Developing a Wargame to Better Understand the Stand-In Force

The Situation

In the past decade, the capabilities of U.S. competitors in the Indo-Asia–Pacific have steadily weakened what once was absolute U.S. naval and air supremacy of the region. An array of coastal and off-shore bases combined with a robust suite of short- to long-range ballistic missiles have been employed to counter some of the most valuable U.S. naval assets, specifically aircraft carriers and amphibious assault platforms. One of the countermeasures that the Marine Corps’ has taken to address this growing threat is the development of the expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) concept—a future naval operating model in which forward-postured forces provide credible capabilities to target and strike adversary naval and air resources. According to the concept, these forces will have to be persistent yet low signature, unable to rely on the large infrastructure and logistics tail that U.S. forces previously have enjoyed.

While the strategic and operational objectives of EABO are well developed, there still is a significant knowledge gap in how operations guided by the concept will be conducted at all levels of war. Moreover, guidance published by the Commandant of the Marine Corps has called for innovative thinking on future force design, with an emphasis on naval integration and resiliency while operating in an adversary’s threat ring. Considering these factors, a group of students within the Modeling Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School have developed a turn-based, virtual wargame to aid the development and understanding of EABO at the tactical edge.

The mission of Naval Post Graduate School is to provide defense-related graduate education to enhance the combat effectiveness, technical acumen, and warfighting advantage of the naval services. It supports research on a diverse set of defense-related topics, from mechanical engineering to foreign policy to cyber operations. Among this spectrum of research falls the MOVES Institute. Nested within the computer science department, MOVES is a blend of operations research and computer science. It provides a strong focus on analysis while employing simulation and software development expertise. Consequently, the MOVES curriculum for graduate and doctoral students encompasses an assortment of highly relevant technical courses, including artificial intelligence, networking, combat modeling, and virtual training systems. Furthermore, MOVES students in their final year are introduced to modeling conflict, a class in which students select a relevant problem, decompose it, identify the relevant variables to model, and develop rules for variable interactions and an overall structure for the model. In line with the Commandant’s guidance and incorporating knowledge from nonresident Expeditionary Warfare School and Command and Staff College, the MOVES class of 2020 chose to focus its efforts in this class on EABO and the tactical maneuver of stand-in forces in the contact layer.

Solution

The result of these efforts is an unclassified, distribution unlimited prototype wargame, “Crisis in the South Pacific,” which allows a notional Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) commander to design a tailored force and operate in a resource-constrained environment. In contrast to traditional force-on-force wargames, the player’s focus is to improve U.S. perceptions in the host nation while shaping the environment to support a future mission tasking. In this regard, the player has no direct ability to attrite enemy forces and must carefully plan each move, as every action increases the overall force signature and the likelihood that the enemy will target and successfully strike highly-visibility units. This latter feature is particularly unique, as most modern combat simulations and wargames do not explicitly force the player to consider their signature emissions or electromagnetic profile. In addition, opposing forces have both kinetic and non-kinetic offensive capabilities, able to physically destroy player assets through missile strikes or temporarily suppress them with cyber fires. Ultimately, the aim of this wargame is to increase understanding of stand-in forces operating in the contact layer and assist in identifying optimum force structure and behavior when working against a technologically sophisticated opponent. In closing, the wargame aids in the creation of “new ideas and understandings to feed into the cycle of research”; it allows players of all backgrounds and skill levels to aid in “designing a force for naval expeditionary warfare in actively contested spaces” at the contact layer.

As with any wargame or combat simulation, there are strengths and weaknesses. Some of the self-identified strengths include:

1. As an unclassified wargame, it places myriad players into the decision-making process at the tactical level of the Marine Corps’ future concepts.
2. Encourages critical thinking across multiple warfighting domains, particularly cyber and signature control.
3. Multiple elements—perception, signature, emissions—are abstracted to allow for discussions on validity, gear, and follow-on concepts. These abstractions allow for an immediate appreciation of the factors, while not requiring a subject matter expert for a full explanation the capabilities, conditions, and interactions.
4. Easy to use compared to historic board games and other major simulations like MAGTF Tactical Warfare Simulation, commonly known as MTWS, and COMBAT XXI.

Identified weaknesses include:

1. The wargame is developed for concept development, idea generation, and discussions. None of the data produced should be used for analysis due to the large number of abstractions.
2. Enemy actions are computer controlled. Thus, opposing strategies do not adapt or evolve as one would expect with a human opponent.
3. The impact of interactions between player forces and the local population are stochastically determined. A better study of local population and RAND reports can yield a better model for the human dimension within the game.
4. Supply is abstracted to a singular object and is not differentiated between the different classes.

Conclusion

In light of the pros and cons outlined above, the hope is that this wargame spurs meaningful dialogue on several topics of interest. Not least among these is whether the current, or projected, Marine Corps’ inventory and force structure is capable of accomplishing the overarching objectives of the stand-in force concept at the tactical and operational levels. The follow-on question, should it be determined that current capabilities are insufficient, is how to develop, train, and educate the future force to correct shortfalls and meet mission requirements. In addition to examining force structure, the impact of technology maturation is a serious consideration. Autonomous vehicles and small surface connectors will certainly affect signature profiles and the way in which we sustain forward postured forces, but how to effectively implement and balance these platforms has not been sufficiently explored. Moreover, the impetus for close naval integration will influence the supporting-supported relationship of the Navy-Marine Corps team. The effect this has at the tactical level and how small units will operate and coordinate with Navy counterparts is another point for debate.

In summary, the aim of this project and publication is three-fold. First, the wargame is a tool for all users to create discussion in an unclassified space, which can aid the Marine Corps in its development of the stand-in force. Secondly, it can demonstrate how simple wargames “are the front-end, door-kicking tool of new ideas, dangers, and concepts.” Finally, this product shows how the staff non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers at the Naval Postgraduate School continue to support the warfighter and national security through defense-oriented research.