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from the no-really-I-am-actually-doing-work dept.
Paul Vebber, a gameplay instructor in the navy, says that in the past decade the government has started using strategy board games much more often. They do not help predict outcomes. For that, the Pentagon has forecasting software, which it feeds with data on thousands of variables such as weather and weaponry, supply lines, training and morale. The software is pretty accurate for "tight, sterile" battles, such as those involving tanks in deserts, says an intelligence official. Board games are useful in a different way. They foster the critical but creative thinking needed to win (or avoid) a complex battle or campaign, he says.
The article goes on to explain that board games are advantageous over computer-based games for what is essentially a simulation:
...you can constantly tweak the rules to take account of new insights, says Timothy Wilkie of the National Defence University in Washington, DC. With computer games, this is much harder. Board games can also illuminate the most complex conflicts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by unauthorized on Wednesday March 26 2014, @06:19AM
That's not the point. No matter how much of a tree-hugging hippie you are, you can still have conflict thrust down your throat by an external aggressor. Warfare is rarely willingly indulged by all parties.
As dehumanizing as it sounds, the suffering of individual people takes a back seat when the <insert bad guys> come to burn down your city.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday March 26 2014, @07:03AM
In the context of the TFT(itle), just how a board game can make one "understand the war"?
I'm actually afraid it is quite the contrary, it won't make you understand the war but offer you the illusion you are "prepared for it", therefore there's no need to actually understand it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday March 26 2014, @08:41AM
"just how a board game can make one "understand the war"?"
From extensive experience there are three ways:
1) Given this set of rules which when followed from T=0, you can follow the rules and make historical decisions and end the game at T=something with a historically accurate result. Then stop making historical decisions and see what happens. Much as DnD/Pathfinder is kind of making up a fantasy story as you go along, these guys are making up an alternative military history as they go along. Explore all the aspects of the confederates making just one more big push at the battle of gettysburg. Would they have likely "won"? What else would have resulted? And this covers from really zoomed in tactical picture to world wide picture, depending on game of course.
2) Given an axe to grind and some noobs to teach, here's a "fun" way to pound that info into their head. What does DVG's Alexander teach you about logistical support problems in the ancient world? What does GMT's COIN series teach you about the practical problems of insurgency / counter insurgency in modern warfare? You have to kind of stay on track here, going all far out isn't necessarily going to mix well with the rules. But you can still learn something, if you don't already know all about the axe to grind.
3) When its all done, nothing was really accomplished other than destroying a lot of time and equipment. Am I talking about real war or wargames? Both, obviously.
The biggest illusion problem is the old GIGO problem. If the game designers have irrational rules, you're going to end up with irrational experiences leading to irrational beliefs.
There are of course rules ranging from realistic to unrealistic and unfortunately that mapping has nothing to do with the mapping for "fun". I own a copy of a semi-legendary german naval WWII solitare simulation game "Steel Wolves" and its very realistic but frankly not the most fun thing to play. In fact its pretty frustrating. And that might be a very realistic portrayal of life in the german navy in WWII. I can see the pentagon point of view that the most educational war games probably do require paying the players to participate, vs the civilian ones mostly being fun enough that we pay near three figures for games.
(Score: 1) by unauthorized on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:45AM
That's a strawman argument. I'm arguing that simulating the horrors of war aren't all that helpful to a future general than learning how to deal with cunning enemies and shifting conditions, not about overconfidence issues.
Wargames are simply one method of training available. There are in no way perfect, but they are also one of the few methods available. Field experience aside, there are no obviously superior ways to practice such skills. It certainly makes sense to include a multitude of learning methods, but in the end, it's better to have some poor experience than none at all.
So no, you won't understand warfare from playing wargames. But you sure as hell will understand it better than someone whose only military experience is Call of Duty. Skills are not binary states.
but offer you the illusion you are "prepared for it"
This is a very interesting (read:insubstantial) claim. Do you have any evidence that mock training leads to significant overconfidence? Do you have any evidence that such overconfidence leads to more errors? Do these errors out-weight the errors committed due to lack of training? And most importantly, how are you sure that this cannot be alleviated through proper training techniques?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday March 26 2014, @07:49AM
Try "never" willingly indulged in by all parties. The civilian population in wherever the war is taking place has absolutely no say in the matter. And if some kind of draft is involved, then neither do many of the combatants.
Also, there is the simple fact that some wars can't be won, even if you fight them: If the US nukes more of Russia than Russia nukes the US or vice versa, then almost everybody is still dead, because the long-term effects of the nukes in the atmosphere will do in both sides and everyone else caught in the middle (except for those few who survive in the bottom of some of our deeper mine shafts, so long as we don't have a Mine Shaft Gap!)
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.
(Score: 1) by unauthorized on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:50AM
I prefer to reserve absolutes for mathematically provable claims. There is no reason as to why it's impossible to have a war where all parties participate by choice, it's just extremely improbable given human nature.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:54AM
To disprove an absolute, you'd need a counterexample. There simply isn't one in recorded human history. That's as close as you'll get to an absolute in any non-mathematical field of study.
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.