The Urban Warfare Institute

Urban Warfare Institute

As I mentioned last summer, it was apparent that with the retirement of Brigadier General Wooldridge the 2024 serial of the 40th Infantry Division’s Urban Operations Planner Course would be the last one.

The Urban Warfare Institute has surfaced as “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the study of urban environments, urban operations, and urban warfare”, offering research, education and advisory resources.

The principals are John Spencer, Liam Collins, Lionel Beehner and BG (ret) Wooldridge.

The resource pages, so far, seem to be collections of (mostly John Spencer’s) writings and articles on urban warfare and urban related issues from the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts, a lot of case studies, and pages on doctrine, research and games that were originally on the 40th Infantry Division’s webpage related to the Urban Ops Planner Course.

Go have a look! Lots of stuff there.

https://www.urbanwarfareinstitute.com/

EuroWarGames anthology available from NUTS!

https://www.nutspublishing.com/eshop/eurowargames-en?search=eurowargames

Now that the Kickstarter people have been served (thank you for your confidence and patience), NUTS! Publishing has made a limited number of copies of the EuroWarGames anthology available.

Price is 32 Euros, shipping rates according to Florent Coupeau (publisher):

Shipping prices for 1 copy are :
– European Union to your home: 13.2€
– European Union to a pickup place: 9.5€
– North America delivery in 5-10 days: 15.95€
– North America (available after March 2025) delivery in 10-20 days: 10.2€
– UK: 22.5€ (because of the additional taxes after Brexit – though in exchange, you guys do have passport covers the same colour as they used to be)

Meanwhile, Rocky Mountain Navy has written a short review at Armchair Dragoons: https://armchairdragoons.com/book-eurowg/

CSW Expo 2025 no-go

I have just posted this on Consimworld forums in the discussion area for the annual expo in Tempe AZ:

Dear friends,
 
Tomorrow the United States will begin levying tariffs of 10% to 25% on Canadian goods entering the United States.
I am writing to say that I have decided NOT to attend CSW Expo 2025 while what I consider to be punitive economic actions by the United States against Canada are in effect.
I cannot in good conscience voluntarily spend my money in a country whose government is looking to inflict harm on my province and my country as a whole.


To some of you this may seem to be a small and futile gesture.
I’m making it as an individual, and even if they appear small and futile I believe individual actions have value to express pride and faith in something… a tradition, or a principle, or a country.
And if that gesture has more value to me than to you, so be it.


I attended my first CSW Expo in 2005 – while I haven’t attended every year, I have a drawer full of Expo t-shirts.
And I will miss seeing my American friends… truly, this is nothing personal.
And certainly I don’t speak for the handful of Canadians who do come every year but I think one thing that unites us as Canadians is that while we may like individual Americans, we do not want to bend the knee to another government’s arbitrary demands.
 
Brian Train

Edited to add:

I was chastised later by the Admin Gods in the Forum for making a political post on the Forum. Setting aside the basic absurdity of “no politics when we’re discussing war”, I can understand as these things can degenerate into screaming matches very quickly, so it’s a self-preservation and sanity measure  (though this time it didn’t: the responses were all understanding and supportive). 

Sometimes the Bard will give you exactly what you need, so I posted in response:

“I will do so. But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train.”

– Julius Caesar Act 1 Scene 2

I’m appearing at SDHist Con Winter Quarters (online) 2025

SDHist Con Online 2025 Winter Quarters is a one-day online event coming Saturday, February 8.

I’ll be on two panels, early in the morning West Coast Time (which is GMT -8, so not so bad for Eastern friends).

At 1600 GMT (0800 local to me time) I will be on a panel organized by Aaron Danis on portrayals of terrorism and counterterrorism in modern games; overshadowing me like two banyan trees will be Volko Ruhnke and Roger Mason, both friends of the blog.

https://tabletop.events/conventions/sdhist-online-2025-winter-quarters/schedule/39

At 1700 GMT (right afterwards) I will be on a panel organized by Riccardo Massini, where the authors of the various chapters in the new Euro War Games anthology will be talking about their contributions to the book, and other topics that arise. Not everyone could make the date, so as far as I know the following will attend besides me: the three editors (Riccardo Massini, Jan Heinemann, Fred Serval), Andrea Angiolino, Alfio Ferrara, Paul Hodson, Daniela Kuschel, Volko Ruhnke, Ranald Shepherd. Might have surprise guests too like publisher Florent Coupeau.

https://tabletop.events/conventions/sdhist-online-2025-winter-quarters/schedule/7

