7 April 2023
We brought in a couple of guys that actually know about naval wargaming to tell us all about what goes wrong when wargaming naval warfare. Chris Weuve and our guy Rocky have both spent many more days afloat than Brant has even spent on the beach, so we let them steer the ship1. We even bring marines into the conversation (and then rapidly dismiss them. . . )
Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.
Oh yeah, and we’re on Spotify now, too
So let’s talk about how much the players get wrong, fighting to the last ship, gamey-ness on the tabletop rather than in the real world, and how much “doctrine” belongs in the game. We’ll run the gamut from age of sail up to the modern day, but keep ourselves firmly in the water and avoid any ‘space navy’ discussions.
Also, we need to ensure that any actual, potential, or hypothetical employer of Chris2 are fully insulated from anything said (or not) during this podcast, as he doesn’t speak for them and they don’t speak for him. All of his (rather strong) opinions are his own and utterly unaffected in any fashion by any potential connection to any hypothetical employer.
Here are some links to some things we talked about
- Every naval wargaming action ever
- Avalanche Press’ Second World War at Sea and Great War at Sea series
- Sim Canada’s WW2 and WW1 capital ship combat games
- CONSIM-L has now migrated into a groups.io instance
- Connections Online 2023 Registration info and past conference archives
- Seven Days to the Rhine thread with non-doctrinal unit usage
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Game players should not be blamed if the game rules don’t seriously punish poor command decisions. In WWII, naval officers regularly lost their sea command for making poor d decisions, not to mention often receiving burial at sea. Inadequate restrictions make most naval games suitable for players age 12 or less.