2024年10月3日木曜日

速報:コネクションズ・ノース(カナダ)2025ウォーゲーミング会議開催日決定!(Breaking News: Connections North 2025 Date Announced)

 速報

コネクションズ・ノース(カナダ)2025ウォーゲーミング会議開催日決定!

(Breaking News: Connections North 2025 Date Announced)

  コネクションズ・ノース2025ウォーゲーミング会議の日程が公表されました。

日時:2026年2月15日(土曜日)
場所:Warrant Officer and Sergeants' Mess, CFB Kingston (Ontario)
テーマ:Professional Military Education (PME)

 詳細はこちらで。

(了)

2024年9月14日土曜日

Breaking News: "A Tribute to Peter Perla" Video Now Available (速報:故パーラ博士への感謝ビデオ、英コネクションズより)

 Breaking News:

"A Tribute to Peter Perla"

Video Now Available!

 (速報:故パーラ博士への感謝ビデオ、英コネクションズより)


 Let us just watch the video and listen to the messages.🙏
 The YouTube video is available here.

End

2024年8月25日日曜日

速報 (Breaking News): 豪コネクションズ・ウォーゲーム会合、今年もオンライン開催!(Connections Oz Going Online Again!)

 速報 (Breaking News)!

豪コネクションズ・ウォーゲーム会合、今年もオンライン開催!

(Connections Oz Going Online Again!)

 
 豪コネクションズ・ウォーゲーム会合、今年もオンラインのみの開催となる由。

日時:2024年11月5日~7日
形式:オンライン
主題:未定(アイデア募集中)
参加費:無料
その他:10周年記念として各地でのオフ会開催奨励!

 「その他」にある通り、今年の豪コネクションズ・ウォーゲーム会合も昨年に引き続きオンライン開催のみとなる由。また、今年は10周年につき、各地での有志オフ会を奨励しています。
 以下、御知らせの原文と案内・登録先リンクです。

The Connections Oz conference will be held online again this year, commencing Tue 5 November and ending Thu 7 November.

https://connectionsoz.wordpress.com/ 

Please consider this a call for presentations and/or ideas.

This will be the tenth year we have run the conference. So, if you have some ideas of how to celebrate, please let me know.


As a suggestion, if anyone would like to coordinate a conference dinner in their home city for either the Thursday or Friday night, let me know and I will publish the times and locations so locals can get together. I will aim to hold an informal dinner on Friday 8 Nov for those in Canberra.

As usual, I have no specific theme other than an opportunity to showcase local wargame related projects and some selected international speakers.

Thanks again to all those attendees who have participated in previous years. I hope you will come back for 2024 and bring some additional connections.

Please see the registration page for details on how to register.

https://connectionsoz.wordpress.com/registration/


End

2024年8月22日木曜日

A Research Memo: Teaching Wargaming (Heigi) in or by a Novel in a Pre-War Japan

 A Research Memo

Teaching Wargaming (Heigi) in or by a Novel:

Reading Sekai No Akatsuki (Dawn of the World) by Sakichi Mitsui (1939)


  I came across a very rare novel. Its title is Sekai No Akatsuki (Dawn of the World). It was written by Sakichi Mitsui and published by Kaizo Sha in 1939.

 Sakichi Mitsui (1893-1967) was a lawyer, Imperial Japanese Army Lt Col (infantry) and professor of tactical education at Rikugun Daigakko (the Japanese Army War College), writer, and a representative of the House of Representatives before the end of the Second World War. He may be more widely known for his involvement in the February 26 Incident (1936). He left the army due to the incident and concentrated on writing.

 Mitsui wrote several books on Japan's war with the western powers but Sekai No Akatsuki is special not only because it is a novel but also because it involves and conveys his idea about and belief in the value of wargaming (heigi) by taking the form of novel in Japan before 1940. For someone like me who is interested in the history of Japanese wargaming, it is particularly useful because it is written in plain spoken Japanese and provides some sense of how older army wargaming was actually conducted.

 The novel is mainly about the life of a young Japanese Imperial Army lieutenant (Ichiro Matsuda) from his mobalisation to hospitalisation after a major defeat.

