Solo wargamers play a lot of campaigns. Postal campaigning is a popular version of solo play and many soloists run campaigns "on the fringes" using a mythical planet or continent. Both versions of campaigns often take into account a complex combination of factors: troop quality, commander quality, weather, religion, morals, economics, diplomacy and even disease. This article will focus on another factor that has often been important in historical campaigns: intelligence. This is military intelligence, gathering and analyzing information about the other side. I'll review a few cases of campaigns in history that were influenced by intelligence. Then I'll spend a little time on code breaking and conclude with a few ideas about rules for intelligence in campaign games. The Persian War is the first example When Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece in 480 B.C., his huge army crushed all resistance. They wiped out the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae and pushed on to destroy Athens. It seemed they were unstoppable, but a deceptive report planted by the Greeks helped turn the tables on them. Themistocles, the Athenian leader, sent a servant to tell Xerxes that the Greeks were on the island of Salamis and were arguing among themselves. Xerxes took the bait and ordered his fleet to Salamis to trap the Greeks. Instead, it was Xerxes who was trapped. The Persian fleet moved into the narrow waters between Salamis and the mainland and the more maneuverable Greek ships destroyed them. The Persian fleet could not use their superior numbers because they were too crowded together. Xerxes watched the battle from a nearby hill. Shortly thereafter he left Greece taking the rest of his fleet and part of his army. It may be oversimplifying to say that Greece was saved by planting one false intelligence report. There were other factors in winning the battle and also other reasons for Xerxes to return to Persia, but that one false report looks very important in the campaign. AWI The next example is from the American War for Independence, the case of Benedict Arnold. It was a case of treason by a prominent leader. The result was less decisive in the war than the British had hoped. When Benedict Arnold, American war hero and general, contracted the British about coming over to their side, the prospects looked dazzling. The British first tried to test the person who sent them letters. Could they confirm he was indeed the man who had fought them so fiercely at Quebec and Saratoga? Once they were convinced that they were dealing with Benedict Arnold, prospects looked bright indeed. Perhaps Arnold could surrender a whole army or hand over a vital fortress. They decided that Arnold should try to be put in command of the fort at West Point and let the British take it. The plan was ruined when Major Andre, British chief of intelligence, made a mistake and had some bad luck. He ventured into American controlled territory to discuss details with Arnold. While there he changed into civilian clothes and hid on his person several documents about the planned treason. These actions proved fatal when Andre had the bad luck to be captured and searched by a small group of American militia. The documents he carried were what caused the militiamen to arrest him. If he had been in uniform, he would have simply been a prisoner of war. In civilian clothes he was a spy and was executed, Arnold escaped and joined the British Army, but West Point stayed in American hands. The situation left the Americans with a number of questions. Were there other American officers who were planning to defect? How much had the British learned about future operations? It seems that both sides had to do a lot of careful evaluation of intelligence because of Benedict Arnold. WWII World War II offers many examples of intelligence successes and failures. Americans have spent years puzzling over the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. There are lots of conspiracy theories, but it looks like it was a failure of intelligence. The American analysts had part of the big picture, but missed a critical part. The Americans knew that war was near and had issued an alert to the armed forces. Based on what they knew about radio traffic and some code breaking, something big was up. Radio direction finding indicated that many Japanese ships were moving South. This indicated an attack on the Philippines or Malaya. These were, in fact, going to both be attacked about December 8 Asian time, December 7 U.S. time. The location of six aircraft carriers was a mystery. There were no radio signals to track. The Japanese were operating them under a strict radio silence. The carriers' mission was a closely held secret. Only a few planners knew of the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. Even high government officials didn't know. Most men on the attacking fleet did not know about their mission until they were at sea. The fleet had gathered at a port far from foreign observers and traveled a route designed to avoid meeting other ships. These precautions cut off most intelligence at the source. The Americans had two chances to get a warning shortly before the attack. Both were mishandled. The army had radar stations on the island. Two operators were practicing with their set when they spotted a large number of planes coming in. They called the duty officer who told them to forget it, it was probably some B-17s due in that day. A destroyer on patrol outside the harbor spotted and attacked a midget submarine. It filed a radio report as part of routine. The report was still being processed when the air raid began. A few days later Pearl Harbor was much quicker to react to incoming planes. They were met by a furious anti-aircraft fire. Unfortunately they were American planes flying into Pearl from American aircraft carriers. Later in the war the Japanese