GDG- Alternate Gettysburg

[elcarto at comcast.net]

>>yesterday, while hanging out with Terry at the B and N (she's working on her 
spiritual development by buying books on Spiritual Development), I found ANOTHER 
book with the word GETTYSBURG in big, nasty red letters on the cover
   
 >> GETTYSBURG: An alternate history. "In the Civil War's most pivotal battle, one moment could have changed 
everything." By  Peter G. Tsouras
   
 > I bought it anyway. - Keith
   

Keith - I think you'll like it.  True, it certainly belongs on the same shelf with Newt Gingrich's Trilogy, but I think that Tsouras is a far better writer.  He also has one exploring alternate possibilities on D-Day.

Essentially, he explores what might have happened at each one of a number of famous (to us in here, anyway) points in the battle where things could have gone either way, but for a minor turn of fate, or whatever  For example, at one point he has Buford running into Sedgwick while making his fallback  on July 2nd and deciding to return to the battlefield (actually, that ones a bit farther fetched - Buford was, in fact, obeying direct orders in falling back, and certainly didn't need Sedgwick to 'shame' him into turning around.)  But you get the idea.

An interesting read, though, and always good to be reminded that what did happen didn't HAVE to, and things could easily have gone differently.  That's a fascinating side to history that game designers like Dave Powell and me have to delve into in our work - it's often very interesting to realize not only that there were many different possibilities of what COULD have happened, but that in a lot of cases, what did happen was far from the most likely possibility.

In designing a wargame, you have to not only allow for the full range of reasonable possibilities, but also weight them as to probability - that's true no matter what scale the game is on, or what size the action.  Both Dave and I have included variable reinforcements in our respective Gettysburg games to show what additional troops MIGHT have been able to be there, and alternate situations that MIGHT have happened. I'd add that I've also mapped both the Pipe Creek area and the gap at Dillsburg, as the two most likely alternatives to where the battle actually happened.

I note that even Tsouras has to have Reynolds meet his bullet (shell fragment, tent stake....) on schedule on July 2nd - as any game designer or player knows, having old JFR stay in the saddle really throws you into 'alternate' history, and usually gives General Lee a pretty bad day.

Rick Barber