I would like to thank Chris Hahn for his considered and considerate response to my earlier article, "The Average Is Mean And Extreme" in his "Playing With Fire" article in issue 83 of MWAN. Too often wargamer's published musings and thoughts hecome so doctrinaire that real exploration of ideas descends into diatribes and accusations. Thoughtful articles such as Chris' are an example for all of us.

Having said that, I do wish to reply to some of his remarks and expand on the ideas he ably expressed.

The Bell Curve Pattern

My point in regards to bell-curve patterns is that many events will fit this statistical pattern in the aggregate, but not in the detail. I believe that combat is a perfect example of an event that may he viewed in aggregate in a bell curve pattern, but in the particular tactical combat may vary wildly from this standard.

I think most combat effect takes place at the extremes with the average only presenting itself after the battle when viewed in retrospective aggregate. Note that extreme in the sense I am using it, means BOTH high effect and NO effect.

Chris seems to have understood me to mean that extreme is only a high "violent" extreme, but I believe the most frequent extreme event was absolutely nothing happening; the fire that had no observable effect; the melee that never closed.

I am reminded of the Sherlock Holmes' story, "The Silver Blaze", where Watson asks Holmes what clue allowed him to solve the case. Holmes replies, "The dog barking in the night." Watson, astonished, states, "There was no dog barking in the night!" Holmes calmly says, "precisely!"

Wargamers are so committed to illustrating the overt actions and effects of battles that they overlook the most common action, 'nothing happened', and the most common battle effect, 'extremely low or no losses'. They are missing the Zen of battle !

How else do we explain the rounds tied to casualties caused'? How else do we explain that in most battles only a portion of the battle line is attacking, not the whole line'?

At the other end of the spectrum is the chaos of the rout, the tremendous losses that some units sustain in hattle that are several multiples above that of the bulk of the army. The 'violent extreme' is often, as Chris stated, localized, but can often he the first crack in the dam before the deluge of defeat. Look at any after action casualty report and note how unevenly losses are distributed in an army. Note also that the proximity to the critical location on the battlefield and the intensity of combat are not necessarily related to the degree of losses.

My argument is that combat in a very real way may be a form of "U" curve with 'no effect' and 'maximum effect' occupying the terminal points rather than a bell curve with the bulk of effects being an average middle. Note the actual losses incurred could be identical from both curves. For example: 1,6,1,6,2,4,1,6 is the same average as 1,2,3,3,4,6,5,3.

I do believe that the "U" curve model may not function well in the controlled, move everything, move-counter move, world that most wargames inhabit. That is why the bell curve has been so frequently used in wargame designs, because it fits this model of control, total intelligence, and "average and expected" effect.

The bell-curve, average result, CRT appeals to the control freak because it is SO predictable. Too bad that combat isn't an engineering problem! If it were, all our generals would come from MIT, and military tactics would be formulae instead of narrative examples, anecdotes, parables, and the advice of wizened old, 'Indian fighters'.

Could it be that many wargame designers are left brained people trying to simulate a right brained phenomenon? Combat simulation isn't rocket science-it ain't even science!

Would maintain that it is closer to an art form and that, though it may use research, math, and logic as its tools, it is at heart the activity of an artist and his intuitive understanding. This approach may come closer to simulating the chaos, randomness, and the insanity of battle. Tolstoi's 'War And Peace' may be preferred to a reading of The French Army Drill Manual as a method of understanding Borodino.

creative Fiction

This hobby will see more fresh, enjoyable, and original concepts when wargamers accept that rules are a creative fiction, with a viewpoint and focus set by the "artist-writer" designer; rather than seeing them as a scientific treatise, coldly objective, with unchallengable "realism" achieved by a "techno-historian" designer. If scientific verity were the norm, why all the arguments about the 'Realism' of one set versus another? Proof finishes a poor second to opinion when it comes to wargame rules just as it does in literary criticism.

The assumption of some that warfare, particularly tactical warfare, is rational enough in its occurrences that it may be codified in some formulaic, absolutely accurate and realistic rules is the height of quixotic searches. This viewpoint completely ignores the possibility of the wargame being a way of telling a narrative story, realistic in its details, but full of the surprises and unpredictable conclusions that I've encountered in every battle report I've ever read. Perhaps a good set of rules has more in common with a novel than a lab report.