Like other years, there are loads and loads of other interesting events as well as these panels; here are some I think would be interesting and intend to check out:

  • The World of Professional Wargaming
  • Demo of Battlegroup Clash: Baltics
  • Teach and Play of True Command by Catastrophe Games
  • Harold interviews Pete Pellegrino of the Naval War College

Interesting but I can’t make it:

  • A Game About Defenestration in Putin’s Russia
  • Designer Talk: Littoral Commander
  • Designing Microgames (put on by Georgetown University Wargaming Society, who ought to know)
  • Demo of Queen of Spies (WW 2 resistance in Belgium)
  • Designer talk on Rebels against Rebellion (guerrilla warfare in ACW Tennessee)

You have to buy a ticket to the convention, it’s $10.00 US but there is no charge (and no ticketing) to any of the events within the con.

Tickets go on sale at 2000 GMT (noon local time) on Saturday, 1 February 2025.

Registration link: https://tabletop.events/conventions/sdhist-online-2025-winter-quarters

Overall event schedule, searchable: https://tabletop.events/conventions/sdhist-online-2025-winter-quarters/schedule

I hope you will drop by and check it out.

A new broom… well, sweeps all kinds of things.

I am on the mailing list for Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From an American”. Yesterday’s mailing had this in the middle of everything else, in the context of Trump declaring a state of emergency on the US southern border:

Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart of Reuters report that there have been informal discussions in the department about sending as many as 10,000 troops to the border, a discussion that raises the question of whether Mexico would feel obliged to respond in kind. And, according to Meg Kelly, Alex Horton, and Missy Ryan of the Washington Post, the Trump administration is trying to get rid of an office in the Pentagon that works to protect civilians in battlefield operations. The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence is housed within the Department of the Army and works to help the military limit unintended civilian deaths.

The WaPo material is behind a paywall, so is NY Times reporting, but here is a link that isn’t:

https://dnyuz.com/2025/01/23/u-s-army-plans-to-eliminate-office-for-reducing-civilian-harm-in-war/

This article notes that the new Secretary of Defence will be quite on board with this (if he wasn’t the original prime mover behind it).

At his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, said “restrictive rules of engagement” had made it more difficult to defeat enemies.

Mr. Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer and Fox News host, also successfully lobbied Mr. Trump to issue pardons in 2019 for a number of service members who were accused or convicted of war crimes.

Though the Centre is a recent formal organization, this perhaps signals a substantial reversal of US military doctrine, if not practice.

But perhaps it isn’t so sudden, or capricious: as I remarked at the TRADOC conference at Georgetown University last November  about 10 years ago the military doctrine of the United States began to shift away from counterinsurgency and into anticipation of Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). It therefore moved away from prioritizing civilian protection and support as a key centre of gravity for victory towards limiting harm to civilians as a utilitarian, legal and moral consideration incidental to destroying the enemy’s forces in kinetic operations.
I remarked in my talk that CHRM was not only a neglected aspect of gaming the Operational Environment, it was also a neglected topic in the TRADOC-G2 document that describes that environment itself. The words “civilian”, “population”, and noncombatant” appear only once or twice each in the document, and all of them are in the “Dense urban warfare” section. Each time these words are used they refer to constraints on maneuver, or effective fires. There is even a suggestion there that “the United States may need to create conditions that force battles out of urban areas to conduct effective LSCO”, so sidestepping this and other issues completely. And I have no idea on earth how you are going to do that.

We will not be conducting LSCO on the Moon. Understanding the local population’s history, needs and attitudes toward friendly and enemy forces is part of a commander’s operational planning process and failing to do that is folly.

Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse | American Empire Project

(image: americanempireproject.com)

Connections North: Real Soon Now

Rex Brynen writes to remind us:

It’s less than a month to the Connections North professional wargaming conference at the Warrant Officers’ & Sergeants’ Mess, CFB Kingston on February 15.

We will have three main panels this year, on

  • wargaming and professional military education (with Luke Brannigan, Andrew Godefroy, Philippe Beaulieu-Brossard, Christopher Ankersen, and Wendi Winter),
  • wargaming force development (with Stephen Keeble, Maude Amyot-Bourgeois, Stephen Downes-Martin, and Ben Taylor), and
  • wargaming urban warfare (with Jayson Geroux, David Redpath, and Rex Brynen and Brian Train, plus video contributions from David Burden, Stuart Lyle, and Brian Train).

In addition, there will be an activities and networking period after lunch. This will include some of my POLI 452 (Conflict Simulation) students from McGill , who will be sharing their class project ideas (and welcoming your suggestions and input).

