CRM D0010807.

A2/Final
September 2004

Transforming Naval Wargaming:

A Framework for Operational-
Level Wargaming

CNA:
Peter P. Perla, Michael C. Markowitz,
Christopher A. Weuve
Naval War College:
Stephen Downes-Martin,
Michael Martin, CDR, USN
Paul V. Vebber, CDR, USNR

4825 Mark Center Drive • Alexandria, Virginia 22311-1850

Approved for distribution: September 2004

Dr. Peter P. Perla

Director, Interactive Research Production
Office of the President

This document represents the best opinion of CNA at the time of issue.
It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Department of the Navy.

Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited. Specific authority: N00014-00-D-0700.

For copies of this document call: CNA Document Control and Distribution Section at 703-824-2123.

Copyright  2004 The CNA Corporation

Contents
Summary: Transforming Naval Wargaming . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Wargaming and transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
A scientific foundation for wargame design? . . . . . . . . 4
The way ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Transforming naval wargaming: the task before us . . . . . . . 7

Concepts and postulates for operational-level design . . . . . . 15

Clausewitz: friction and chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Herman: Entropy-Based Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Van Creveld: command and uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . 23
Vebber: wargaming network effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The framework connecting war and wargame . . . . . . . . . . 35

From war to wargame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Theoretical view of gaming the operational level of war . . 38
Command topology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Information topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Operational topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Timing is everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
A different view of time: the Road to Baghdad game . . . 58

The end of the beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

A science of wargame design? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Moving onward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Prospective projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Apply social network analysis to wargaming information
operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Wargame antisubmarine warfare (ASW) for 7th Fleet 67
Develop work-flow models of innovative concepts . . 68
Further develop the foundations of wargaming theory 69
Explore knowledge management within an adaptive C2
structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

i
 Develop a wargaming system for information operations 71
Develop an agent-driven wargaming system . . . . . . 72

Appendix A: Road to Baghdad Wargame. . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Game scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Playing pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Combat units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Force markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Clock markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Air strike markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Operations chits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Command cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Other game markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Sequence of play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Phase 1: Advance move and clock markers . . . . . . 79
Phase 2: Operations decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Phase 3: The on-clock player moves his pieces . . . . 80
Phase 4: The off-clock player may move activated pieces 80
Phase 5: Resolve combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Phase 6: Exploitation phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Phase 7: Plans phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Generating Ops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Functional nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Broken link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Subordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Get Saddam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Ground movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Airmobile movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Forward arming and refueling points (FARP) . . . . 85
Administrative movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Roads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Cities, towns and waypoints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Combat results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

ii
 Airpower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Airstrike availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
System strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
SAMs & kill box strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Resolving kill box strikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Close air support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Special operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Special missions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Fedayeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
How to win . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Explanation of game components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

iii
Summary: Transforming Naval Wargaming
To transform the way we fight wars we must first transform the way we
think about war. One of the major elements affecting the way we
think about war is wargaming. The War Gaming Department (WGD)
of the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) asked the Center for Naval
Analyses (CNA) to work with them to develop some new ideas about
transforming Navy wargaming as part of the Navy's ongoing efforts to
transform U.S. military thinking and practice in response to the per-
ceived changes in the global military-political-technical environment
at the start of the 21st Century.

The words wargame and wargaming (and their separated-at-birth

synonyms war game and war gaming) have a variety of definitions,
many of which are vague and virtually useless to serious scientific dis-
course. (If we can use the same term to describe both the bustling
physical activity of thousands of real troops and vehicles maneuvering
across hundreds of square miles and also the largely intellectual activ-
ity of two players crouched over a paper map and cardboard playing
pieces, then we contend that term loses its utility for many of the dis-
cussions important to this effort.) Instead of taking such a broad view
of wargames (the thing) and wargaming (what you do with that
thing), we focus our attention on “real wargames,” distinguishing
them from analytical models, computer simulations without players
(CSWP, pronounced “cazwhip”), and field exercises. Real wargames
focus on human beings making decisions and dealing with the conse-
quences of those decisions, but not on the action of actual forces.

