The British Army Tactical Wargame (1956)

The British Army's take on operational wargaming from it's OR experience in WWII and Korea. It was designed to explore the potential of theatre nuclear weapons in hypothetical battles of the early Cold War era. At its core is a recently de-classified set of rules by Lt. Col. Field found by Bob Cordery in the UK National Archives, and is published with suggested amendments and augmentations for the wargamer by the publisher, John Curry. It uses a "kriegsspiel" format with a central umpire (controller) to implement the rules and feed relevant information to two sets of players. The umpire is there to provide information and implement the rules, not make his own assessments. It works with orders given on an hourly basis to units on a 1:50,000 scale map or terrain model. Units are armour, infantry, artillery and engineers in battalion squadron and regimental sized units that operate, broadly, in 2km map squares. Combat resolution is probability driven and focusses on the need for TIME to plan co-ordinated assaults in attack or increase defence strength by preparing and digging in. One of the main purposes of the wargame was to allow officers to experiment with tactical nuclear warfare. These are playable rules, but also a work of reference about operational warfare between 1940 and 1970. Obtained from www.wargaming.co