Wargames from World War II

When I got back from my recent cruise, a package containing a book was awaiting me ... but this was no run-of-the-mill book, it was the latest published by John Curry's The 'History of Wargaming' Project and was entitled WARGAMES FROM WORLD WAR II: EXAMPLES OF AXIS AND ALLIED WARGAMING RULES AND UMPIRE GUIDELINES FOR TACTICAL ACTIONS.

That is some title ... and as you will read, it is some book!

Now it is very rare that I open a book, look at the contents page, and go 'Wow!' out loud ... but I did when I opened this book. Not only that, but I kept having that reaction the more and more I read. This is a genuine tour de force and is the result of very detailed and comprehensive research into an area of wargaming history that has been greatly ignored up until now. Not only that, but it is chock full of information anyone who likes to think of themselves as a serious wargamer will find useful.

A simple examination of the contents page will give some idea as to why I reacted in the way that I did.

Please click on the above to see a larger image of the contents page of this book.

I think that most wargamers are aware that the Germans conducted a large number of operational and lower level wargames during World War II, and if one watches the film THE LONGEST DAY, the staging of a high-level wargame is featured in passing as many senior German commanders in Normandy were either in or scheduled to be in Rheims for a wargame on the day that Operation Overlord /D-Day took place.

Less well-known is the fact that the Russians also wargamed quite extensively, and it was his performance in pre-1941 wargames that brought Georgy Zhukov to the attention of the senior leadership (i.e. Stalin) of the Soviet Union.

The Japanese Navy's wargame about the attack on Midway is another example of an operational-level wargame that is probably know about by most wargamers, and the intervention of the officer overseeing the wargame – Admiral Ugaki* – to disallow the result when two of the Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk by air attack is often cited as an example of a bad wargame and atrocious umpiring. Of course, the truth of the matter is that the air attack in the wargame was made by land-based B-17 Flying Fortress level bombers flying at high altitude, and as even a casual study of the effectiveness of such bombing against stationary – let alone moving – targets shows, the likelihood of this happening was exceedingly small. Had the attack been made by dive bombers, then disallowing the result would have been wrong ... but this is not what happened in the wargame.

In recent years, the work of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) in the use of wargames to both teach naval officers better anti-submarine tactics as well as to develop those tactics in the light of changing tactics and weapons used by the U-boats, has come to great prominence ... but as this book shows, the use of wargaming by the Allies was extensive. In fact, it was more extensive that its use by the Axis powers, and that will come as a revelation to many students of the history and development of professional wargaming.

Even a casual reader of this blog post will realise that I think that this is a ground-breaking addition to the study of wargaming, and if John Curry did not already have a Doctorate, this would have achieved him one!

In my opinion, this book should be on the reading list of anyone who is or aspires to be a professional wargamer. For one thing, it should enable them to avoid reinventing the wargaming wheel!

(It happens to be one of my bugbears that so often people with little or no knowledge or understanding of what has already been done 'discover' something new, only to find out that it isn't new or revolutionary but has been around for many years.)

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WARGAMES FROM WORLD WAR II: EXAMPLES OF AXIS AND ALLIED WARGAMING RULES AND UMPIRE GUIDELINES FOR TACTICAL ACTIONS was written by Dr John Curry and published in 2023 by The 'History of Wargaming' Project (ISBN 979 8 8723 2804 9).

It is currently on sale on Amazon for £19.95 in hardback, £17.95 in paperback, and £9.99 in Kindle formats or can be bought direct from The 'History of Wargaming' Project. In my opinion, it is worth every penny it costs whichever format you choose to buy!

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* It is of passing interest to note that Admiral Ugaki died on 15th August 1945 in one of the last Kamikaze attacks of the war. This took place after Emperor Hirohito had announced on the radio that he had conceded defeat and called upon all members of the Japanese military to lay down their arms and surrender.