Unremarked anniversary

Even by me, but yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the end of ground operations during Desert Storm -- an anniversary little mentioned in the media. One suspects that the ongoing morass that ensued after we did go on to Baghdad has something to do with that.

That said, it is hard to imagine that 20 years have gone by. As it turned out, I missed Round 1 of the Iraq contests because my National Guard unit was not called up for duty -- there being plenty of regular troops available in that immediate post-Cold War world to easily handle the contingency. In contrast I ended up being called out tothe IRR to serve in Round 2 because the military was so short of field grade officers that someone like me was needed! What a difference a decade makes.

The First Iraq War was notable for the quick response of wargame companies to the unfolding situation. Strategy & Tactics rushed out Arabian Nightmare before the fighting even commenced, while even stodgy old Avalon Hill updated its Gulf Strike (under the Victory Games brand) with exampsions that covered the unfolding situation. I remember at the time testing out the situation using both games soliatire -- and each, while using very different systems, made it clear that the only question was WHEN, not IF, Iraq was going to be ejected from Kuwait. Other games, such as Omega Games Desert Victory, made it clear on the tactical level that the Iraqis were out of their depth. As it turned out, no game was able to capture the full extent of the impending Iraqi rout, largely because it was off the charts and anything that reflected the reality would have been deemed "unrealistic."

Even the post-war Desert Storm published in Command Magazine (cover above) had to have special "Historical" rules to reflect the actual event while presenting as a standard game a more credible Iraqi opponent. It didn't help. While a perfectly good wargame, Desert Storm wasn't too popular.

There were a few games published before Round Two as well, notably Back to Iraq (Thre editions in Command and S&T) and Millennium Wars: Iraq and at least one right after the fighting (Iraqi Freedom in Armchair General) but none of them dealt with anything past the intiial fighting. This, of course, turned out to be a major oversight because the period AFTER the conventional phase turned out to be the critical one. It's too bad that on one thought to ask those questions at the time because it might have provided a cautionary tale when it was really needed.

Current wars engender surprisingly little wargame attention

One of the surprising things to me about the current state of the wargame hobby is the lack of attention to current contingencies.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s during the peak of the wargame hobby back then there was no shortage of games that dealt with actual contemporary military actions or the recent past. One of the early S&T games was Grunt, which depicted Vietnam combat even as fighting was still going on. Year of the Rat came out just a few months after the 1972 campaign it depicts. At least one Arab-Israeli wargame had to be redesigned because the 1973 war broke out just before publication. Test of Arms was published while some of its campaigns were still in the news. And, of course, the whole NATO vs. Warsaw Pact was an unending source of games until 1990. Even the first Gulf War prompted a batch of real-time depiction and immediate post-war titles.

In contrast, despite the fact that we're currently fighting TWO wars, there's very little to show for it. The initial march on Baghdad phase generated a little bit of action, such as Back to Iraq, but almost nothing since. Likewise the Afghanistan fighting hasn't provoked much in the way of wargame design, not even at the skirmish or tactical level. Where's the Grunt! for 2009?

Arabian Nightmare remembered

It's really a sign of how old I'm getting that it occurred to me today that our newest eligible voters this fall were born after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that was the first act in the first Gulf War.

It seems like just yesterday that the Berlin Wall fell, communism collapsed and Saddam Hussein displayed his trademark appalling sense of timing by invading oil-rich Kuwait just as the U.S. was looking for someplace to use its Reagan-buildup-honed Cold War army before paying it off as part of the "Peace Dividend." But it wasn't yesterday, of course, it was 18 years ago this summer.

There are a lot of remarkable aspects to that episode of history, but among them it was the "golden era" of paper wargaming's public influence. Frank Chadwick's Desert Shield Fact Book was on the New York Times' best seller list. Wargame designer and military analyst Jim Dunnigan was a regular on CNN. Other game designers/analysts also appeared on TV and on op ed pages of major newspapers. Wargame publishers rushed a number of games into print to take advantage of the moment, among them Avalon Hill/Victory Games with their updates to Gulf Strike, Omega Games' Desert Victory and TSR's A Line in the Sand.

Perhaps the most notable, however, was Strategy & Tactics and its Arabian Nightmare in issue No. 139. It was literally thrown together on the fly, under the direction of Dunnigan (in his second go-around as S&T editor) and designed by Austin Bay with assists from a nationwide circle of playtesters and experts. The whole thing was coordinated by emails, which might seem rather unremarkable now, but this was quite ground-breaking in 1990.

The end result was not a polished commercial product and competitive wargame, but more like a wargame kit that allowed the general public to get a first-hand look at the military possibilities. This was no small achievement, given the garbage that passed for commentary in newspapers, news magazines and, especially, television. There were plenty of alarmist voices grinding their various political axes with scant regard for the military realities. Pundits predicted tens of thousands of American casualties in a bloodbath against the "battle-hardened" and well-fortified Iraqi army. Indeed, Saddam himself seemed to believe the hype. Had he understood the actual balance of forces he might have saved himself from starting the long sequence of events that led to today's situation in Iraq by arranging for a face-saving exit.

