I’m familiar with the concept of wargaming as a form of entertainment, but in that format, realism is not all that critical. When you’re using wargaming to reflect actual, real-world events, you need a way to make the results actually reflect reality.
Obviously this requires some logical simplifications and assumptions about number of troops, how well they will stand up to attacks, etc, but I’m curious about how you would achieve this.
I have seen one video discussing a specific example involving the British RN wargaming out u-boat tactics (seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVet82IUAqQ, though be aware that this particular channel has a strong pro-British bias) that discuss techniques like requiring the RN side of the wargame to be played by people watching through a barrier that somehow rendered submerged U-Boats invisible, and indicate that the technique was extraordinarily effective, including one case where a novel strategy presented by an enemy U-boat was reported to the team in Britain, analyzed through wargaming out possible explanations, and correctly identified the appropriate response fast enough that the ship reporting the tactic was able to take that action and successfully sink the enemy U-boat.
But I’m curious about other examples. Indy mentions in his special on the planning of Operation Barbarossa that this plan was wargamed out (though clearly there was a dramatic underestimation as to the tenacity of Soviet resistance)…just wondering how this kind of thing worked. (This might be more a topic for a special than a quick Out of the Foxholes answer.)