If you have something you would like to demonstrate or exhibit, let us know (space is limited).

The Mess will remain open after the conference, for further networking (and gaming) opportunities.

For further information and registration, see Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/connections-north-2025-tickets-1097630796259. Ticket sales close on February 13, so don’t leave it until the last minute.

Great set of panels, if I say so m’self!

I hope you will attend, if you are handy to southern Ontario… or not: I’ve decided to leave the comparatively balmy West Coast to attend, as there is another interesting event nearby in space and time. The proceedings will not be streamed, nor will videos be posted later.

[whoop, whoop…] Mail’s in!

Last week the mailman kindly did his job (now that he isn’t locked-out by his employer anymore) and brought me two nice things:

My contributor’s copy of EuroWarGames, the anthology edited by Jan Heinemann, Riccardo Massini and Fred Serval, published by NUTS! Publishing and which includes my piece on “Analog Newsgames”.

Very pleased with how this one came out! Some excellent contributors to the book and I am very happy that NUTS! stuck to it and brought this one out. I think in due course copies will be available for anyone who’s interested but missed the Kickstarter, but I don’t know how large the press run was (nor do I know if there will be an ebook edition).

Also, a copy of the Japanese edition of my Bulge game Winter Thunder, by Bonsai Games and under arrangement with Tiny Battle Publishing. As with the two other games of mine give Japanese editions (Battle for China, Greek Civil War) the printing and graphics are exquisite (though a gap in communication saw the SS units printed in white-on-black instead of my preferred hot pink!).

Maple Leaf Raggregator

WPC Cover 8sm

 

For the entertainment of all and sundry who see the comedy behind the schoolyard bluster and distraction of the US President-elect’s (11 days to go) pronouncements about Canada, I’ve collected the posts and items that have appeared here about imagined war between our two countries. 

Games

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/200383/war-plan-crimson

(edition pictured above published in spring 2016)

War Plan Crimson, Mark II

(variant method of play for this edition that I like better)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11277/war-plan-crimson

(older edition, with not-as-good physical production but an ambiguous cover painting I liked)

Scenarios, Variants and Extras

Scroll down to War Plan Crimson to get the files for The Maple Leaf Forever, an expansion kit made by Bruce McFarlane of Edmonton in 2002 for the very first edition of the game by Microgame Design Group. It depicts “Defence Scheme No. 1”, a plan created in the 1920s by then Colonel J. Sutherland “Buster” Brown while he was working as Director of Military Operations and Intelligence for the Canadian Army. Basically, it is a scheme for a pre-emptive limited incursion into parts of the United States to disrupt an imminent full-scale invasion by the US, in order to win some time for British forces to make their way across the Atlantic to defend the country. 2 maps, 78 counters, charts and rules.

Writing

War Plan Crimson: A Novel of Alternate History

A post about a novel in which Defence Scheme No. 1 is put into action. Haven’t read it but to go by the reviews, could be fun if you like Harry Turtledove’s stuff.

Invasion Fantasies

Post about a piece in Walrus magazine about American-invasion fantasy lit. I suppose just about every country in the world that hasn’t actually been invaded and occupied would have some examples of this genre of fiction.

And finally, my contribution to the genre of “joke one-page wargames”, from 1996. I can also assert this is my one definitely errata-free design.

Operation Maple Leaf Rag: the Second War of 1812

(c) 1996 Brian Train

1.0 Introduction
Hi there.

2.0 Components
The game consists of two cards, one representing the American Invaders (Yankforce) and the other the Canadian defenders. (Canuckblock). Players will need one n-sided die (with sides numbered consecutively from 1 to n) to play the game.

3.0 Sequence of Play
The game is one turn long and consists of three phases:
3.1 Movement
3.2 Combat
3.3 Victory Determination

4.0 Movement
Place the Canuckblock card face up on a table between the two players. Place the Yankforce card next to it.

5.0 Combat
Combat is conducted by the Yankforce player rolling the die and matching the result on the following Combat Results Table:

1 to (n-1) = Canuckblock eliminated
n = roll die again.

6.0 Victory Determination
If the Canuckblock card has been eliminated during the combat phase, the Yankforce player wins. The Canuckblock player wins if the Yankforce player fails to win (e.g. if he rolls (n+1) on the die, lightning strikes and turns him into a pillar of salt, he inadvertently inhales the die and chokes, etc.).

7.0 Optional Rule
The Canuckblock player can declare at the beginning of the Combat Phase that Prime Minister Mackenzie King is using his ouija board, and makes a prediction of the next die roll. If he is correct, the Yankforce player must buy him a drink before rolling again. If he is wrong, the Yankforce player wins a Sudden Death Victory and the game is over.

