A Sharp, Savage Affair

[jetfx]

On Remembrance Day (November 11), we finally got a chance to play Storm of Steel in full for the first time. Surprisingly the game ended in Autumn 1915 with the collapse of the Central Powers. Since then, the three of us have been discussing theories for such a short war, ranging from our own decisions to the nature of the rules themselves

Comments

[thebellman]

With respect to the question of morale: I've been hearing and reading a fair bit about the "war poets" (Sassoon and his ilk), and journalists and journalism as applicable to this conflict. One thing that seems evident is that while the morale of front line troops was low, the transmission of news was so constrained and so slow that the horror of the conflict was never really bought home to the nations involved, and possibly was not fully understood by many of the senior leaders. Indeed, in the Australian context, the extent of the horror was not understood until the soldiers returned home (incidentally bringing with them the Spanish Flu, just to add injury to insult).

I agree with your analysis of why your campaign was much shorter and dynamic, though. One thing that I would add: your campaign did not involve troops, on either side, being led by bloody-minded idiots.

Great report though!

[jetfx]

Certainly there would have been a fair amount of censorship between the front and the home front to hide the horror, but as we discovered in the game, the biggest killer of morale in the game was just losing troops. Taking heavy casualties is not something that you can easily hide from home front, because at the very least, mummy and daddy notice when little Tommy stops writing, although most families would have received some sort of official or unofficial confirmation of death. Local newspapers would often print lists of dead as well.

In the end, even a very detailed game is just a crude simulation of the actual event, and so any outcome we produce doesn't really represent a valid possible outcome for the Great War.

And thanks!

[thebellman]

One of the interesting things that has come to my attention regarding Australian losses in that conflict is that for quite a long time the extent of casualties was successfully hidden from the general population, and things only started to come unglued because some letters from soldiers slipped through the censorship gaps. The role of local newspapers was quite interesting, because as you say, they were collating and publishing the lists of deaths, and after a while started to ask (pointedly) why these rather startling numbers were not being discussed in the major papers and parliament.

I look forward to hearing how your simulation evolves.

[jetfx]

Well, we're going to play the game again sometime in the near future with what we've learned and see what happens. And then we'll make some changes as we see fit.