The year is 1824. In the military halls of the Prussian Army, the first modern wargame idea began and was published. Kriegsspiel, or war-game, was published by First Lieutenant Georg Heinrich Leopold Freiherrn von Resisswitz. The scenario was at the Corps level with 24 Battalions on each side. Game mechanics were quite detailed, with ranges of good effects versus bad effects, outcomes at the battalion level, and troop movements. Players were required to think, decide, and write orders for the umpire to adjudicate via various tables, dice, and the movement of the pieces representing the units. Chief of the Prussian General Staff Karl Freiherr von Müffling has gone down in history for saying, “This is not a game! It is a war exercise!”
In the modern vernacular, the player had to provide Commander’s Intent. So, why is wargaming such a difficult spot for air battle managers? Why would we ever play a game when there are simulators? Or high-end large force employment exercises like Red Flag or Bamboo Eagle? I propose that Battle Management Professionals should wargame at all ranks, at various scales of conflict, to hone our Operational Art, understanding of Joint Functions, and execution of Joint Functions.
Wargaming Defined
The U.S. Air Force LeMay Center’s Wargaming Institute, or AFWI, defines wargaming “as a unique interactive research model using purposefully selected game participants to generate data that does not already exist in response to purposefully developed scenarios for analysts to use in developing insights or options in response to a sponsor’s problem,” and says the time to wargame is “when solutions to a problem do not yet exist, and the data needed for that solution must be generated by human beings with specific backgrounds within specific conditions that manifest the problem to be explored. Wargames are invaluable to investigate processes, explore issues, identify questions, evaluate doctrine, and to gain insights into complex problems and/or issues.” To achieve these purposes, the U.S. Air Force principally employs wargames as part of formal developmental educations programs and across the research, development, test and engineering enterprise.
For example, in 2022 AFWI conducted a wargame with United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE). The wargaming focused on two vignettes designed around Agile Combat Employment (ACE). Wargamers examined the timelines and decision points to ACE to different basing clusters, developed and validated communication plans, and identified areas where clarification and additional guidance are required.
AFWI also hosts an annual Science and Technology Wargame sponsored by Air Force Material Command. The purpose of the Science and Technology Wargame is to expose concepts of future U.S. and partner capabilities to operational planners, warfighters, and wargamers to gain feedback on these future concepts to investigate possible improvements to the design. This game garners and provides insights into both the Air Force Futures and Global Engagement wargames.
Wargaming at the Strategic Level
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has established the Marine Corps Wargaming Division within its Warfighting Laboratory, located at the General Robert B. Neller Center for Wargaming and Analysis. The Wargaming Division conducts an annual Title 10 wargame series. They invite representatives from every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, combatant commands, and international partners to examine critical issues concerning the future of the force. Since 2019, the Wargaming Division has executed or supported 31 wargames specifically aligned with Force Design efforts. These efforts marked an important transition toward more dynamic and data-informed methodologies. Marine Corps Force Design 2030 specifically calls out wargames as a step in their Campaign of Learning.
Wargaming at the Tactical Level
In addition to employing wargames to make informed decisions regarding service-wide force design, the U.S. Marine Corps also routinely uses wargames to improve outcomes at the tactical level. For example. Kriegspeil 2030 is a wargame system designed to test company commanders and can be used in the spin-up phase prior to Field Training Exercise (FTX). This wargame can be tailored to the tactics and decisions made by Platoon leaders or higher in echelons of command, depending on the number of participants. Referees of the game can punish invalid and dangerous tactics, showing loss of life to decision makers, and help explain the “why” behind future live-fire schemes of maneuver in the upcoming FTX. For this infantry-based game, the focus is on learning the Joint Principles of Fire and Maneuver and understanding the technical limitations of equipment being employed.
Case Study: Littoral Commander
I recently had the opportunity to play the USMC-based game Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific by Jim Dietz. The game’s introductory mission immediately shows the need for air superiority, the ability to sense and task shooters, and maneuver warfare amid limited and contested logistics. The designer provides a general situation, a themed key to victory, the order of battle, rule variants, and clear blue and red objectives. Although specific to the Marine Corps force design, I found this wargame to be an effective tool to expand Air Force operators’ understanding of USMC capabilities through unclassified scenarios.
