The Navy Goes Wargaming...

Such an interesting development.

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport is soliciting proposals for Feasibility Studies for the Execution of a Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI).

I found this part interesting.

It is anticipated that the number of players will be between 50 and 1000. Players will be drawn from a pool that includes military officers, government civilians, and government contractors. It is expected that players will be generally knowledgeable but not necessarily be Subject Matter Experts. The game will be unclassified; however it will not be open or available to the general public. Respondents should be prepared to address game play within a restrictive information assurance environment.

And the details.

The game is non-deterministic and will be played in three moves that are related to, yet still distinct from, each other. It is conceivable that insights gleaned from game play during Moves One and Two may be used to modify Moves Two and Three respectively. Respondents should plan on some level of effort being dedicated to being part of the game controller team during game play, and to making changes to the scenarios of subsequent moves. Each move is anticipated to last between one to two weeks of calendar time, with one to two weeks of calendar time between moves for game controller activities.

Move One - Protecting the Sea Lanes: Move One is designed to get the players engaged in the game - collaborating and thinking strategically. Players attend a major International Anti-Piracy Conference being convened under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization. Players, representing various anti-piracy stakeholders, sign up as members of various working groups which are tasked with addressing aspects of the piracy problem. Once formed into teams/working groups, the players will have tasking to address activities related to military and operational coordination, information sharing, and the operational role of the regional coordination center. The complete player tasking is contained in the attachment. What the players produce: working as part of collaborative teams, the players will produce n-# of multimedia responses to the tasking they receive, where n-# corresponds to the number of teams. Assignment of players into teams: To the maximum extent practical, it is the intent that game controllers allow the teams to self organize and self manage. Thus, it is conceivable that a distribution of team sizes will exist, including some that are very small and some that are very large.

Move Two - Attacks at Sea: The scenario is multiple near simultaneous attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa. Players would be self selecting and self organizing into collaborative teams of either Red (pirates) or Blue (US and Allied response). It is conceivable that players may have the option of signing up to be part of a third party as well, representing e.g. NGOs, other governments, etc, but this has not yet been determined.

Players will be provided with a menu of Red forces to work with, Blue forces to work with, constraints on how much of each they can use, and a description of the targets. This will be government furnished information. The attachment has more complete details. The first action belongs to Red, who is tasked with developing a plan of attack, with a deadline. The players would then produce n-# of multimedia responses, where the response describes their plan of attack. Once the Red plans of attack are submitted, then Blue takes over. Blue teams may respond to as many of the Red plans of attack as they wish. Blue's output consists of n-# of multimedia responses, where the response describes their plan of defense/counter-attack to the various Red attacks.

Move Three: The game continues with a final move consisting of a range of scenarios that are logical outcomes from Move Two. These scenarios include, but may not be limited to: . Conducting a hostage rescue ashore . Conducting a hostage rescue at sea . Dismantling pirate base camps . Disrupting the pirate support infrastructure ashore and/or overseas . Helping the Somali Transitional National Government and Puntland officials restore order and the rule of law . Developing a viable indigenous Somali Coast Guard . Providing humanitarian assistance . Others, potentially based on insights gleaned from play in Moves One or Two

Teams will have the option of selecting which scenario(s) to play. The format of game play will mirror that of Move Two, this time with Blue owning the first action and Red having the response. The players would produce the same output as in Move Two, i.e. n-# of multimedia responses consisting of a plan of attack (for Blue) and a plan of response or counter-attack (for Red).

In other words, if you are looking to fight the future fleet of China, you should stick with Harpoon 3. For the most part, I think games can be overrated as teaching tools. I am a bit biased though, keep in mind I have work experience in the gaming industry so know it from a different side than players. With that said, I do believe a few things gaming and simulation can teach includes strategic thinking, organizational pattern recognition, and communication skills on many levels.

It is an interesting development, but all it does is take wargaming to the home PC. I personally think no simulation will ever be good enough to replace the value of having everyone in the same room, but I'm old fashion that way.