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October 19

Fun with miniatures

Does any 1st world or 2nd world power's military still war game in a similar style to "Operation Sea Lion" at Sandhurst in 1974? Or is war gaming just a fun way to spend (several) rainy afternoons? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 11:16, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See military exercise and military simulation. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is getting more towards computer simulation but some models can always be helpful. The problem I have with it all is that it doesn't consider the advantages of a bit of politics instead and it doesn't consider the consequences so the eventual situation may well be described by the good old military term FUBAR even if the battle or war is won. Dmcq (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The doyen of historical wargaming at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst was one Paddy Griffith. He published A book of Sandhurst wargames in 1982. Kaiserschlacht 1918: The Final German Offensive by Randal Gray (p.92) mentions a 1981 "megagame" at Sandhurst in which more than 30 people played the role of Sir Hubert Gough's 5th Army HQ during Operation Michael in 1918. I also found some records of other historical megagames played at Sandhurst, such as this re-run of Operation Market Garden held in 1993 with 128 players. I would imagine that gaming historical battles continues, bearing in mind that Norman Schwarzkopf's success in the Gulf War was claimed by him to be based on the Battle of Cannae. Alansplodge (talk) 16:44, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wargaming is certainly alive and well. As a LARPer, I fairly frequently see posts on community messageboards asking for people to come and play civilians. MChesterMC (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]