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180-530: During World War I , German submarines ( U-boats ) sank merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean so as to deny supplies to Germany's enemies in Europe. Britain reacted by organizing the merchant ships into convoys which were escorted by warships armed with depth charges . This strategy proved effective at repelling U-boats . During the inter-war years, Germany secretly developed new submarine tactics to counter

360-523: A Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand , heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and declared war on 28 July. After Russia mobilised in Serbia's defence, Germany declared war on Russia and France , who had an alliance . The United Kingdom entered after Germany invaded Belgium , whose neutrality it guaranteed, and

540-592: A blue-water navy was vital for global power projection; Tirpitz had his books translated into German, while Wilhelm made them required reading for his advisors and senior military personnel. However, it was also an emotional decision, driven by Wilhelm's simultaneous admiration for the Royal Navy and desire to surpass it. Bismarck thought that the British would not interfere in Europe, as long as its maritime supremacy remained secure, but his dismissal in 1890 led to

720-592: A grenade at the Archduke's car and injured two of his aides. The other assassins were also unsuccessful. An hour later, as Ferdinand was returning from visiting the injured officers in hospital, his car took a wrong turn into a street where Gavrilo Princip was standing. He fired two pistol shots, fatally wounding Ferdinand and his wife Sophie . According to historian Zbyněk Zeman , in Vienna "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On 28 and 29 June,

900-540: A guerrilla warfare campaign and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe. Before the war, Germany had attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, a policy continued post-1914 by instigating uprisings in India , while the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition urged Afghanistan to join the war on the side of Central Powers. However, contrary to British fears of

1080-458: A bad strategist into a good one—is difficult to measure because officers use many tools to hone their decision-making skills and the effect of wargaming is difficult to isolate. In this context, wargames are used to help players understand the decision-making process of wartime command. Wargames can help players master through practice certain routine skills such as how to discuss ideas, share intel, and communicate orders. Wargames can present

1260-490: A cavalry squadron, etc.), were little rectangular blocks made of lead. The pieces were painted either red or blue to indicate the faction it belonged to. The blue pieces were used to represent the Prussian army and red was used to represent some foreign enemy—since then it has been the convention in professional wargaming to use blue to represent the faction to which the players actually belong to. The game used dice to add

1440-408: A change in policy and an Anglo-German naval arms race began. Despite the vast sums spent by Tirpitz, the launch of HMS  Dreadnought in 1906 gave the British a technological advantage. Ultimately, the race diverted huge resources into creating a German navy large enough to antagonise Britain, but not defeat it; in 1911, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg acknowledged defeat, leading to

1620-570: A degree of randomness to combat. The scale of the map was 1:8000 and the pieces were made to the same proportions as the units they represented, such that each piece occupied the same relative space on the map as the corresponding unit did on the battlefield. The game modeled the capabilities of the units realistically using data gathered by the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars and various field exercises. Reisswitz's manual provided tables that listed how far each unit type could move in

1800-613: A direct threat. The 1908–1909 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina , which it had occupied since 1878. Timed to coincide with the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, this unilateral action was denounced by the European powers, but accepted as there was no consensus on how to resolve the situation. Some historians see this as

1980-596: A famine. In March 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that Britain was fighting "the Battle of the Atlantic", and made anti-submarine warfare a top priority. The Royal Navy understood from intercepted radio transmissions that the U-boats were operating in coordinated groups but did not know the specifics of their tactics. On 1 January 1942, Admiral Cecil Usborne assigned Commander Gilbert Roberts to establish

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2160-475: A game at all! It's training for war. I shall recommend it enthusiastically to the whole army." The king decreed that every regiment should play Kriegsspiel , and by the end of the decade every regiment had purchased materials for it. By the 1850s it had become very popular in the army. Kriegsspiel was therefore the first wargame to be treated as a serious tool of training and research by a military organization. Aside from official military venues, Kriegsspiel

2340-471: A gap between the German armies as they closed on Paris. The French army, reinforced by the British expeditionary corps, seized this opportunity to counter-attack and pushed the German army 40 to 80 km back. Both armies were then so exhausted that no decisive move could be implemented, so they settled in trenches, with the vain hope of breaking through as soon as they could build local superiority. In 1911,

2520-469: A good understanding of what submarines could do. Unlike the German navy, the US Navy had no significant experience with submarine warfare. Most of the time, the players used submarines as a screening force that sailed ahead of the main formation. Players rarely used submarines in independent operations, and never to attack commercial shipping as German wargamers were doing at the time. For a few years after

2700-465: A merchant ship with a torpedo at close range, then submerge to make its escape. Roberts and his team developed the Raspberry maneuver. Upon seeing a convoy vessel being torpedoed, any escort was to fire two white rockets or Roman candles, then say the word "raspberry" over the radio to commence the maneuver. Any forward escorts maintain course, firing star shells. The escorts to the rear and flanks of

2880-548: A possibility. This was accentuated by British and Russian support for France against Germany during the 1911 Agadir Crisis . German economic and industrial strength continued to expand rapidly post-1871. Backed by Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz sought to use this growth to build an Imperial German Navy , that could compete with the British Royal Navy . This policy was based on the work of US naval author Alfred Thayer Mahan , who argued that possession of

3060-546: A professional wargame a challenge. Secrecy makes it harder to disseminate corrections if the wargame has already been delivered to the clients. Whereas a commercial wargame might have thousands or even millions of players, professional wargames tend to have small player bases, which makes it harder for the designers to acquire feedback. As a consequence, errors in wargame models tend to persist. Although commercial wargame designers take consumer trends and player feedback into account, their products are usually designed and sold with

3240-680: A regular tool of instruction there. Wargaming was brought to the Naval War College by William McCarty Little , a retired Navy lieutenant who had likely been inspired after reading The American Kriegsspiel by W.R. Livermore. Livermore was stationed nearby at Fort Adams, and he and Little cooperated to translate the ideas behind Kriegsspiel to naval warfare. After World War I, the Navy suffered severe budget cuts that prevented it from upgrading and expanding its fleet. This limited its ability to conduct naval exercises. Wargaming thus became

3420-834: A revolt in India, the outbreak of the war saw a reduction in nationalist activity. Leaders from the Indian National Congress and other groups believed support for the British war effort would hasten Indian Home Rule , a promise allegedly made explicit in 1917 by Edwin Montagu , the Secretary of State for India . In 1914, the British Indian Army was larger than the British Army itself, and between 1914 and 1918 an estimated 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and

3600-406: A ring of escort warships. They were either slow or fast convoys. The slow ones travelled at about 7 knots (13 km/h) – a speed at which tactical re-routing was not practical. U-boats usually attacked at night. The cover of darkness allowed them to travel at surface depth with less risk of being spotted by look-outs. Escort ships were equipped with star shells , which when fired in

3780-508: A round according to the terrain it was crossing and whether it was marching, running, galloping, etc.; and accordingly the umpire used a ruler to move the pieces across the map. The game used dice to determine combat results and inflicted casualties, and the casualties inflicted by firearms and artillery decreased over distance. Unlike chess pieces, units in Reisswitz's game could suffer partial losses before being defeated, which were tracked on

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3960-434: A sheet of paper (recreational gamers might call this " hitpoint tracking"). The game also had some rules that modeled morale and exhaustion. Reisswitz's game also used an umpire. The players did not directly control the pieces on the game map. Rather, they wrote orders for their virtual troops on pieces of paper, which they submitted to the umpire. The umpire then moved the pieces across the game map according to how he judged

