Little Wars

EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS OF LITTLE WAR

Now that battle of Hook’s Farm is, as I have explained, a simplification of the game, set out entirely to illustrate the method of playing; there is scarcely a battle that will not prove more elaborate (and eventful) than this little encounter.  If a number of players and a sufficiently large room can be got, there is no reason why armies of many hundreds of soldiers should not fight over many square yards of model country.  So long as each player has about a hundred men and three guns there is no need to lengthen the duration of a game on that account.  But it is too laborious and confusing for a single player to handle more than that number of men.

Moreover, on a big floor with an extensive country it is possible to begin moving with moves double or treble the length here specified, and to come down to moves of the ordinary lengths when the troops are within fifteen or twelve or ten feet of each other.  To players with the time and space available I would suggest using a quite large country, beginning with treble moves, and, with the exception of a select number of cavalry scouts, keeping the soldiers in their boxes with the lids on, and moving the boxes as units. (This boxing idea is a new one, and affords a very good substitute for the curtain; I have tried it twice for games in the open air where the curtain was not available.) Neither side would, of course, know what the other had in its boxes; they might be packed regiments or a mere skeleton force.  Each side would advance on the other by double or treble moves behind a screen of cavalry scouts, until a scout was within ten feet of a box on the opposite side.  Then the contents of that particular box would have to be disclosed and the men stood out.  Troops without any enemy within twenty feet could be returned to their boxes for facility in moving.  Playing on such a scale would admit also of the introduction of the problem of provisions and supplies.  Little toy Army Service waggons can be bought, and it could be ruled that troops must have one such waggon for every fifty men within at least six moves.  Moreover, ammunition carts may be got, and it may be ruled that one must be within two moves of a gun before the latter can be fired.  All these are complications of the War Game, and so far I have not been able to get together sufficient experienced players to play on this larger, more elaborate scale.  It is only after the smaller simpler war game here described has been played a number of times, and its little dodges mastered completely, that such more warlike devices become practicable.

But obviously with a team of players and an extensive country, one could have a general controlling the whole campaign, divisional commanders, batteries of guns, specialised brigades, and a quite military movement of the whole affair.  I have (as several illustrations show) tried Little Wars in the open air.  The toy soldiers stand quite well on closely mown grass, but the long-range gun-fire becomes a little uncertain if there is any breeze.  It gives a greater freedom of movement and allows the players to lie down more comfortably when firing, to increase, and even double, the moves of the indoor game.  One can mark out high roads and streams with an ordinary lawn-tennis marker, mountains and rocks of stones, and woods and forests of twigs are easily arranged.  But if the game is to be left out all night and continued next day (a thing I have as yet had no time to try), the houses must be of some more solid material than paper.  I would suggest painted blocks of wood.  On a large lawn, a wide country-side may be easily represented.  The players may begin with a game exactly like the ordinary Kriegspiel, with scouts and boxed soldiers, which will develop into such battles as are here described, as the troops come into contact.  It would be easy to give the roads a real significance by permitting a move half as long again as in the open country for waggons or boxed troops along a road.  There is a possibility of having a toy railway, with stations or rolling stock into which troops might be put, on such a giant war map.  One would allow a move for entraining and another for detraining, requiring the troops to be massed alongside the train at the beginning and end of each journey, and the train might move at four or five times the cavalry rate.  One would use open trucks and put in a specified number of men—­say twelve infantry or five cavalry or half a gun per truck—­and permit an engine to draw seven or eight trucks, or move at a reduced speed with more.  One could also rule that four men—­the same four men—­remaining on a line during two moves, could tear up a rail, and eight men in three moves replace it.

I will confess I have never yet tried over these more elaborate developments of Little Wars, partly because of the limited time at my disposal, and partly because they all demand a number of players who are well acquainted with the same on each side if they are not to last interminably.  The Battle of Hook’s Farm (one player a side) took a whole afternoon, and most of my battles have lasted the better part of a day.