Название: Simulation and Wargaming
Автор: Charles Turnitsa, Curtis Blais
Издательство: Wiley
Год: 2022
Страниц: 466
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true), epub
Размер: 18.5 MB, 21.6 MB

Understanding the potential synergies between computer simulation and wargaming.

Based on the insights of experts in both domains, Simulation and Wargaming comprehensively explores the intersection between computer simulation and wargaming. This book shows how the practice of wargaming can be augmented and provide more detail-oriented insights using computer simulation, particularly as the complexity of military operations and the need for computational decision aids increases.

Wargaming and simulation accompanied my professional life as a military OR/SA analyst and an academic teacher in one way or another. It began with an episode of what wargamers want from OR models, which are on the heart of simulation. I was a junior OR analyst and captain of the German Air Force (GAF) Reserve when, in the mid?1960s, I was called up for a wargame by the Air Staff in the Defense Ministry. It was the first time I participated in a two?sided map display manual wargame for estimating success and losses to be expected in counter?air operations against well?defended Warsaw Pact (WP) airbases. Most of the players were fighter bomber pilots, some of them with WW 2 combat experience, and GAF air defense?officers familiar with the WP’s air defense capabilities. OR analysts of the Air OR Group of IABG3 followed the players’ mission plans calculating the attack aircraft lost and the damage caused to the targets using the respective mathematical models taken from IABG’s air war model.4 Never have I forgotten the disputes between players and OR analysts. The blue players considered the target damage calculated as too low and the loss of their air sorties as too high. In the midst of the game they suggested that the analysts manipulate the “critical” inputs of the assessment models so that the outputs would be closer to their judgment. Not surprisingly, the analysts rejected the suggestion arguing that rather than manipulating the game halfway, to improve its results for Blue, it would make more sense to end the game and, thereafter, revisit its data and the assumptions underlying the assessment models. That is what we did.

The Special Program Panel of Systems Science of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division6 accepted and funded, together with the German Ministry of Defense, my proposal to organize, together with my co-chairmen, Lynn F. Jones of the UK’s Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment and Egil Reine of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, the scientific conference on “Modeling Land Battle Systems for Military Planning” held at the War Gaming Center of IABG7 in Ottobrunn, Germany, 26–30 August 1974. The keynote address of the Deputy Under Secretary of the US Army for Operations Research Dr. Wilbur Payne began with the following statement: As we are less and less able to rely on historical European combat data and as we see more and more the necessity of evaluating issues in large contexts, gaming and simulation emerge perhaps as the only tools able to organize large quantities of information and discipline our thinking and communication about them.

Armstrong ended his talk by emphasizing that civilian scientist and military officers must work together. “An all-scientist war game can easily become a ‘black box mathematician’s delight’ which is tactically ridiculous. Conversely, an all-military wargame can very easily become an exercise carried out without regard to its purpose.”

Modern wargaming centers provide at least three components to support the wargame, namely the operational components, analysis component, and the simulation component. The operations components prepare, conduct, and evaluate the wargame. Since wargames have been conducted, this group has been the important counterpart to the subject matter experts who participate in the wargame itself. To make a wargame successful, it needs to be defined, planned, designed, developed, rehearsed, and finally conducted. The operations group is responsible for all these tasks, from the first ideas to the detailed game plan. During and after the game, they must analyze the results and prepare evaluation reports, outbrief presentations, etc. Some of them may be given as interim reports to the subject matter experts, others are collected to provide the overarching insights captured in the final reports about the wargame. In the earlier days of wargaming, the experts analyzed the situation by themselves, very much like they would do in headquarters. With the increasing complexity of the situation on the battlefield and a more complex solution space, more professional support needed to be provided. Within the defense domain, this analysis group is referred to as Operations Research & System Analysis (ORSA). ORSA experts assist decision?makers in solving complex problems by producing the analysis and logical reasoning necessary to inform and underpin those critical decisions. They are as much part of modern headquarters as they are part of wargaming support components. The simulation component provides numerical insight into the dynamic behavior of the complex battlefield. This is the youngest component, as only with the rise of computational capabilities was it possible to develop simulation systems that implement the theory of war, movement, attrition, and other relevant effects through the computational representation of entities, relations, activities, and effects. While traditionally rooted in the domain of physics-based modeling of mostly kinetic phenomena, recent developments in human and organizational behavior modeling research address such elements of modern warfare as well. As such, simulations did not only replace the rulebooks and result tables of traditional wargames, but also support the ORSA group with the evaluation of decision spaces. Furthermore, modern simulation systems provide powerful interfaces that allow not only the immersive displays of combat simulations, they also provide analytic tools to capture and display wargame metrics interactively.

The distinguished authors have hit upon two practical areas that have tremendous applications to share with one another but do not seem to be aware of that fact. The book includes insights into:

The application of the data-driven speed inherent to computer simulation to wargames
The application of the insight and analysis gained from wargames to computer simulation
The areas of concern raised by the combination of these two disparate yet related fields
New research and application opportunities emerging from the intersection

Addressing professionals in the wargaming, modeling, and simulation industries, as well as decision makers and organizational leaders involved with wargaming and simulation, Simulation and Wargaming offers a multifaceted and insightful read and provides the foundation for future interdisciplinary progress in both domains.

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