4140-481: A ship, and escape undetected. Only one tactic worked on the game board: The U-boat snuck into the convoy from the rear, on the surface so that it could use its diesel engine to outpace the convoy. Since these attacks happened at night and the look-outs tended to focus on the front, the U-boat was not easily spotted, and once inside the convoy it was indistinguishable from the other ships on radar. The U-boat would then sink

4320-516: A significant escalation, ending any chance of Austria cooperating with Russia in the Balkans, while also damaging diplomatic relations between Serbia and Italy. Tensions increased after the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War demonstrated Ottoman weakness and led to the formation of the Balkan League , an alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro , and Greece . The League quickly overran most of

4500-410: A single U-boat attacked the convoy (unlike Pineapple which was intended for pack attacks). Along with Pineapple , it supplanted Raspberry . Upon seeing a merchant ship being torpedoed, the escort was to fire two white rockets or Roman candles and signal "banana" over the radio, then begin sweeping with sonar and radar at maximum viable speed. The rear escorts fire star shells outwards, then move into

4680-440: A take-it-or-leave-it approach. Professional wargames, by contrast, are typically commissioned by the military that plans to use them. If a wargame is commissioned by several clients, then the designer will have to juggle their competing demands. This can lead to great complexity, high development costs, and a compromised product that satisfies nobody. Commercial wargames are under more pressure to deliver an enjoyable experience for

4860-556: A vital means of testing hypothetical strategies and tactics. Another problem was that by the time America entered World War II in 1941, none of the Navy's senior officers had any meaningful combat experience because the Navy had not been involved in any war for over 20 years. However, almost all of them had participated in wargames at the Naval War College, so they had plenty of virtual combat experience. The fact that America defeated Japan in World War II despite these shortcomings,

5040-478: A war on two fronts; the Schlieffen Plan envisaged using 80% of the army to defeat France, then switching to Russia. Since this required them to move quickly, mobilization orders were issued that afternoon. Once the German ultimatum to Russia expired on the morning of 1 August, the two countries were at war. At a meeting on 29 July, the British cabinet had narrowly decided its obligations to Belgium under

5220-672: A wargaming unit at the Western Approaches Command in Liverpool , to analyze the submarine attacks and develop defensive tactics. Roberts had designed naval wargames during a two-year stint at the Portsmouth Tactical School, using them to develop new strategies and tactics. Additionally, Roberts was a gifted communicator who would be able to train commanders in the tactics he was to develop. Roberts moved to Liverpool to set up his tactical unit on

5400-402: A weak Ottoman government, rather than an ambitious Slav power like Bulgaria . Russia had ambitions in northeastern Anatolia while its clients had overlapping claims in the Balkans. These competing interests divided Russian policy-makers and added to regional instability. Austrian statesmen viewed the Balkans as essential for the continued existence of their Empire and saw Serbian expansion as

5580-455: A whole, the Somme offensive led to an estimated 420,000 British casualties, along with 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans. The diseases that emerged in the trenches were a major killer on both sides. The living conditions led to disease and infection, such as trench foot , lice , typhus , trench fever , and the ' Spanish flu '. At the start of the war, German cruisers were scattered across

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5760-613: A wolf-pack attack to be coordinated by a designated command submarine rather than a commander onshore. He also concluded that Germany needed 300 submarines to effectively destroy British shipping, and that Germany's existing submarine fleet would at most inflict "pin-pricks". After World War II, wargaming ceased in Germany, as well as in the other Axis powers. Germany didn't even have an army until 1955, so they saw little need to wargame. When West Germany established its new army in 1955, they had so few officers with wargaming experience that

5940-496: A zigzag pattern. Beta Search was a maneuver by which an escort might be able to locate a U-Boat that it had spotted shadowing a convoy. The manual for escort commanders ( Atlantic Convoy Instructions ) noted that a single escort had a poor chance of finding and destroying a U-boat, but by assuming the most likely course the U-Boat would take and searching within that vicinity, the odds of success could be raised somewhat. Beta Search

6120-852: Is a campaign or even an entire war. An example is the "Chart Maneuvers" practiced by the US Naval War College during the 1920s and 1930s, which most often simulated a hypothetical war in the Pacific against Japan. Another example is the Sigma wargames played in the 1960s to test proposed strategies for fighting the Vietnam War. Battles are resolved through simple computation. The players concern themselves with higher-level, strategic concerns such as logistics and diplomacy. In comparison to field exercises, wargames save time and money. They can be organized quickly and cheaply as they do not require

6300-581: Is a museum. The top floor, comprising eight rooms, was allocated to WATU. Most of the staff at Western Approaches HQ were women from the Women's Royal Naval Service . Colloquially, they were referred to as "Wrens". When Roberts arrived at Western Approaches in January 1942, its commander-in-chief was Admiral Percy Noble , who was replaced by Admiral Max Horton in November 1942. A total of sixty-six women from

6480-462: Is about to attack and to form a greater physical obstruction in the submarine attacking area. Upon noticing a ship getting torpedoed, any escort fires two white rockets and then says the word "pineapple" over the radio to commence the maneuver. Depth charges are to be set to ten-charge shallow pattern. The escorts keep moving forward in zigzag patterns that are 2 miles wide, searching for the U-boats using sonar, radar, and star shells. The escorts facing

6660-593: Is evidence for the value of the wargaming. After the war, Admiral Nimitz said that the wargames predicted every tactic the Japanese used except for the kamikazes (a somewhat hyperbolic assertion). The Naval War College organized two broad classes of wargames: "chart maneuvers", which were strategic-level games; and "board maneuvers", which were tactical-level games. The chart maneuvers were about fleet movements, scouting and screening operations, and supply lines. The board maneuvers simulated battles in detail, with

6840-425: Is in contrast to recreational wargames , which are designed for fun and competition. The exact definition of "wargame" varies from one writer to the next and one organization to the next. To prevent confusion, this section will establish the general definition employed by this article. Still, some professional wargamers feel that the term "game" trivializes what they see as a serious, professional tool. One of these

7020-508: Is known, however, that from 1908 to 1913, military spending by the six major European powers increased by over 50% in real terms. The years before 1914 were marked by a series of crises in the Balkans, as other powers sought to benefit from the Ottoman decline. While Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russia considered itself the protector of Serbia and other Slav states, they preferred the strategically vital Bosporus straits to be controlled by

7200-462: Is likely a development of an earlier maneuver known as Buttercup , which was developed by Frederic J. Walker, an escort commander. Buttercup was criticized by the Admiralty for not having all the escorts sweep for the U-boat in all directions. In Buttercup , the escorts would only sweep to the side of the convoy where the attack was thought to have come from, which meant the U-boat could escape if

7380-489: Is not a specific flaw. Another issue that can produce "wrong" predictions is that a commander may do things differently in the field precisely because he was dissatisfied with the decisions he made in the wargames. Wargames are a cost-effective way of giving officers the experience (or something resembling experience) of making decisions as a leader in an armed conflict. This is the oldest application of wargaming. The actual effectiveness of wargaming in this regard—turning

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7560-493: Is paramount. In a tactical-level wargame, the scope of the simulated conflict is a single battle. Kriegsspiel , the original professional wargame, is an example of a tactical-level wargame. The wargames of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (see below) were also tactical-level, simulating submarine attacks on a merchant convoy. In a strategic-level wargame, the scope of the simulated conflict

7740-399: Is substantial historical evidence to support this particular assertion). For instance: In the 1920s, American military planners believed that America could win a war with Japan quickly by simply sailing an armada across the Pacific and knocking out the Japanese navy in a few decisive battles. But when this strategy was tested in wargames, it routinely failed. Japan held off the assault until

