Not feeling up to wargaming these days?

[CeeWee]

Hi Forum,

I am from Europe - i know many wars have been going on recently - and still are. I say recently...always actually. All centuries and...WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East...never ending stories. Added to that the wars on terrorism. Sad...

Sad yes...but it never affected my the way that the current war in Ukraine does.

While I have been playing MANY WW2 games of all sorts and sizes, Medieval War games...RTS, Turn-based...name it...

...Last 2 weeks I have felt nothing like even starting a new war game...I think the "romantic" angle to war is now definitively over for us in Europe. The almost 80 years of peace in Europe was a comfort we never knew how delicate...

Anyone else feel the same?

[Erik Rutins]

War is Hell.

However, I think the study of war is extremely valuable and a broad knowledge of history and military history would be a good thing in terms of helping avoid future wars. I see wargaming as part of that, it's not the glorification of war, it's the study of strategy and tactics and the context as well as the reality. I would expect most military historians and wargamers understand better than the average person that war is not something anyone should want.

Regards,

- Erik

[Zovs]

War is Hell.

However, I think the study of war is extremely valuable and a broad knowledge of history and military history would be a good thing in terms of helping avoid future wars. I see wargaming as part of that, it's not the glorification of war, it's the study of strategy and tactics and the context as well as the reality. I would expect most military historians and wargamers understand better than the average person that war is not something anyone should want.

Regards,

- Erik

Extremely well said and I totally agree.

I have been studying history and playing war games since 1978. I also served and fought in a war as a combat soldier so I know the cost. Studying history by reading or by examining history through the lens of a war game I still find interesting and educational. It’s not about glorifying war at all.

[CeeWee]

I think you are both right, and the strategy and tactics are intriguing to understanding and learn. History has given us a lot of insights and interesting angles.

What we usually miss in our equation while gaming are the civilian victims. These are apparent in the news these days - making strategies and tactics seem cold and inhuman.

You are right coming from a subject matter perspective - my loss of joy in playing war games (well just these past weeks so far) has a lot to do with my recognition of the civilian pains that go with war.

But I am a wargamer - tried to tweak HOI4 into EU/NATO vs Russia/China...it does not feel good.

[deMangler]

Quality wargaming and being interested enough to follow the historical curiosity that can inspire, I have found invaluable in helping to deal with the way the world is going.
Without that, I see so many people having to integrate this huge thing that they feel affects them and their family so massively, but all they have to rely on is the informational collateral munitions of propaganda and the click-bait attention economy, with at best no context whatsoever, at worse a context that is just... I dunno.

I was chatting to someone about how the latest global conflicts may be going and although I am a layman, simply having played historical wargames over the years, from tabletop ASL to EU4 to fictional ones like Shadow Empire, I felt so lucky to have been able to benefit from the added richness that being exposed to the effort the creators of those games made, to make them meaningful. Just knowing that the logistical reality of war is nothing like how it is portrayed in the media is a great defense against misinformation if nothing else.
The people I chat to who are not wargamers or who have not studied the philosophy and history of human conflict are really swimming in nonsense that is not good to see. Ho hum, that is the world and that is not new I guess.

However, Actually I feel more up to quality wargaming and encouraging others to take an interest.

Edit to add.
There was a politician and member of the British government called Tony Benn, and he was a diarist and also recorded his diaries - they are available as audio-books, and probably freely available somewhere. they cover from WW2 to almost the present day.
I have been listening to them lately, and it is really a help to realise that none of this is really new, hindsight is not 20/20 - far from it, but hearing the voice of educated thinking people who have had to to deal with huge conflict with partial information is quite refreshing, and the voice of one who cared so deeply about the experiences of ordinary people who are just trying to live their lives. This helps me also.

[Gilmer]

War is Hell.

However, I think the study of war is extremely valuable and a broad knowledge of history and military history would be a good thing in terms of helping avoid future wars. I see wargaming as part of that, it's not the glorification of war, it's the study of strategy and tactics and the context as well as the reality. I would expect most military historians and wargamers understand better than the average person that war is not something anyone should want.

Regards,

- Erik

I consider it to be an exercise of the mind and that is where it should stay. I sometimes think "We're just moving particles around on a computer display, so all computer games are basically the same thing whether they be strategy games, war games. FPS, action type games, etc. We're all just trying to get to that 000111000 that says 'You won!'"