If we accept the notion of the three domains of real war1—physical,

informational, and cognitive—then the wargame designer must

1. Alberts, David S., et al. Understanding Information Age Warfare. Washing-

ton, DC: Department of Defense, Command and Control Research Pro-
gram (CCRP), 2001

1
 somehow condense that real universe into the game universe. He
does this by combining the six dimensions of wargaming—time,
space, forces, effects, information, and command—to form three
interconnected topologies—operational, informational, and com-
mand. These topologies are the interfaces and engine through which
the players enter and transform the universe of the game. The mea-
sure of the game’s realism is how well the relationships the players
have with the game topologies reflect the relationships real-world
commanders have with the real domains. Ultimately, the goal of any
“science of wargame design” is to delineate these connections,
develop the foundation for understanding the problems by articulat-
ing definitions and postulates, and then using those axioms to pro-
pose and prove theorems about the connections between war and
wargame, and about ways of making coherent connections from
reality to wargame, using the dimensions of wargaming to do it.

What we discuss in this paper is an approach to thinking in scientific

ways about the underlying concepts and structures that a wargame
uses to represent and manipulate these six key dimensions to create
the topologies of the game. Together, these topologies and their
interworkings form what we call the game system. Just as there are many
types of vehicles for travel on land, sea, air, or space, there are many
types of game systems we can use to reach our objectives. Just as all
physical vehicles must conform to some fundamental physical princi-
ples, so too all wargame systems must deal with fundamental objects,
forces, and interactions. We propose a particular way of categorizing
and thinking about those fundamental principles as a starting point
for developing further what we may call a science of wargame design.

Wargaming and transformation

In many ways, the Naval War College's style of conducting wargames
looks very like a condensed representation of staff operations. Some-
times dozens of players work together around a single table or in a
couple of conference rooms; sometimes hundreds of players work
together across several rooms, using an elaborate network to

2
communicate. In all cases, however, as Robert “Barney” Rubel has
articulated in a number of ways, despite the fact that much of
wargaming is a simulation, the players experience real command and
control processes (even if not always using real command systems).2

The intellectual arguments of the leading proponents of information

warfare focus on the nexus of information and C3 (command, con-
trol, and communications).3 Combined with new fighting techniques
that enable precision delivery of munitions, they see this increased
power of C3 as the engine driving us toward the future of warfare.
Wargaming, with its inherent emphasis on decisionmaking, is an
ideal tool for learning about and understanding the resulting trans-
formation in warfare. To use the tool effectively, however, requires us
to reconsider both the old and the new techniques of wargaming.

When stripped of their flashy externalities, both war and wargaming

are quintessentially human activities. But with both, the externalities
can play a significant role in the experience. Computer wargaming is
dominated and shaped by the aesthetics and structure of cinema.
Dramatic storytelling, reinforced by powerful image and sound,
imposes the creator's view of the story on the passive spectator. Board
wargaming is dominated and shaped by the aesthetics and structure
of information graphics: the concise and efficient visual display of
data, interactions, and processes. As is the case with the printed words
of a novel, however, the physical components of a board wargame
provide only the skeleton of the game, which the readers (or players)
must flesh out and bring to life using their own imagination. The real
wargame takes place in the mind of the player; the real challenge to
any game system is to provide enough of a framework for the players
to tell themselves the story of the game without turning them into

2. Rubel, Robert C., CAPT, USN, "War-Gaming Network-Centric Warfare,"

Naval War College Review, Spring 2001, Vol. LIV, No. 2. http://
www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2001/Spring/art5-sp1.htm
3. See, for example, Garstka, John J. "Network Centric Warfare: An Over-
view of Emerging Theory," Phalanx: The Bulletin of Military Operations
Research, Dec 2000, Vol. 33, No. 4. http://www.mors.org/publications/
phalanx/dec00/feature.htm

3
 passive observers. This emphasis on humanity over technology
permeates the history of effective wargaming and the basic
philosophy of wargaming at Newport.4

A scientific foundation for wargame design?