7920-443: Is that as it gets better at fighting the enemy, the enemy will adapt in turn, modifying their own armaments and tactics to maintain their edge. Live exercises have a similar weakness as the enemy can spy on them to learn what is being tested. But wargames can be done in good secrecy, so the enemy cannot know what ideas are being developed. Wargames can help a military determine what armaments and infrastructure it should acquire (there

8100-574: The Schutzkorps was established, and carried out the persecution of Serbs. The assassination initiated the July Crisis, a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain. Believing that Serbian intelligence helped organise Franz Ferdinand's murder, Austrian officials wanted to use the opportunity to end their interference in Bosnia and saw war as

8280-641: The World War . In August 1914, the magazine The Independent wrote "This is the Great War. It names itself". In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's similarly wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War." Contemporary Europeans also referred to it as " the war to end war " and it was also described as "the war to end all wars" due to their perception of its unparalleled scale, devastation, and loss of life. The first recorded use of

8460-640: The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of New Britain , then part of German New Guinea . On 28 October, the German cruiser SMS  Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang . Japan declared war on Germany before seizing territories in the Pacific, which later became the South Seas Mandate , as well as German Treaty ports on

8640-721: The Rüstungswende or 'armaments turning point', when he switched expenditure from the navy to the army. This decision was not driven by a reduction in political tensions but by German concern over Russia's quick recovery from its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and subsequent 1905 Russian Revolution . Economic reforms led to a significant post-1908 expansion of railways and transportation infrastructure, particularly in its western border regions. Since Germany and Austria-Hungary relied on faster mobilisation to compensate for their numerical inferiority compared to Russia,

8820-828: The United States entered the war on the Allied side following Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against Atlantic shipping. Later that year, the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution , and Soviet Russia signed an armistice with the Central Powers in December, followed by a separate peace in March 1918. That month, Germany launched an offensive in

9000-412: The Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) served at WATU from 1942 to 1945. Gilbert Roberts was first introduced to wargaming during a stint at the Portsmouth Tactical School from 1935 to 1937. Roberts took to wargaming with great enthusiasm, and developed his own rulesets. Roberts' wargames were based on the wargames developed by Fred T. Jane in 1898 ( Jane Naval Wargame and Fighting Ships ). Despite

9180-487: The hydrophone and depth charges were introduced, destroyers could potentially successfully attack a submerged submarine. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled; the solution was an extensive program of building new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys. The U-boats sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at

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9360-821: The tank . After the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, Allied and German forces unsuccessfully tried to outflank each other, a series of manoeuvres later known as the " Race to the Sea ". By the end of 1914, the opposing forces confronted each other along an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from the Channel to the Swiss border. Since the Germans were normally able to choose where to stand, they generally held

9540-588: The 1839 Treaty of London did not require it to oppose a German invasion with military force; however, Prime Minister Asquith and his senior Cabinet ministers were already committed to supporting France, the Royal Navy had been mobilised, and public opinion was strongly in favour of intervention. On 31 July, Britain sent notes to Germany and France, asking them to respect Belgian neutrality; France pledged to do so, but Germany did not reply. Aware of German plans to attack through Belgium, French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre asked his government for permission to cross

9720-563: The 1879 Dual Alliance , which became the Triple Alliance when Italy joined in 1882. For Bismarck, the purpose of these agreements was to isolate France by ensuring the three Empires resolve any disputes between themselves. In 1887, Bismarck set up the Reinsurance Treaty , a secret agreement between Germany and Russia to remain neutral if either were attacked by France or Austria-Hungary. For Bismarck, peace with Russia

9900-441: The 1913 Treaty of London , which had created an independent Albania while enlarging the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, disputes between the victors sparked the 33-day Second Balkan War , when Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913; it was defeated, losing most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Southern Dobruja to Romania. The result was that even countries which benefited from

10080-565: The American armada exhausted itself, and then counter-attacked. The wargames foretold that a war with Japan would instead be a prolonged war of attrition, and America would need advance bases in the western Pacific where its warships could get resupplied and repaired. Such an infrastructure would require making alliances with friendly countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and the British Empire. Wargames can also be used to develop

10260-569: The Austrians and Serbs clashed at the battles of the Cer and Kolubara ; over the next two weeks, Austrian attacks were repulsed with heavy losses. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening their efforts against Russia. Serbia's victory against Austria-Hungary in the 1914 invasion has been called one of the major upset victories of the twentieth century. In 1915,

10440-593: The Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital, Belgrade . A Serbian counter-attack in the Battle of Kolubara succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For the first 10 months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join the attack on Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia , Croatia and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia. Bulgaria declared war on Serbia on 14 October 1915 and joined in

10620-553: The Balkan Wars, such as Serbia and Greece, felt cheated of their "rightful gains", while for Austria it demonstrated the apparent indifference with which other powers viewed their concerns, including Germany. This complex mix of resentment, nationalism and insecurity helps explain why the pre-1914 Balkans became known as the " powder keg of Europe ". On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria , heir presumptive to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria , visited Sarajevo ,

10800-467: The Battle of the Atlantic we should undoubtedly have lost the war!" What makes WATU a noteworthy episode in the history of military wargaming is that it was an early instance where wargames were used to develop solutions to problems that were occurring in an ongoing war. Up to that point, most wargames were played during peacetime to prepare officers for potential wars, and the scenarios they explored either were hypothetical or happened many years ago. This

10980-568: The Battle of the North Atlantic is highlighted in the 2022 television series 'U-Boat Wargamers', and which also emphasises how the unit's Royal Navy Wrens significantly contributed to WATU's success. Western Approaches Command was an operational command of Britain's Royal Navy , tasked with safeguarding British shipping in the Western Approaches (the seas to the west of Ireland and Britain). Initially headquartered in Plymouth , on

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11160-404: The Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The Macedonian front was at first mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916 following the costly Monastir offensive , which brought stabilisation of

11340-593: The Chinese Shandong peninsula at Tsingtao . After Vienna refused to withdraw its cruiser SMS  Kaiserin Elisabeth from Tsingtao, Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary, and the ship was sunk in November 1914. Within a few months, Allied forces had seized all German territories in the Pacific, leaving only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea. Some of the first clashes of

11520-623: The German High Seas Fleet was confined to port. German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond

11700-640: The German Army increased in size from 1908 to 1914, he changed the allocation of forces between the two wings to 70:30. He also considered Dutch neutrality essential for German trade and cancelled the incursion into the Netherlands, which meant any delays in Belgium threatened the viability of the plan. Historian Richard Holmes argues that these changes meant the right wing was not strong enough to achieve decisive success. The initial German advance in

11880-837: The German War College asked the US Air Force to provide it an officer with wargaming experience. In January 1942, the British Royal Navy established a naval tactical analysis unit called the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU), which was tasked with developing ways to counter the German submarine "wolf-packs" that were devastating shipping convoys in the Atlantic. It was based in Liverpool , directed by Captain Gilbert Roberts , and staffed mainly by young women from

12060-465: The German military used wargaming more heavily than any other in the world. By the time Germany began openly rearming in 1934, its officers already had fairly well-developed theories on what armaments to buy and what organizational reforms to implement. German wargaming at this time was restricted to tactical and operational-level play. Hitler discouraged strategic-level games, as he was confident enough in his own ability to make strategic judgments. Over

