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Ty Bomba’s Primer on Strategy & Tactics

Legendary wargame designer Ty Bomba.

I can think of no better introduction for Ty Bomba than his Wikipedia entry: “Ty Bomba is a prolific wargame designer from the United States. He is credited as the designer of over 125 board games or game items. At times between 1976 and 1988, Bomba held a security clearance as a certified Arabic and Russian linguist for the US Air Force, US Army, and the National Security Agency. In 1988, he was elected to the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame. He was previously a senior editor at Strategy & Tactics Press. Bomba was co-founder and designer for XTR Corporation, a company that existed between 1989 and 2001. ” In other words, a very impressive career in wargame design and military strategy and tactical thinking.

Ty recently posted his Primer on Strategy & Tactics on Facebook and I asked his permission to repost it here, which he very kindly gave. I have spent much of my professional career trying to create computer algorithms for military tactics and strategy (a subject that I call ‘computational military reasoning’ and have written extensively about here). Ty has very succinctly stated much of what I’ve attempted to accomplish in his Primer below. Ty can be found on Facebook as ‘Ty Bomba’.

Ty Bomba’s Primer on Strategy and Tactics

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy” – Carl von Clausewitz.

Strategy Defined
A plan or policy intended to achieve a major or overall aim, and having to be
achieved in the face of opposition from others. All strategy is a contextual
interpretation of a problem and a compromised rationalization of a
solution. There are no formulas to end the tensions inescapably imposed by
uncertain intentions, faulty assumptions, unknown capabilities and vaguely
understood risks.

Laws of Strategy

  1. Know your own capabilities.
  2. Know your opponent’s capabilities and objectives.
  3. Pit your strengths against your opponent’s weaknesses.
  4. Prevent your opponent from pitting his strengths against your
    weaknesses.
  5. Never pit your strengths against your opponent’s strengths.
  6. Maintain an emergency reserve of five to 25 percent of your strength.
  7. Keep in mind your desired end-state: only do things that move you closer
    to it.
  8. Never repeat an already failed strategy with the expectation of getting a
    better result from it.
  9. The overarching objective of your strategy should be to create a state of
    surprise in your opponent. That uncertainty will delay, and otherwise make
    less efficient, his countermoves. That is a force multiplier for you.

Common Reasons for Strategic Failure

  1. Overconfidence due to previous successes.
  2. Analyzing information only after sifting it through the filter of dogma.
  3. Operating with insufficient reserves.
  4. Mirror imaging – using one’s own rationales to interpret the actions or
    intentions of an opponent – is the most common fault among decision
    makers.
  5. Objectives not well explained to those below the highest level of command.
  6. Objectives not adjusted according to new data coming from the
    operational environment.
  7. Unanticipated outside influences.

Tactics Defined
An action intended to achieve a specific end, undertaken while in contact with the
enemy.

Laws of Tactics

  1. Always seek to control the local high ground or its aerial or outer space
    equivalent.
  2. Move in short bounds from cover to cover so as not to be caught in the
    open by your opponent.
  3. Maneuver so as to engage your opponent on his flank or from behind and
    so as to prevent him from engaging you in that way.
  4. Don’t confuse “concealment” with “cover.” The former only gets you out of
    sight; the latter also offers protection from enemy fire.

Juncture of Tactics & Strategy
Your superior strategy can make up for your poor tactics; however, your superior
tactics will not make up for your poor strategy. As Sun Tzu put it: “Good strategy
combined with poor tactics is the slowest route to victory; good tactics combined
with poor strategy is just so much noise before your final defeat.”

Surprise
Surprise is a state of confusion in your opponent, induced by your introducing the
unexpected. At the strategic level, surprise is often viewed as the tool of the
weaker side, as the stronger side has the option of simply applying greater force.
At the tactical level, surprise is considered a force multiplier for the side causing it
by creating a temporary period of confusion and vulnerability in the surprised
force. Having multiple objectives lies at the heart of creating surprise in an
opponent.

The Most Difficult Thing
The most difficult thing in a dynamic situation is to know when to change
strategies. If you do it too soon or too often, you’re not a strategist; you’re an
opportunist. If you do it too late, or refuse to do it no matter what, again you’re
not a strategist; you’re a fanatic. Opportunists and fanatics are both easily
defeated by good strategists.

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I just recently discovered that the email contact form on this web site was not properly forwarding emails to me. I feel awful about this. I’ve always taken great pride in personally answering every letter or email written to me – going back to the days of dot-matrix printers and postage stamps – and, literally, hundreds of people wrote to me and never heard back.

To clarify: if you responded to a post with a comment, I did get an automated message for those and did respond immediately. Only queries using the contact form page on this site did not forward emails to me.

Pretty much all that I’ve been doing for the last three days is writing emails (occasionally taking a break to walk the dog and feed the other animals here). I apologize for having to send out some form letters but the important thing is that you now all have my personal email address. In fact, if you go to the ‘Contact’ page on this site you’ll find my personal email address. Is this a good idea? No. I definitely do not encourage people to post their email addresses on line because you will get spammed. But, I guess, this will be my penance. Mea culpa, me maxima culpa!

Army Editor Released for Beta-testing!

Screen Capture from the General Staff Army Editor. Click to 4enlarge.

We are extremely pleased to announce that the General Staff Army Editor (pictured above) is now released for beta-testing. Our early backers on Kickstarter and Indiegogo should have received a link and password for the download page. If you are an early General Staff backer and you haven’t received an email with this information, please contact us directly.

An Army Editor Tech Support forum has been established at Grogheads.

A Wikia (online documentation) site has been created here.

Please feel free to contact us directly with any questions or problems.

 

Using General Staff to Create a Simulation of the Battle of Isandlwana (January 22, 1879)

We recently asked you for your favorite 18th and 19th century (‘Age of Gunpowder’) battles to be included free for early backers of General Staff (see this link). We don’t want to spoil any surprises, but the Battle of Isandlwana was one of the top vote-getters.

Screen shot of the General Staff Scenario Design Module showing how to edit specific unit type versus unit type combat equations. In this example Blue Light Infantry (Zulu regiments) have been adjusted downward. Click to enlarge.

The Battle of Isandlwana is an especially challenging scenario to simulate because of the difference in technology (the British were armed with Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles while the Zulu warriors carried the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields). Yet, there are ‘Light Infantry’ unit types in both the Red and Blue forces, but clearly there is a very big difference between the Red (British) Light Infantry and the Blue (Zulu) Light Infantry units.

General Staff, which is based on the UMS Wargaming System, has the ability to adjust a unit’s combat firepower versus other unit types (see the above screen capture). In the above image we have set Blue’s Light Infantry (Zulu regiments) with a lower Attack Multiplier representing the Zulu troops lack of muskets and rifles. This matrix is available from the General Staff Scenario Design Module.

Screen capture of the British army Order of Battle for Isandlwana . Click to enlarge.

In the above screen capture from the General Staff Army Design Module we see a portion of the British Order of Battle at Isandlwana. The question is: what should Leadership, Morale and Efficiency be set for each of these units? How good were British commanders? What was the morale of native troops? How efficient were they? We would love to hear your comments.