Kriegspiel and the US Cavalry 1914

 

Chess, dating from the 1st Century AD, is one of the earliest battle simulations archeologists have uncovered.  The origins of the game are in both China and India.  Other games using miniatures and rules of engagement appear across Europe in the 18th Century and as the Industrial Age opened, the German military pioneered a recognizable combat war game aptly named Kriegspiel,  as the study of the art and science of warfare began to merge. The game was added to the training program of the Army War College in Washington DC at the end of the 19th Century.  The United States Navy also played a significant role in developing wargaming and simulations in miniature to train officers at their War College in Newport Rhode Island during this same period.

 

 

 

Map display at Army War College during Kriegspiel exercise, Scientific American, 5 Dec., 1914

 

The magazine, Scientific American, followed the opening weeks and months of the First World War with nothing short of rapt enthusiasm for the new technologies.  Upwards of 40% of each issue was devoted to discussion of weapons and  tactics of the "grand war"; the reporting is amazing detailed and almost completely devoid of any mention of casualties or death.  All of Europe at war was a grand spectacle and airplanes, submarines, vast forts and huge cannon seemed to have sprung  from the pages of "futurist-novelists" .  One magazine issue featured a three page fold - out to show the reader the actual diameter of a massive German artillery shell.  The Plains Wars of the 1870s and the Spanish American War had faded from the American conciseness and all of this war technology was very new, very exciting and very far away.

 

The 5 December 1914 issue of Scientific American contained a detailed account of the American version of Kriegspiel as adopted by the Army.  The following blocks of text borrowed from the longer article indicate that the Army was ready to explore the innovative training device but slow to grasp the realities of the opening days of the First World War.

 

Somewhat indistinct in the scan, the top is the storage area for various cardboard strips and counters used to represent units on the map board during Kriegspiel. Then, the special game clock and below, a gauge with various scaled templates to plot distant over time for cavalry, infantry and wagon movements. Scientific American

 

 "The Red and Blue force student commanders briefly see the main, fully detailed battle map, established at a scale of six to twelve inches per mile depending on the type of scenario being studied.  The commanders and staffs then leave the main room to follow the battle with their field maps, draft their plan and brief subordinates.  Umpires and other student officers actually maneuver the pieces on the map."

 

"For locating the positions of the various troops in the exercise or placing them rapidly, a very ingenious system has been devised by our officers.  For instance, when it is desired to show a long column in march, the various elements of the command are represented by oblong strips of cardboard, cut exactly to scale, a distinctive color or combination of colors for each branch of service, pinned one behind the other on a long strip of wood, which when laid on the map intact, covering exactly the proper distance. When it is necessary to deploy, to form line to the front, the sections are taken from the strip, one by one and pinned to the map in their order of reaching the line. "

 

"A deployed line or line of skirmishers, is represented by small beads, strung on wires which may be bent in any shape to conform to the condition of the ground on which they are supposed to occupy.  Individual pieces of artillery are indicated by single red headed pins; a battery by a crimson strip of cardboard." 

 

The article then recounts the actions of a horse cavalry rear guard problem as studied in the simulation. Captain Blank is the Blue force Commander trying to delay a fresh Red attack on an infantry division with his depleted cavalry units.

 

"He looks at his map, eagerly scanning the winding contours which mark the hills and valleys, and quickly settles on a nearby wooded crest to make his first stand.  Then he issues his orders, writing them out for the umpires, although under service conditions they would probably be oral, with a decided snap to them.  His time scale, cavalry at a gallop, shows him that the position, one half mile away may be reached in two minutes, and the yellow headed pins gallop to the designated high point, under the hand of the umpire."

 

 

 

An officer at the map table during a Kriegspiel exercise, 1914. Scientific American

 

"... all the time the deployment was in progress (( the pursuing Red force coming under initial fire from Blank's squadrons and moving into an attack formation )) Blank's troopers dismounted and his artillery was pouring fire into them, delaying them further.  At about the time the enemy deployment was complete, Blank's orders were written again.  His battery limbered up and his troopers mounted, one regiment at a time, and galloped up the road, closing on the main body, where they took another position, and in a few minutes, the regiment that had been left behind to act as the guard to the rear guard, came up and joined them.  Blank so far has gained a mile and one half delay for the infantry."

 

At any point, the article continued,  the umpires may end the exercise to discuss the major teaching points that the action had revealed; the discussion was of equal importance to the actual board play of the problem.

 

One hundred years after printing,  the article is filled with unintentional irony.  The full  account of CPT Blank's cavalry delay problem reads as though they were wargaming the Battle of the Shenandoha Valley in 1863, not preparing for the trench warfare, poison gas and machineguns that defined the combat experience of  the American Expeditionary Force  in Europe in 1917.   The article speculates that somehow, America might be drawn into the war and, in the wonderfully ornate language of the period concludes,

 

"To a layman, it might appear ridiculous to watch the seriousness and concentration of an earnest class of student officers, poring over a map and aimlessly moving little pins and blocks about it pictured surface.  But in the hand of those men the safety of our country lies, and the state of our preparedness for war, with our tiny army. Our army now numbers thousands - these gentlemen play the map game with hundreds of thousands, what we would require in time of war, and they know that such a number is necessary  -  and strive their mightiest to learn how to hold the enemy in check with our little handful until the volunteers can be trained, which takes months!  May the day of sacrifice by deferred!!"

 

On the same page that the article ended, a two paragraph feature noted that with England and Germany now at war, hundreds of English language teaching positions had opened in Germany and any American with an interest and the skills could easily find employment.

 

With only minor changes, Kriegspiel continued in use with the Army as the principle map based force on force training simulation for officers through World War II.  The Museum of the Naval War College at Newport has an excellent display covering the development of wargaming as applied to the Fleet. Due to security concerns, the museum is currently open by appointment only.

 

On the Internet, there are a number of very good histories of the origins of wargaming and developments in both the United States and elsewhere through the 19th and 20th centuries.  A very detailed yet readable account can be found at this link:  http://www.hmgs.org/history.htm