12240-439: The German navy developed the "wolf-pack" doctrine by which German submarines would attack convoys in groups to confuse and overwhelm the escorts. These ideas were tested in a combination of wargames and naval exercises. Karl Doenitz , who would later command German submarine operations during World War II , organized a series of wargames held during the winter of 1938-39, and from the results he concluded that it would be best for

12420-462: The German right wing would sweep through the Netherlands and Belgium , then swing south, encircling Paris and trapping the French army against the Swiss border. The plan's creator, Alfred von Schlieffen , head of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, estimated that this would take six weeks, after which the German army would transfer to the East and defeat the Russians. The plan was substantially modified by his successor, Helmuth von Moltke

12600-426: The Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000 to 975,000 casualties between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The Battle of the Somme was an Anglo-French offensive from July to November 1916. The opening day on 1 July 1916 was the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army , which suffered 57,500 casualties, including 19,200 dead. As

12780-422: The Germans had developed an acoustic torpedo through interrogations of captured Germans and decrypted communications. In the attack on ON 202, a frigate was hit in the rear while it was bearing down on the U-boat, something which could only have been done by a guided torpedo. The torpedo was drawn to the sound of the frigate's propeller. Roberts and his team at WATU developed a maneuver known as Step Aside , in which

12960-688: The Middle East. In all, 140,000 soldiers served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East, with 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded. The suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the British government to grant self-government to India afterward, bred disillusionment, resulting in the campaign for full independence led by Mahatma Gandhi . Pre-war military tactics that had emphasised open warfare and individual riflemen proved obsolete when confronted with conditions prevailing in 1914. Technological advances allowed

13140-579: The Napoleonic Wars—; simulating these wars realistically may be of interest to historians, but are of little use to the military. Recreational wargames may take some creative liberties with reality, such as simplifying models to make them more enjoyable, or adding fictional armaments and units such as orcs and wizards, making them of little use to officers who must fight in the real world. Military organizations are typically secretive about their current wargames, and this makes designing

13320-728: The Ottomans joined the Central Powers in November. Germany's strategy in 1914 was to quickly defeat France, then to transfer its forces to the east, but its advance was halted in September , and by the end of the year the Western Front consisted of a continuous line of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland. The Eastern Front was more dynamic, but neither side gained a decisive advantage, despite costly offensives. Italy , Bulgaria , Romania , Greece and others joined in from 1915 onward. In April 1917,

13500-613: The Ottomans' territory in the Balkans during the 1912–1913 First Balkan War , much to the surprise of outside observers. The Serbian capture of ports on the Adriatic resulted in partial Austrian mobilisation, starting on 21 November 1912, including units along the Russian border in Galicia . The Russian government decided not to mobilise in response, unprepared to precipitate a war. The Great Powers sought to re-assert control through

13680-666: The Russian Stavka agreed with the French to attack Germany within fifteen days of mobilisation, ten days before the Germans had anticipated, although it meant the two Russian armies that entered East Prussia on 17 August did so without many of their support elements. By the end of 1914, German troops held strong defensive positions inside France, controlled the bulk of France's domestic coalfields, and inflicted 230,000 more casualties than it lost itself. However, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany

13860-538: The Serbian retreat toward the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac on 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians also conquered Montenegro. The surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated to Greece. After the conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against

14040-534: The U-boat dives. When the U-boat dives, the ship rushes to the U-boat's diving position, then slows down to do a sonar search. Step Aside was intended for warships that could not go faster than 24 knots (44 km/h) and which were not equipped with Foxer decoys. Most convoy escorts were frigates and corvettes, with a maximum speed of 16 to 20 knots. 24 knots was the speed at which the T5 torpedo moved, so ships which could go faster than that (destroyers) could just outrun

14220-422: The U-boat, which will prompt the U-boat to dive. The escort then turns 20 degrees. When the escort reaches the U-boat's "furthest towards" circle, it alters course towards the position the U-boat dived, moving in a zigzag with short legs pattern. Upon passing the location where the U-boat dived, the escort drops a marker in the water, then proceeds for the same distanced zigzagging. Then it turns 90 degrees towards

14400-401: The U-boats did not stand behind the screens and had an unrestricted view of the game board. The ships and surfaced U-boats were represented on the game board by tiny wooden models. The U-boats' movement lines were drawn in green chalk, a color which contrasted poorly with the brown tint of the floor, such that when viewed from an angle, these lines were practically invisible, so the players behind

14580-411: The U-boats typically attacked convoys from outside the formation, striking ships at the perimeter. But reports from convoys in 1942 showed that U-boats were sinking ships at the center of the formation. Roberts surmised that the U-boats were somehow sneaking into the formation undetected before firing their torpedoes. Roberts and his team tested various ways by which a U-boat might sneak into a convoy, sink

14760-458: The US Navy didn't imagine getting into any sort of serious naval conflict in the Atlantic with anyone, and that it simulated wars against Britain simply because it saw the Royal Navy as its role model. A war with Japan, on the other hand, was a real concern, and as the years passed the wargames were increasingly played against ORANGE. In case of a war with Japan, the US Navy's grand strategy

14940-657: The United States, Charles Adiel Lewis Totten published Strategos, the American War Game in 1880, and William R. Livermore published The American Kriegsspiel in 1882, both heavily inspired by Prussian wargames. In 1894, the US Naval War College made wargaming a regular tool of instruction. The US Naval War College is a staff college where American officers of all ranks go to receive postgraduate training. Since 1894, wargaming has been

15120-651: The West was very successful. By the end of August, the Allied left, which included the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), was in full retreat , and the French offensive in Alsace-Lorraine was a disastrous failure, with casualties exceeding 260,000. German planning provided broad strategic instructions while allowing army commanders considerable freedom in carrying them out at the front, but von Kluck used this freedom to disobey orders, opening

15300-490: The World Wars. In World War I, submarines were a new thing and nobody knew how best to use them, and Germany developed its submarine doctrine on the go. The German navy at the time did not use wargames and tested new ideas immediately against the British. Consequently, for every incremental innovation in submarine warfare that the Germans deployed, the British quickly developed a counter-measure and kept pace, and this limited

15480-485: The Younger . Under Schlieffen, 85% of German forces in the west were assigned to the right wing, with the remainder holding along the frontier. By keeping his left-wing deliberately weak, he hoped to lure the French into an offensive into the "lost provinces" of Alsace-Lorraine , which was the strategy envisaged by their Plan XVII . However, Moltke grew concerned that the French might push too hard on his left flank and as

15660-446: The aggressor, German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg delayed the commencement of war preparations until 31 July. That afternoon, the Russian government were handed a note requiring them to "cease all war measures against Germany and Austria-Hungary" within 12 hours. A further German demand for neutrality was refused by the French who ordered general mobilization but delayed declaring war. The German General Staff had long assumed they faced

15840-432: The aid of model ships. Most of the wargames were played on the floors of lecture halls, as they needed more space than any table could provide. The two most frequently played scenarios were a war with Japan and a war with Britain. Japan was code-named ORANGE, Britain was code-named RED, and America was code-named BLUE. Neither the students nor the staff at the Naval War College expected a war with Britain. It's possible that

16020-567: The air would release a burning flare held aloft by a small parachute. This would illuminate the surface of the water, making it easy to spot a surfaced U-boat. Warships initially used solely depth charges to sink submarines. These are explosive charges on a depth sensitive fuse that were dropped into the water around the U-boat. The hydraulic shockwave produced by the explosion would seriously damage if not sink any submarine within 10 metres. Later, ahead-throwing anti-submarine weapons were also used, which had contact fuses. During World War I,