If the human basis of wargaming argues for considering it primarily
an art form, our research nevertheless leads us to propose the begin-
nings of a scientific basis for wargame design. We begin this
exploration by extracting from several sources an underlying set of
postulates about warfare at the operational level. We use these postu-
lates and additional research and analysis to develop ideas about how
to build wargames to condense important dynamics of warfare at that
level into the topologies of a wargame design.

Military operations are prone to inefficiencies, accidents, and

uncertainties that stem from the fact that conducting such operations
generates friction, destruction, and disruption. Together, these
fundamental forces of warfare conspire and interact to increase the
entropy of the military system, best described as a level of energy or
activity that is inherent in the system but unavailable at any particular
time to enable the system to carry out its missions. This entropy is a
major source of the uncertainty that military command systems exist,
in part, to overcome. For each force that generates entropy, com-
mand systems apply countervailing forces: to friction, direction; to
destruction, leadership; to disruption, information. Unfortunately,
the very application of the countervailing forces in one dimension
can and usually does increase the entropy-inducing forces in other
dimensions. Thus, the essence of good command is to develop and
maintain a balance among the forces and countervailing forces that
minimizes entropy, or at the very least ensures that the entropy affect-
ing the friendly system is controlled enough to overwhelm the enemy
and the enemy's ability to manage its own entropy.

4. See Perla, Peter P. The Art of Wargaming. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
1990.

4
 To be useful in studying the operational-level of war, wargames must
better reflect these fundamental dynamics in the real-world context
of the domains of conflict (physical, informational, cognitive); the
essential relationships permeating those domains (awareness,
prediction, understanding and influence); and the driving effects of
time. Our proposed framework addresses these key issues.

The way ahead

We do not claim to have all the answers, but only to have established
a jumping-off point for additional research in game design. We
recommend that:

• The Naval War College develop these principles into a compre-

hensive approach for wargaming information warfare, includ-
ing the design of distillation games to help conduct game-based
research into topics like the relative effectiveness of command
structures under different operational conditions.

• The Navy establish a program of research to continue

developing the scientific foundation for wargame design.

• The Naval War College further develop the principles embod-

ied in the Road to Baghdad game to create new games to explore
broader warfighting scenarios for the future, particularly those
involving more extensive use of naval and amphibious
operations.

• The Navy support research and development to link the

nascent science of wargame design with the new science of
agent-based analysis to develop a new and powerful approach
to studying and understanding complex problems associated
with the integration of human beings and complex systems.

The promise is there. We need only take the games seriously enough
to explore the possibilities.

5
6
Transforming naval wargaming: the task before us
To transform wargaming we must first return to its roots. We must
remind ourselves what sets wargaming apart from other techniques
and what makes wargaming most effective at what it does best.

Over the long history of wargaming at the Naval War College, the
playing of wargames was inseparable from discussion—sometimes
heated discussion—of the “rules of the game,” the data and relation-
ships defined for a scenario, and the underlying mechanics that
brought the data and the decisions of the players to life. Much of the
shared understanding about potential future situations arose from
that discussion before the game was even played.5

Today, Naval War College wargaming at the operational level is gen-

erally done with a large staff in the context of a command-post exer-
cise. Personnel brought in to play the game are, in effect, told to “do
the job you usually do today” as part of an effort to explore future con-
cepts. Such advice can obviously become a source of confusion when
players are organized in fashions different from the way they are cur-
rently, and must use different processes and new technologies to per-
form their functions. It can be difficult, indeed, to go beyond
applying the new processes and technologies to do today's jobs differ-
ently all the way to conceptualizing how those new processes and
technologies may transform the nature of tomorrow's job.

The primary alternative to the large-scale CPX-style game is a seminar

game in which a group of experts is presented a situation to analyze
and discuss. This sort of discussion can be valuable at the brainstorm-
ing stage of concept development. Unfortunately, the framework of
such a seminar game is seldom rigorous enough, or well enough
defined, to facilitate thinking concepts through deeply enough to
contrast them with one another, much less to allow them to compete
with one another.

