…1825^–₄₆1871_153ya Wargaming Comes of Age: Of course not all officers hated wargaming. As early as 1828 Lieutenant Helmuth von Moltke advocated the use of wargames.⁸ He even founded the Magdeburg (Wargaming) Club.⁹ In 1837 now General Moltke became Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army and order an increased use of wargaming. Though he meet initial resistance Moltke understood what motivated his subordinates and he soon devised a strategy to increase the use of wargaming.

While Prussia has used nationalism to overcome France’s advantage in recruiting, adopting a meritocracy was more difficult. Prussia’s solution was to pare commanders selected for their nobility with chiefs of staff selected by merit. As the only chance even members of the petty nobility had of attaining high rank was selection for the staff corps, virtually all officers wanted to be selected. However, only graduated of the War College were eligible. Moltke now required each application package include a letter from the applicants commander, evaluating his performance as the senior umpire for a wargame. It worked.

When the successful applicants became War College students Moltke saw to it that they did a great deal more wargaming. Wargaming appears to have always been part to the curriculum at the War College, but Moltke added several innovations collectively called the Staff Ride.

Periodically Moltke would take the entire student body of the War College to one of the actual invasion corridors into Prussia. Moltke would then describe the most likely first clash between invading and Prussian forces. He would then turn to the most junior student present and ask for his plan of battle. He would then ask the second most junior, then the third and so on. Why? If the most senior spoke first, would any disagree?¹⁰

After arriving at a consensus battle plan they then played a map-based wargame. Moltke would then name the senior ranking general (aside from himself)¹¹ to command the invading forces and the second ranking general to command the Prussian forces. He continued thus until they were split into two equal teams. Why? Moltke believed that if their plan could succeed against some of their smartest strategists it would probably also succeed against any enemy strategist. Also, with two equal size teams more officers could participate meaningfully. The next day he would contact the local garrison. (This was an actual invasion corridor.) He would direct the garrison commander to march a few hundred soldiers where the plan called for thousands to march. This was done to test the marching times and other details of the plan. When all this was done the plan went on the shelf as the actual plan for an invasion along that corridor.

Now let us think about all this for a minute. Moltke started with an “off site”. He then brainstormed to reach a consensus. Moltke then tested the resulting plan against a world-class adversary, and finally tested the results with a field exercise. Essentially he used many smart people and effective procedures to create a plan worthy of a genius, eliminating Napoleon’s final advantage. With all our technology are we really this conceptually sophisticated today?

…Interestingly both the first modern navel and land wargames, intended for a civilian audience, were published in England.

Our first Brit published detailed rules for naval battles that required very detailed ship profiles. Data on only 4 ships were included with the game, and customers were soon clamoring for more. A game supplement with the needed profiles for all British ships soon followed. Still, playing a wargame between British ships was a little like kissing your sister.

His next offering provided the needed data for the entire German Navy. What happened next? There was an uproar in the press—the Germans are our friends, how dare he imply our navies may someday fight!

Wiser, Mr. Janes next published—All the World’s Warships. So the entire Jane’s Group, that has contributed so much to the reference sections of libraries, and to the British balance of payments, started with a wargame.

…There was one bright spot. 1n 1929 a young captain named George Kenney recognized the need for airmen to understand how airpower fit into overall theater campaigns. On his own initiative he developed an air/sea/land wargame that took maintenance, supply, and even airfield construction, into account. Student feedback to his wargame was mixed. Immediately after execution, the wargame received a lot of criticism for being difficult to play. However, it was rated much higher in graduation surveys.⁴⁵ Unfortunately the wargame was so complex and cumbersome that after the Kenney’s departure in 1932, no other faculty member was willing to take it over.

Clearly the wargaming success story of the inter-war period is that of the US Navy. Both the fleet and the Marine Corps made impressive use of wargaming, with a positive impact that has seldom been equaled.

The Navy built upon the work of McCarty Little, continually refining his technique. Even before World War I the bulk of their wargames began looking at a possible war with Japan. Initially, all war games assumed the American fleet would dash across the Pacific, fight and win a big climactic battle and relieve the Philippines. However, as the Naval War College refined its methods, the logistical constraints on such a rapid advance became obvious. Soon the wargames also made clear the need for forward bases in such a campaign. As understanding increased, the time needed for the advance grew from days to months to years.⁴⁶

Other elements were less clear. All through this period US intelligence on the specific characteristics of Japanese weapons and of their training levels was atrocious. Instead of arguing over what they did not know, the Navy turned this handicap into an advantage. How they did it shows their keen insight into education and human nature.

Naval War College students certainly wanted the win their big “capstone” wargame at the end of their school year.⁴⁷ As students have always done, they asked those who graduated before them for advice, or in the vernacular of the US military—“gouge”. Graduates were happy to provide advice, “try to engage the Japanese at night, they are blind, watch out for their torpedoes though—they are killers, fortunately though their ships sink like rocks after the lightest of battering.” However, when they talked to someone who graduated in a different year they learned, “avoid night engagements the Japs are incredible, and their ships are so rugged they can really close in and slug it out, at least you don’t have to worry about their tinker toy torpedoes.”

Slowly it dawned on the students—the faculty was giving the Japanese different strengths and weaknesses in each wargame!

What were the students to do? Unable to simply learn Japanese strengths and weaknesses before the game they had to play the game in such a way that they could learn them through experience before any decisive engagements took place. Once they learned what those strengths and weaknesses were they would then develop a strategy to put US strengths against Japanese weaknesses, while protecting our weaknesses from Japanese strengths. They would then force the decisive engagements. In other words, they were “learning how to learn”.

This by itself was a breakthrough, but the Navy’s wargamers did more. Despite the Navy of this period being influenced by battleship admirals the Navy’s aviation community was able to develop operational concepts and procedures that were ready to implement when, at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese took away our option for battleship tactics.

How did they do it? The Navy was able to use wargames to cheaply, quickly and educationally try out different ideas in aviation and even ship design. For example, the circular formation used during World War II by carrier task forces was first developed during an inter-war wargame. Some of what they learned resulted in changes in ships already under construction.⁴⁸

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