16200-481: The army. The grid forced the terrain into unnatural forms, such as rivers flowing in straight lines and bending at right angles; and only a single piece could occupy a square at a time, even if that square represented a square mile. In 1824, a Prussian army officer named Georg von Reisswitz presented to the Prussian General Staff a wargame that he and his father had developed over the years. It

16380-474: The attack by the Austro-Hungarian army under Mackensen's army of 250,000 that was already underway. Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops in total. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania . The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo . Montenegro covered

16560-664: The batteries with the diesel engine. The British were the first to equip their warships with sonar to hunt enemy submarines. They called this technology " ASDIC "; the term "sonar" was later coined by the Americans (this article will prefer the more general term "sonar" as it is more widely known). This technology sent loud pings into the water and located a submerged submarine by the echoes. The U-boats could hear these pings, of course, so they would know they were being hunted. In practice, ASDIC had an average detection range of 1,300 yards (1,200 m). ASDIC could be ineffective if there

16740-439: The battles in wargames in order to deduce how the U-boats were operating, and then devised tactics by which the escorts could defeat the U-boats. Their first product was a tactic codenamed Raspberry ( see below ). As well as devising tactics, WATU also trained naval officers in their use by having them participate in wargames. The training course lasted six days, from Monday to Saturday, and was held every week from February 1942 to

16920-543: The best way of achieving this. However, the Foreign Ministry had no solid proof of Serbian involvement. On 23   July, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, listing ten demands made intentionally unacceptable to provide an excuse for starting hostilities. Serbia ordered general mobilization on 25   July, but accepted all the terms, except for those empowering Austrian representatives to suppress "subversive elements" inside Serbia, and take part in

17100-483: The border and pre-empt such a move. To avoid violating Belgian neutrality, he was told any advance could come only after a German invasion. Instead, the French cabinet ordered its Army to withdraw 10 km behind the German frontier, to avoid provoking war. On 2 August, Germany occupied Luxembourg and exchanged fire with French units when German patrols entered French territory; on 3   August, they declared war on France and demanded free passage across Belgium, which

17280-537: The campaign saw the first use of anti-aircraft warfare after an Austrian plane was shot down with ground-to-air fire, as well as the first medical evacuation by the Serbian army. Upon mobilisation, in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan , 80% of the German Army was located on the Western Front, with the remainder acting as a screening force in the East. Rather than a direct attack across their shared frontier,

17460-649: The capital of the recently annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina . Cvjetko Popović , Gavrilo Princip , Nedeljko Čabrinović , Trifko Grabež , Vaso Čubrilović ( Bosnian Serbs ) and Muhamed Mehmedbašić (from the Bosniaks community), from the movement known as Young Bosnia , took up positions along the Archduke's motorcade route, to assassinate him. Supplied with arms by extremists within the Serbian Black Hand intelligence organisation, they hoped his death would free Bosnia from Austrian rule. Čabrinović threw

17640-439: The center was a painted grid. This grid was the game board, or "the tactical table" as the Royal Navy referred to it. The gridlines were spaced ten inches apart, representing one nautical mile . Around the grid were vertical screens of canvas that had peepholes cut into them. The players who controlled the escort ships had to stand behind the screens and could only view the game board through the peepholes. The players who controlled

17820-466: The chance of a decisive outcome, while it had failed to achieve the primary objective of avoiding a long, two-front war. As was apparent to several German leaders, this amounted to a strategic defeat; shortly after the First Battle of the Marne , Crown Prince Wilhelm told an American reporter "We have lost the war. It will go on for a long time but lost it is already." On 30 August 1914, New Zealand occupied German Samoa (now Samoa ). On 11 September,

18000-408: The convoy and begins a search pattern known as Operation Observant . In Beta Search , the escort turns towards the U-boat, but not directly towards it. The U-boat would likely react by submerging and following a course parallel to the convoy. The escort then moves towards the U-boat's predicted position along that course (this would be on a roughly 15 degree angle from the bearing on which the U-boat

18180-417: The convoy converge towards the convoy at a speed of 15 knots. One rear escort sweeps the stern of the convoy. The other escorts, upon nearing the edge of the convoy, turn around and sweep away from the convoy firing star shells for 10 to 12 minutes. Then they turn and sweep back to their starting position. While doing this, all the ships fire star shells outwards to light up the surface of the water. Raspberry

18360-405: The convoy system. The products of this research were the "wolfpack" tactics, wherein submarines would attack convoys in groups, exploiting the weaknesses of the convoy system, and new advances in submarine technology. The British, by contrast, had neglected to study submarine tactics during the inter-war years. They entered World War II assuming that the U-boats would operate much as they had during

18540-403: The convoy to sweep with sonar in a zigzag pattern. The first of these escorts to reach the wreck of the torpedoed vessel carries out Operation Observant in the area. The escorts to the flanks of the convoy sweep towards the rear of the convoy until they were abreast of the rear escorts, after which they turn around and sweep forward in a zigzag pattern. The forward escorts were to sweep forward in

18720-520: The cost of 199 submarines. World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS  Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol. Faced with Russia in the east, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses,

18900-404: The course of the war, Germany fought well at the tactical and operational level but made many bad strategic decisions. During World War 1, the British learned to protect their ships from German submarines by moving them in convoys which were escorted by submarine-hunting ships. The convoy system proved effective against German submarines, which typically operated alone. During the inter-war years,

19080-522: The creation of new independent states, including Poland , Finland , the Baltic states , Czechoslovakia , and Yugoslavia . The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace, but its failure to manage instability during the interwar period contributed to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Before World War II , the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply

19260-449: The creation of strong defensive systems largely impervious to massed infantry advances, such as barbed wire , machine guns and above all far more powerful artillery , which dominated the battlefield and made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Both sides struggled to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, technology enabled the production of new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and

19440-965: The crowds listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened." Nevertheless, the impact of the murder of the heir to the throne was significant, and has been described by historian Christopher Clark as a "9/11 effect, a terrorist event charged with historic meaning, transforming the political chemistry in Vienna". Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged subsequent anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo . Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were also organised outside Sarajevo, in other cities in Austro-Hungarian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. A further 460 Serbs were sentenced to death. A predominantly Bosniak special militia known as

19620-464: The deadly Spanish flu pandemic. The causes of World War I included the rise of Germany and decline of the Ottoman Empire , which disturbed the long-standing balance of power in Europe, as well as economic competition between nations triggered by industrialisation and imperialism . Growing tensions between the great powers and in the Balkans reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when

19800-564: The end of World War II, wargaming almost ceased in America. At the Naval War College, wargaming dropped to about 10% of its pre-war level. The Treaty of Versailles greatly restricted the size of Germany's armed forces and outright banned certain weapons such as planes, tanks, and submarines. This made it difficult if not impossible for the German military to develop their doctrines through field exercises. The Germans greatly expanded their use of wargaming to compensate, and between 1919 and 1939,

19980-469: The escort commander made the wrong call. Additionally, only the escort commander could order the maneuver, which could have caused a fatal delay. By contrast, Raspberry has all the escorts sweep the entire perimeter, and any of the escorts could order the maneuver. It was Jean Laidlaw who proposed the name Raspberry , as in " blowing a raspberry at Hitler". Raspberry was cancelled in May 1943. Pineapple

20160-641: The expansion of the French colonial empire . In 1873, Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors , which included Austria-Hungary , Russia and Germany. After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War , the League was dissolved due to Austrian concerns over the expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans , an area they considered to be of vital strategic interest. Germany and Austria-Hungary then formed