were less careful about guarding their secret plan to attack Midway Island. American intelligence intercepted radio transmissions and decoded them. This information enabled the Americans to position carriers to attack the Japanese fleet. Japanese writers call Midway the battle that doomed Japan. There are lots of other examples of intelligence shaping World War II. The Normandy invasion was aided by an elaborate effort to deceive the Germans about the time and place of the landing. Planting false information can often be very effective. In this case the German reaction was slowed because they were waiting for the "real" invasion. Now lets get to the wargaming. I once experimented with a campaign game that used an intelligence rule. It was set up as a campaign and ran like a postal game. Each campaign turn both players rolled a die (regular six sided). If the player rolled a 2, that entitled the player to an intelligence breakthrough. The other player had to prepare three documents. One document had to be a real secret. For example, it could be the orders for one of his armies for the next three moves. The other two documents could be cover stories, false information designed to protect a secret. There could even be a planted false report. This rule produced a new problem for the players - analysis of intelligence. The rule further stated that any or all documents could be in code. The rule further limited the code to a single substitution type. That is, the letter "N' in the message was always replaced by the same letter or number. As long as the code is a single substitution code it is fairly easy to break using knowledge of the frequency of use for certain letters. The game was in our family. I was playing against my son John. My wife served as codebreaker for both of us. She could break them faster than I could write them. Once she told me I had misspelled "dragoon." Codes used today in real situations are so complex that it takes a computer to break them. Even in World War II, coded messages used machines to encode messages. The other side needed to capture your machine to be able to read the code. In the American War for Independence, Benedict Arnold wrote some letters in a book code. Arnold and his spy master, major Andre, used a dictionary. Each had a copy of the same edition. A word was indicated by three numbers, first the number of the page, then number of the line on the page and then number of the word in the line. The word "general" became "38.14.6" for page "38", line "14," word"6." It was a cumbersome system, and Arnold did not use it when he wrote the report on how West Point could be taken. The militiamen who captured Andre could read them and realize at once they had something important. Chance Cards One of the simplest ways to put intelligence into the games is a system of chance cards. Take a stack of 3 x 5 cards and write these notations on a card. Mix in as many blank cards as you like. Deal one card each turn to each player. Possible cards: You receive a letter from someone claiming to be a general on the other side. He wants to join you. What is your reply? 2. You receive a report from a slave who was close to a leader on the other side. If you send forces to you will win a great victory. 3. Some irregulars report they have captured a spy 4. A major enemy force has dropped out of sight. 5. The enclosed document was captured. (The document may be in code.) 6. You have reports about the location of enemy units based on (depends on period) a. peasant gossip; b. radio direction finders c. satellite photos. 7. You have reports of enemy forces based on (depends on period) a. cavalry scouts; b. infantry patrols; c. scout planes; d. remote sensors; e. sentry on duty; f. sonar/radar. Note: Specific nature of force reported can be made specific for the period: Dice for size reported: 3,2,1 report huge force; 4,5,6 report token scouting force After responding, dice for accuracy: 1,2,3 there is no enemy force; 4,5 there is an enemy scouting force; 6 there is an enemy force larger than yours attacking. 8. Your spy network and all your scouting indicates a major attack is coming. Your spies indicate it will come at point X in X days. But your forces at point Y report a major attack. Dice after you write orders: 1 It's a nervous local commander; 2,3,4 Fighting develops; dice again; next turn: 2,4,6 battle ends; 1,3,5 fighting continues; 5,6 It's the big one! 9. A force is sighted near your front. After you react, dice for result: 1 it's part of your own force returning after getting lost; 2 it's an allied force; 3,4 it's enemy scouts - they run; 5,6 false alarm. 10. A defector from your side left behind documents indicating that trusted commander X is considering treason. While the technology has changed, the basic problem of intelligence is always the same. A commander needs to gather and analyze information about the other side. By adapting some of these suggested rules you can add another layer of complexity to your campaign. The result will be greater realism and more fun. Bibliography Flexner, James Thomas. The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John Andre. (1967) Fuchida, Mitsuo and Masatak Okumiya. Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan. (1955). Herodotus. The Histories. (1954). Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. (1967). Keegan, John. The Second World War. (1990). Lord, Walter. Day of Infamy. (1957). Pomeroy, Sarah B. Ancient Greece: A Political social and Cultural History. (1999). Prange, Gordon William. Pearl Harbor: the Verdict of History. (1986). Van Dorn, Carl. Secret History of the Revolution. (1941). Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. (1962). Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #128 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Solo Wargamers Association. 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