Lecture by Col. Thomas Ardern
The USAF Wargaming Institute is developing a game called Global Engagement that will be completely in place by 2010 in an effort to study and simulate emerging concepts in US force projection. For example, the first scenario test was that the US was faced with two simultaneous wars: one in Iraq and the other in Korea. Participants break off into multiple groups to examine policy problems and solutions, the results of their decision are then fed back into the game. For example, one test involved Rapid Global Mobility with 24-48 hour transport function. What was the first transport sent? The logistics plane. But how and where? Where are the airborne tankers for refueling located? Where do you pull the fuel, bombs, fuel, housing, and other equipment from? And in which order and where to? There were three Blue (US) teams (USAF, Army, and Navy) and three Red (enemy) teams. each Blue team was headed by a retired general/admiral and had 30 military and civilian members plus a support cell. Ditto the Red teams. Also provided: a panel to answer questions and three assessment teams (i.e. umpires). Data came from multiple sources (using multiple acronyms), and the day started at 8 a.m. with a briefing of the previous day's events. Moves were to be handed in by noon, and the afternoon was taken up by scripting responses to create an end result--which became the briefing for the next day. The most recent game, Prairie Warrior 2000 (May 8-20, with weekends off) concluded two days of combat over a week's period. It had a $315,000 budget. More Connections 2000:
Lecture: Opening Remarks Lecture: History of Wargaming Lecture: Aerospace Power 101 Lecture: Games the Navy Plays: Naval Wargaming Past and Future Lecture: Sliding Timescales in Published Wargames Lecture: Wargaming: The End of the Millenium Lecture: Effects-Based Modelling Lecture: Global Defense and Wargaming Lecture: Army Transformation 2000 Lecture: Global Wargame Lecture: Global Engagement Lecture: Commercial Wargaming 1999 Lecture: The Human Factor: Modeling Inputs Lecture: The Modeling of Intangibles National Security Decision Making Game Recap Back to List of Conventions Back to Travel Master List Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 2000 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. |