Fog of war

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For the documentary film, see The Fog of War.
The fog of war (German: Nebel des Krieges) is the uncertainty in situational
awareness experienced by participants in military operations.[1] The term seeks to
capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and
adversary 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 is also used to define uncertainty mechanics in wargames.

Contents
1 Origin
2 Military
3 Simulations and games
3.1 In video games
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
Origin
The word "fog" in reference to uncertainty in war was introduced by the Prussian
military analyst Carl von Clausewitz in his posthumously published book, Vom Kriege
(1832), which appeared in English translation in 1873 under the title On War:

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," using multiple similar metaphors such as "twilight" and "moonlight" to
describe lack of clarity.[3] It was not until 1896 when the exact phrase "fog of
war" was used in text, 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."[4]

Military
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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2014)
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 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
technology is improving. In 2016, Chief of Staff of the United States Army Gen.
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."[5]

Simulations and games

A block wargame, Richard III by Columbia Games, showing the fog of war in play.
Abstract and military board games sometimes try to capture the effect of the fog of
war by hiding the identity of playing pieces, by keeping them face down or turned
away from the opposing player (as in Stratego) or covered (as in Squad Leader[6]).
Other games, such as the Kriegspiel chess-variant, playing pieces could be hidden
from the players by using a duplicate, hidden game board.[7]

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.[8] Complex double-blind 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
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.[9] 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.[10]

The earliest use of fog of war was in the 1977 game Empire by Walter Bright.[11]
Another early use of fog of war was the 1978 game Tanktics designed by Chris
Crawford, which was criticized for its unreliable and "confusing" fog of war
system.[12] Crawford in 1982 suggested "limit[ing] the amount of information
available to the human player" to compensate for the computer's lack of
intelligence.[13] 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.[14]

Two large Blizzard franchises, Warcraft and StarCraft, use a fog of war which only
reveals terrain features and enemy units through a player's reconnaissance. Without
a unit actively observing, previously revealed areas of the map are subject to a
shroud through which only terrain is visible, but changes in enemy units or bases
are not.[15] This is also common in both turn-based and real-time strategy games,
such as the Total War series, Age of Empires series, Red Alert series, Advance Wars
series, Fire Emblem series and Sid Meier's Civilization 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.[16] Crawford said that "reasonable" uses of fog of war, such as needing to
send out scouts, "not only seem natural, but ... add to the realism and excitement
of the game"[13] Merchant Prince displays over unexplored territory what Computer
Gaming World described as a "renaissance-style map of dubious accuracy".[17] In
some strategy games that make use of fog of war, enemy AI can get access to
complete visibility of the map, which a player may associate with cheating when
discovered.[18] 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.[15]

See also
C4ISTAR
Coup d'�il
Fingerspitzengef�hl
Fog (weather phenomenon)
Network-centric warfare
VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) theory.
References
Joint Service Command and Staff College, Advanced Command and Staff Course Notes
dated 2001
Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, Book 1, Chapter 3.
Eugenia C. Kiesling (2001). "On War Without the Fog" (PDF). Military Review.
Retrieved 2014-11-07.
�The fog of war�, by Col. Lonsdale Hale, Royal Engineers (retired), Aldershot
Military Academy, March 24, 1896.
https://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-victorious-gen-milleys-
future-us-soldier/
Squad Leader Rulebook, 4th Edition, section 25.0.
Kriegspiel by Hans L. Bodlaender.
Pulsipher, Lewis (2012). Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games,
Start to Finish. McFarland. p. 227. ISBN 0-786-46952-8.
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 2017-03-15.
Adams, Ernest (2014). Fundamentals of Game Design (3 ed.). New Riders Press. ISBN
978-0-321-92967-9.
Lewin, Christopher George (2012). "8". War Games and their History. Stroud, Great
Britain: Fonthill Media. ISBN 978-1-78155-042-7.
Proctor, Bob (January 1982). "Tanktics: Review and Analysis". Computer Gaming
World. pp. 17�20.
Crawford, Chris (December 1982). "Design Techniques and Ideas for Computer Games".
BYTE. p. 96. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
Sipe, Russell, ed. (April 1988). ""Fog of War": A Clearer View". Computer Gaming
World. No. 46. pp. 24�26, 52�53. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
Howell, Dave (2010). "StarCraft's Steps" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF)
on 2014-11-10. Retrieved 2014-11-10.
Stowe, Jonah. "Power, Knowledge and the Fog of War". Gamechurch. Retrieved 2014-
11-06.
Carter, Tim (April 1994). "The Prince Of Bribes". Computer Gaming World. pp. 150,
152.
Hagelb�ck, Johan; Johansson, Stefan J. (2008). "Dealing with Fog of War in a Real
Time Strategy Game Environment" (PDF). 2008 IEEE Symposium on Computational
Intelligence and Games. IEEE. Retrieved 2014-11-06 � via The University of Western
Australia.
Further reading
The Fog of War and Friction in Current Conflicts: Fundamental Aspects of the
Management of Modern Conflicts Article by LCdr (Brazilian Navy) Osvaldo P. Caninas.
Simulating the Fog of War Paper by RAND Corporation John K. Setear, February 1989.
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