WAR GAMES

The young army commander quickly surveyed the enemy battle lines. Thus far his opponent, a much older general officer, had fought well. But as the youthful leader studied the enemy left, he concluded that his seasoned adversary had made a serious mistake. The opposing troops on that flank occupied a long ridge just a short distance away, across a beautiful orchard-speckled valley. It should have been a good position, but its left was vulnerable—“in the air,” as they used to say. He planned to hit that flank hard.

It was time for decisive action. With a flurry of hand movements, he ordered his men forward—across that vale, against that opposing ridgeline. As his units closed with the enemy, he heard the volley fire—a distinctive ripping sound—and saw the defending artillery’s bright muzzle flashes. He even thought he could smell the acrid smoke of black powder.

The battle would soon be over. With a couple of rolls of a die, cross-indexed with the odds on the combat results table, the young commander eliminated several enemy pieces, removing them from the map. At that point his opponent conceded, saying something about how he had failed not only his army but also President Abraham Lincoln. It was a tremendous victory—one he would always remember. He had won the Civil War’s most famous engagement, and he’d defeated his father, all thanks to his wonderful birthday present: the Gettysburg battle game created by Charles Roberts.

The future multimillion-dollar war game industry was born as a parttime venture.

Charles Swann Roberts, “the father of board war-gaming,” was born in Baltimore on February 3, 1930, and grew up just outside the city in Catonsville. Two fascinations dominated his childhood. One was the military. He once recalled how he and his young friends created a war game that involved maneuvering pins and needles—the game’s units—across a fictional battlefield.

Railroading was his other obsession. Both his father and grandfather were veteran Baltimore & Ohio Railroad men, and a great-great-uncle, his namesake, had been the president of that line from 1848 to 1853. Naturally, Charlie caught “railroad fever,” but his father persuaded him to look elsewhere for a career. After graduating from Catonsville High School in 1947, Roberts worked for his local newspaper, the Herald-Argus, and as a copyboy for the Baltimore Sun.

In 1948, when he turned 18, Roberts enlisted in the U.S. Army. On his discharge in 1952, Roberts