20340-399: The expected direction of the second U-boat fire star shells away from the convoy to search for the second U-boat. They were not to fire star shells into the convoy, and the escorts on the opposite side of the convoy were not to fire star shells at all — this was probably to avoid lighting up the convoy, which would have made it easy for the second U-boat to spot. Banana was intended for when

20520-400: The first time on the Western Front. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, it became one of the most feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. In February 1916, the Germans attacked French defensive positions at the Battle of Verdun , lasting until December 1916. Casualties were greater for the French, but

20700-595: The front. Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough in September 1918 in the Vardar offensive , after most German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn. The Bulgarians were defeated at the Battle of Dobro Pole , and by 25 September British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on 29 September 1918. The German high command responded by despatching troops to hold

20880-415: The game and distracts the players. If a player makes a bad decision, it should only be because of poor strategic thinking, not some forgotten rule or arithmetic error, otherwise the game will yield less reliable insights. If the wargame is computer-assisted, then sophisticated models are feasible because they can be written into the software and processed quickly by the computer. For manual wargames, simplicity

21060-542: The globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping . These were systematically hunted down by the Royal Navy, though not before causing considerable damage. One of the most successful was the SMS ; Emden , part of the German East Asia Squadron stationed at Qingdao , which seized or sank 15 merchantmen, a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Most of the squadron

21240-419: The hidden units were, and only placed their pieces on the map when he judged they came into view of the enemy. Earlier wargames had fixed victory conditions, such as occupying the enemy's fortress. By contrast, Reisswitz's wargame was open-ended. The umpire decided what the victory conditions were, if there were to be any, and they typically resembled the goals an actual army in battle might aim for. The emphasis

21420-549: The high ground, while their trenches tended to be better built; those constructed by the French and English were initially considered "temporary", only needed until an offensive would destroy the German defences. Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On 22 April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres , the Germans (violating the Hague Convention ) used chlorine gas for

21600-581: The impact of submarines in World War I. During the inter-war years, the German navy experimented extensively with new submarine tactics in wargames (in tandem with field exercises) and developed the "wolf-pack" doctrine to defeat the anti-submarine counter-measures that had been developed during World War I (notably the convoy system ). The British, by contrast, did not experiment with submarines in their own wargames because they thought that their established counter-measures were sufficient. The Germans entered

21780-470: The investigation and trial of Serbians linked to the assassination. Claiming this amounted to rejection, Austria broke off diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilisation the next day; on 28 July, they declared war on Serbia and began shelling Belgrade . Russia ordered general mobilization in support of Serbia on 30 July. Anxious to ensure backing from the SPD political opposition by presenting Russia as

21960-412: The last week of July 1945. Up to fifty officers at once took the course. WATU not only trained British officers, but also officers from other countries such as Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Poland, and Free France . In May 1943, Admiral Karl Doenitz ordered the U-boats to withdraw from the Atlantic, allowing merchant convoys to pass unmolested. By 1944, WATU's existence

22140-422: The line, but these forces were too weak to re-establish a front. Military wargaming A wargame , generally, is a type of strategy game which realistically simulates warfare. A professional wargame , specifically, is a wargame that is used by military organizations to train officers in tactical and strategic decision-making, to test new tactics and strategies, or to predict trends in future conflicts. This

22320-492: The military and the scale at which professional wargames typically play make physical models impractical. Therefore, this article will focus on conceptual models. A wargame is about decision-making, not about learning the technical capabilities of a particular weapon or vehicle. Therefore, a well-designed model will not describe something beyond what a player needs to know to make effective decisions. Players should not be burdened with cumbersome calculations, because this slows down

22500-417: The mobilization of thousands of men, their armaments, and logistics systems. Some wargames can be completed more quickly than the conflicts they simulate by compressing time. In a naval wargame, the players need not wait days for their fleets to sail across the ocean, they could just advance the time-frame to the next decision they must make. This is particularly advantageous for strategic-level games, in which

22680-465: The ocean, even to neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare. The Battle of Jutland in May/June 1916 was the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. The clash was indecisive, though the Germans inflicted more damage than they received; thereafter the bulk of

22860-544: The player how to cope with an unpredictable foe who reacts intelligently to their decisions. Wargames can also help familiarize the players with the geography of areas where they might eventually have to fight in. This was an oft-cited justification for wargaming at the US Naval War College. Wargames can be used to prepare grand strategic plans and develop doctrine with a low risk of the enemy becoming aware of these developments and adapting. A problem that any military faces when learning through hard experience (actual warfare)

23040-466: The players with intellectual challenges that they cannot receive from books or in the classroom: an enemy who reacts unpredictably and intelligently to the player's decisions, Wargames train players to evaluate situations and make decisions faster. They teach players how to discuss ideas, and the protocols for sharing intel and communicating orders. They teach the players how to cope with incomplete, delayed, incorrect, or superfluous information. They teach

23220-432: The players' armies are of equal strength to ensure fairness, but professional wargames will tailor each side's capabilities to the scenario to be investigated, and warfare in the real world is rarely fair. As professional wargames are used to prepare officers for actual warfare, there is naturally a strong emphasis on realism and current events. Historical wargames are wargames set in the distant past, such as World War II or

23400-412: The players, who expect a user-friendly interface, a reasonable learning curve, exciting gameplay, and so forth. By contrast, military organizations tend to see wargaming as a tool and a chore, and players are often bluntly obliged to use whatever is provided to them. The term "model" can mean two things in wargaming. One is the conceptual models that describe the properties, capabilities, and behaviors of

23580-403: The point of a professional wargame is education, not competition. Having simple, loose rules also keeps the learning curve small, which is convenient since most officers have little or no wargaming experience. Likewise, there is less concern regarding "balance" when determining each player's armaments and strategic advantages. In a commercial wargame, the rules are usually designed to ensure that

23760-420: The potential of new technology. In order to wield a new technology optimally, it is not enough for a military to merely have it, but also develop good tactics and know how to organize around it. If the enemy isn't exploring the same issues in their own wargames, then one can gain a significant edge over the enemy when war breaks out by deploying a more mature doctrine . An example is German submarine doctrine in

23940-485: The previous war, unaware that the Germans would come at them with new tricks. As soon as Britain declared war on Germany (3 Sept 1939), Germany sent its U-boats to attack transatlantic shipping. The U-boats had a devastating effect. In 1938, Britain had received 68 million tons of imports, but in 1941 the U-boats reduced this to 26 million. Britain was not a self-sufficient nation, and eventually its reserves of food would run out and it would be forced to capitulate to prevent

24120-402: The progression and outcome of a war as one might predict the weather. Human behavior is too difficult to predict for that. Wargames cannot provoke the anxiety, anger, stress, fatigue, etc. that a commander will experience in actual combat and thus cannot foresee the effects of these emotions on his decision-making. That said, no training tool can replicate the emotional experience of war, so this

24300-681: The protection of the " cruiser rules ", which demanded warning and movement of crews to "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet). Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare , realising the Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but, after initial successes, eventually failed to do so. The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in convoys , escorted by destroyers . This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after

24480-719: The room from overhearing. The Wrens would then get down on the floor and compute the outcomes of the players' orders, drawing the trajectories of the ships in chalk. Roberts provided the Wrens with the performance characteristics of all ships concerned: the range of the U-boat's torpedoes, the speed of the ships, their turn speed, the precise capabilities of the escorts' sonar (then known as ASDIC ), how engine noise might distort listening attempts, visibility at night, etc. Submarines of this era were powered by diesel engines and batteries. They could only use their diesel engines when surfaced, as these needed to breathe air to work. When submerged,

