Pacific Wargames Conference a Success ED. NOTE: Reprinted with the kind permission of PW REVIEW The first Pacific Wargames Conference was held Sunday, February 14th, in San Jose. The conference was jointly hosted by Ned Zuparko and The Gametable. The announced purpose was to bring together designers and experienced gamers to exchange information of use throughout the wargame hobby. The conference theme was "time, space, and command control on the tabletop". A sequence of speakers opened the conference and focused attention on the problems of time and space distortion and the historical mechanics of command control. The speakers were followed by a working luncheon which included announcements of upcoming events of interest to the hobby. The afternoon was devoted to the presentation and demonstration of "variable length bond" approach to the Napoleonic wargame. The conference was certainly enjoyable. Some 40 to 50 dedicated gamers attended and maintained a consistently high standard of discussion. The format was quite refreshing, in that attention was focused on aspects of game mechanics rather than on specific rules or historical periods. Ned Zuparko began the talks with a discussion of time and space distortion. He introduced George Jeffrey's "variable length bound" concept and then brought up the problem of depth distortion. Ned showed that most popular Napoleonic rules suffer from depth distortion, in that the width and depth scale of figure bases are not the same. Ned discussed the problems caused by depth distortion, including unit size, location, and concentration, and suggested various means of alleviating these problems on the table top. Ned's talk was followed by two particularly excellent presentations describing critical elements of warfare in the ancient period. Peter Manti discussed concepts necessary for understanding ancient warfare. Jim Vidlak presented the views of command and control on the ancient battlefield. Manti described the types of troops and formations found in ancient period, the use of tactical and strategic reserves, the importance of hand-to-hand combat, and the historical proportion of veteran to conscript troops. Pete sparked a lively debate with his assertion that reserves were rarely seen in ancient period, since tactical reserves were intrinsic to formation, and strategic reserves were used exclusively by a handful of great captains (at least prior to Imperial Rome). Following Pete's talk, Jim Vidlak described the mechanics of command and control in the ancient period, from pre-campaign strategy tothe role played by training and experience of troops. Jim presented the ancient battle as a surprisingly formal affair, or rather, he presented the goal of ancient commanders to have been a formalized approach to battle. This traditional approach included the call to arms, the array of battle, "pep talks", final briefing of sub-commanders, and finally the battle. The discussion of command and control was extended to the musket and pike period by the next speaker, Larry Duffield. Larry described the mechanics of command from the basic maneuver units... squadrons, battalions, batteries... through brigade, division and corps levels. He made special emphasis on the role played by aides de camp in Napoleonic battle, and intimated that the stagnation of warfare at the close of the musket and pike era was due as much to the breakdown of Napoleonicstyle command structure in the presence of huge national armies as to any other cause. After lunch we were finally introduced to George Jeffrey and his variable length bound concept. The ideas were new to most of us, since the December issue of THE COURIER (with George's article) had not yet found its way to the west coast. George's basic premise is that the division of gametime into discrete turns often distorts the relationship between simulated time and action, and frequently introduces opportunity for command decision where none should occur. George stressed that command decisions should be made only in response to battlefield developments visible to the commander and that the time required for the decision to be made and implemented should be accounted for in the game. The variable length bound is a means of relating tabletop action to the passage of time, and of implementing restrictions to command decisions. The game proceeds (with movement, casualties, etc., computed as rates rather than amounts) until a situation occurs which requires a player to make a command decision. Play is then interrupted while the decision is made, but action continues for the period of time required to write new orders and pass them along the chain of command. Thus a premium is placed on the gamer's ability to anticipate events and create flexible orders which will allow for several possibilities. George noted that the inexperienced player often finds himself reacting to unexpected events, usually a bit late, and eventually watches his position crumble before he can do anything about it. Following a lively discussion of the game mechanics, the conference was treated to a demonstration game using the variable length bound, realistic width and depth scales, and an impressive array of 5mm figures (transported from Scotland in a briefcase, I believe). George had also brought an opponent, David Burnett, from Scotland. The demonstration game was certainly fascinating, with division, and even corps, attacks launched and repulsed with virtually no interruption save for moraletests and some gloating by the victor (David). The demonstration was then repeated, this time with we novice commanders at the controls. We soon found out that the ability to launch a corps attack without interruptions is as much a property of the gamer as the game mechanics. Interruptions came fast and furious as new orders were devised, and discarded, as quickly as they could be written. It seems that we were unable to leave the reserves where they were and the formations as they began. Perhaps we had become so used to game mechanics allowing plans to be changed at regular intervals that we were unwilling to trust the game's outcome to original orders and dispositions. Unfortunately, the conference ended before we could really test George's system. Nevertheless, the afternoon closed on a positive note, with many gamers voicing their approval of the day and requests for a repeat performance next year. The idea of gamers gathering to discuss gaming concepts is certainly a good one. Although not every one left the conference sold on the variable length bound, we all left with an appreciation of the difficulties of simulating command and control on the tabletop. Perhaps the key to solving problems lies in making them obvious. If so, the Pacific Wargame Conference was a smashing success. -STEVE PAYNE MINIFIGS BRINGING BACK OLD RANGES A usually reliable source has informed THE COURIER that MiniFigs USA will be soon bringing back many of their discontinued 25mm lines. Some of these will be available only through mail order. The lines will be trimmed somewhat in extent. The first will be the 7 Years War line. MiniFigs will neither confirm nor deny the rumor. THE COURIER SEMINARS AT ORIGINS 82 GEORGE JEFFERY GUEST SPEAKER The Courier is sponsoring a series of lectures, seminars and demonstrations of George's NEW CONCEPTS IN WARGAMING. They will serve to introduce his VARIABLE LENGTH BOUND'" Napoleonic rules (CODE NAPOLEON) to be published by The Courier Publishing Co. and which we hope to have vailable for the first time at Origins '82. THE SCHEDULE FRIDAY, JULY 23: 1100-1200 Command & Control $1.00 1200-1300 Scales & Design, the New Dimension $1.00 1NO-1700 Napoleonic Tactics and Grand Tactics $2.00 SATURDAY, JULY 24: 1000-1300 Variable Length Bound TM Napoleonic Rules with demo of Multi Corps Action $2.00 1500-1600 The Moral Battle $1.00 1900-2100 Variable Length Bound Napoleonic Rule Game limited to 10 players who must have attended the demo (if there is enough interest we will try to provide more games) FREE SUNDAY, JULY 25: 1100-1200 National Differences $1.00 HMGS AT SMITHSONIAN One of the member groups of the HISTORICAL MINIATURE GAMING SOCIETY (HMGS), the Potomac Wargamers (PW), recently presented a re- creation of an American Civil War battle at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. The museum regularly presents a series of courses under its Smithsonian Resident Associate Program; THE COURIER (Vol 111, No2) reported on one such series devoted to wargaming given during the summer of 1981. The recent Smithsonian program consisted of 8 lectures: Great Battles of the Civil War. Fifth in the series was one titled The Strategy and Tactics of Gettysburg. After the host and moderator, Martin Gordon, spoke on the Gettysburg campaign in general, the HMGS group presented their talk on "Sickles' salient". This portion of the Gettysburg encounter occured on the second day of the 3 day battle. General Sickles, commanding the III Corps, stationed on the Union's southern (left) flank, advanced his two divisions to what he thought would be a more advantageous position. In doing so, however, he exposed the Union position in two ways: first, he so stretched his front line that Longstreet's Corps was easily able to punch through and drive him back; second, he left the Round Tops unoccupied, enabling the Conferenceto outflank theentire Union force from the south. It was only due to a fast reaction capability on the part of several units from Syke's V Corps that the Conference were prevented from rolling up the Union forces along the Cemetery Ridge line. Members of HMGS set up a 5'x10' table showing the Round Tops, and the southern portion of Cemetery and Seminary Ridges. A collection of 30mm and 25mm figures were used to display the positions of the opposing forces. The mix of 30's and 25's, mounted on the same stands, gave an interesting and 'irregular' appearance to both the Union and Confederate troops. The larger sized Confederate units were indicated by representing Confederate brigades by 3 stands, Union brigades by 2 stands; all stands had 3 figures mounted. The demonstration carried the battle from Sickle's initial position (12 noon), through the Confederate attack (around 4 PM), to the final positions that evening (7:30 PM). While one member of the group narrated the chronology of events, two others moved the figures in concert with the unfolding story. The entire presentation took about 30 minutes. This summer, the Smithsonian will host a series on the battles of the Second World War. The HMGS/PW group had been invited to present a more comprehensive demonstration: this time, a 90 minute lecture on naval warfare. Currently planned is a tabletop presentation on ASW tactics and techniques, followed by a detailed demonstration - using 1/1200 models - of the 3 phases of the battle of the Surigao Strait. - WALTER SIMON Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. III #5 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1982 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com