Friend or Foe

I posted about these before, in Professional Wargaming . But I just continue to be very impressed with the production quality, interest, historicity and to much of the lessons apply equally to wargaming as warfighting of the videos produced by The Army University Press . Some people may not like the Army doctrine educational aspect. But I love it. When I was in the USN I checked out every manual I could from the library. And when I wa deep into the computer game Combat Mission I read several U.S. Army FM books. Because real life tactics worked in that game. Their latest series France '44 has got me really wanting to break out OCS Beyond the Rhine. First is " The Wet Gap Crossings at Nancy " detailing crossing major water obstacle with mechanized forces. The latest, " The Encirclement at Nancy ", I found more interesting. Detailing encirclement of German forces in and around Nanncy and the German's failed counterattacks.

[xpost from email I received] I've done a bit of online, opposed VASSAL wargaming; live and PBEM .  But, have never gotten into it big time.  I work in front of a computer all day. Much of my free time is spent in front of computer playing video games, reading blogs, writing blogs, coding personal projects, etc. Wargaming face to face, over the paper battle field is one of the few times I can get away from the softly seductive, soul sucking embrace of my monitor glow. An organized ladder like  https://wargameleague.com/  seems like a great idea. Here is some information straight from that site. Go and check them out. WargameLeague.com UPCOMING EVENTS AND NEWS JAN 2020  GMT PBEM : Stalingrad 42, Holland 44, Ukraine 43, Normandy 44, Caucaus Campaign 42-43, Ardennes 44, Next War Korea​ COMPASS PBEM : Bitter Woods, Saipan, Red Star White Eagle, Battle of Ypres MMP PBEM : A Victory Lost, A Victory Denied Avalon Hill PBEM : Afrika Korps, Thunder at Cassino, Breakout

Professional in that war fighting is your job, aka military. Rather than "playing" for fun, you game to become better at your job. These professional war games really confused me ~30 years ago as a college freshman looking up war games in Univ of Kansas libraries. It's a different world . Yet the commercial war gaming hobby (and RPG hobby ) owes it's existence to military war gaming. I've since found it interesting to peak over the fence from time to time. This recent article on Teaching Professional Wargaming  provided the inspiration for this post. Invicta Youtube channel recently had a series on the US Naval War College. Specifically it's history of war gaming. Extremely informative on how professional war gaming works. Tangential to war gaming but in line with educating professionals, The Army University Press Youtube channel has several excellently produced analyses of famous battles with the objective of highlighting and teaching modern US Ar