Wargamers are used to discussing the details of combat, damage, and naval construction. They can quote figures for endurance and sensor performance. They know the successes and the failures of the generals and admirals in many historical encounters. What they don't understand is command, control, and communications, or C3. C-cubed is hard to model. Commands, reports, and messages arc not physical, like a ship or a tank, and their .path is almost never a straight line. It is difficult enough for defense consultants with lots of money and computer resources to model. Putting it in a manual game would only slow play and impose artificial restrictions on players. So why do it? Because it is a real constraint on a commander's ability to exercise control, which is the reason for playing any wargame. Allowing a player infinite control over every unit under his command is patently unrealistic. Even modem datalinks still require some time to act, and there is plenty of room for digital fog of war. The following form, created by Chris Carlson, can be used in Command at Sea for communications during a 3-minute Tactical Turn. It can be addressed to an individual unit or a group of units under the players command. The 30 spaces are for thirty characters, including blanks, and represent the amount of information that can be written on a message blank, transmitted with flag hoist or signal fight, and received dearly. (You computer types can think of 30 characters per three minutes as the baud rate). Although LTHF voice radio was used in WW II by the US, it was not always effective, and did not actually prove more reliable than the tried and true methods. Players interested in making a first attempt at understanding the limitations reality placed on WW II naval commanders should try using this form to issue commands, make reports, and send messages in the Tactical Turn scale. They will begin to see why doctrine, standing orders, and prepared drills were such an important part of naval warfare. BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #1 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com