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Peter PerlaMichael Markowitz

Summary

Currently, there is no consensus and no established methodology at the Naval War College (NWC) about how to conduct wargames that link the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war—what we call "multi-level wargaming." This is a real problem today because those three levels of war are linked in complex ways, especially in the current global environment. The War Gaming Department (WGD) of the NWC is looking for ideas that will help improve the way it designs and produces wargames that cut across those levels of war more efficiently and effectively than heretofore. The NWC asked CNA to identify key game-design issues and to develop some recommendations for more effectively representing the linkage between the strategic, operational/strategic, and operational levels of war, especially as applied to future Navy Title X Global War Games (GWG).

Our approach had three main components. First, we based our research on the project team’s first-hand experience with wargaming, as both game designers and game analysts. Second, we researched existing wargame systems and interviewed leading wargaming practitioners, both in government and in industry. This allowed us to learn how others have conducted multi-level games in the past and to discuss their ideas about how to improve techniques in the future. Third, we synthesized our research and experience into specific recommendations for the design of a game structure and processes that the NWC could use as a starting point for designing future GWGs.

Designing a successful wargame is a specialized skill. Designing successful multi-level wargames poses its own set of specific challenges. The wealth of experience of current practitioners points to some basic insights about how to meet those challenges.

CNA recommends that the Wargaming Department of the Naval War College use the prototypical structural design presented as the starting point for its design of the next Navy Title X Global War Game. The key elements of this recommended design are:

  • Strategic players, supported by an overall Game Director and a Director of Assessment, address the overall strategic situation and specify their assessments, objectives, and intent in closed planning and open adjudication and assessment sessions. Strategic players provide assessments, objectives, and intent to their operational-level subordinate players and to any Control-played operational entities, using procedures and documentation as close as possible to those used in the real world (for example, warning, alert, and execute orders).
  • Operational-level players, supported as needed by Facilitators managed by the Director of Assessment, also work in a closed planning/open adjudication environment. They respond to tasking from strategic players to develop operational plans and provide direction and final operational execution orders to the subordinate tactical-level players using procedures and documentation as close as possible to those used in the real world.
  • Tactical players work in a collaborative control structure with the game pucksters managed by the Director of Adjudication. Tactical-level players embody their own closed planning/open adjudication environment, agreeing on game outcomes based on a game engine scoped and scaled to provide the necessary balance of detail and aggregation to achieve the goals of the game.
  • Feedback of game events and outcomes generally occurs through communications from one level or echelon of the players to another. (Control facilitates this communication process but does not directly intercede in it except in specific and exceptional circumstances). Information availability and flow are based on the same level of detailed representation of real-world capabilities available to all sides.

*Originally published in January 2009, this paper was reprinted in December 2024.

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Details

  • Pages: 105
  • Document Number: CRM D0019256.A4/1Rev
  • Publication Date: 1/8/2009