The news of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine this week has rather distracted me from playing with toy soldiers as real wars often do. Partly it has been the time spent listening to reporters and analysts, partly thinking of the tragedy for those involved, partly concern about the future, and partly the usual angst about making a game out of violence and human and animal suffering.
However, there are also memories of being a young kid in the early 60's, during the height of the Cold War. I remember crouching under my desk at school during air raid drills (I'm not sure just how much protection cowering under a little wooden desk is against a nuclear explosion, I suppose it depends on how far you are from the epicentre.), as well as a bad stretch when I was a kid when the sound of a passenger jet flying overhead was enough to have me heading for the basement or at least holding my breath and staring at the sky in case it was a Russian bomber. (Yes bombers, those were the days when ICBM's were in their infancy.)
By the time I was 17 and in uniform, the Soviets were still "the enemy", and the anonymous 'Orange' enemy always seemed to use their equipment, but the Canada vs USSR hockey tournament was on and even the wet behind the ears 'Prep's were allowed in to watch the last, knuckle biting, game with its triumphant squeak of victory for us. Nine years later, when my initial term of service was up, with war forever banished and the dawning realization that in real life, the military and I were not really a good match, I declined to extend my service. Of course, I had barely opened my short lived game shop when Argentina occupied the Falklands. Apparently not all wars were banished after all.
Oh. well, I have talked with friends who have served in combat since those days and I've learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses since I was in my 20's. On the whole, I'm even more convinced that I wouldn't have ever been much good at it in real life. Its a good thing for my mental health that I have found a number of things that I am good at, and that many a veteran who has seen real combat still plays historical wargames, including that intrepid grouch of French Resistance fighters in Paris during the Nazi occupation who played wargames with 30mm flats when not making raids.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled service:
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| WOW! What a roll! |
Things are not good at the moment - I really don't like the thought of going back to the cold war days but it's looking more and more likely. It will be very illuminating to see what happens to European (including UK) defence budgets in the next couple of years.
ReplyDeleteRe dice rolls - any forces I command would only roll like that if a high score was a bad score!
Well, I'll confess that I had been secretly rooting for the other side!
DeleteI'm sticking to my tabletop. My game is harmless--and saner than Putin's, and other's. Would that several American Presidents had played with toy soldiers in their evenings instead of vetting bombing targets.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure this one will pass, though. It's not so much Hitler invading Poland as Mussolini invading Albania--equally rough on the participants, but no one else cares as much. (Just after the Cold War, I was on the Army Intel Watch. At one point, you could have travelled from the Adriatic to about Tibet and never set foot in a country without some sort of conflict going. This was called "peace" since none of the fatalities were Western European or North American.) I am very much concerned that there will be worse and closer soon. But I am hopeful I may not live to see it. If I do--well, 2mm armies fit in rucksacks.
I agree, Putin is definitely Mussolini in this case. Anyway, it is all rather horrible and I too don't have very fond memories of the 60s/70s/80s. Back in the 1960s, Vulcans armed with Blue Steel standoff bombs used to fly 200' above the house. As Dad recently reminded me, we could see the end of the runway from the house!
DeleteBob, I agree with most of that but 2mm? My 1/72 plastic are small and weigh next to nothing bit I can still see them! Luckily I've learned how to play interesting games with just a handful on a light cloth battlefield so it all fits in a small box or bag if I have to head for the nearby hills.
DeleteAs far as Russia's military might goes, this is what I wrote in a Quora answer a bit over 2 years ago:
ReplyDeleteHow does Russia have such a powerful military with a defense budget of less than 12% of the USA?
'My guess is that it doesn’t.
Look at their navy. Their only carrier is ancient and needs to have a tug follow it around in case it breaks down. Oh, sorry, that’s not right, is it? A landing dock fell on it or something and now they can’t fix it. Most of the fleet entered service during the Soviet era - and weren’t maintained unti recently.
Then there was this brilliant new tank they had.The T14 Armata. Beats everything. Wait a minute, HOW many are making? 2,300? Wow - oh, they’re not. Test batch of 100. Because updating their old T-72 tanks dating back to 1972 is good enough.
OK. Aircraft. Look on Wikipaedia about year of introduction. Going down the list , a load of 60s, 70s and 80s designs. Over 2,000 of the ones still having 100+ in service, including helicopters. And about 300 modern multirole jets.
And remember that long period when nothing was being maintained - how much is serviceable?Simple fact. Russia has a lot of obsolete and outdated equipment being replaced/supplemented by small numbers of modern equipment. I suspect that the bulk army is the same. A few well equipped and trained elite units that do all the work backed by a poorly equippede and maintained rump.
The fact is, Russia can’t afford to maintain large numbers of modern equipment - financially it’s a minor power living on past glories. It has a lot of nukes, true. Which costs money… which isn’t available for the rest.Russia spends less than the UK and France combined on defence. Economically, by nominal GDP it lies about 9th, behind Italy! Even allowing for lower costs, etc, does it really suggest that Russia has armed forces as powerful as they would like us to think?'
