1939–41: The Storm Builds It can be argued that the most potentially decisive wargames of World War II were never played. When Adolf Hitler came to power, he quickly put a stop to the strategic-level wargames. He would make the future strategic decisions for Germany. During the war, Germany fought smart at the operational level, yet made poor decisions at the strategic level.

Would strategic war games have influenced Hitler’s decisions? Perhaps not.

In 1938, General Ludwig Beck, then chief of the German General Staff, conducted a wargame of a German campaign against Czechoslovakia. While the wargame predicted a German victory, it also predicted that the fight would critically weaken Germany. Hitler ignored these findings, as he believed the Czechs would not fight.

Still, 1940 wargames conducted by the then obscure Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein seemed to convince Hitler to order the bolder plan. The result was a French defeat far faster and more complete than would have otherwise been possible. Wargames could also discourage. For example, one game of an air campaign against Britain and a second on a cross-channel invasion both predicted difficulties. When the actual Battle of Britain proved indecisive, the predictions of the cross-channel invasion wargame were taken even more seriously.

Hence, a wargame predicting disaster in an attack on the Soviet Union may have had some effect. Such a wargame, Operation Otto, was conducted in three separate sessions. At the end of the unprecedented third session, the wargame had been played only through to early November, yet no fourth session was scheduled. One reason was that the wargame predicted the destruction of 240 Soviet divisions, with only 60 remaining on a front line deep in the Soviet Union. Surely the Soviets could not recover.

Ironically, in the actual campaign on the actual “date” that Operation Otto ended, the Germans had advanced about as far as predicted by the wargame and had actually destroyed more Soviet divisions (248). However, instead of the Soviets being down to 60 divisions, they still had 220 divisions. How could the wargame be so wrong? The Soviets had mobilized entire new divisions upon the beginning of hostilities. To make matters worse, after the time period wargamed (early November), the Soviets acquired an old ally — winter. German forces were woefully unprepared for winter fighting. Would a fourth session of Operation Otto have prompted preparation?

The Red Army also wargamed a German invasion. Joseph Stalin’s displeasure at the depth of the German advance in the wargame may help explain the premature counterattacks made in the actual invasion. Stalin conceded that one of the reasons the Red Army did so poorly was that the young general playing the German side of the wargame had played brilliantly. This general’s name was Georgy Zhukov.

top: Zhukov, middle: Marsall; bottom: Yamamoto

At the same time these wargames were being played, the US Army was increasing the rigor of its wargaming. One reason was the Army’s new chief of staff, General George C. Marshall. Like Moltke, Marshall had liked wargames from the time he was a junior officer. Now, with the likelihood of war growing, he turned principally to the field exercise type of wargames.

Of these, the Louisiana maneuvers are best remembered. While live play increased realism, especially in unit movement, combat used systems of adjudication very similar to map wargames. Because much equipment was new, the wargame could only be as accurate as the guesses about effectiveness.

There were some honest mistakes. The head of the tank-destroyer program provided the adjudication guide for the effectiveness of tank destroyers. Later events would show these guides overstated their lethality. But until then, these exercises “proved” their effectiveness. As a result, in early battles tank destroyers were used too aggressively—with tragic results.

Other flaws in adjudication were deliberate. Efforts were made before play ever began to guarantee an outcome that would prove the ground officers’ position on the employment of airpower. As a result, the ground officers’ air concept prevailed. Procedures were not changed until tragedies like the battle at Kasserine Pass demonstrated the need to do so.

The Japanese also used wargames. In August 1941, Japan’s Total War Research Institute conducted a global political military wargame. Paying close attention to the politics within target, neutral, and friendly countries, this wargame (which did not include an attack on Pearl Harbor) predicted an Axis victory and may have encouraged Japanese entry into the war. After the decision for war, each service wargamed its planned operations.

These wargames could predict relative attrition with greater precision, but they did not include political considerations. Some historians have maintained that Japan’s wargaming of the attack on Pearl Harbor demonstrates how wargaming should be done. Japan originally planned to sail her carrier force from its normal base straight toward Pearl Harbor.

During the wargame, the Japanese officers playing the American role used their limited sea surveillance assets to search for and find the Japanese force while it was still well out to sea. The Japanese side did win (i.e., they sank more ships than they lost), but it was a Pyrrhic victory that Japan could ill afford at the beginning of a long war against an industrially stronger nation. So the Japanese planners went back to their planning cell and came up with a new plan. This plan was wargamed with much better results. Japan’s subsequent victory at Pearl Harbor seemed to validate their planning methods.

Yet, was Pearl Harbor a Japanese victory? Certainly it was a tactical victory by standards of attrition ratios.

Shortly after his great victory, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said, “I fear all we have done is waken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” The sense of purpose Pearl Harbor gave the American people far outweighed any temporary advantage it gave Japan. How could Japan have missed this? Japanese naval wargaming did not take political impact into account.

1942–45: World War and Eclipse

In contrast, the Japanese wargame prior to the Battle of Midway is usually cited as the best example of how not to wargame. During the game, the American side’s air power sank two Japanese carriers. Rear Admiral Ukagi Matome, commander of their carrier force for the actual operation, unilaterally reversed the judgment of the umpires. With the carriers restored to the game, the Japanese side went on to capture Midway. Just weeks later, the Americans sank the same two carriers, plus two more. This time Admiral Ukagi could not reach into the “dead pile” and replace his ships.

Meanwhile, the US Navy was reaping a rich harvest from its years of wargaming. A few months into the war, Admiral Chester Nimitz sent two lieutenant commanders back to the Naval War College to see if the college had ever determined Japanese strengths and weaknesses correctly. The officers found the records of two wargames with Japanese values close to their current intelligence. They returned with the doctrine and plans from those years.

The Marines also got to see how accurate their interwar wargames were. Frankly, their early landings like Tarawa did not unfold as the prewar wargames indicated. These inaccuracies had contributed to flawed doctrine and the development and purchase of not quite the right equipment. But the war games were close, and the Marines learned that in war it is easier to fix something that is close than to come up with a capability from scratch.

The Marines Corps refined its wargame techniques quickly. After a few assaults, it was getting results that were so close to actual casualty count and to the time required to secure islands that one marine called it “eerie.” Yet, the wargame for the next landing was way off on both counts. They had adjudicated as before and had used the same methods to estimate Japanese strength. Why, then, was the game so wrong? It was due to a Japanese wargame.

The story of this Japanese wargame answers a still bigger question: After the Japanese were hopelessly outnumbered in 1944 and 1945, why did they keep on fighting? When the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his staff returned to Japan, they were taken to a secret location outside Tokyo. There they played the US side in a rare Army/Navy wargame. In that war game, Japan lost the war, prompting the Japanese to evolve a new strategy. The Japanese could not win the war, but they could kill Americans. They believed that if they could kill enough Americans, the United States would grow war weary and give Japan better terms — hence the doctrine of inflicting the maximum cost on the Americans in time and blood.

This new doctrine was what had gone wrong with the Marine wargame. The Marine

Toward a History-Based Doctrine for Wargaming

Introduction
1811-1904: Wargaming Beginnings
1905–18: Wargaming and the Great War
1919–38: Interwar Wargaming: The Visionary and the Blind
1939-1945: World War II
1946-1980s: Decline and Revitalization
1990s: Gulf War and More