Wargames
Page 34
Urban warfare is often described as hell on earth, and with very good reason. Targets are easily camouflaged and hard to acquire. Tactical movement, usually in small groups, is carried out in extremely exhausting short rushes from one shelter to the next. Obstacles must be negotiated, ricochets and falling debris avoided, hazardous objects such as electricity and gas lines taken care of, and so on. Often it is a question of going house by house, room by room, basement by basement, and even sewer by sewer. High ground retains some of its importance, but other kinds of commanding positions and chokepoints must also be occupied and held. Entries and exits must be covered, communication arteries kept open, squares, streets, and alleys dominated and crossed, doors broken open, stairwells cleared, wounded evacuated, noncombatants evacuated, kept out of harm’s way, and/or fed as far as possible, and so on almost ad infinitum. All this must be done under more or less intense fire coming from assault rifles, machine guns, hand grenades – a weapon whose importance in this kind of warfare cannot be overestimated – and short-range anti-tank weapons of which the ubiquitous Soviet-designed RPG is probably the best-known example.
The most important characteristic of urban warfare, though, is that the distance at which engagements are fought is much smaller than in almost any other kind. Postmortem analysis shows that 90 percent take place at a range of under 150 feet. Human targets are generally acquired at considerably less than that.55 Such figures are not too different from those associated with the most powerful paintball weapons. All this enables paintball to provide an excellent approximation of the reality of combat. Some armies, notably the American, British, German, and Israeli ones, have constructed entire mock villages for the purpose. Others use the facilities private companies provide. The facilities themselves come complete with dummy houses, dummy furniture, dummy noncombatants, and other kinds of dummies. In them soldiers, equipped just as they would be in battle but carrying paintball guns instead of the real thing, practice their craft against similarly equipped troops who impersonate the enemy.
Since enemy impersonators tend to be more familiar with the setup than the trainees, they are often able give the latter a good run for their money, playing their assigned role with gusto and skill. To be sure, some limitations apply. They include the possibility that firing at close quarters will result in injuries, the difficulty of simulating heavier weapons often used in urban warfare such as anti-tank rockets and recoilless rifles, and the consequent need for umpires or some other system to decide who has been killed, who has merely been wounded, and who has been left unhurt. “Boom,” the lieutenant supervising the exercise may say, “you and your squad are dead.” Everything considered, though, a more realistic way of training is not easy to think of.56 Some would add that the (fairly mild) pain caused by a paintball hit is actually a bonus, since it will compel those not inclined to take the game seriously enough to do exactly that. As one player puts it, he will “go ninjas” to avoid the balls.57
Thus paintball, a wargame originally invented and played by hobbyists looking for a thrill, has entered the much more serious world of military-inspired wargames. There it will presumably remain until something better is found – armies consisting of bullet-resistant combinations of men and robots, perhaps? The situation in respect to the next game we must consider here, laser tag, was different; hobbyists and the military moved more or less in tandem.58 Lasers may be briefly described as concentrated beams of light which, instead of scattering as distance increases, remain focused and thus retain their energy. Provided only sufficient power is available, and provided also certain atmospheric conditions are met, in theory there are no limits either on range or on the amount of energy that may be delivered on target in this way.
The first lasers made their appearance around 1960. Unsurprisingly, no sooner had they done so than they gave rise to speculation concerning the eventual generation of “death rays.” The idea had been floating about for several decades,59 but now it seemed much closer to realization. Here and there science fiction heroes started carrying “ray guns” as they visited foreign planets, met various kinds of aliens, defeated them in battle, and departed.60 One of the earliest military uses of lasers was in range-finding for tanks, a task in which they started replacing the optical instruments and co-axial machine guns from the mid 1970s on. From there it was a short step to the idea of using them for training purposes by having soldiers “shoot” each other with them and register hits with the aid of specially designed receivers.
Apparently the first toy to use infrared light for “firing” at an opponent appeared on the market in 1979 under the name, Star Trek Electronic Phaser Guns set. Manufactured by South Bend Electronics, it consisted of two plastic guns (the nine-volt batteries each of them required were not included) and an instruction sheet. There were, however, no receivers yet, meaning that hits, in the form of spots of light, had to be visually identified. By way of a special treat, the wording on the box promised “phaser blast [what is that?] ricochet, and explosion sounds.”61 In fact, however, the only sound produced was a sort of whine. To this day, incidentally, most laser tag weapons emit sounds more like those of movies such as Star Wars than the ones originating in a real battlefield. A picture of boy fighting girl (and the reverse, of course), indicated that the South Bend set was meant for children rather than for grownups. That in turn did not take long to change as some of the latter realized lasers’ potential for satisfying what one can only call their long-suppressed fighting instincts.
