US Army's "First Battle" training game/simluation from 1979

[Hobbit]

Hi all,

A friend forwarded a link to an online copy of the US Army's "First Battle" training game/simulation from 1979. It is an almost perfect fit for a concept that I'd been working on (on and off) for several years. I've tried searching for more info on this on the web but have more or less drawn a blank.

I wondered;

a) Has anyone else come across this in either a professional or recreational context?

b) Does anyone know if the supplements referred to in the rulebook were ever published?

Kind regards,

Andy

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll9/id/929

[Hobbit]

If anyone IS interested  in this I did get a partial answer to the above questions on another forum...

One was from a former US artilleryman who said he commanded the Soviet artillery a couple of times in that game; all of the material was closely guarded and had to be accounted for and returned to umpires at the end of the game. At least some of the other supplements DID see print, he thought they'd used additional rules for artillery and logistics.

The other reply was from the manager of the archivist who'd found the rules. He said that was the only volume that they'd found so far but that they were systematically working through the gaming & simulation archives and hoped to release anything that may be of interest to the wider public.

[commissarmoody]

Interesting find.

[von Lucky]

Interesting find - bookmarked for weekend reading.

[Mako]

I'd be interested in seeing what turns up.

I recently purchased a second-hand copy of Contact!, which is a set of wargaming rules used by the Canadians to train some of their troops.  Basically, it is a streamlined version of the old, WRG 1950 rules, with just kit and info for the Canadians, Russians, and a few US vehicles too (all the other vehicle data has been scrubbed to keep it simple, since the Canadians were only interested in their vehicles, and troops/artillery, and those of the Soviets, for simulation purposes).

Haven't tried them out yet, but will eventually give them a go.

[Hobbit]

Apart from having an interest in "real" wargames I was looking at it from several different angles.

a. I'm always interested in how the military look at modelling things compared to how hobby gamers model them.

b. I've been looking for something that can be used as part of a much bigger game set-up that involves the different services interacting (i.e. ground forces, navy & air).

c. Using it as the basis of a play-by-email campaign/map game (as I don't have my own divisional staffs) or

d. Using it as the basis of an operational level (well, what wargamers like to call operational level) game with lots of 3mm miniatures.

[MartinR]

An interesting set, thanks for posting the link.

If you are intersting in higher level military wargaming rules (as opposed to WRG level rules like Contact and Dunn-Kempf), a couple of good ones are the 1956 British Army Tactical Wargame (actually covering Corps level operations) and the British Army Desert Wargame Rules 1978 (Battlegroup level but with an interesting random movement system).

Both have been republished by the History of Wargaming Project, along with Contact et al.

http://www.wargaming.co/professional/home.htm

I've used the 1956 rules in particular to run operational WW2 games, but you don't need a divisional staff to run either set, although they work best as a player team vs umpire(s) type format in the absence of scores of military clerical staff.

Cheers
Martin