24660-451: The rules altogether and allowing the umpire to determine the outcomes of player decisions as he saw fit. Dice, rulers, computations, etc. were optional. This rules-free variant, of course, depended more heavily on the competence and impartiality of the umpire. The relative merits and drawbacks of rules-heavy and freeform wargaming are still debated to this day. Prussian wargaming attracted little attention outside Prussia before 1870. Prussia

24840-458: The screens couldn't make them out. The escort ships' movement lines were drawn with white chalk, which could be clearly perceived by the players behind the screens. The players were given two minutes per turn to make decisions and give orders. The players issued their orders for their imaginary ships on pieces of paper that they passed to the Wrens—this prevented their opponents on the other side of

25020-436: The ship heading straight for it. After 2 minutes, the ship turns 60 degrees left or right and holds this divergent course for 3 minutes, thereby putting itself outside the acoustic torpedo's detection range. Then the ship turns to head straight for the U-boat again. If the U-boat has not yet dived, the ship repeats the maneuver: sail towards the U-boat for 2 minutes, then turn 60 degrees, etc. The warship repeats this process until

25200-507: The simulated conflict might last months. A tactical-level wargame that has very cumbersome computations might take longer to play out than the battle it represents (this problem afflicted the original Kriegsspiel ). Wargamers can experiment with assets that their military does not actually possess, such as alliances that their country does not have, armaments that they have yet to acquire, and even hypothetical technologies that have yet to be invented. For example: After World War I , Germany

25380-463: The southern coast of Britain, it was moved north to Liverpool in February 1941. After France had fallen to the Germans, North Atlantic shipping convoys had been diverted around the north of Ireland to evade the German navy. Relocating Western Approaches Command to Liverpool sped up communications. Its headquarters was Derby House, a building located behind Liverpool's town hall; today the headquarters

25560-430: The strong effect that U-boats had during World War I , Roberts' wargames at Portsmouth did not simulate submarine warfare, nor attacks on merchant convoys. In fact, nobody in the Royal Navy studied submarine warfare through wargames until the establishment of WATU in 1942. At WATU, the wargames were conducted in the largest room of the top floor of Western Approaches HQ. The floor was covered with brown linoleum and in

25740-502: The submarine used lead-acid batteries. The batteries were less powerful than the engine, so the submarine was reduced to about half-speed: e.g. a Type VIIC U-boat could travel at 17.7 knots (32.8 km/h) on the surface but only 7.6 knots (14.1 km/h) underwater. The batteries could be exhausted after an hour or so of maximum speed underwater. When the batteries were exhausted, the U-boat would be forced to surface for air and recharge

25920-469: The term First World War was in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel who stated, "There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word." For much of the 19th century, the major European powers maintained a tenuous balance of power , known as the Concert of Europe . After 1848, this

26100-477: The term "war game" was never officially proscribed. Professional wargames tend to have looser rules and simpler models than recreational wargames, with an umpire arbitrating situations based on personal knowledge. If the umpire is highly knowledgeable about warfare (perhaps they are a veteran), then such wargames can achieve a higher degree of realism than wargames with rigid rulesets. In a recreational wargame, such looseness would lead to concerns over fairness, but

26280-437: The things the wargame attempts to simulate (weapons, vehicles, troops, terrain, weather, etc.). The other meaning, from miniature wargaming (a form of recreational wargaming ), is physical models, i.e. sculptures of soldiers, vehicles, and terrain; which generally serve an aesthetic purpose and have little if any consequence on the simulation. Professional wargames rarely use physical models because aesthetics aren't important to

26460-691: The threat posed by the closing of this gap was more important than competing with the Royal Navy. After Germany expanded its standing army by 170,000 troops in 1913, France extended compulsory military service from two to three years; similar measures were taken by the Balkan powers and Italy, which led to increased expenditure by the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary. Absolute figures are difficult to calculate due to differences in categorising expenditure since they often omit civilian infrastructure projects like railways which had logistical importance and military use. It

26640-519: The top floor of the Western Approaches headquarters. This assignment officially began on 23 February 1942. Most of the staff at Western Approaches were women from the Women's Royal Naval Service (colloquially referred to as "Wrens"), and likewise Roberts recruited most of his staff from the Wrens. A total of sixty-six Wrens served at WATU from 1942 to 1945. Roberts and his team reviewed battle reports from convoy escort commanders, recreated

26820-827: The torpedo. World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War , was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers . Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East , as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific , and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare ;

27000-411: The virtual troops would interpret and carry out their orders. When the troops engaged the enemy on the map, it was umpire who rolled the dice, computed the effects, and removed defeated units from the map. The umpire also managed secret information so as to simulate the fog of war. The umpire placed pieces on the map only for those units which he judged both sides could see. He kept a mental track of where

27180-590: The war ended with the Armistice of 11 November 1918 . The Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 imposed settlements on the defeated powers, most notably the Treaty of Versailles , by which Germany lost significant territories, was disarmed, and was required to pay large war reparations to the Allies. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires redrew national boundaries and resulted in

27360-601: The war involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa. On 6–7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorates of Togoland and Kamerun . On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa , led by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck , fought

27540-541: The war with a whole bag of new tricks, and it took some time for the British to catch up. Around the turn of the 19th century, a number of European inventors created wargames based on chess. These games used pieces that represented real army units (infantry, artillery, etc.) and the squares on the board were color-coded to represent different terrain types (rivers, marshes, mountains, etc.). Basing these games on chess made them attractive and accessible to chess players, but also made them too unrealistic to be taken seriously by

27720-561: The wargamers at the College abandoned the old doctrine and instead developed a more progressive strategy, which involved building a logistics infrastructure in the western Pacific and making alliances with regional countries. By the mid-1930s, the wargames resembled very much what the Navy later experienced in the Pacific War . The wargames also produced tactical innovations, most notably the "circular formation". In this formation, as it

27900-423: The wargamers at the College used a battleship as the central ship, but this was eventually supplanted by the aircraft carrier. Chester Nimitz , who was a fellow student that same year, was impressed by what the circular formation could do, and Nimitz played a pivotal role in making it Navy doctrine. On the other hand, the wargamers at the Naval War College failed to develop good submarine doctrine. They didn't have

28080-405: The warship made sharp turns to dodge the acoustic torpedoes the U-boat might fire as the warship maneuvered into attack range. Step Aside was communicated by radio to escort commanders at sea on 23 September 1943. Upon sighting a U-boat within 6,000 yards, the ship heads straight for the U-boat at best speed for 2 minutes. It was expected that the U-boat would fire its acoustic torpedo when it saw

28260-418: The west , which despite initial successes left the German Army exhausted and demoralised. A successful Allied counter-offensive from August 1918 caused a collapse of the German front line. By early November, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary had each signed armistices with the Allies, leaving Germany isolated. Facing a revolution at home , Kaiser Wilhelm   II abdicated on 9 November, and

28440-406: The widespread use of artillery , machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of tanks and aircraft . World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history , resulting in an estimated 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded , plus some 10 million civilian dead from causes including genocide . The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in

28620-630: The world now took a keen interest in German wargames, which foreigners referred to as Kriegsspiel (the German word for "wargame"). The first Kriegsspiel manual in English, based on the system of Wilhelm von Tschischwitz, was published in 1872 for the British army and received a royal endorsement. The world's first recreational wargaming club was the University Kriegspiel [ sic ] Club, founded in 1873 at Oxford University in England. In