And I also agree very much with that last sentence. When I was younger, I was "Rah! Rah! Rah!" But as I studied history of wars and conflicts in general, and also played wargames, I realized there's nothing to "Rah! Rah!" about any of it. But, I haven't lost my interest. It's just more refined.

[gamer78]

I think wargaming as well as geography knowledge crucial in any kind of education. Past should be about numbers and facts. There may be times newly elected party going for false revisionism about history and the nation. It is dangerous.

[Kuokkanen]

The almost 80 years of peace in Europe was a comfort we never knew how delicate...

Anyone else feel the same?

I don't. I still remember some of the news about Yugoslavia & Milosevic. Like NATO bombing a refugee convoy by mistake and some photos/videos of the aftermath (equivalent incidents by Milosevic's forces weren't accidents).

[TulliusDetritus]

Sad yes...but it never affected my the way that the current war in Ukraine does.

Anyone else feel the same?

I guess we ALL are scared. And we should, that's the normal behaviour imo.

re wargames I approach them as a "scientific, historical" problem. War porn has nothing to do with it though. Eugene Sledge clearly defined the "porn" in his book (the part dealing with the assault on Peleliu). A constant smell of excrement and rotten corpses. That's the real war for the frontline soldier.

I'm merely interested about the "scientific and historical" part, trying to simulate x conflict. Maybe there's something wrong in our wargamers' heads, I won't deny it, but eh, it's how it is... but the truth is we're not hurting anybody.

P.S: some of my WhatsApp contacts have sent me gory stuff, and that's a red line to me. Accidents or now the war. I simply politely say: "please, DO NOT send me this sort of stuff". And they stop. I don't understand how some people can watch this "porn"...

P.P.S.: I'm playing, by the way

[OldSarge]

I think that Erik nailed it with his response. The study of military history and learning the lessons of the past are vital if we're to avoid mistakes in the future. It provides us a structure to understand the past decisions and events that have led us here.

The current situation is a case in point of the value of military history, where we would do well to remember the hard won lesson of the past twenty years: wars are very easy to get into and quite difficult to get out of once involved.

Regards

[altipueri]

"
I guess we ALL are scared. And we should, that's the normal behaviour imo. "


Why?

The brave die once; the scared a thousand times.

------------

What? An elephant in the room? Where?

-----

Safely posted a thousand miles away from the nastiness.

[gamer78]

.

[StormingKiwi]

War is Hell.

There's an episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye points out that at least in hell, everyone there deserves to be there. There are no innocents in hell.

[BBfanboy]

The almost 80 years of peace in Europe was a comfort we never knew how delicate...

Anyone else feel the same?

I don't. I still remember some of the news about Yugoslavia & Milosevic. Like NATO bombing a refugee convoy by mistake and some photos/videos of the aftermath (equivalent incidents by Milosevic's forces weren't accidents).

Well said during Yugoslav civil War whole team is banned. Prekazi have said Yugoslavia banned very quickly form whole competition Denmark won the the football championship.

I can't say I understand the equivalence of the horrors of war with the banning of a sports team - which I consider mere entertainment news. Our sense of ourselves (egos) should never be anchored on performance of another group of people.

[ernieschwitz]

"
I guess we ALL are scared. And we should, that's the normal behaviour imo. "


Why?

The brave die once; the scared a thousand times.

------------

What? An elephant in the room? Where?

-----

Safely posted a thousand miles away from the nastiness.

Because... you are not safe, when the warring party has nukes on missiles.

[TulliusDetritus]

Safely posted a thousand miles away from the nastiness.

Because... you are not safe, when the warring party has nukes on missiles.

Oh, he might be hailing from a remote wooded area and the ICBMs might spare him. Not sure the zombified hordes marauding the end of the world wastelands will allow him to peacefully munch on his salted biscuits and sip his old scotch. Looks like a hell of an adventure though.

The Purge™ nuclear edition

[altipueri]

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon,
Like snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two - is gone

---
And so, like Sultan after Sultan with their pomp, Putin too will one day be gone.
====

By coincidence I was reading Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes the other day and it has a few bits about Russian character:

"but Russian natures have a singular power of resistance against the unfair strains of life"

and..

"the callousness of a stern revolutionist, the insensibilty to common emotions of a man devoted to a destructive idea."

It was written in about 1910.

[pzgndr]

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Carry on...

[altipueri]

I've got your EIA - but still haven't played it.

Do you think an Elba or St Helena awaits the mirror of the past?

[gamer78]

.