As had happened with paintball, other firms quickly entered the market with their own weapons and equipment. Many of those were designed to increase realism by adding noise, muzzle flashes, and recoil – providing an interesting insight into the things players care about. As had also happened with paintball, commercial arenas for playing laser tag started to be opened. As of 2011 one firm alone, Laser Quest, was running 125 such arenas worldwide. The largest one, located at Mesa, Arizona, covers 13,000 square feet and sports a forest of ramps, towers, and bridges reaching heights of 20 feet.62 One is reminded of a children’s “adventure playground,” only much larger. Other enthusiasts, whether because they wanted greater freedom to do their own thing or simply to save money, held their games in the open. However, it was not all smooth sailing: as we saw, wargames have always given rise to opposition. Somewhat like medieval ecclesiastics, politicians in various countries have tried to ban both laser tag and paintball. The most important country in question was Germany. There, on top of being subject to the usual charges of trivializing and encouraging violence, the games were condemned for being popular among “right-wing extremists.” In the event, the idea of a ban was dropped within days of it being raised. Childish, dumb perhaps, but not criminal, was the verdict of Konrad Freiberg, chairman of the German Police Union, whose fellow policemen would have had to enforce the ban.63
Provided goggles are worn, lasers do not hurt those they hit, meaning that they are perhaps more suitable for young players than paintball is. On the other hand, their range is much greater than that of paint-filled gelatin balls. The best available equipment will register hits 500 feet away in full sun and over 900 in the shade (the difference, of course, is one of the things that separates the game from real war: nothing is perfect). Such ranges mean that, in addition to carrying guns and wearing receivers, players may need to buy or rent sophisticated communications gear so as to be able to operate in teams. Again like paintball, laser tag may be played by amateurs out for a day of fun in an arena or else in the open. It may, however, also be played by highly skilled individuals or groups according to strict rules, thus enabling regular competitions and tournaments to be organized. Especially popular games, or perhaps one should call them scenarios, include capturing the flag, protecting the VIP, and defending the base.
In so far as they pit individuals or groups against each other, all these belong to the realm of strategy. As in real-life war, the list of possibilities is practically endless. New techniques and scenarios
keep being introduced. Some of the equipment available on the market not only allows people to shoot each other but uses radio or infrared to hook up guns and receivers with a control computer. By having each gun and each receiver give out a different signal, scores can be kept, cheating prevented, and, in case players are so inclined, lessons drawn for future engagements.64 As with paintball, players are taught to use tactics very similar to those employed at war. Among them are staying low, mobility – the need to keep moving – making use of terrain (where relevant), putting on camouflage, taking shelter, setting up ambushes and springing them, maneuvering to surprise the opponent, working in teams (but not so closely as to risk being hit by a single shot), sending out reconnaissance and if necessary “sacrificing” a teammate so as to make the opponent reveal his position, and the like.65
The qualities that players need most are speed and accuracy, and newcomers to the game are warned that acquiring them takes a lot of practice.66 Combining the two is sometimes known as taking snapshots, which is said to be the most important skill any player should master. Players are encouraged to experiment and see what their strengths and weaknesses are. Some are slow to pull the trigger but have deadly aim, meaning that, if they are members of a team, they should try to fire from behind cover. They should, in other words, act as snipers. Others are fast actors and should engage in close combat if they can, taking on opponents and out-zapping them while at the same time staying on guard against the kind of bastard who may be lurking in some corner.
While most “combatants” never develop a high level of skill, some do. Videos show them crouching, ducking, leaping, sliding, rolling on the ground, hitting opponents at what look like impossible distances and at incredible range: in short, doing all the things well-trained commando troops are taught to do. At least one website tells visitors to “fight the unfair fight,” meaning to operate things in such a way as to enable the many to attack the few.67 That, of course, has been the essence of strategy in every kind of wargame (and war) from the time chess was invented to the present day. Yet not all the tactics are relevant to real combat: for example, some argue that guns should be kept out of sight as far as possible because the sensors on them are disproportionally likely to be hit. Some of the numerous lists of instructions available on the Net appear to have been written by military professionals. Others were posted by retired ones who now act as laser tag instructors, others still by amateurs with long experience at the game. All this, as at least one site unashamedly tells us, for keeping people amused by seeing which of them can kill the most opponents within the time allowed.
It was at this point that the military entered the picture. As we saw, for several centuries the many kinds of games many armies devised for training, simulation, and planning all suffered from the fact that troops could not do what they do in war, i.e. shoot to kill. This not only detracted from realism but required the use of umpires to determine the outcome of combat. This could yield highly unsatisfactory results – if the umpires were insufficiently knowledgeable, biased, or simply not present at the right place and time – and was clumsy to use even if it did not. While post-action critiques were almost always employed, reconstructing what took place so as to draw the correct lessons from it was always difficult, sometimes impossible. In the words of General Paul F. Gorman, deputy chief of staff for Training at TRADOC (Trade and Doctrine) from 1973 to 1977, neither the US Army nor any other at the time had an effective method for collecting training data, displaying it, and using it.68
Attempts to use modern technology for dealing with the problem got under way in the late 1970s. After considerable debate as to whether there should be multiple training centers or just one, the decision was made to select Fort Irwin, a desert area located between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The prevailing climatic conditions – important if the air force was to participate in the exercises – its size, varied terrain, remoteness, sparse population, and general worthlessness all made it suitable for holding large-scale military wargames. It had, in fact, been intermittently used for that purpose from 1940 until 1972. At that time the end of the Vietnam War and the subsequent reduction in the size of the army caused it to be permanently closed; rebuilding it and equipping it with the most advanced available technology, much of it experimental, proved to be the most costly peacetime training project in the whole of history.
