment which weapons of mass
destruction have created?
There is nothing academic about this question, however much the past
twenty years may have fostered a feeling that nuclear deterrence ‘works’.
Although the Great Powers have managed to avoid a mutually annihilatory
clash, they have not succeeded (even had they wished to) in eliminating sub-
nuclear types of war. And so long as resort may be had to such war, the risks of
escalation to nuclear war will remain. In fact they may be growing - for several
reasons. Firstly, the threat of ‘automatic’ escalation is now being explored as a
means of cutting the financial burden of conventional forces, for example in
Europe by the NATO Nuclear Affairs Committee. While this may look relatively
safe in the present political climate, it could appear very different if that climate
changed. Secondly, international violence has taken on a new respectability in
recent years, exemplified by three major ‘limited’ wars - in Vietnam, the Middle
East, and the Indian sub-continent. Today such wars are partly restrained by the
participants’ lack of nuclear weapons or, as in Vietnam, by moral objections to
their use. But cheap nuclear production processes will put nuclear weapons
within physical reach of at least twelve more countries by 1980; and it requires
only one small nuclear war to make nuclear war ‘respectable’ also.[2]
Thirdly, technological advances by the Great Powers themselves - in
rocketry and counter-rocketry, orbital warhead delivery, deep-diving
submersibles, chemical and bacteriological weapons - now extend the
opportunity for a new arms race of a qualitative nature potentially more
destabilizing than the quantitative missile race of the 1960s. All this, plus the
growing tensions caused by world hunger, poverty and racism, may indeed soon
cause us to look back at the 1960s as a decade of relative peace and security.
Now, the military planning techniques which this book describes may
appear, in many cases, to have contributed to the dangers which I have
mentioned. But it would belittle the nature of our present predicament to let pass
the impression that war games are generally a pastime of men who take war
lightly. On the contrary - and this is the heart of the matter - they are more often
devised and played by serious technicians, who, I have no reason to doubt, are
personally as concerned to avoid the disaster of a major war as many people in
the ‘peace movement ’.
The tragedy is that such techniques are directed to the attainment of
impossible certainties about security and stability, while the very size of the
effort devoted to them tends to foster the belief that they must succeed. At the
same time, research into alternative methods of promoting international security
is left to a handful of ‘peace researchers’ whose resources are paltry in relation
to the size and urgency of their task. I do not believe that such alternative
research can produce quick answers to the problem. But I do, as a military
writer, find a curious imbalance in the effort we devote to planning for war as
against the effort to discover and control its sources.
The size of the establishment involved in the production and use of what is
called military ‘software’ is indeed enormous. Though figures are hard to come
by, I estimate that between 15,000 and 30,000 officers and scientists are
concerned with war gaming of one kind or another at the present time, in
America alone. About a quarter of them are directly employed by the
Department of Defence. The rest are on the pay-rolls of aerospace and
electronics corporations, or staff members of civilian ‘think tanks’ which
conduct military research on contract.
I owe several such institutions a considerable debt for help in preparing this
book, and although I fear some may consider I have ill- repaid it with the doubts
I cast on their methods, I take this opportunity of thanking - and describing -
them.
The largest and best known is the RAND Corporation at Santa Monica,
California, which employs more than 1,100 people, half of them research
scientists[3]. RAND, started as a research organisation of the US Air Force after
World War II, was turned into an independent non-profit making corporation in
1948. About 70 per cent of its work is still performed for the Air Force on
contract. The rest is mainly for the Office of the Secretary of Defence and the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but a small percentage is
‘private research’ undertaken at its own discretion from its own funds.
The Stanford Research Institute[4], another non-profit organisation, was