5. See Perla, 1990 for a discussion of the history of NWC wargaming, par-
ticularly that done between the world wars of the early 20th century.

7
 Nevertheless, discussion of rules, data, and procedures still occurs at
the NWC, not only in preparation for games, but during and after
play as well. Players argue that results of combat assessments (BDA-
battle damage assessment) are either not appropriate or conflict with
their assumptions and preconceived notions about what should hap-
pen. Because of the admixture of free-form umpiring and black-box
computer models, however, too often today such discussions occur
with little structured context. The participants frequently find it diffi-
cult to penetrate the secrets of the game to reach the source of the
insights the game seeks to impart. Debate without data or context is
seldom fruitful.

It was, in part, to provide a basis for developing that context and con-
structing that data that the NWC asked CNA to undertake this
research. Our work has evolved from a broad-front attack on a set of
vague goals into a more focused attempt to explore the potential for
developing a scientific foundation for wargame design at the opera-
tional level. By trying to devise a more scientific and rigorous basis for
defining, understanding, and designing wargames, we believe we can
better apply their inherent power to exploring and understanding
the evolutionary processes affecting warfare today. We can explore
some new ways of applying fundamental concepts to reflect those
evolving dynamics. Those dynamics affect all of the six key dimen-
sions that a game must use to represent reality: time, space, forces,
effects, information, and command. Clearly the last two dimensions
are most directly relevant to the ideas of the proponents of a network-
centric warfare revolution.

In many ways, that revolution points to a command, control, and

information system that may be considered, oddly enough, an opera-
tional realization of techniques of information display and mecha-
nisms for control similar to those that form the basis of modern board
wargaming and, ultimately, many modern computer wargames as
well. One mind, the commander, sees all, controls all with ease, and
readily perceives the available options and possible outcomes of his
choices.

8
As a tangible example of the basic technology and techniques of
modern board wargaming, consider the game Drive on Metz, designed
by James F. Dunnigan and included in his book The Complete Wargames
Handbook 6 as an example of, and part of a tutorial about, designing
board wargames. The figure shows the major components of the
game, its mapboard, and playing pieces (traditionally known as
“counters”).

The board began with a standard map of the area. To make the scale
of the map clear and regularize the movement and placement of the

6. Dunnigan, James F. The Complete Wargames Handbook: How to Play, Design

and Find Them. New York: Morrow, 1980.

9
 counters, an hexagonal grid of fixed width (in this case, the width of
one hexagon, or hex, is 4 km) was superimposed on the base map and
the terrain features modified to fit the grid. Terrain types for the
hexes include clear, forest, rough, town, and fortified, with linear fea-
tures such as roads and rivers added over and above basic terrain.

The counters represent the major combat formations involved in the

operation. In this case, the units represent regimental-size units. Each
unit is rated for its combat ability (the leftmost number at the bottom
of the counter) and its movement ability. The effects of terrain on
movement and combat are embodied in the Terrain Effects Chart.
Different types of terrain cost moving units different numbers of
“movement points” to enter and will have specific effects on combat.

Terrain effects chart

Effect on combat
Effect on movement [Leftward column-
Terrain Example Hex Number [MP's to enter] shifts on CRT]
Clear 0406 2 None
Forest 0404 4 2
Rough 0306 3 1
Town 0206 Same as other terrain 2
in hex
Fortified 0507 Same as other Terrain 3
in hex
Road 0405 1 None
River 0804 Must be adjacent at 3
start of movement, [Only if all attackers
uses all MP’s to cross are attacking
across]

Units may engage in combat from adjacent hexes. The combat

strength of the attacking units is divided by that of the defending
units to determine the “odds ratio.” To resolve the combat, players
roll a die and look the result up in the Combat Results Table.

