Readers of Fuldapocalypse should not be surprised to learn that when I saw a book called “Quantifying Counterfactual Military History“, I instantly bought and read it. The premise is simple: The authors use the Approximate Bayesian Computation method to get a large sample size in their various simulations-much, much larger than conventional wargames.

Starting off with one of the easiest and most popular ones, Jutland, that chapter made me go “a-ha! They got it.” My favorite quote is “but unlike in a wargame, our goal is to simply understand what is plausible and what is not.” This “War of the Spreadsheets” has its roles provided one knows its limitations, which the authors do. Then comes the Battle of Britain (where the goal is temporary German air superiority, along with a controversial conclusion. There’s Vietnam where the authors actually remember the large northern conventional forces that were always there. It concludes with Cold War game theory.

There’s some technical topics that are beyond me, but this is overall an excellent book whose authors know their own limitations. As someone who loves these kinds of simulations, I was delighted to read this.