Designing Wargames
Clearly, there are numerous potential uses for wargaming across all levels of conflict, but creating a well-designed wargame is the first step to unlocking this potential. The U.S. Naval Institute article Wargaming Beyond the Battlefield, written by a team of Marine authors, describes the challenges of creating a wargame for a specific career field, primarily communications. The team finds that “[d]designing a wargame to asses the utility of skill-based tasks and the depth and breadth of skills was more complex. The designers had to represent the application of skills in a meaningful way that the OPT (Operational Planning Team) could assess.”
The wargame designers had to develop game mechanics, focus on the correct scale of force, and determine the evaluation criteria. The designers provide a number of recommendations to future wargame designers. These recommendations include using established methods like the Joint Planning Process and selectively tailoring these based on the wargame’s audience and intended purpose; understanding what the wargame is evaluating and then repeatedly distill criteria to smaller, simpler terms; determine the correct scope and scale for the players to control, including the enemy force; and, where able, use unclassified resources to prevent overclassification and increase utility.
Recommendations
The USAF’s approach to wargaming is focused on the strategic to operational levels of Warfare. What’s missing are wargames for the battle managers at the tactical and operational levels of warfare, potentially even combining the two. A military strategy can be created using a Table Top Exercise (TTX). The operational level can conduct a Command Post Exercise (CPX) that creates the rhythm, meetings, working groups, and structure for implementing strategy. Finally, a Field Training Exercise (FTX) at the tactical level can be used to test or experiment with different courses of action within the operational design.
What’s missing is a wargame to prepare the minds and decision makers between the tactical and operational, the battle managers. Some could argue that the air battle management community already conduct mini-wargames inside routine mission briefings using the “right side of the board” with the Section Lead or instructor moving dry erase “pieces” around to tell “players” what they see and hear, and then to ask what they might do and/or say. This is certainly effective for localized training, such as a 4v4, but this may not be the ideal way to wargame Large Force Exercises (LFEs) or FTXs.
A better solution could include creating missionized scenarios that blend the tactical and the operational levels of warfare. Crew leads, as wargame designers, can set the constraints and provide the established Commander’s intent and acceptable level of risk. Depending on the crew construct, a senior controller might brief the contracts and comm pathways as a blue player, allowing the junior controllers to understand how they will execute the intent. Ideally this flow would include a brief set up time for the Crew leads or white force, a short briefing to the players, and finally the execution of the wargame where battle managers determine how and when to take various steps required to accomplish the mission. For sufficiently large scenarios, these wargames could be layered where one player or team is focused on the tanker game plan, another is focused on engagements, and another is working communication between levels of warfare while balancing overall resources. The section lead can then guide discussion or debrief to reveal the thought processes and analysis between the players. In this discussion, the Joint Functions could be specifically identifies, with the engagement-focused controller describing how offensive operations will be achieved, the tanker manager might describe considerations regarding economy of force, with section or crew leads describing how to coordinate across the team to enable maneuver and mass to achieve simplicity in pursuit of the objective.
At advanced schools and on staffs, air battle managers trained in wargaming could bring even greater value. They are often uniquely positioned to connect tactical action to operational and strategic purpose. Whether the problem involves a joint air campaign, contested logistics, Agile Combat Employment, or simply helping one community understand the needs of another, an air battle management professional can use wargaming to illuminate how the air component supports the broader joint fight. This is especially important because battle managers routinely operate at the seams between command and execution, and between service specific actions and joint outcomes.
Conclusion
For the Prussian officers who first embraced Kriegsspiel, the point was never entertainment. It was disciplined decision making. Players had to interpret a situation, communicate clear intent, and maneuver forces to create advantage. These concepts remain just as relevant today.
For the air battle management profession, wargaming should be treated as part of the continuum of learning, not as a niche activity reserved for strategists or researchers. Well designed wargames can help air battle managers think more clearly, understand joint functions more deeply, and translate commander’s intent into action at the tactical and operational levels.
If the community wants air battle managers who can connect tactical execution to operational purpose in contested environments, then it should not rely solely on simulators, command post exercises, or large force employment events. It should also teach them to think through the fight before they enter it. That is what wargaming offers, and that is why it belongs in the professional development of every air battle management professional.
David “Solo” Blessman is a U.S. Air Force Air Battle Manager, husband, and father.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.
Feature photo by Nika Benedictova on Pexels
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