Warfare 1917

[dubsartur]

A comment on Bret Devereaux's blog reminded me of Warfare 1917, an elegant little game about the beginnings of the modern tactical system from Armor Games.  https://www.crazygames.com/game/warfare-1917  (their website at https://armorgames.com/search?q=warfare does not seem to have it any more, maybe because I previously saw it as a flash game)

You're a commander, either British or German, fighting over a contested bit of front in 1917. You only know how to do three things.

1) Call for reinforcements
2) Call for fire support
3) Order your men forward to try to take the enemy line of trench, or die trying.

Now it did NOT have the race to the parapet bit, and there weren't covered communication trenches to move between your lines, so it wasn't a perfect simulation. But I did find that if everything worked out, it's the way the article describes: You smash up the enemy trench line with your artillery, keep their heavy hitters like machine guns from moving, and your assault forces will almost always take the trench.

But your opponent is rarely so cooperative. While your guys are going over the top, he'll likely as not launch his own artillery strike and now suddenly half your guys are dead and the remainder don't have enough force to take the trench, even battered as it is. And, most importantly, THERE IS NO WAY TO CALL THEM BACK at this point. They either do or die, and the "die" is way more likely unless you send in reinforcements double-quick, but that means that if it fails, you've probably depleted your local reserves and are very vulnerable to counterattack.