Finnish Civil War on sale for $20

Katalog 1

Katalog

Compass Games holiday sale is continuing for a couple of weeks yet and there’s a page or two of games for $21 or less. One of these is the issue of Paper Wars containing Finnish Civil War!

This is the lowest price for it I’ve seen yet, so if you are morbidly curious…

https://www.compassgames.com/product-category/stocking-stuffer-games/

Besides back issues of PW, there are quite a few boxed games too for the same price.

Go have a look!

Obligatory end-of-year review, 2024

goldblum

Oh, indeed…

I know I should have put this one up before 31 December but I was on leave and it turns out that my computer at home is so old and unupdateable that I could not access WordPress to do it.

Not only that, just before I went on leave I popped the tendons in my right elbow and mousing and keyboarding is quite painful while it heals… which will take several weeks yet, at least.

So i will try to keep this short, for my sake if no one else’s.

I also will not post any links here, since last year I put in too many and my blog got suspended for a couple of weeks when an algorithm noticed and thought I was a ‘bot or something, I guess… one part of the dead Internet talking to another.

*****

Game publishing and publicity

January: Published Sole Tunnels, a free print-and-play game inspired by the old SPI dungeon crawler microgame Deathmaze about a rifle company plus enablers exploring an unknown tunnel complex. I also posted about Tunnel Troopers, another game that is like a variation of the QUICK for underground… mostly worked out but I need to test with other people before putting it out there.

March: Early in the year I worked out QUICK Junior, a version of QUICK that is taken down two echelons. NATO and Latvian reservist platoons fight company-size “storm groups” of the Russian 25 Guards Separate Motor Rifle Brigade in the streets of Daugavpils in southern Latvia. LCOL Cole Peterson, CO of 1 PPCLI, has used wargames in unit training and asked me to develop this for him. He tried it out with his officers and senior NCOs and apparently it worked well. I ran games of this at Connections-UK and Pijust Kruminas developed a Lithuanian setting for the game. The print-and-play files for this game have been added to the QUICK page.

May: posted the files for Dislocated, a very simple and swift game about assisting refugees, using a few markers and a deck of ordinary playing cards.

June: Posted a 2024 scenario for Third Lebanon War to cover the summer incursion by the IDF that went into southern Lebanon. Historically, this one was also overtaken by events: the incursion did not go very far before Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire, reeling from the decapitation effects of the exploding pagers caper and a sustained aerial bombing campaign aimed at its civilian infrastructure, and then of course the very rapid collapse of the Assad regime at the end of the year.

September: At Connections-UK there was a session about microgames and designing them, with an invitation to roll your own. I paired off with Sam Wicks and in about an hour we had the basics of High-Rise, a two-player game about a Runner (thief, assassin or some other photogenic character with a mission on the top floor) versus a Gatekeeper (who is in charge of the passive and active security measures of the building the Runner is passing through). No barbecued dog but files are on the free games page.

October: Pijus Kruminas developed and publicly played a scenario for QUICK Junior set in Marijampole, Lithuania to defend against a sally on Vilnius launched from the Kaliningrad enclave. He later demonstrated it for the Defence Staff of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.

Game design work and future publication

Besides the games that were both started and completed in 2024 (Sole Tunnels, QUICK Junior, Dislocated, High-Rise) work and/ or testing continued on the following.

Brief Border Wars Quad Volume II: Latest word (from their Christmas catalog) is that the game will be out in mid-2025. Yeah, we’ll see about that.

Briganti: A couple of test games at CSWExpo, well received. This one will be brought out by an Italian company and they have engaged an historian to add molto extra historical content and background for the kiddies, who have no idea who Ernest Borgnine was anyway.

China’s War 1937-41: We are pretty much there… final touches on the solitaire system (which will be called Sun Wukong, after the legendary Monkey King warrior!) and the  tutorial scenario. To enter production and maybe distribution in the first half of 2025. This has had quite the longest gestation period of any game I’ve done for formal publication (almost ten years) and it is my last formal essay in the GMT COIN system (except for O Canada). Unless it isn’t, but it probably is: I think I am done with this system, a lot of other clever people are working in and on it so it’s in good hands.

O Canada: Test games at CSWExpo and BottosCon helped me to conclude that this one is probably ready to put out there, via self-publishing as a BTR Games product. I plan to make it available as a cheap print-and–play item on Wargamevault with the other games, and make up some physical copies for sale, priced accordingly (at least the equivalent of a couple of hours of minimum wage, which is the time it takes to put together the components and package – if you think I’m not worth that much, then buy the PnP and assign yourself some unwaged labour duty).