10
Combat results table
Die Roll Differential [attacker's strength minus defender's strength]
-1+ 0 +1 +2,+3 +4,+5 +6,+7 +8,+9 +10+
1 - DR DR DR DR2 DR2 DR2 DR2
2 - - DR DR DR DR2 DR2 DR2
3 AR - - DR DR DR DR2 DR2
4 AR AR AR - DR DR DR DR2
5 AR AR AR AR - DR DR DR
6 AR AR AR AR AR - DR DR
- : No result, DR: defender retreat one hex, AR: attacker retreat one hex, DR2: defender retreat two hexes.

In a classic board wargame such as Drive on Metz, the players have per-
fect knowledge of the terrain, and of the location, strength and capa-
bilities of friendly and enemy forces. Even more crucially, the players
know (or at least have access to) the complete rules of the game gov-
erning movement, combat, logistics, and “how to win.” Within these
constraints, the players can move their forces in any desired way,
knowing that all forces will do exactly what they are ordered to do.
The players also know how the laws of probability interact with the
game’s combat results system, and so can accurately assess the risk of
alternative courses of action. The players receive immediate and
accurate feedback on the results of combat. The structured sequence
of alternating turns allows the players to formulate and execute new
plans instantly, without the need to observe, understand, and react to
simultaneous enemy counter-moves.

Historically, of course, commanders in real war have achieved none of

these ideals of access to complete and accurate information and total
control over forces. If the vision of network-centric warfare is achieved,
however, that reality might well change. Self-synchronization, the
Global Information Grid (GIG), and real-time video, voice, and data
links hold out the tantalizing promise of a degree of control at the
operational level of conflict approaching that of the teenaged war-
gamer maneuvering his regiments in a game of Drive on Metz—if not
really warfare by remote control, something very close to it, when
looked at from the perspective of the operational commander.

11
 Our focus in the remainder of this paper is on that level of warfare,
the operational. The U.S. Department of Defense defines the opera-
tional level of war in the following way.7

operational level of war - The level of war at which campaigns

and major operations are planned, conducted, and sus-
tained to accomplish strategic objectives within theaters or
areas of operations. Activities at this level link tactics and
strategy by establishing operational objectives needed to
accomplish the strategic objectives, sequencing events to
achieve the operational objectives, initiating actions, and
applying resources to bring about and sustain these events.
These activities imply a broader dimension of time or space
than do tactics; they ensure the logistic and administrative
support of tactical forces, and provide the means by which
tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic
objectives.

Not the most precise or intuitive definition, but one that makes it
clear that this operational level of war falls somewhere in the murky area
between the more readily grasped notions of tactics (how forces actu-
ally fight the enemy physically) and strategy (the overall plan for
achieving victory in the war). The same dictionary also defines the
general concept of operations, in these terms.

operation - 1. A military action or the carrying out of a strate-

gic, operational, tactical, service, training, or administrative
military mission. 2. The process of carrying on combat,
including movement, supply, attack, defense, and maneu-
vers needed to gain the objectives of any battle or campaign.

This definition is still a little vague for the practical requirements of

structuring a wargame to reflect the key elements of warfare at the
operational level. Nevertheless, it indicates some of the key aspects of
warfare at this level that a game must somehow address: movement,
supply, attack, defense, maneuvers. The game must enable its players
to address each of these aspects of war, among many others. And if the
game is to be useful for research, training, or educational purposes,

7. Joint Publication 1-02, The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and

Associated Terms, U.S. Department of Defense, 12 April 2001 (as
amended through 9 June 2004).

12
playing the operational wargame must draw on the same (or a very
similar) skill set as real warfare at this level. The DoD dictionary
defines this skill set in terms of operational art.

operational art - The employment of military forces to attain

strategic and/or operational objectives through the design,
organization, integration, and conduct of strategies, cam-
paigns, major operations, and battles. Operational art trans-
lates the joint force commander's strategy into operational
design and, ultimately, tactical action, by integrating the key
activities at all levels of war.

So, if we set ourselves the goal of defining an underlying theory for

designing operational-level wargames, we must address the factors
and dynamics involved in translating strategy into plans and plans
into action, integrating tactics and strategy in ways appropriate to the
span of interest and control of the real-life command and staff levels
the players of the game will represent.

