Matrix Games have been used in the British Army in the last few years in two principal ways; for Scenario Development as part of training packages, and for general Education. In this short article I want to give examples of the way in which they were used and what value was gained from them. SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT In 1995 the Headquarters of the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) was directed to undertake planning for Peace Support Operations in Bosnia. The Corps Mission was intended to be a war-fighting mission to protect the NATO Nations in Europe, but it had, tacked on as almost an afterthought, the words "...and is also to be prepared to undertake Peace Support Operations" to the end of its Mission Statement. At that time Bosnia was in a state of civil war. The military training and equipment provided to the Muslims by certain NATO Nations had yet to make its presence felt and the Serbs were still enjoying the upper hand. Unspeakable atrocities were taking place every day and night, and the International Aid Agencies were almost powerless to help the local people. HQ ARRC was required to plan for a number of different missions in Bosnia, but at no time in this planning period was there any political will for an attempt at proper "peace-keeping". The planning mainly centred on an intervention to allow the international agencies to withdraw, and let the "locals" fight it out. This period of planning was for an "evacuation operation". The large-scale exercises conducted by HQ ARRC were slightly different to those conducted by many Corps level HQs. The ARRC was a multinational HQ, with Britain as the "framework nation" (meaning we supplied the Commander, 40% of the principal staff, the communications infrastructure, and 1 of the 4 assigned Divisions for any deployment). This meant that any exercise involved at least 3 of the 4 Divisions from other Nations, speaking another language (and I include the Americans). Any training exercise had to exercise not only the assigned divisions, but also the communications links between them. This meant that the exercises were quite large. The Divisions exercised in the field, usually in their own countries, and communicated with HQ ARRC as their commander, and the Exercise Control Centre (EXCON) representing their subordinates. The EXCON was up to 1,300 people for some exercises and about 500 for some of the smaller exercises. Most of the exercises used a computer simulation system to manage the warfighting scenario, but these simulation are not really suited to Peace Support training (in certain simulations it is impossible to stop units firing at the enemy!), and definitely not the "evacuation operation" envisaged. We had to come up with methods of conducting realistic training, without using the existing simulations, and in ways never tried before. As part of the development of these techniques, Matrix Games were used to examine the sorts of issues that were realistic and yet would test the commanders and their staffs before the arrived in Bosnia. A number of games were played with different participants, including civilians, based on likely scenarios. The scenarios were played as games, supervised by the Exercise Planning Staff, but the synergy of the playing system revealed certain issues that were important. The players did not feel limited by "conventional thinking" that would have resulted from "normal" games on this subject. As a result we came away with a whole range of new ideas which we used to good effect within the context of the training exercise. In short, we carried out a number of training exercises and we got some good ideas for those exercises from Matrix Gaming the scenario beforehand. GENERAL EDUCATION Recently the British army has undergone a fundamental review of its size, force structure and logistic support base. This has led to a complete reorganisation for the way in which we do our logistic business - right from the initial idea for a new equipment, to the disposal of obsolete items at the end of their useful life. This shake-up of the normal way of doing things is so fundamental and wide-ranging that there has been much confusion and even some cynicism. A huge number of new "management ideas" and consultants have been employed in managing the change and even the language of the business is different to what we were used to. Matrix games have been used to set out scenarios within the new management strategy, that follow the theoretical methods and aims that are supposed to be used. The players are made to represent the different agencies involved in the process, from industry, through the logistic organisations, to the Field Army. They follow through the scenarios and are encouraged to play it as a game. This way the concepts and ideas are exposed, under the general guidance of an umpire who is aware of the way the new system are supposed to work. If, in the course of the game, cynical arguments are made about processes that don't appear to work - and the players judge them to be realistic - then at the end of the game, we have to ask ourselves why those arguments were "realistic". If they really were so very likely, then there is obviously something really wrong with those systems, and we need to look at them. In short, we work out what we are supposed to be doing, than play a Matrix game about some problem or other to see if the theoretical system can cope. If it can't and the "arguments" are realistic, then - by definition - we have a problem to investigate. CONCLUSION The British army has used Matrix Game techniques indirectly among some trainers and managers in order to get ideas that will allow training to be better and identify problems more readily. Please don't be fooled into thinking, however, that this is a "mainstream" generally accepted idea. It only worked because a few key individuals were experienced in Matrix games, and a few senior officers with open minds were in the right place at the right time - and didn't give a damn how the ideas came up. If they were good, they used them. It is, of course, rather nice to find that one of those senior officers has gone on to become Chief of the Defence Staff... EDITOR'S NOTE ON TIM PRICE I have corresponded with Tim since the early 90's. We meet through the Wargame Development's Journal NUGGET. The NUGGET was the first newsletter to publish articles on Matrix Games and in fact was where the name Matrix Game was first used. Tim has written many articles on Matrix Gaming for NUGGET and Wargames Illustrated. He has been a champion of Matrix Gaming in England (along with Bob Cordery). I am very happy to be able to present such an interesting article from a person who I regard as a friend and a colleague. Thank you for your good work Tim!!! Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #17 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com