Major Activities Of Wargaming Process The War example essay topic

Simulation-supported Wargaming in MNE 4 Alexander Horstkotte, Thomas ErlenbruchBundeswehr Transformation Center, 85521 Otto brunn, Germany Email: . Introduction The objective of this document is to emphasize the importance of simulation as a measure of complexity reduction and planner's tool for decision support in MNE 4's Effects-Based Planning (EBP) process. Starting with an overview of the underlying principles of Wargaming and Modeling and Simulation (M&S), the outcome of this abstract is a 'Process for the application of simulation to support Wargaming in MNE 4'. This document may also serve as a basis for MNE 4 design and execution decision-makers in order to determine the value of simulation as a war gaming tool for MNE 4.2.

The Art of Wargaming Wargaming and Course-of-Action Analysis are approved instruments of military planning in order to determine the feasibility and validity of military options and plans. Traditionally war gaming was conducted by exposing Blue military options to the challenges of Red Team's counter-actions just using people's brain, pen and paper. Today, the complexity of the battlefield has experienced significant increases due to the challenges of asymmetric menaces after the end of the Cold War. The concept of Effects-Based Operations (EBO) tries to embrace these new conditions based on ambitious processes like Knowledge Base Development (KBD).

Furthermore, military planning and operation execution have to cope not only with a highly complex and dynamic adversary's system conducting asymmetric operations, but also with great challenges on the Blue side, such as the coordination and interaction of multiple coalition partners and different agencies and organizations in a non-linear battle space. Experiences from recent months and years have undoubtedly proven that EBO cannot be successfully conducted without adequate support by IT tools. Especially the various war gaming activities within EBP cannot be properly accomplished by just using traditional measures. Military planners desperately need automated tools in order to handle data masses, multi-dimensional and dynamic interrelations within the adversary's system and own (blue) forces and instruments. 3. Simulation as an Analysis Method Basically, there are two major approaches for answering optimization questions: the analytical approach and the numerical approach.

As the analytic approach tries to exactly calculate results considering the objective function, limitation variables and all other relevant factors, the numerical approach allows only for approximate results often using iterative or even heuristic processes. Nevertheless, numerical methods have a far more practical weight (see Reference 3) since in opposition to the analytical methods they can handle complex systems with great varieties of variables. Simulation is one of a whole set of numerical methods and additionally, it comprises another major advantage especially useful for war gaming problems: it models dynamics. 4. JOANA The German simulation system 'Joint Operations Army Navy Air Force' (JOANA) was developed by I ABG on behalf of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center since 1999. It is a collection of single simulation systems representing military services and non-military aspects such as political and economical systems.

JOANA is a constructive and stochastic model and most importantly, it involves different automatism's for closing the systems in order to allow the execution of simulation runs faster than real time. Detailed documentation will be made available in IWS. 5. Process of simulation-supported Wargaming and its integration into MNE 4 Design The following described process supports step A DRM 2 (Wargame options) and SPR 2 (Wargame the plan as depicted in the synchronization matrix) as designed in EBP CONOPS V 0.70 (see reference 1). Figure 1: Major activities of Wargaming Process The war gaming process mainly consists of four major activities (see Figure 1). Activity 1 "Implement basic scenario" serves as the process' cornerstone and has to be executed only prior to the actual military options development conducted by the planners.

It involves the implementation of the relevant elements of the system, e.g. terrain, infrastructure, geographical distribution and deployment of different parties, within the JOANA system. Activity 2 "Model Options" (see Figure 2) ensures that planner's options (courses of action) are properly represented within the simulation. It is mandatory that the war gaming personnel - which is very likely not fully involved in the planning process - completely understand the options (including all assumptions, constraints, restraints, desired effects etc.) and equally important the objective / analysis questions, which also have to be formulated by the planners. Input of this activity are the options and the analysis questions, products are the implemented options, as different scenarios, within JOANA.

Figure 2: "Modeling of Options" activity The next activity "Execute simulation runs" is mainly a technical issue. The different scenarios will be run in, if possible multiple times, in a faster than real time mode. The subsequent data evaluation can be prepared simultaneously (see Figure 3). Figure 3: "Execute Simulation Runs" activity Activity 4 "Evaluate Results" (see Figure 4) deals with reviewing and interpreting the data produced by the different simulation runs in order to produce war gaming results relevant and beneficial to planners. Results shall provide an aggregated overview of the option's feasibility, answer the analysis questions as precisely as possible and give further 'not asked for' insights, e.g. unintended effects like a not expected food shortage in refugee camp X due to extensive checkpoint controls along Route A causing significant supply delays. Figure 4: "Evaluate Results " activity single execution of this process without any iteration or loops may take between 210 and 630 minutes, depending on the number and complexity of options and analysis questions as well as the scenario extent.

This time consideration implies that the war gaming process should be executed during the night, in between two experiment days. The handing over of options and analysis questions from planners to M&S planners including the opportunity for short Q&A would be at the end of experiment day N. It would be done using the CD CIE. Day N+1 would then start with the presentation of the war gaming results to the planners within the collaboration part of the CIE. Thus EBP execution would not be delayed or disturbed by the simulation support. Personnel considerations imply that at least one Wargaming Cell member (M&S planner) needs to participate in the planning process and thus serve as a mediator between both groups. Still open questions regarding concrete Blue Cell - Wargaming Cell coordination, formats of options and analysis results, personnel and training requirements and others are to be solved after the decision of using JOANA for Wargaming support in MNE 4 is final.

6. Summary Wargaming steps in EBP are crucial to determine feasibility and validity of options and the overall operational plan. The complexity and dynamics of the system require the modeling and simulation support. The described process provides a first cornerstone for a successful simulation-supported war gaming in MNE 4.

Bibliography

1 - MN EBO CONOPS V. 0.702 - JOANA documentation 3 - Simulation Modeling and Analysis A.M. Law, W.D. Kelton, Third Edition; P. 2.