Which Current Games Portray It Best?

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Permalink Reply by David Allen on October 22, 2008 at 4:14pm

Well, I think Frontline General holds promise but I haven't gotten too far into reading the rules. Other than FG, I think the Piquet series provides the raw mechanisms for adapting maneuver warfare to games. Sadly it has never been terribly popular, mostly because not everyone is looking for a more realistic simulation of warfare (these are games, after all). Piquet does publish a campaign game supplement which I own but haven't had much time to study. I believe it using the Piquet campaign rules along with tactical resolution using the standard rules for the period would be a winner. Very complex, however, and not everyone's cup of tea.

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Permalink Reply by David Allen on October 22, 2008 at 5:30pm

I'm not sure this qualifies as current, but The Gamers produced a line of games including Guderian's Blitzkreig that required players to push supplies up front (e.g. POL) and prevented them from attacking if they failed to do so, or if the enemy managed to capture or destroy the supplies.

I think that is a "qualification" of a game that models maneuver warfare -- the opportunity at least to target or threaten an opponent's non-combat infrastructure, such as C3, supply, even vital strategic resources (oil fields, cities, etc.) so that it forces the hand of the opponent instead of just banging the hardware together.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Severns on October 22, 2008 at 9:40pm

One of the better sims of MW (IMHO) is NATO Division Commander (warts and all).

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Permalink Reply by David Allen on October 22, 2008 at 5:33pm

Again, I would NEVER claim that a consim that does not provide game mechanics to model maneuver warfare is inferior to one that does. Games are games, and not all of them need to attempt to be accurate models of actual warfare. I love games like Flames of War, Conflict of Heroes, ASL, Wings of War, the World at War series, etc. whether they are "accurate" simulations or not.

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Permalink Reply by David Allen on October 22, 2008 at 5:36pm

I should mention that the campaign games in the Down in Flames series offer players the chance to make operational decisions that affect the tactical game, albeit in the relatively narrow scope of air warfare, and in a very abstract way. Terrific fun, though!

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Permalink Reply by John Bobek on October 22, 2008 at 8:55pm

Any decent miniatures rules would qualify because the tabletop maneuver is determined more by table space to troops (and their scale) fielded than any other factor. The game judge sets up the scenario that sets the tone. If you're using strategic movement, such as a boardgame and its counters with combat with miniatures, then it's really a moot question.
The biggest irony is that even in the age of blitzkrieg, armies typically cover only 20 miles a day, and less if there's heavy resistance. This has a lot to do with resupply, vehicle maintenance, and physical exhaustion. That's the same pace Napoleon's armies advanced. When opposed, that advance, mechanized or not, can be measured in meters per day! So much for maneuver then!

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Permalink Reply by Jim Werbaneth on October 25, 2008 at 10:14am

Operationally, one game that showed a lot of potential, in my opinion, is Avalon Hill's Tac Air. There is integration of air and land assets, and one of the best portrayals of rear-area units, both as assets and targets for the other guys, in wargaming. Despite a rules format that I still find turgid and better for reference than original apprehension, the game is very playable too.

On the down side, the bigger the scenario, the great the congestion, and the less room for maneuver. Also, players should consider playing it with the optional and additional units later provided in The General, for updated OOB's and greater all-around realism.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Franklin on November 9, 2008 at 1:06pm

The first game that felt like Maneuver Warfare applied and not mass chaos of high mobility (like SPI's Quadrigames and Panzer Armee Afrika) was Rhino Games' Campaign to Stalingrad. In this game the movement allowance was low as you never have enough supply to spread around. You could see the pocket forming in the center of the map over a number of game turns with panzers on the flank. Another game where maneuver warfare is very evident is the upcoming (P500 on GMT) is Mark Simonitch's June '44. I played the Allies against the designer using VASSAL and you must keep your divisions together for maximum attacks and adding other divisions don't help as much.

Most wargames do not punish the players for crossing routes of supply or routes of march. Traffic control was an art.

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Permalink Reply by Smitty on November 20, 2008 at 9:45pm

Having had to practice traffic control in real life as a BDE S4 I agree - and that's easy. IThat was a question I asked of the loggies about the attack on Baghdad.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Werbaneth on November 20, 2008 at 9:42pm

In the computer game sphere, you might want to check out Conquest of the Aegean, from Matrix Games. If you read the documentation, you'll see an explicit commitment to maneuver warfare, invoking the OODA Loop, orders delays, and differences in command and control to allow a side to win by getting inside the other side's decision cycle. Definitely worth a look.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Compton on November 21, 2008 at 7:21am

Really glad to see these concepts being incorporated into wargame design someplace. I think that board wargaming's inability to model maneuver warfare explicitly largely shows the limitations of a purely historical approach to design. There's a lot of folks out there who are aware of this stuff, but few of them seem to be designing board wargames.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Werbaneth on November 21, 2008 at 10:13am

This is the first time that I've seen maneuver warfare explicitly mentioned as a design concept. One could argue that it's been there before, though largely by accident, in games that give one side or the other an advantage in determining initiative, or by giving a side the change to do more, and more quickly, than the other. Avalon Hill's Firepower is a case in point, in which a side could get an initiative advantage by getting more chits in the cup, or another qualitative advantage by being empowered to activate more units with a chit than the opponent. But that seems more like an accidental nod to maneuver warfare than an explicit attempt to introduce it.

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