But most of all, the quasi-technical approach loses the human being in all his glories and frailties. When Napoleon spoke of the morale of an army being as 3-1 to its numbers, he was recognizing the extreme effect of the non-quantifiable, 'soft' factors of war, not the need for a morale rule in a wargame! Chris quotes John Keegan as saying that war is "essentially a moral conflict", here again I think the meaning is that the 'soft' unquantifiable (AKA unpredictable, uncontrollable) aspects of war are far more important to the resolution of an engagement than some wargamers like to believe.

Effect Magnification

Anyone who has done a smattering of astronomy and viewed the moon or planets through a telescope has been initially startled to find that the telescope not only magnifies the size of the planet's image, but also magnifies the apparent motion of the planet across the sky (actually, the earth's rate of rotation is magnified). If the magnification gets too high, the image flies out of the field of view very quickly.

A similar surprising 'effect magnification' is found in many rule's combat resolution procedures. Let's say we are attempting to simulate the musket fire of a Napoleonic infantry battalion numbering 500 effectives. We opt for a 1:1 representation and field 500 figures. Let us also say that at a range of fifty yards the chances of any musket fire hitting an opposing enemy is 50%.

One way to simulate this is to roll a six sided die, once for each figure firing with a four, five, or a six scoring a hit. The 500 rolls will take about twenty minutes to roll even if thrown by the bucketful. At that rate a game will take many, many hours. We would expect 250 hits or half the unit, but over 500 rolls this could vary by 50 or more.

At the other extreme, we could illustrate this same 500 men with twelve figures on a single stand. It will fire and receive hits as a solid unit. If we maintain that same 50%, hit percentage, we have a fifty-tifty chance of being totally eliminated or being totally unaffected. It only takes 10 seconds for the single die roll, this game could be played in a hour or less, even with many combats.

The interesting effect that has occurred is that the resolution time is shortened, but the effect of any single combat is magnified. Instead of the incremental eftect of multiple rolls we have the seemingly 'extreme' effect of a single roll. However, the fact is both systems are equally valid treatments of combat, and the speed of resolution (playability) of the extreme "yes/no" combat argues strongly for its use. Gamers, however, offen rebel against quick resolution and provide themselves with saving rolls, average dice, and other rule devices to ameliorate this extreme. They want playability, but are unwilling to allow effect magnification.

They are attracted to 'slow fuse' combat that usually involves multiple charts and multiple rolls, gradually settling in at some compromise point between resolution time and rolls made. In any case, they are opting for incremental losses, not for any consideration of realism, but for reasons of personal acceptability. They want it to "feel" right.

Again this is a soft factor, not quantifiable, and often intuitively sought by the designer. It also varies widely in the wargame community. Many gamers want the "time" and opportunity to correct a bad situation before it is conclusively resolved. It also protects egos if the causes are somewhat muddied when a combat victory slowly shifts to one side. Other gamers may opt for a somewhat more abstracted, but rapid and clearcut, result. De Gustibus.......

Grinding Matches

On the subject of grinding matches, I would argue two points: The first is that the representation of a thing is not the thing itself. As the artist Rene Magritte would say, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." As one example, we may simulate warfare so that the lessons and results are accurate, but the time is accelerated as I described in the paragraphs above. Just because the character in a play is an idiot doesn't mean the actor playing that role needs to be an idiot. Similarly, even if battles were a tedious, boring grinding match, doesn't mean that that aspect needs to be modeled in a rules set. The rule set doesn't have to be tedious and boring!

Even more to the point, I was referring to the typical wargame where both lines advancc directly across the table to engage each other, and then sway back and forth in minor adjustments to combat results, until one side has a few bad rolls and the inevitable, slow, highly attritional, victory finally presents itself.

In most battles, even in the ancient period, units were only intermittently in contact either due to a sector attack in the later horse and musket periods, where a division steps out to contest a section of the enemy line and then either succeeds or fails, or in waves of attacks such as the Norman attack on the Saxons at Hastings. Action at the point of attack was seldom sustained for a long period (See Keegan's The Face of Battle) and the engagement of troops was often limited to a fraction of the army at any given time. This was donc tor reasons of control and making sure of a fall back position if things went badly. And yet, many wargame rules lead to one big knot of troops in the center of the field; no reserves, no maneuver force, a true "grinding match", but I believe this to be an extremely poor simulation of combat and even worse history.

Ultimately, I am arguing for a fresh look at rule procedures,gamer attitudes, and thc accepted truths of wargame design so that new and exciting dircctions will be opcn to wargame rules writers, and the gamer/cosumers will be prepared and open minded enough to allow these Brave New Worlds!

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