The rest of the paper proposes an approach to meeting this goal. We

begin by describing the basic concepts that form the foundation for
our thinking. We then translate those concepts into a framework for
building wargame models of operational warfare. To demonstrate the
applicability of the concepts and framework, we present an example
of a working game based on them. We conclude by proposing some
fruitful directions for future development.

13
Concepts and postulates for operational-level
design
We begin our efforts to transform wargaming by proposing a set of
interrelated concepts we will use to design a reasonable and useful
boardgame representation of joint military operations in the current
and near-future environment. We propose an underlying foundation
to represent time, space, forces, and effects in relatively simple ways,
but also in ways that allow the interactions of those four elements with
the two remaining ones, information and command, to be represented
with all the richness necessary to explore and understand them.

Much of our thinking and modeling focus directly on information

and command. In some cases, we consider command from two
aspects: direction and leadership. By direction, we mean telling
people what to do; by leadership, we mean inspiring them to over-
come obstacles—”Follow me!” remains the essence of leadership.
Our approach involves defining some topologies—of command, infor-
mation, and operations—and the link between those topologies, in
terms of a representation of the information and direction that flows
between them. Our fundamental model is based on concepts of fric-
tion, uncertainty, and entropy. We relate those concepts to informa-
tion and direction, and propose an approach to represent their
effects on the remaining dimensions.

Our ideas spring from many sources. We base our discussion of the
concept of friction and its connections to elements of chance from
the granddaddy of Western military theorists, Carl von Clausewitz.8
Beginning with Clausewitz's concept of friction, Mark Herman pro-
posed the concept of entropy-based warfare to explore the interactions

8. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard

and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.

15
 of friction, disruption, and lethality, and characterized their activity as
the production of entropy.9

We take a slightly different perspective. We see disruption less as a

cause of entropy than as a reflection, in the physical operation of the
system, of the effects generated by the interplay of friction and uncer-
tainty as they produce entropy. Destruction (equivalent to Herman's
notion of lethality) and deception (equivalent, perhaps, to Herman's
concept of disruption) are the means with which opponents attempt
to create or increase both the friction and the entropy in their
enemy's system over and above its inherent levels of each. Lethality,
by increasing the physical risk of actions, can potentially slow down
enemy activity (increasing friction) because the opponent takes pre-
cautions against those physical risks. Deception, by increasing the
opponent's uncertainty (or by disconnecting his assessments from
reality), can potentially make the opponent's actions less relevant, or
even counterproductive, to the situation in which he finds himself.

Entropy, as defined above, is reflected in the actual operations of

forces in the uncertainty or fog of war that plagues all such operations.
Martin van Creveld discusses how command systems exist to deal pre-
cisely with that uncertainty.10 Just as in physics friction can be consid-
ered the cause of the difference between the actual motion of an
object and its ideal motion, uncertainty reflects the differences
between planned actions and actual performance on the battlefield.
In other words, it is the reflection—or perhaps better, the shadow—
of entropy on planning and execution.

In light of the current emphasis on network-centric operations, it

makes sense to consider command systems in terms of networks. As
Paul Vebber, CDR, USNR, first proposed in an unpublished paper for

9. Herman, Mark. Entropy-Based Warfare: A Unified Theory for Modeling the

Revolution in Military Affairs. Booz-Allen Hamilton technical report, July
1997; also a slightly revised version published as "Entropy-Based War-
fare: Modeling the Revolution in Military Affairs," Joint Force Quarterly,
Autumn-Winter 1998-1999, pp. 85 - 90.
10. Van Creveld, Martin. Command in War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har-
vard University Press, 1985.

16
 the NWC,11 such networks must deal with the interactions of the
physical, informational, and cognitive domains of warfare described
by DoD's Command and Control Research Program.12

We integrate these ideas into a framework we use to define a specific

game system that we propose as an example of transforming wargam-
ing by applying a more scientific approach toward designing war-
games—particularly at the Naval War College. As a proof of concept
and practical application, we apply this game system to build a work-
ing game that allows us to play out the course of Operation Iraqi Free-
dom and to explore alternative courses of that operation that might
have happened. This game demonstrates the ability of the game
system derived from these principles to capture at least some of the
principal dynamics of an actual information-age (or at least a proto-
information-age) conflict.

