This was sent to us... An aspect of War Studies literature which has hitherto received little academic attention is the corpus of several thousand conflict simulation games published in recent decades. Further details of these simulation games may be found at www.grognard.com and at www.consimworld.com. In September 2003, Professor Philip Sabin began teaching a radical new option course on Conflict Simulation within the Kings College London, War Studies Department's MA programmes. Students discuss the utility and ethics of conflict simulation, and attend classes on topics including understanding historical campaigns, modelling conflict and command dynamics, and writing simulation rules. Each student must complete an individual project (analogous to a course dissertation) by designing their own complete mini-simulation of a historical battle or campaign of their choice. This involves researching the history, geography and orders of battle in the engagement concerned, studying existing simulations of the same or related engagements, and choosing simulation mechanisms which come together to create a realistic but playable representation of the actual events. What makes this project so challenging and educational is that the students must develop a deep analytical understanding of the dynamics underlying the real battle or campaign. They must address issues such as logistics, force-to-space ratios and intelligence, and must make judgements as to how close-run the actual battle was, how different tactical or strategic choices might have affected the actual outcome, and what pressures led the actual commanders to make the decisions which they did. The project requires a unique blend of painstaking analysis, legalistic precision, and intellectual and artistic creativity. The students must then reflect on the choices they have made within extensive designer's notes. Just as published conflict simulations go through extensive development and playtesting, so the student projects are played and commented on in draft form by other class members and by Professor Sabin himself. Another unique feature of this course is that they are also made available below for public download, so that enthusiasts and experts around the world may contribute their own thoughts to help in the development process. Please download any or all of the draft simulations below, try them for yourself, and give feedback to the designers by replying to the appropriate message threads on the yahoo discussion site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KCLconsim . Please give this feedback ASAP, since the students must submit their completed simulations by March 26th. The revised versions will then be posted here as an added thank you to the simulation community, until replaced by next year's drafts in February 2005. By very kind permission of the designer, Dale Larson, the simulations use the freeware programme Cyberboard to handle the graphics and to make them playable on the computer screen. You will first have to download Cyberboard from Dale's site at http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/. Then, just download the simulation zip files below, unzip them into your Cyberboard folder, open a scenario (.scn) file with CBPlay.exe, and away you go! This year's simulations, in chronological order, are as follows: Gladius et Sarissa (Cynoscephalae, 197 BC) by Michael Ng Clash of Empires (Magnesia, 190 BC) by Simon Elliott Austerlitz 1805 by Konstantinos Tigkos Vera Cruz, 1847 by Derek Liu Another Glorious First of June? (Jutland, May 1916) by David Chisholm Battle of Soissons (July 1918) by Tim Gale Assault on Narvik (April 1940) by Andrew Mulholland Sensuikan (Solomons submarine warfare, 1942) by Alessio Patalano When Hell Froze Over (Stalingrad counter-offensive, 1942) by David Hiley Trenches in the Tropics (Dien Bien Phu, 1954) by Pierre de Taillac Finally, Professor Sabin's own multi-scenario mini-simulation entitled Eastern Front (Russo-German war, 1941-45) is also available here in draft, and he would welcome comments in the same timescale. You might also be interested in his Strategos game system simulating ancient battles, which was published by the Society of Ancients last year. This is discussed at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Strategos_rules/, and you may buy a copy online at www.soa.org.uk. Help the students by giving them comments on their drafts by the middle of March. Please also be gentle with them - most had never played a conflict simulation before last September, and so it has been a steep learning curve! If you are interested in further details of how to apply for the MA programmes of which this course forms part, you may find them here (but note that we can never guarantee the availability of any particular option course). For further details of the War Studies Department as a whole, click here. by Phil Sabin -- Complete Artile and Game links at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/wsg/consim.html Back to 1st Quarter 2004 List of News Items Back to Master List of News Items Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com