Scaleable Urban Simulation: Got back to work on this and have made some substantial changes to it, in preparation for some possible professional use of it in 2025… we’ll see about that too.

Strongman: A good test and lots of suggestions by knowledgeable parties at CSWExpo, this one is also a candidate for publication in the next year or two. I’d like that.

Game Conventions

July: Went to CSWExpo in Tempe AZ for the first time since 2018. Caught COVID there, for the first time since 2022. Fortunately it only manifested after we got home. Got in plays of O Canada, Strongman, and Briganti.

November: Went to BottosCon in New West. No COVID this time, not even the usual con crud. Got in some games of O Canada and discussed its physical production.

Conferences and professional wargaming stuff

August-September: Another extended trip abroad: a three and a half week professional wargaming tour, if you will… First, at the end of August: attending the California Army National Guard’s Urban Operations Planners Course at JFTB Los Alamitos. Had a group of excellent facilitators from the California State Guard and course cadre, and we pulled it off again… the current version of the game, featuring an area movement map of Manila and the planning phase, is the definitive version I think. Unfortunately this was the last iteration of the course, at least in its present form: in September BG Wooldridge retired after 31 years of service and is now “Mister Wooldridge”. No one and no budget remains to carry on with the course as a National Guard sponsored event; it may happen that a private venture might be formed to offer it, but we’ll see if that actually happens (also, if I and the QUICK would be involved in that format of the course). Then the Wargaming Initiative for NATO conference in Hamburg, to give a TED-style talk about portrayals of civilians in wargames (or rather, non-portrayals): I’d never been to Hamburg before and it seems like a nice city but it was a fast visit. A few days in Berlin to see what had changed since 1989 when I was last there (everything, and yet nothing), and then to Connections-UK at Brunel University in Uxbridge, where I ran sessions of QUICK Junior. This was a long time to be on the road but it was time well spent, and I don’t think I will have a confluence of events like that again. 

November: A very quick visit to the GameOn! conference at Georgetown University, organized by the US Army TRADOC’s Mad Scientist Initiative. I presented on “Gaming Neglected Aspects of the Operational Environment”, which was an amplification of some points I raised in a post for the Mac Scientist blog in September. For my pains they made me an official US Army Mad Scientist!

Writing and ‘casting

January/February: I was on a panel about “Wargaming Africa” at the SDHistcon Online event, talking mostly about Algeria. Also, posted a long interview done with Fred Serval for his Homo Ludens podcast, recorded in one of the garden spaces of the Barbican while I was in London.

March: Davide Clari (Giochi su Nostro Tavolo) posted an interview he did with me a while back, mostly about A Distant Plain.

April: A panel on urban wargaming for the Connections Online event: unfortunately neither BG Wooldridge nor LCOL Peterson could attend to talk about their experiences with the QUICK so it was three game designers (me, Mike Markowitz and David Burden) yakking at each other about our work.

May: Not my writing as such, but in the journal Rethinking History: Professor Thomas Ambrosio at North Dakota State University published an article on the relevance and reception of A Distant Plain in the period during and after the collapse of the Afghan government in 2021. Many references to the posting and bloviating I was doing while that was going on.

June: Interviews with Harold Buchanan and Andrew Buchholz connected with SDHistcon Online Second Front. The first was in connection with We Are Coming Nineveh! and its winning a Charles Roberts Award for “Best Tactical Game”, the second was more broadly focused on my other work.

September: A short bit I had written for the TRADOC “Mad Scientist Initiative” about urban warfare and the shortcomings of many wargames ran on their blog. Later, I went over these points and more in a presentation at a very short conference held at Georgetown University.

November: A successful Kickstarter for the EuroWargames Anthology, which included my chapter on “Analog Newsgames”. Should get my copy in the next few months.

Near-meaningless digest of site statistics:

Overall traffic seemed to be about the same as 2023. I seem to be cruising still at around 1,700 views per month, for a total of about 21,500 views. About 8,500 visitors in all. The five most curious countries were: US (by a very wide margin), UK, Canada, Japan and Italy. One visit each from 19 different smaller countries, including Afghanistan (!?!).
Besides the then-current post, popular pages included Free Games, BTR Games, the QUICK Page and Scenarios and Variants pages.
The most downloaded documents were items for free PnP games: mostly items related to Ukrainian Crisis. By the unequal numbers of downloads for the different game components I cannot help but think that a lot of these downloads are just grabs by ‘bots… whatever for, I don’t know.

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