Predictive powers of older wargames?

[bayonetbrant]

From '75-'88 or so, there were a whole bunch of 'Cold War' era wargames that focused on the NATO-Warsaw Pact shooting-war-that-never-was but there were also a variety of other 'hypothetical' modern-era (i.e., post-Vietnam) games that tried to project some future conflicts

I'm not talking about the ones like the Arab-Israeli Wars box that was built 90% on actual showing engagements around the wars in the 50s/60s/70s, or anything that turned out to be 'backwards-looking' like the Falklands games.  To my knowledge, there weren't any games that predicted the Argies attacking Stanley as a 'hypothetical'

The obvious one is the Gulf Strike game, that was rapidly bolstered with a Desert Shield / Desert Storm expansion.

Another one I keep thinking about was the SPI ModQuad2 game Yugoslavia that included a variant scenario that hypothesized a Serb/Croat civil war that split the army in half.  That game was published over 15 years before Yugoslavia fell apart.


GDW's Battlefield Europe and Test of Arms had a variety of hypotheticals in them, of varying plausibility. (The Belgian civil war was a fun one to read).
The former included Hungary vs Romania, and USSR-Turkey, but also Albania-Yugoslavia, and a big 'revolt in Central Asia' against the Russian/USSR central gov't scenario.

But the SPI ModQuad1 also included Mukden, a hypothetical Sino-Soviet hot-war flashpoint over the titular city, that never happened.

The SPI Oil War game kinda-sorta(?) happened, but not in the way that game hypothesized.
Ditto the 3W Light Division game.
Force Eagle's War never really came close.


So are there any other forward-looking (at their time) 'hypothetical' games that we can give at least partial credit towards for accurately predicting some varying nature of what became a shooting war somewhere?

What, if any, other ones can y'all think of?

[bbmike]

If the Romulans can successfully convince the Klingons to attack the Federation I think they would also jump in and start a greater war. Federation and Empire would be the best one for predicting that. 

[Germanmenace1]

I always look at the IJN's war game on invasion of Midway in early spring of 1942.    It warned the IJN it was trying to do too much, with too few carriers.  The conditions of the game kept being changed to allow for an "acceptable" outcome.

[besilarius]

It wasn't predictive, but SPI's Year of the Rat sold out at the local hobby shop in Alexandria, VA.  Marines from Harmony Hall, analysts at Langley, and quite a few Pentagon staffers picked it up.
Overall they thought it was a good representation and tried to adapt it to later changes in the war.

The earliest version of Harpoon treated US and Soviet doctrine e as similar, so the Langley folks were unimpressed.

[blackndecker]

I always look at the IJN's war game on invasion of Midway in early spring of 1942.    It warned the IJN it was trying to do too much, with too few carriers.  The conditions of the game kept being changed to allow for an "acceptable" outcome.

From that perspective, we have the series of US Naval War College games that could be added to the mix too. They might not have perfectly predicted the start of the war...or Japan's kamikaze tactics (as Nimitz offered after the war), but they did reveal strategic and operational level "insights" that informed US strategy, planning, and operations.

[bayonetbrant]

I was mainly trying to think of commercial wargames postulating hypothetical comments that actually ended up happening to varying degrees of accuracy

[bbmike]

Ah. In that case, Pandemic.

[bayonetbrant]

Ah. In that case, Pandemic.

[blackndecker]

I was mainly trying to think of commercial WarGames postulating hypothetical comments that actually ended up happening to varying degrees of accuracy

I think it's a fascinating question. In some ways, it seems like the question is really about the quality of the scenario and its accuracy of predicting a future war. That seems distinct from whether the game's design had the mechanics that could allow a player to predict how the conflict would unfold.

Have you seen John Curry's presentation at Connections UK 2018 and his essay in the April 2019 The Nugget (I think he also had an extended write up after April, but my hardcopy is in a box in a container on a ship)? He also had an article in Simulation & Gaming earlier this year...although focused on professional gaming he used hobby/commercial games too. He made a strongly critical case against the accuracy of late and post-Cold War era games, both in the scenarios as well as how weapons capabilities, OB, and doctrine were "wrong."

In some ways, I wonder if this question...and Curry's argument...sets the bar on prediction too high. We're always careful to emphasize that wargames aren't predictive...but they can predict. Please don't misunderstand me, I know you're taking into account "partial" scores too... just a thought.

Patrick

[bob48]

One game from that period I remember playing a lot was SPI's 'Fulda Gap' Anyone else remember / play it?

[besilarius]

SPI also had a game on a rebellion in Canada by Quebec.
That one was not a good game.
Once the Federal forces got rolling g, the Quebecoise were swamped.
Great cover art though.

[Staggerwing]

One game from that period I remember playing a lot was SPI's 'Fulda Gap' Anyone else remember / play it?

I had a game called Fulda Gap back in the 90's that I completely forgot about until now. It came in a large zip baggie and had rules for nukes as well. I've no idea who the publisher was or what happened to it. Probably a victim of the divorce purge , much like my motorcycle and radial arm saw... 

[bbmike]

...and most of your sanity. 

[Barthheart]

One game from that period I remember playing a lot was SPI's 'Fulda Gap' Anyone else remember / play it?

I had a game called Fulda Gap back in the 90's that I completely forgot about until now. It came in a large zip baggie and had rules for nukes as well. I've no idea who the publisher was or what happened to it. Probably a victim of the divorce purge , much like my motorcycle and radial arm saw... 

I hear ya brother. My 1st wife got all the furniture and all the antiques we'd bought/collected. I managed to keep the Miata though... worth it. 

 

[Staggerwing]

I managed to keep the Miata though... worth it. 

Not a bad consolation prize at all.