Wargaming at the Naval Postgraduate School (original) (raw)

Developing New Tactics and Technologies in Naval Warfare: The MDUSV Example

2019

The article of record as published may be found at http://cimsec.org/developing-new-tacticsand-technologies-in-naval-warfare-the-mdusv-example/39436The United States Department of Defense [DoD] and the military services have employed wargaming for well over a century to prepare for war and other operations. The Naval War College first employed naval wargames in the late 19th century at the tactical and strategic levels. During the period between world wars, Plan Orange wargaming at the Naval War College was a key contributor to the strategic plan that led to the defeat of the Japanese Empire in 1945. Since that conflict, wargaming techniques have become widespread within U.S. organizations and throughout the world

Future Fleet Wargames - Post Wargame Experimentation and Analysis

2018

NPS NRP Executive SummaryProject Summary: This project's goal was to establish an ability for the Navy's N9 Warfare Systems Directorate to develop insights regarding the impact of planned and scheduled future naval capabilities on the operational success of U.S. naval forces. To accomplish this goal, research efforts combined systems engineering, operations research, and modeling and simulation to develop an Integration and Operations Support System (IOSS) that provides an experimentation environment to assist in forming a solid cost position for technological and doctrinal change, while identifying trade space for balancing budgetary and security issues. The IOSS is an innovative use of scenario methodologies, computer simulation, and experimentation to shape a strategic analysis framework for mission engineering, based on a scenario from an actual computer aided exercise, Cobra Gold 2018 (CG18). The Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS) drives the operational vignettes for...

Why Wargaming Works

Naval War College Review, 2011

: Wargaming has a long history as an important tool for military training, education, and research.1 In its broader application to nonmilitary conflict situations (see, for example, the recent books Wargaming for Leaders and Business War Games), the technique is increasing in popularity, particularly among businesses seeking strategic advantages. (As a result, we will sometimes use the terms wargaming and gaming interchangeably; in the latter case, however, we mean what is called serious gaming, not the more general sense, like gambling.) Despite that history and popularity, however, wargaming s record of success is uneven. Some games seemto succeed very well in preparing important decision makers for real-world environments in which they later find themselves. A prime example is the U.S.Navy s series of games during the 1920s and 1930s, which helped train the commanders who won the Second World War in the Pacific. Other games do not do so well; for example, the game played by the F...

WARGAMING AND DECISIONMAKING PROCESS IN DEFENSE

INTERDISCIPLINARY MANAGEMENT RESEARCH XIX, 2023

The decision-making process is a crucial aspect of any organization, as it deter mines the success or failure of the actions taken. Effective delegation of responsibility and transferring decision-making powers to management and organizational levels is essential to this process. A simple organizational structure is often applied in more straightforward organizations, where decisions are made at a single level for all operations and activities. However, this is not always the case in government agencies, where the challenge lies in creating effective information models with accurate measurements, reporting, and decision-making processes. Information is a crucial component of the decision-making design, as the quality of decisions depends on the quality of data and measurements. This paper firstly analyses the decision-making process in general, including the theories of decision-making and the application of game theory and wargaming in the defense decision-making process. Secondly, for the first time, we describe how war games are implemented in the education of military officers in Croatia and present the initial results of this approach. The authors have a clear objective of presenting the significance of these tools in the decision-making process and how they can be effectively utilized to improve the quality of decisions made. The authors aim to provide insights into the decision-making process and its impact on the defense sector by exploring the theories and applications of game theory and wargaming.

States of Play: Evaluating the Renaissance in US Military Wargaming

Critical Military Studies, 2020

This paper introduces the topic of military wargaming into current critical debates in International Relations (IR) on games and gaming, which to date have focused on civilian, recreational forms. Identifying a renaissance which began in the US in 2014, the core argument developed is that wargaming utilises key elements of critical/postpositivist theory in its interventions into the 'human training dimension' with the aim of impacting upon the inner domain of players in promotion of military ends. Drawing on Eyal Weizman's work, the paper makes two key claims: 1) Wargaming poses a profound methodological and epistemological challenge to the quantitatively-oriented Operations Research (OR) community which has dominated DoD analysis for nearly a century. 2) By decoupling critical/postpositivist traditions from their intended ends, using them instead to impact upon players, wargaming militarises them. The paper begins by locating the origins of the wargaming renaissance in the Defense Innovation Initiative and associated Third Offset Strategy. It then shows how US military gaming intervenes at the level of the human training dimension by cultivating specific forms of critical thinking, multiple futures planning, and reflexive decision-making using distinctively critical/ postpositivist insights. From there it sets out three key challenges posed by wargaming to OR which trouble the latter's claims to prediction, objectivity, and rationalism, before concluding that a new form of 'post-quantitative defence analysis' is emergent which militarises the tools of critical/postpositivist approaches.

Analytical Wargaming and Military Planning

NATO Analytical War Gaming ‒ Innovative Approaches for Data Capture, Analysis and Exploitation, 2022

Wargaming can be used in military planning for four main purposes. At the beginning of the planning when evaluating the situation/task received, at the stage of preparation of courses of actions, at the stage of preparations of the plan and at the stage of evaluation of the plan.