Arabian Nightmare did a very credible job of presenting the likely course of events. A friend and I played out the first few days of the war and according to the game an air campaign would reduce the Iraqi army to impotence in short order and even if it didn't, the Coalition ground forces would run right over them.

It's mostly of interest now as a historical artifact, although it could be used to explore what-ifs about the campaign easily enough. It probably could even be used to look at the 2003 war, although I haven't tried that.

Unfortunately the run-up for the 2003 war didn't enjoy as much attention from wargame designers as it probably should have, although there were some efforts such as Back to Iraq in Command and S&T and Millennium Wars: Iraq. Maybe this was because the war seemed like another forgone conclusion. Certainly the public debate over the war didn't seem well-informed. In particular, there was very little attention given to the question of "what next?" Both Back to Iraq and MW: Iraq only concerned themselves with the first few weeks of fighting, although they did correctly predict the historical outcome.

Ironically, the earlier Gulf War games like Arabian Nightmare, A Line in the Sand and Gulf Strike paid more attention to the political ramifications of that war than any of the more recent games did.

Indeed, despite more than a year of speculation about a possible war with Iran, no wargame designer has tackled that topic in the detail it deserves. An updated Gulf Strike-like treatment of the issue would be quite illuminating. I know that my own wariness about launching a war against Iran is based in part on my memories of how challenging invading that country was for the much more numerous Soviets in the original Gulf Strike. I simply can't see it as doable with the force levels the U.S. could apply.

It would be a public service if one of our knowledgable modern specialists like Joe Miranda or Joe Balkoski would take a swing at the topic.

Gulf Strike 25 years later

Gulf Strike is one of the more remarkable simulations to come out of Victory Games. It ended up coming far more true than nearly any other "what-if" game ever published.
When first published, in 1983, the game concentrated on the potential for a Soviet invasion of Iran and the reaction of the U.S. Rapid Deployment force.
No Soviet invasion of Iran ever came, but there was an Iraqi invasion of Iran, which resulted in a long and bloody war, as well as a low-level "Tanker War" in the Persian Gulf. These ended up being the topic of a 1988 second edition of Gulf Strike with a new scenario and more counters.
No sooner had that war ended than Saddam Hussein's legions invaded Kuwait. Avalon Hill/Victory Games rushed out another updated edition of Gulf Strike that added a new scenario covering the new war, more counters and more maps.
Finally, in The Avalon Hill General, literally has the first bombs started to fall, a final updated expansion with still more counters and a map were published.
I solitaired that "scenario" in real time and the game quite accurately predicted the fact that the Iraqis would be kicked out of Kuwait decisively.
The game itself is highly involved in the style of your typical hard-core simulation wargame. It involves multiple phases, a lot of procedures and quite a few die rolls and charts.
Each game turn, which represents two days of combat, starts with a "Strategic Stage." This quick phases involves resolving any political random events and adding reinforcements.
The second part of the turn is a "Unit Assignment Stage." During this part of the turn units are assigned various "modes" which can affect their ability to perform actions later in the turn. For example, air units can be assigned either "offensive" or "interception" mode.
There's a short Initiative Determination Stage" which determines who will be the "Initiative Player" for the balance of the turn.
There are then three "Action Stages." During the first two the initiative player moves units and conducts combat while the reaction player can make limited counter moves. In the third action stage the reaction player takes the lead and the initiative player reacts.
To say that the game and procedures are involved is to engage in considerable understatement. The game insert includes 28 examples and tables and other times. Each action stage comprises three phases, each with two or three "segments." Each land combat unit can be in one of seven different formations. There are eight different air missions that aircraft can be given. There are eight or nine
different ratings and values on a naval or air unit counter.
Command control and logistics constrain all operations, there are rules for the detection of targets and countermeasures. There are rules for mines, Patriot missiles, stealth aircraft and just about every imaginable other aspect of modern warfare.
It's really a pity that more so-called military experts and pundits who blithely urged military strikes against Iran recently didn't take the time to play through a game or two of Gulf Strike in order to develop a better appreciation for what was possible.
One reason I was very wary of seeing military action against Iran is because playing Gulf Strike had given me an appreciation for how difficult such a campaign could be. While I never tried playing a U.S. invasion of Iran, I have played out the old Soviet invasion of Iran, and their much larger army was still insufficient for a "cake walk" through Iran. It's a very large and rugged country and the logistics alone so daunting that it's obvious only a major military involvement could possibly succeed. An investment in military resources far beyond anything proposed or politically possible.
Unfortunately Victory Games and the old Avalon Hill is gone, otherwise we may have seen a further updated edition for the second war with Iraq and the potential war with Iran, but interested players can probably adjust the game with the counters and information already provided. The U.S. military forces committed to the latest war were substantially smaller than the forces in the earlier war. It would be an interesting exercise.