The 20th Century's First Strategic War Game?

[Raymond Biesinger]

Hi A&A.org/forum,

a bit ago I was listening to a lot of H. G. Wells sci-fi audiobooks (he’s one of my favourite authors) and eventually came upon something he wrote in 1913. Its title’s a little long, being “Little Wars: A Game for Boys From Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and For That More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys’ Games and Books.”

Here’s an engraving from the thing:

I was floored to learn that my one of my favourite authors would take over the parlour and play fake war for an afternoon with his writer pals. The book actually describes how his war gaming developed, outlines the rules they invented, gives a play-by-play of several “campaigns” he fought, and closes with an appendix describing the history of “Kriegspiel.”

You can hear the whole thing for free on Librivox right here:

http://librivox.org/little-wars-by-hg-wells/

And of course Wikipedia has an entry on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

Anyone hear of this before? Anyone play it? Any other fans of that novelist and thinker? Are there any other complex war games anyone knows of from that era? I’m all kinds of curious.

Yrs.,
R.

[frimmel]

I hadn’t heard this but that is a pretty impressive minis set-up.

[CWO Marc]

“Little Wars” is discussed in Peter Perla’s book The Art of Wargaming.  The game is on the tactical scale (individual units shooting at individual other units), not on the strategic scale or on the operational scale.  Hobby wargaming didn’t exist at that time (Wells can be credited with inventing it), but “Little Wars” was criticized (at the time, or later – I can’t recall which) for the “toylike” game mechanic of firing toy cannons at enemy targets.

Fred T. Jane (of Jane’s Fighting Ships) produced a naval war game as early as 1898.  It used his JFS annual as a reference tool, which was a nice way for him to boost his book sales.

[Raymond Biesinger]

Neat neat. I think I need that Peter Perla book.

I ran into this now, too:

http://www.boardgamestudies.info/pdf/issue3/BGS3Hilgers.pdf

Prussians using “Kriegspiel” to train officers, starting in 1812. See pages 65-71 for a peek at a gameboard. It’s is modular, like Catan.

Found that through the wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)

Yrs.,
R.

[CWO Marc]

@Raymond:

Neat neat. I think I need that Peter Perla book.

I recommend it.  It includes a section on the history of wargaming, which among other things covers the invention of Kriegsspiel in Prussia by von Reisswitz and the brief popularity enjoyed in the late 1930s by Fletcher Pratt’s naval wargame (which makes the A&A tabletop Naval Miniatures game look like a pocket chess set: it was played on the huge floor surface of rented ballrooms).  It also has a section on desiging wargames (both the hobby type and the professional military type).

[Gargantua]

Gem of a find!

I suddenly feel cultured…

Now… Who’s got the RYE and CIGARS???

[Linkon]

I vaguely recall from some recolored old movies a bout Rome, that the emperor and his generals would sometimes roll a colored map out on a big table .  The had wooden cutout roman numerals (  like risk  ) for the varius legions, and color disk shields representing the opposition.  It was an empire wide scale for estimating reinforcement times, allowing then to optimize the allocation of reserve legions.

[Flashman]

59:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjKoWPoEIW0