Bonaparte in Italy Nr. 2 of the Campaign Series is well under way. As of now (8/10/79) much of the game is in the Art Department. (Will the Alps really be snowcapped?) A final stumbling block remains in the Forage system. We are attempting to come up with a sort of "unified field theory of Attrition" in which "active" units always suffer some loss, regardless of whether or not they move, thus encouraging Players to shut down their Administrative system and keep their army "Inactive" whenever possible. There are any number of complicated ways of doing this, but apparently few elegant ones (we have experimented with about a dozen alternate systems). In any event, the game will be presented in two levels. The Standard Game (like Napoleon at Bay) will have the forage and attrition systems, as well as other logistical considerations. The Campaign Game (all 148 Turns of it) will have the usual stunning amount of everything. Gallipoli Dave Isby is currently vacationing in England, but work continues. Amphibious operations are strange creatures. In modern warfare almost no sea-borne invasion has failed to achieve a secure beach-head. On the other hand, securing the beach-head is usually not a very good measure of success. Because the attacker holds the initiative, getting ashore is often not as difficult as knowing what to do afterwards. Accurate planning is therefore of supreme importance. At Gallipoli, the British had a decent plan and carried it out with incredible determination, only to see it fail under a crush of unexpected events. Some units landed at the wrong beaches, while others lost their way in unknown terrain. Troops became disorganized as their officers went down under a withering fire, and the true strength capabilities and intentions of the Turks remained an enigma. Close to a victory of almost unimagined strategic importance, the British fumbled and lost their chance forever. Uncertainty is the key. Where to land? How to advance? Wondering what lies beyond the next rise (indeed exactly which rise is it? The maps don't say). Does the fort off to the right indicate contact with a Turkish covering force or the advance guard of a reinforcing division? To gain a victory it may be necessary to risk the existence of the beach-head itself, and of your entire command. Putting this into a game, where information is all to easy for the players to come by, will not be a simple task. Back to Wargame Design Vol. 1 Nr. 3 Table of Contents Back to Wargame Design List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1979 by Operational Studies Group. 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