SIMULATION TECHNIQUES IN THE MODELLING OF PAST CONFLICTS
Professor Philip Sabin, King’s College London
I have been using simulation and gaming techniques in my teaching of strategic studies and military history for many years, and such techniques now form a central element of my teaching and research. Modern computing capabilities play a significant role in this approach, but (despite common perceptions to the contrary) simulations do NOT need to be entirely computer-based. Manual simulation techniques are often more accessible and effective. The key is to strike an appropriate balance between intellectual and technological innovation, and thereby to attain the best of both worlds.
Simulations and games complement more traditional forms of teaching and scholarship in three principal ways. First, they involve users more vividly than does mere passive absorption of written, oral or even video material. Second, they reduce the hindsight problem which can afflict ‘linear’ approaches to history, and they provide a forceful reminder of the contingent and uncertain nature of developing events. Third, they require modellers to develop a logical, comprehensive and wide-ranging understanding of what happened and why, and so they can often highlight neglected questions and provide a more robust basis for comparative analysis.
Simulation gaming is particularly appropriate for the study of war, because war and games are both dialectical strategic contests between opposing wills, each struggling to prevail.[1] This is why Clausewitz said that ‘In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards’.[2] Military forces and defence analysts have exploited this similarity for generations, and they use wargaming techniques routinely for training and planning purposes, though the forward-looking and classified nature of this work greatly limits its utility for historians of past conflicts.[3]
Thousands of unclassified manual and computer wargames have been published over the past 50 years for use by enthusiasts keen for a vicarious experience of warfare, and such simulations now cover virtually every past battle and campaign.[4] This undeservedly neglected material does offer an important resource for innovative scholarship, as long as three associated problems can be overcome. First, as with TV and film production, the dominance of commercial over academic considerations means that standards of accuracy, research and referencing are highly variable. Second, the populist nature of the material gives it a major image problem compared to more academically familiar techniques such as game theory, mathematical modelling and operational analysis.[5] Third, there are severe logistic challenges associated with library provision, classroom employment and non-expert utilisation of simulation materials, compared to more traditional media such as books, articles and videos/DVDs.
I have sought to overcome these daunting obstacles in several ways. First, I lay great stress on identifying the limitations and methodological flaws of published simulations, especially those where accuracy is sacrificed for Hollywood-style dramatics.[6] Second, I have built up my own personal collection of over a thousand published simulations which I may use for my own research and as a resource to lend to students, thereby overcoming the absence of this material from traditional libraries and archives. Third, rather than employing published simulations ‘off the shelf’, I use mainly my own personal designs, which build on the techniques developed by commercial designers, but which are much simpler and better documented so as to make them more accessible and acceptable within an academic context. This also allows me to post simulation components online so that students and others may use them in their own time.
My various BA courses use simulations as a means to an end, to illustrate topics such as aerial dogfight tactics or the strategic dynamics of the Second Punic or Second World Wars. However, for 6 years I have also been running an MA option in which students study conflict simulation as a subject in its own right, and design their own mini-simulation of a battle or campaign of their choice. We focus on manual simulations to avoid any need for programming expertise, but the students do use computers routinely for the graphic design of their maps and counters, and the finished simulations are posted on the course website for anyone to download.[7] Several past student simulations have been or are due to be published commercially, and there is also tremendous synergy between my use of simulations at BA and MA level – the same simulations (including one student-designed one) are used for both, and I have just started employing some of the MA students as assistants to help me run several BA simulations simultaneously, hence greatly increasing the degree of class participation.
This synergy applies not just within teaching, but also between my teaching and research. My recent book Lost Battles expands on traditional scholarship like that in the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare which I also recently co-edited, and develops a radical new simulation-based approach of ‘comparative dynamic modelling’ to help resolve the intractable scholarly controversies over the ill-documented battles of antiquity.[8] Instead of simply being presented with yet another set of personal ‘hunches’ about what occurred, readers can actually refight the battles for themselves, and experiment with different reconstructions and assumptions in order to gain a greater insight. My next book, Simulating War, will go even further, by setting simulation techniques in their proper theoretical context alongside game theory and operational analysis, and by giving readers the skills they need to design their own simulations just as my MA students and I currently do, thereby helping with their own teaching and research. As with other novel scholarly techniques, simulation and gaming will doubtless continue to be controversial and poorly understood, but my experience demonstrates how a judicious and balanced combination of intellectual and technological innovation can bring real and highly synergistic benefits.
Higher EducationAcademy workshop,
University of Warwick,
December 5th, 2008
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[1]See T.Cornell & T.Allen (eds.), War and Games, (RochesterNY: Boydell, 2002), which includes a chapter by myself.
[2] C. von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by M.Howard & P.Paret, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p.86.
[3]See T.Allen, War Games, (London: Heinemann, 1987), P.Perla, The Art of Wargaming, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990), and
[4]See and J.Dunnigan, The Complete Wargames Handbook (New York: William Morrow, 2nd ed., 1992), posted online at
[5]See, for example, T.Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), and S.Biddle, Military Power, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
[6]This flaw is particularly evident in computer games like Rome: Total War, (Slough: Activision, 2004) and Call of Duty 2, (Slough: Activision, 2005) because of their mass-market focus, hence my preference for manual simulations which are less visually striking but usually far more accurate.
[7] Dale Larson’s freeware programme ‘Cyberboard’, designed for e-mail play of published wargames, is an invaluable tool for the graphic design, online sharing and on-screen testing of our own simulation designs – see
[8]P.Sabin, Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), and the associated website at See also P.Sabin, H.van Wees & M.Whitby (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, 2 vols., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).