I stand by that answer - I think that going after Ukraine will really stretch Russia and that it still has a few elite units with the rest of a very quality, both in it's soldiers and their equipment. If Ukraine can hang on for a couple of weeks I think Russia will start to run out of munitions and be will be in trouble. If Ukraine can hang on for a couple of weeks...
One can only hope. They are doing well so far.
ReplyDeleteReferring to the title of your post, I have to agree (just my own personal feelings). Having served a full 20 year military career, I stick to black powder with a bit of dabbling up to 1945/WWII. I might now play in hypothetical WWIII war in Germany, circa 1980s. However, I don't see anything more contemporary than that as something that I could "play" as a game (personally). I am sure that come next year, someone will be putting on a Russia v Ukraine game at a convention. The less said about that the better.
ReplyDeleteIts a fine line.
DeleteIt was about 10 years ago that I decided that a skirmish game which awarded victory points for burning farms, raping and looting wasn't something I wanted to play in let alone run. That got me started me thinking more about what I did and didn't feel was appropriate for me.
I wouldn't discount the stock-in-trade.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the '91 Gulf War started. It was over before one began seeing the first boardgame on the topic, Columbia Games' _Mideast Peace_. Today, one can see a boardgame on Afghanistan: GMT's _A Distant Plain_.
I'll skip a host of magazine and "mini" boardgames on various insurgencies and civil wars, historical and hypothetical.
'AK47' miniatures rules, etc.
In fact, when one thinks about it, there are so many conflict zones nowadays it's hard for game publishers to keep up. Never a shortage of "subject matter."
Yaaayy.... boardgames, at least no little metal and plastic soldiers and civilians are harmed when using computers or paper..
DeleteRoss, I get your thoughts completely. Earlier this week I had a WWII East Front game planned, but just didn’t have the appetite for it. Napoleonics went onto the table instead.
ReplyDeleteThe farther away in time, the more theoretical it becomes, especially when only soldiers are involved.
DeleteWar is best confined to the tabletop .
ReplyDeleteor occasionally a backyard...
DeleteI always said the mistake was rifling the muskets. It leads straight to cased colors, dismounted cavalry and uniforms the color of mud. You wind up just as dead, but no one can see you being brave. Horse & musket is the way to go, and a tabletop is where wars should be fought.
ReplyDeleteRoss Mac, tell us about your "army in a bag" system some day. My 1/72 are about two footlockers. On my bad days, I think of them as my "nursing home armies." But the 2mm are what I toss in the car for trips. The objective is everything in a big zip-lock bag, or at worst a laptop carrier. And they're visible enough if you mount them on bases.
It was less a system than a successful experiment when I was convalescing but I still have a slightly bulkier version that I trotted out to play on a lawn table under the umbrella on a sunny summer afternoon but resurrecting a very easy to transport in an overnight bag version has been on my mind. I'll step up the priority, never know when you might need one.
DeleteLet me clarify, a game small enough to fit into a small container which can fit into a pack or overnight bag. I don't have my late 19thC one anymore and though I have plenty of acw figures I don't want to go there again so I'm leaning towards a red vs blue set up. Test today indicates all componants fit in a pint suzed tea box.
DeleteAs my old friend Dick Bryant often says that in a wargame there are no widows or orphans left behind. The heroes of Ukraine are finding out again, as so many have before that the cost of freedom is found buried in the ground.
ReplyDeleteVery true.
DeleteI think I agree with Robs analysis of the Russian Bear - if they did not have all those Nukes keeping us worried, we would just go in there and kick their ass. The west didnt do all that well in the end in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at least the initial invasion where it was conventional forces in a straight fight was over in a few days. The Russians are on day four and dont even look anywhere near overwhelming the Ukrainian defenders. The whole thing is ridiculous, there will be large numbers of casualties on both sides and the Russians wont achieve their long term aims. All they are likely to see as a result is revamped NATO forces in far greater numbers right along their western border, like they had in W Germany 30 years ago. When you look at a map of Ukraine, I can understand why they are nervous about having it as an integrated part of Nato and the EU - they just cant conceive that NATO really is a purely defensive alliance and they dont have to fear a western invasion from Ukraine. I am juts thankful we have a different US administration than a couple of years ago.....it doesnt even bear thinking about!
ReplyDeleteNo it doesn't.
DeleteThanks for sharing your Cold War story. I remember the civil defence siren “testing” going off in the UK in the middle of the day in the mid to late 80s, whilst I was still at school / college, testing ostensibly for “London flood warnings”. Chilling.
ReplyDeleteHard to think that some people hark back to the simplicity or surety of the Cold War 70s and 80s.
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I’m sticking to the Tabletop for my distractions but a DMZ demilitarized / demilitarised Tabletop and painting table for a while, full of snowballers, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Skateboarders and such ... projects that have been on the back burner for a while.
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/02/24/some-more-peaceful-or-non-lethal-tabletop-strategy-games/
Its a good time for simplw, harmless games. Just make sure no bully sneaks a rock into his/her snowball!
DeleteRoss, I'm a bit late chiming in here, but I wanted to thank you for this post. There's always that existential nagging in my head about games about war and it was good to feel I wasn't alone in that.
ReplyDeleteAlso that article by Jon Peterson is absolutely fascinating.
You're welcome. Sometimes its good to talk about 'stuff'.
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