fog of war

English

Fog of war (sense 2) in the video game The Battle for Wesnoth

Etymology

Calque of German Nebel des Krieges, an expression coined by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

fog of war (plural fogs of war)

1. The uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.
   • 2023 June 8, Anne Applebaum, “The True Purpose of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive”, in The Atlantic‎^[1], retrieved 2023-06-09:

     Future reports from any source should be treated with caution. What we can see is not the “fog of war,” in the old-fashioned sense; instead it is a kind of swirling tornado, a maelstrom of claims and counterclaims, memes and countermemes, real battles taking place away from television screens and fake ones happening on camera.

   • 2023 June 14, Peter Beaumont, “Ukraine’s failed Mala Tokmachka assault lays bare counteroffensive challenges”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Only now, amid the fog of war, is it possible to ascertain what happened.

3. (video games) The shrouded concealment of enemy activity outside of areas observable by a player's forces.
   • 2014, Tony Hey, Gyuri Pápay, The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 185:

     The game starts with an overhead view of a map with the “fog of war” covering all areas not within sight of the player's units.

Translations

Translations

• Arabic: ضباب الحرب
• Finnish: sodan usva
• German: Nebel des Krieges m, Kriegsnebel (de) m
• Latin: cālīgō bellica f
• Polish: mgła wojny f
• Swedish: krigsdimma (sv) c

Further reading

• fog of war on Wikipedia.Wikipedia