Reading to further expand on the seminal texts.
Appleget, Col. Jeff, USA (Ret.), Col. Robert Burks, USA (Ret.), and Fred Cameron, The Craft of Wargaming: A Detailed Planning Guide for Defense Planners and Analysts, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2020. Focuses on wargaming as part of the military planning process.
Bae, Sebastian J. (Editor), Forging Wargamers: A Framework for Wargaming Education, Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2022. What started out as a workshop at CONNECTIONS blossomed into a full book on how to build and maintain a “professional” wargaming profession.
Burns, Shawn, War Gamers’ Handbook: A Guide for Professional War Gamers, War Gaming Department, U.S. Naval War College, Jan 01, 2013.
Caffrey Jr., Matthew B., On Wargaming: How Wargames Have Shaped History and How They May Shape the Future, Newport: Naval War College Press (Naval War College Newport Papers 43), 2019. Part history and part advocate for wargames in defense planning. Matt Caffrey is one of the “Old Guard” (dare I say, grognard) in wargaming and for many years ran the CONNECTIONS professional wargaming conferences.
Esdaile, Charles J., Wargaming Waterloo, Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2023. “Wargaming Waterloo explores three key aspects of wargaming as a practice by focusing on the iconic battle that led to Napoléon Bonaparte’s defeat in 1815. A longtime subject of both fascination and controversy, the Battle of Waterloo presents particular problems as a board, map, or tabletop wargame and also poses a serious research question: just how good a chance did Napoléon have at victory when he confronted the duke of Wellington at Mont Saint-Jean and how would the strategic situation have to be different to enable Napoléon to prevail?”
Friedman, Norman, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, Friedman is a well respected naval historian who adds another perspective on how wargaming prepared the U.S. Navy for the Pacific conflict in World War II…and how there are lessons to be learned and applied even today.
Harrigan, Pat and Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (eds), Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2016. A wide-ranging collection of essays that cover the gamut of modern wargame issues and design. Part of MIT Press’ Game Histories series.
Heinemann, Jan and Riccaro Masini, Frédéric Serval – Editors. EuroWarGames: The history, state, and future of professional and public (war)gaming in Europe. Bénodet: Nuts! Publishing, 2025. “EuroWarGames contributes to closing this gap by bringing together international wargaming practitioners, scholars, designers and players, providing thoughts, stories and research on communities, conventions, game narratives, the history of and in wargames, as well as the adaption of mechanics across genres.
McHugh, Francis J., The United States Naval War College Fundamentals of War Gaming, 3rd Edition, March 1966 (Reprint), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Fundamentals…for professional wargamers.
McKitrick, Jeffrey S., and Robert G. Angevine. Reflections on Net Assessment: Interviews with Andrew W. Marshall. Jaffrey, NH: Andrew W. Marshall Foundation, 2022.
Palmer, Nicholas, The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming, New York: Hippocrene Books, 1977.
Palmer, Nicholas, The Best of Board Wargaming, New York: Hippocrene Books, 1980. “Nicholas Palmer’s second book on wargaming, this time with an emphasis on capsule reviews. About two thirds of the book consists of capsule reviews for about 150 wargames. The book also includes six chapters profiling various facets of the wargaming hobby – Patton Rides Operational Games, Across the Science Fiction Games, The First Thousand Hours are the Monster Games, Roll a Six to Pillage Beer-and-Pretzels Games, Rule 101.423, Bomb Near Realistic Games and Regret to Inform You that You are Computerized Games” (goodreads.com).
Simpson, William L., A Compendium of Wargaming Terms, Center for Naval Analysis Wargaming Division, September 20, 2017. “The Wargaming Community uses many terms that have multiple definitions or meanings, reflecting the variety of ways the art of wargaming is practiced. For example, the Community cannot agree on the spelling or definition of the term “wargame.” Since there is no single agreed-upon set of wargaming terms, this compendium is an unofficial collection that attempts to gather and post as broad a collection of terms and definitions as possible.”
Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge: Harvard University, 1960, 1980. “The term “strategy” is taken, here, from the theory of games, which distinguishes games of skill, games of chance, and games of strategy, the latter being those in which the best course of action for each player depends on what the other players do. The term is intended to focus on the interdependence of the adversaries’s decisions and on their expectations about each others behavior. This is not the military usage.”
Suckling, Maurice W., Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games, New York: Routledge, 2024. “James Dunnigan’s memorable phrase serves as the first part of a title for this book, where it seeks to be applicable not just to analog wargames, but also to board games exploring non-expressly military history, that is, to political, diplomatic, social, economic, or other forms of history. Don’t board games about history, made predominantly out of (layered) paper, permit a kind of time travel powered by our imagination? Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games is for those who consider this a largely rhetorical question; primarily for designers of historical board games, directed in its more practice-focused sections (Parts Two, Three, and Four) toward those just commencing their journeys through time and space and engaged in learning how to deconstruct and to construct paper time machines.”
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