How Soon is Too Soon?

Normally, this blog is written a bit in advance, maybe a week or six. But not at the moment. I have been busy, as I said before, and wargaming has, while not taken a back seat, has certainly had to be fitted in around other things. Thus, this week, I had no particular ideas except the half-formed Hamptonshire campaign. Fortunately, as supper one night, the Estimable Mrs P. asked a question which saved the day, as it were:

‘How soon is too soon to wargame something?’

I asked for some clarification, and it turned out she was wondering whether anyone was wargaming Ukraine or Gaza. Well, I have not seen any such game, at least so far, except in professional gaming circles, but that is, after all, their job. But I dare say someone is at least considering Ukraine even if it is not being actively wargamed yet.

It put me in mind of some of the posts from the early days of the blog when I was wondering what the ethical implications of wargaming were. As far as I recall, there are none, in particular, but there are plenty of matters of taste. At least, there are ethical matters about behaviour, such as whether to cheat or not, but not about the choice of wargame subject, which is a matter of taste. The difference is, I suppose, that taste varies while ethical considerations at least make a claim to be objective. Whether or not they are is a matter of opinion, of course, but that seems to be the difference.

So, to return to the question, how soon is too soon to wargame something as a hobby game? I tried to avoid the question, of course and observed that I do not play anything post about 1745, but that was not permitted as an answer. I hazarded ‘about the last 100 years’, so included nothing which is in people’s living memory, more or less. That actually puts World War One in the frame, and I am unsure if I would really want to wargame that. I have seen, of course, very good and interesting WW1 games, but it just is not to my wargaming taste, I suppose.

However, I have dabbled in World War Two wargaming, such as the Siege of Malta game which is in that book (for the record, the Allies lost Malta and, presumably, the Suez Canal was cut). That was a more pen-and-paper game than one which included getting models out, however, and I still harbour suspicions that, except at a skirmish level, WW2 is best played in that way. I know that there are some operational and strategic level games out there which use models, and I think that is a good thing, but they are heading more to the pencil-and-paper resource management level of the game anyway.

So, having brought the wrath of all right-thinking WW2 wargamers down upon my head, what about more recent warfare. Korea is certainly done, of course, and can be regarded, I suppose, as an off-shoot of WW2 – the equipment, except jet fighters, was more or less the same. Vietnam is a bit more tricky, of course, with lots of airmobile units, helicopter gunships, and mass bombings, aside from charming ideas such as Agent Orange. Again, it is a matter of taste, but for me, wargaming counter-insurgency operations is heading into the tasteless, because civilians are heavily involved.

So too are more recent conflicts, many of which are Co-In in nature. For example, recent activities in Iraq and Afghanistan were certainly counter-insurgent operations, and while I have seen them wargamed, do not really seem to have caught on. Perhaps it is because the home countries of many wargamers lost, or perhaps because insurgents and terrorism make somewhat less than good wargames. I am not sure, and time will tell.

Arrival at some conflicts possibly gives us some pause. The Falkland Islands I have seen wargamed, but not all that much. Perhaps it became too politicised too quickly for many wargamer’s tastes. The assorted post-colonial wars are occasionally done, but most people, understandably, prefer some sort of imaginary game rather than the brutal reality of, say, Biafra or the death squads in Central and South America. For example, I did rather enjoy the board game Junta, where the rules stated ‘the coup starts with the traditional naval bombardment of the Presidential Palace’. But it was set in an imaginary banana republic.

There might be a geographical element to this. Playing a wargame of, say, the siege of Londonderry might be straightforward in Germany, perhaps less so in Ireland, or at least, it might raise some uncomfortable present or recent realities and interpretations. History is often the political present, after all. It is here that transfers of historical events to other canvasses, locations and time periods can, I suppose help, but that raises questions, I suppose, as to whether our historical wargaming is historical, or whether we are simply feeling pressured by current political and cultural trends into avoid uncomfortable historical truths.

Many years ago Paddy Griffiths published some articles on uncomfortable wargames, raising the question of whether we dare wargame something, or whether we did not because they simply made bad games. His main example was the WW1 Western Front, which, he felt, made a bad game. Of course, since he wrote (in the 1980s I think) wargame design has moved on and the games, as games, can be good ones. But as WW1 slips from memory into history it is probably worth asking again does it make us uncomfortable? Do we try to take on more recent historiography of the war and the front and suggest that perhaps the interpretations available 40-odd years ago have changed, and that ‘lions led by donkeys’ as a judgment is a bit harsh on the high command.

Fortunately, I do not have a sufficient grasp of World War One to say, so I am only posing a question. But I think it is worth posing: how soon is too soon to have a comfortable wargame?

What do you think?