28800-486: Was Georg von Reisswitz , the creator of Kriegsspiel and the father of professional wargaming, but he stuck with the word "game" because he could not think of a better term. In the US Army, many preferred the term "map maneuvers" (in contrast to "field maneuvers"). At the US Naval War College , some preferred the terms "chart maneuvers" (when simulating campaigns) and "board maneuvers" (when simulating battles), although

28980-433: Was free Kriegsspiel , developed in 1876 by General Julius von Verdy du Vernois . Vernois was frustrated by the cumbersome rules of traditional rigid Kriegsspiel . They took a lot of time to learn and prevented experienced officers from applying their own expertise. The computations also slowed down the game; sometimes, a session would take longer to play than the actual battle it represented. Vernois advocated dispensing with

29160-401: Was a development of an earlier maneuver developed by Commander Frederic Walker called Alpha Search . The advantage of Beta Search over Alpha Search is that Beta Search persuades the U-boat to move in a specific direction. The disadvantage of Beta Search is that the escort must be fitted with "special plotting equipment" to use it. In Alpha Search , the escort turns to head straight for

29340-491: Was a highly realistic wargame designed strictly for use as a professional tool of training, and not for leisure. Instead of a chess-like grid, this game was played on accurate paper maps of the kind the Prussian army used. This allowed the game to model terrain naturally and simulate battles in real locations. The pieces could be moved across the map in a free-form manner, subject to terrain obstacles. The pieces, each of which represented some kind of army unit (an infantry battalion,

29520-516: Was a maneuver by which a warship could attack a U-boat armed with acoustic torpedoes , specifically the T5 Zaunkönig torpedo, which the Royal Navy referred to as the GNAT (German Navy Acoustic Torpedo). This torpedo used built-in hydrophones to guide itself to its target by sound. The first use of this torpedo was on 20 September 1943 against convoy ON 202. The Royal Navy was already aware that

29700-689: Was also played in a number of private clubs around the country, which were mainly patronized by officers but also had civilian members, so Kriegsspiel was certainly being played in a recreational context. The first such club was the Berlin Wargame Association. In 1828, General von Moltke the Elder joined the Magdeburg Club and became its manager. Over the years, other officers updated Reisswitz's game to reflect changes in technology and doctrine. A particularly noteworthy variant

29880-403: Was challenged by Britain's withdrawal into so-called splendid isolation , the decline of the Ottoman Empire , New Imperialism , and the rise of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck . Victory in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War allowed Bismarck to consolidate a German Empire . Post-1871, the primary aim of French policy was to avenge this defeat, but by the early 1890s, this had switched to

30060-471: Was closed, Admiral Horton sent the following signal to its former members: "On the closing down of WATU I wish to express my gratitude and high appreciation of the magnificent work of Captain Roberts and his staff, which contributed in no small measure to the final defeat of Germany." Admiral Noble sent Roberts a letter in which he wrote: "...you had a great deal to do in winning the war because if we hadn’t won

30240-480: Was considered a second-rate power and wargaming an unproven novelty. That changed in 1870, when Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War . Many credited Prussia's victory to its wargaming tradition. The Prussian army did not have any significant advantage in weaponry, numbers, or troop quality, but it was the only army in the world that practiced wargaming. Civilians and military forces around

30420-499: Was designed to be an alternative to Raspberry and Banana . It was to be used when more than one U-boat was attacking the convoy, and was designed to do four things: (1) Force a second U-boat to dive before being able to attack; (2) Give a chance of detecting a U-boat which has already fired torpedoes; (3) Prevent another U-boat from sighting the convoy in any illumination used to detect the U-boat which has already attacked; and (4) Increase chance of detection of any submerged U-boat which

30600-506: Was forced to downsize its armed forces and outright give up certain weapons such as planes, tanks, and submarines. This made it difficult, if not impossible, for German officers to develop their doctrines through field exercises. The Germans greatly expanded their use of wargaming to compensate. When Germany began openly rearming in 1934, its officers already had fairly well-developed theories on what armaments to buy and what organizational reforms to implement. Wargames cannot be used to predict

30780-429: Was made possible by communications technologies that were not available to wargamers in earlier eras (radio and telephone). The training course provided by WATU appears in the 1951 novel The Cruel Sea , referred to as the "Commanding Officers' Tactical Course". The author, Nicholas Monsarrat , had attended WATU during his service in the war. The scene did not appear in the 1953 movie adaptation . The role of WATU in

30960-562: Was on the experience of decision-making and strategic thinking, not on competition. As Reisswitz himself wrote: "The winning or losing, in the sense of a card or board game, does not come into it." In the English-speaking world, Reisswitz's wargame and its variants are called Kriegsspiel , which is the German word for "wargame". Reisswitz showed his wargame to the Prussian king and his General Staff in 1824. They were greatly impressed. General Karl von Mueffling wrote: "It’s not

31140-552: Was public knowledge. A journalist visited WATU in January 1944 to observe a wargame and published a short article in The Daily Herald . An exposé appeared in Illustrated magazine the following month. WATU continued to develop anti-submarine tactics and train officers until the end of the war. It officially ceased operations at the end of July 1945. It had trained close to 5,000 officers over its lifetime. After WATU

31320-654: Was refused. Early on the morning of 4   August, the Germans invaded, and Albert I of Belgium called for assistance under the Treaty of London . Britain sent Germany an ultimatum demanding they withdraw from Belgium; when this expired at midnight, without a response, the two empires were at war. Germany promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but those had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Beginning on 12 August,

31500-667: Was returning to Germany when it sank two British armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel in November 1914, before being virtually destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December. The SMS Dresden escaped with a few auxiliaries, but after the Battle of Más a Tierra , these too were either destroyed or interned. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany . This proved effective in cutting off vital supplies, though it violated accepted international law. Britain also mined international waters which closed off entire sections of

31680-475: Was spotted). When the escort reaches the U-boat's "furthest towards" circle, it starts "zigzagging with short legs". When the escort passes over the U-boat's predicted line of escape, it was to drop a sea marker in the water. When the escort reached the U-boat's "furthest away" circle, it was to turn 90 degrees towards the position where the U-boat dived and begin Operation Observant . Step Aside

31860-781: Was the foundation of German foreign policy but in 1890, he was forced to retire by Wilhelm II . The latter was persuaded not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty by his new Chancellor , Leo von Caprivi . This gave France an opening to agree the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, which was then followed by the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Britain. The Triple Entente was completed by the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention . While not formal alliances, by settling long-standing colonial disputes in Asia and Africa, British support for France or Russia in any future conflict became

32040-485: Was to send an armada straight across the Pacific and quickly defeat the Japanese navy in one or two decisive battles. The wargamers at the College tested this strategy extensively, and it routinely failed. In 1933, the Navy's Research Department reviewed the wargames played from 1927 to 1933 and concluded that the fundamental problem was that the armada over-extended its supply lines. The BLUE armada would exhaust itself, and ORANGE would recover and counter-attack. After this,

32220-400: Was too much ambient noise in the water. The maximum speed at which a ship could travel while using its ASDIC was about 15 knots (28 km/h), beyond which the noise of its own propeller and engine would drown out the echoes. Both the U-boats and the warships also had hydrophones with which they could passively listen for sound in the water. Merchant ships travelled in convoys, surrounded by

32400-399: Was used in World War II , an aircraft carrier was surrounded by concentric circles of cruisers and destroyers. This formation concentrated anti-aircraft fire, and also was easier to maneuver than a line of battle because all the ships could turn at once with a signal from the central ship. The circular formation was first proposed in September 1922 by Commander Roscoe C. MacFall. Initially,

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