The Wargaming Pioneers

During a break from helping my wife to sort out her father's affairs and selling my father's house I managed to read the latest addition to John Curry's History of Wargaming Project, THE WARGAMING PIONEERS INCLUDING LITTLE WARS BY H.G.WELLS, THE WAR GAME FOR BOY SCOUTS AND THE WAR GAME BY CAPTAIN SACHS 1898 - 1940: EARLY WARGAMES VOL. 1.

That may seem like a very long title, but the book contains so much of interest that anything shorter would not do the contents justice!

The one thing that struck me as I read through the book (and I came to this conclusion before reading Arthur Harman's excellent appendix to the book in which he compares the various rules contained therein) was the fact that H G Wells' LITTLE WARS was not the first book of wargames rules but that it was probably the most well known in a series of sets of rules that were published in and around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. LITTLE WARS is the antecedent of the LIDDELL HART WAR GAME (1935) and CAPTAIN SACHS’ WAR GAME (1940) but it also appears to be the descendant of THE GREAT WAR GAME (1908).

Of particular interest to me was the inclusion of:

• THE WAR GAME FOR BOY SCOUTS (1910) because of it is a more strategic/grand tactical game than the others,
• SHAMBATTLE (1929) because of some of its very interesting game mechanisms, and
• MECHANIX ARTILLERY DUEL (1932) because it features exploding ships, forts, and tanks (!) and appears to be a version of the classic game of BATTLESHIPS but with actual guns being fired over a screen at unseen targets.

I thoroughly recommend this book to any wargamer with an interest in the history of their hobby, and in particular to anyone who has an interest in both H G Wells’ LITTLE WARS (the book contains the full text of the original version) and its most recent development, FUNNY LITTLE WARS by Paul Wright.

PS. I do get a passing mention in the book – and took the cover photograph as well – but I would have recommended it anyway!