Fog of war

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the military phrase. For the documentary film, see The Fog of War.

The fog of war (

intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign. Military forces try to reduce the fog of war through military intelligence
and friendly force tracking systems.

The term has become commonly used to define uncertainty mechanics in

wargames
.

Origin

The word "fog" (German: Nebel), but not the exact phrase, in reference to 'uncertainty in war' was introduced by the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz in his posthumously published book, Vom Kriege (1832), the English translation of which was published as On War (1873):

War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.

— Carl von Clausewitz[2]

It has been pointed out that von Clausewitz does not use the exact phrase "fog of war", and also uses multiple similar metaphors, such as "twilight" and "moonlight", to describe a 'lack of clarity'.[3]


The first known use of the exact phrase in text dates to 1836 in a poem entitled "The Battle of Bunker Hill" by McDonald Clarke.[4] The poem describes an assault by British forces upon an American redoubt during the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill:


"Will they dare a third attack?

Is a question seen in every eye; Old Put across the neck and back,

Rides slowly, their vengeance to defy—

Wildy, in that deadly hour,

The Ramparts shove their bolted shower,

While mid the waving fog of war,

Thunders the Yankee’s loud hurrah"[5]


The first known attempt to explicitly define the "fog of war" in a military text was made in 1896 in a book titled The Fog of War by Sir Lonsdale Augustus Hale, where it is described as "the state of ignorance in which commanders frequently find themselves as regards the real strength and position, not only of their foes, but also of their friends."[6]

Military

The fog of war is a reality in all military conflict. Precision and certainty are unattainable goals, but modern military doctrine suggests a trade-off of precision and certainty for speed and agility. Militaries employ command and control (C2) systems and doctrine to partially alleviate the fog of war.

The term also applies to the experience of individual soldiers in battle: often cited is the pure confusion of direction, location, and perspective on a battlefield. Officers and soldiers become separated, orders become confused and subject to revision with poor communication. Sounds and vision are limited from the perspective of the individual and may not be easily resolved, resulting in a continuing uncertainty, a perceptual "fog".

The fog of war has been decreasing as

Mark A. Milley stated that "On the future battlefield, if you stay in one place longer than two or three hours, you will be dead... With enemy drones and sensors constantly on the hunt for targets, there won't even be time for four hours' unbroken sleep."[7]

Simulations and games

A block wargame, Richard III by Columbia Games, showing the fog of war in play: the red player can see the identity of his own pieces, but not those of the white player.

Abstract and military

variants, playing pieces could be hidden from the players by using a duplicate, hidden game board.[9]

Another version of fog of war emulation is used by block wargaming where, much like Stratego, the blocks face each player, hiding their value. However, this also allows for incremental damage, where the block is rotated up to four times to indicate battle damage before the unit is eliminated from the playing field.[citation needed]

Solitaire games also by their nature attempt to recreate fog of war using random dice rolls or card draws to determine events.

miniature wargames, including military simulations, may make use of two identical maps or model landscapes, one or more referees providing limited intelligence to the opposing sides, participants in the roles of sub-unit leaders, and the use of radio sets or intercoms.[citation needed
]

In video games

In the computer game Freeciv, completely unexplored areas are fully black, while explored but currently unobserved areas are covered in a grey shroud.

A computer's ability to effectively hide information from a player is seen as a distinct advantage over board games when simulating war.[11] Fog of war in strategy video games refers to enemy units, and often terrain, being hidden from the player; this is lifted once the area is explored, but the information is often fully or partially re-hidden whenever the player does not have a unit in that area.[12]

The earliest use of fog of war was in the 1977 game

Tanktics designed by Chris Crawford, which was criticized for its unreliable and "confusing" fog of war system.[14] Crawford, in 1982, suggested "limit[ing] the amount of information available to the human player" to compensate for the computer's lack of intelligence.[15] In a 1988 Computer Gaming World article Dave Arneson called fog of war "one of the biggest 'plus' factors in computer simulations", while Crawford concluded, using Tanktics as an example, that video game fog of war systems became less "fun" the more realistic they were, leading the medium to instead use simplified systems.[16]

Two large

Supreme Commander series.[citation needed
]

Fog of war gives players an incentive to uncover a game's world. A compulsion to reveal obscured parts of a map has been described to give a sense of exploring the unknown.

enemy AI may have knowledge of the positions of all other units and buildings on the map regardless, to compensate for lack of true intelligence, which players may consider as cheating if discovered.[20] A designer may use fog of war to keep a game that has become impossible to win enjoyable, by hiding this fact from the player.[17]

See also

References

  1. Joint Service Command and Staff College
    , Advanced Command and Staff Course Notes dated 2001
  2. ^ Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, Book 1, Chapter 3.
  3. ^ Eugenia C. Kiesling (2001). "On War Without the Fog" (PDF). Military Review. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  4. ^ Wheatley, Kim (2022). Uncertainty Engineering: A Genealogy of the Fog of War (PhD). Auckland, New Zealand: The University of Auckland. pp. 73–78.
  5. ^ Clarke, M'Donald (1836). Poems of M’Donald Clarke. J. W. Bell. p. 188.
  6. ^ “The fog of war”, by Col. Lonsdale Hale, Royal Engineers (retired), Aldershot Military Academy, 24 March 1896.
  7. ^ Freedberg, Sydney J. Jr. (5 October 2016). "Miserable, Disobedient & Victorious: Gen. Milley's Future US Soldier". breakingdefense.com. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  8. ^ Squad Leader Rulebook, 4th Edition, section 25.0.
  9. ^ Kriegspiel by Hans L. Bodlaender.
  10. ISBN 978-0-786-46952-9
    .
  11. ^ Sipe, Russell, ed. (April 1984). "Carrier Force: The Fog of War at its Foggiest". Computer Gaming World. Vol. 4, no. 2. pp. 22, 47. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
  12. ISBN 978-0-321-92967-9
    .
  13. ISBN 978-1-78155-042-7
    .
  14. ^ Proctor, Bob (January 1982). "Tanktics: Review and Analysis". Computer Gaming World. pp. 17–20.
  15. ^ a b Crawford, Chris (December 1982). "Design Techniques and Ideas for Computer Games". BYTE. p. 96. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  16. ^ Sipe, Russell, ed. (April 1988). ""Fog of War": A Clearer View". Computer Gaming World. No. 46. pp. 24–26, 52–53. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
  17. ^ a b Howell, Dave (2010). "StarCraft's Steps" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  18. ^ Stowe, Jonah. "Power, Knowledge and the Fog of War". Gamechurch. Retrieved 6 November 2014.
  19. ^ Carter, Tim (April 1994). "The Prince Of Bribes". Computer Gaming World. pp. 150, 152.
  20. S2CID 19086
    . Retrieved 6 November 2014 – via The University of Western Australia.

Further reading
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