RFalvo69
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FROM "THE GENERAL", VOL. 2 N. 2 - JULY 1965
D-Day Used in Medical Research
By Capt. Charles Wickstrom
D-DAY has been used in the Medical Laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, in psychological studies,
some involving the use of drugs, by the psychopharmacology group there. Between March and August of last year, 59 D-DAY games with 81 invasions were conducted under controlled conditions, involving subjects from various parts of the United States with an average age of just over 24 years. During the games both method and manner of play were carefully observed.
Games Recorded on Tape
Full video tape and sound coverage (3 TV cameras lit 2 sound tracks) enables complete replay of entire D-DAY
games whenever desirable for study of the players' moves and reactions to game situations, die rolls, and other events. An overhead camera zoomed in for close-ups of soak-off attacks and
other combat details.
In the most commonly used version, there were two Allied players and two Germans in each game. The games were conducted duplicate fashion like a team-of-four bridge match. That is, an identical starting situation is set up on two boards in different rooms (actually, the "starting" situation could be
middle or end game). One half of a team is the Allies in one room, while the other half of the same team is the Germans in the other room. The winning team is then determined by comparing the situations on the two boards at some later time. If you have three friends who also play D-DAY you might find this an interesting way to conduct your own match, with one Allied player and one German on each team (rather than two of each as here).
Game outcomes, when games were not carried to completion, were adjudicated On a "10 pt must" system. A game that goes to completion under this scoring system is scored 10 to 0. Analysis of 47 games with 69 invasions in which drugs were not administered to any of the participants reveals that scores averaged slightly over 2 to 1 in favor of the Allies (totals 316-154). That is, simply being on the Allied side gives a player, on the average, twice as good a chance of winning as a player on the German side.
Of course, the game balance may change somewhat with the skill level of the players. Results indicate that (1) a group of men who have never seen the game D-DAY before can learn to play D-DAY capably within the time period allotted, and (2) that the drugs used affected the way the men approached the game at least as much as in the actual moves they made. They became easily distracted, unconcerned, and in some cases euphoric, and forgetful, for example forgetting to move some units while moving others twice. Their overall strategy appeared to be the same, but they became lax in some details.
Games in which drugs were administered to one side hurt the Allies more when a tough invasion was required
(e. g. Pas de Calais or North Sea), but hurt the Germans more when they had a lot of regrouping to do following a southern area Allied landing. The results would thus seem to indicate that the difficulty in concentrating caused by the drug affected play mainly in cases where elaborate planning was
required. We would expect a larger dose of drug to cause breakdown of simpler planning procedures, such as conduct of an isolated attack or an unobstructed advance toward the objective.
The game of chess is also being used in similar studies. Other Avalon Hill games purchased in connection with this research program include Afrika Corps and Tactics II.
_____________________________
"Yes darling, I served in the Navy for eight years. I was a cook..."
"Oh dad... so you were a God-damned cook?"
(My 10 years old daughter after watching "The Hunt for Red October")
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