In 1981, after nine years of work, the site was reactivated, complete with quarters, a PX, medical services, and everything else a military base needs for its day-to-day operations. Officially known as the National Training Center, it soon came to be nicknamed Fort Atari, after the company that used to dominate the videogame industry from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s. At the heart of training at Fort Atari, and later at other bases as well, was the use of multiple integrated laser engagement system or MILES. Compared to commercial systems then coming on the market, the main difference was that the lasers were mounted on the barrels of real weapons. When the soldier fired a (blank) round, the laser was automatically activated. Receptors, mounted on helmets, body vests, and vehicles, produced a “beep” when the laser hit them.
To prevent “casualties” from cheating, later versions of MILES replaced the beep with a loud noise which only stopped when the soldier removed a yellow key from his weapon, preventing it from firing again and effectively removing him from the exercise or game. Special devices were also incorporated to make sure that a hit by a “bullet” from, say, an M-16 assault rifle would not result in the “incapacitation” of a tank or an armored personnel carrier. Subsequently similar systems designed to simulate the fire of tanks, armored personnel carriers, anti-tank missiles, several types of attack helicopters, and short-range (point) air defenses were added. Each of these was given a code and linked to a central computer. The objective was to enable the movements and score of each man, each vehicle, and each unit to be recorded and displayed either in real time, for the benefit of the control team, or at some later one.69 Mobile video units, their movements similarly tracked by computer, also recorded what was going on. Their orders were to blend into the environment as much as possible so as to avoid disturbing the “players” and allow them plenty of room to flex their muscles.
To quote an Israeli saying – what modern country has fought more wars than Israel? – warfare consist of running over the hills, crawling among thistles, and eating sand. All the while carrying heavy loads, and all under what are often extreme climatic conditions. As well as incorporating all the electronic wizardry, Fort Irwin and similar installations allow soldiers to do all these things. It thus combines the advantages of the shooting gallery with those of two-sided maneuvers. Unit commanders, too, can practice what they are supposed to do with real-life troops in real-life war. During the 1990s the system spread from the US to many other countries all over the world. Among the better-known ones is Hohenfels, in Germany, which, however, only allows two battalions to maneuver against each other.70 Not just infantrymen but vehicles, including armored personnel carriers and tanks, could be provided with lasers and made to fight much more realistically than before. Not only did a global positioning system enable the vehicles to be tracked, but video cameras could be installed both aboard each one and in the vicinity where they operated, recording every move and permitting subsequent analysis. The entire thing thus assumed the character of a sort of gigantic electronic laboratory. In it human mice, those moved on their own legs as well as those that rode vehicles of every sort, moved about and “fought,” with their performance closely watched by god-like commanders and analysts.
What set Fort Irwin apart from the rest was the fact that it spread over no fewer than 642,000 acres (1,000 square miles), enough for two complete armored brigades with several hundred vehicles each to deploy and practice against one another. Normally a brigade assigned to the Fort will spend one week preparing, two weeks “fighting,” and one cleaning up and preparing to depart. As with paintball, smaller exercises can include counterinsurgency operations
, urban operations, peacekeeping operations, and rescue operations. Gathering steam during the 1990s, those have since come to form the majority of all exercises. Trainees, it is claimed, arrive at the Fort with wide open eyes. Two weeks’ worth of intensive training puts them through any number of scenarios, from breaking into a house suspected of harboring terrorists and being confronted with whimpering women and children all the way to coping with an IED (improvised explosive device) discovered by the roadside.71 The National Training Center, we are told, “prides itself on providing brutally honest and irrefutable feedback on unit performance while providing a forum that encourages candid discussion and self-analysis by the unit.”72 However that may be, certainly such elaborate facilities would have turned past commanders green with envy.
Even so, some problems remain. Direct-fire weapons firing bullets or other kinetic rounds can easily be simulated with the aid of lasers, since in that case only fairly minor adjustments to the fire control apparatus are needed. Not so indirect artillery fire – the most important of its kind by far – and air-launched missiles and bombs. All of these, instead of moving along a straight trajectory as laser beams do, follow very different ones.73 It is of course possible to use strategically located pyrotechnics like those moviemakers have long employed and those the army itself often employed in earlier exercises and maneuvers. Activated at the right moment, they can give the troops some feel for the impact that incoming fire of this kind will have and teach them how to deal with it. Tables and computers can then be used to calculate the percentage of rounds that will hit their targets and the damage they will do. Such tables and calculations can even be made to differentiate between attack, defense, daytime operations, night-time operations, and so on. Yet however sophisticated the algorithms, ultimately they are subject to all the limitations that have affected wargames using similar methods from at least the beginning of the nineteenth century on.