 The novel has six chapters, and it begins with Chapter One "Indoor Wargaming," in which Ichiro's Uncle, Lt Col Hiroshi Matsuda (seemingly modeled on the author himself), who teaches army tactics at the Army War College, teaches his two sons (Takeo (2nd year junior highshcool studnet) and Toshio (6th grade elementary school student)) strategic wargaming. The chapter dipicts scenes of providing a scenario (sotei), decision-making (kesshin), deployment (busho), battle (kessen), and adjudication (shinpan). Dice and janken (Japanse rock-paper-sissors) are used for adjudication.

(Blue Team (Left, Toshio) and Red Team (Right, Takeo). Source: P. 15.)
(Initial Deployment: Blue has three infantry units and machine guns (300 soldiers in total) to accomplish the mission to defeat Red. Source: P. 30.)

 Ichiro, the main charactor of the novel, appears in Chapter One in the middle of the play, and joins the game as an advisor. The conversations between Hiroshi, his two sons, Ichiro, and Hiroshi's wife involve a brief history of army wargaming in Japan, distinction between tactical wargaming and strategic wargaming, and how frequently local army troops and facilities practice wargaming, and etc.

 In sum, the novel is very educational from an academic point of view. I do not have enough stamina to provide more details now, so I should stop here. But I can say that if you are interested in old Japanse wargamiong and can read spoken Japanese, you will find it useful.

 BTW, I wonder if there were any old novel, not guidebook, handbook, textbook, or film, that teaches wargaming. It would be exciting to explore more.

End

2024年7月25日木曜日

Notification: Connections US Wargaming Conference Proceedings Site(お知らせ:米コネクションズ・ウォーゲーミング会議過去のプロシーディングスのサイト)

 NOTIFICATION

Connections US Wargaming Conference Proceedings Site

(お知らせ:米コネクションズ・ウォーゲーミング会議過去のプロシーディングスのサイト)


 Now you can find the past proceedings of US Connections Wargaming Conferences HERE!

 Reviews are also available. Check it out!

End


2024年7月1日月曜日

Connections US 2024 Wargaming Conference Personal Highlights

 Connections US 2024 Wargaming Conference

Personal Highlights

  • Visiting the US Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) , Army War College, for the very firt time!
  • The largest ever! More than 250 participants gathered to talk and wargame.
  • 8 Japanese participants, the largest number ever as well! Pleased to see this blogger's former colleagues!
  • A legendary wargaming pro received the legendary award! TM, one of this blogger's wargaming mentors and the one who came to Japan to teach Matrix Games, received what he deserves.
  • Defeated and briefed on why we lost in TM's Game Lab info game. Yes, lessons learned from one's defeat are even more important than those from his victory! I feel much smarter now!😅
  • Finally, this blogger gave two presentations! Deception-focused wargaming and Imperial Japanese Armed Forces Educational Wargaming. Received great feedback from the audience for both. Both will hopefully be developed into a full paper or some kind of deliverable in the near future.

  • May report more later if necessary.

End

2024年6月19日水曜日

速報:英コネクションズ・ウォーゲーミング専門家会議参加チケット販売開始(Connections UK 2024 Wargaming Conference Tickets Available!)

 速報

英コネクションズ・ウォーゲーミング専門家会議参加チケット販売開始

(Connections UK 2024 Wargaming Conference Tickets Available!)  

 英コネクションズの参加チケット販売が始まりました。

 一般 250ポンド

 学生 100ポンド

 また、日程と場所は以下の通りです。念の為。

日程:2024年9月10日~12日
場所:ブルーネル大学(Brunel University, London)

 詳細についてはこちらで。

(了)

速報:コネクションズ・ノース(カナダ)2025ウォーゲーミング会議開催日決定!(Breaking News: Connections North 2025 Date Announced)

 速報 コネクションズ・ノース(カナダ)2025ウォーゲーミング会議開催日決定! (Breaking News: Connections North 2025 Date Announced)   コネクションズ・ノース2025ウォーゲーミング会議の日程が公表されました。 日時:2...