A lot of us, when we talk about war games, think about a bunch of guys sneaking around the forest at night firing blank bullets at each other. But whilst this is slightly true, it doesn’t give an accurate representation of how serious war games actually are.
A war game is any type of military-esque exercise which is carried out to improve strategic or tactical expertise. Some of them take the form of highly specialized maneuvers, whilst other seek to replicate potential real life situations, such as domestic insurrection.
They’re great training for military personnel who are to be deployed into hostile situations, in which they might feasibly have to remain undetected and secure, whilst surviving any way they can, for long periods of time.
How Useful Are War Games?
So now we know how war games are used by the military. But can they be adapted to suit the purposes of the modern day prepper?
We can start by examining the way in which war games are designed. They mimic potential real life situations as far as is possible, in order to give the participants the training and experience they need to survive should such a situation occur. In some cases, this might mean going to sea on an aircraft carrier, or carrying out maneuvers in tanks in the desert.
However, many war game situations require participants to survive on the land for months at a time, having no contact with the outside world, and needing to plan and implement strategies for achieving objective goals. It is these elements which can be easily adapted to suit a prepper’s needs.
Designing Your Own War Game
The type of situation in which a prepper may find themselves after the shit hits the fan may not necessarily be ‘war like’. But it’s still true that in many of the potential SHTF situations we can imagine, skills such as living off the land or moving stealthily will become very important.
So, in this respect, using war games as a template for designing our own survival training situations is a great idea. And all we need to set up our own war game training exercise is a terrain map, goal objective (such as surviving for a certain period of time, or reaching a specific location) and whatever military gear at night we can find which might prove useful – such as sturdy boots, sharp knives or military-grade camping equipment.