In the end, however, the approach and its fundamental ideas are
more important than their application to any particular game. In an
attempt to open the door for further development, we conclude with
a detailed discussion of potential research to build on our concepts
and techniques to advance the state of the art of wargame design.

Clausewitz: friction and chance

In his seminal work, On War, 19th-century military philosopher Carl
von Clausewitz argues that, “Everything in war is very simple, but the
simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by pro-
ducing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experi-
enced war.” 13 If wargames are one method of providing their players
with a “synthetic experience” of war,14 then they must explicitly
address the need to recreate or at least simulate both this essential
friction and its varied causes and effects.

11. Vebber, Paul, CDR, USNR, Wargaming Networks at the Operational Level,
unpublished paper, May 2004
12. Alberts, 2001
13. Clausewitz, p. 119
14. See Perla, 1990

17
 To Clausewitz, “Action in war is like movement in a resistant element.
Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot
easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts
to achieve even moderate results.” This difficulty is created by the
inherent frictions of war, and “[t]his tremendous friction, which can-
not, as in mechanics, be reduced to a few points, is everywhere in con-
tact with chance, and brings about effects that cannot be measured,
just because they are largely due to chance.” The problem stems from
the fact that “Countless minor incidents—the kind you can never
really foresee—combine to lower the general level of performance,
so that one always falls far short of the intended goal.” To overcome
the effects of this friction demands the exertion of enormous will-
power on the part of the commander. “Iron will-power can overcome
this friction; it pulverizes every obstacle, but of course it wears down
the machine as well.” 15

Based on these ideas, we propose some postulates for incorporating

friction into wargame design. The game system should:

1. Include both explicit and implicit mechanisms through which

friction exerts significant influence on the effects produced by
forces based on its interference in their ability to act over time
and across space.

2. Reflect “average” or “normal” degrees of friction in the defini-

tion of the baseline capabilities of forces and systems.

3. Implement the actual effects of friction on particular actions,

situations, or forces through chance mechanisms with effects
unknown to the players ahead of time.

4. Enable players (as commanders) to exert effort to overcome or

mitigate the effects of friction.

5. Impose on players who exert command effort to overcome fric-

tion both immediate and accumulating costs in terms of the
ability of their force to act.

15. Clausewitz, pp. 119 and 120

18
Herman: Entropy-Based Warfare
In the late 1990s, Mark Herman, a noted designer of commercial
hobby wargames and an associate in the defense practice at the Booz-
Allen Hamilton consulting firm, proposed a concept he titled Entropy-
Based Warfare. He first described his ideas in a 1997 Booz-Allen tech-
nical paper, and later published them in an article for Joint Force Quar-
terly.16 Reacting to the Cold-War era's campaign models, heavily based
as they were on weapons-oriented attrition calculations as the mea-
sure of merit for assessing operational concepts in a continental war,
EBW, as it came to be called, took a different tack.

Herman based his approach on “the historical view that warfare can
be directed against the cohesion of units or states rather than their
components.… In this paradigm, the goal of a force is to disorder an
enemy while maintaining its own cohesion.” To describe this notion
of disorder, Herman chose as his metric a physics concept: entropy.
He defined entropy in this context as “the steady degradation of a
system” and proposed it as “the mechanism that measures enemy dis-
organization and ineffectiveness.”17 In other words, instead of rating
a unit's capability on the basis of firepower scores or other numerical
measures of its equipment and platform strength, an “entropy level”
can serve as the “collective expression of current unit cohesion and
capability … As organizational entropy rises its capability decreases. A
unit with no entropy can realize its full physical potential.” 18

Although Herman's published work does not provide us with the

details of his own method for calculating and changing the entropy
level over time, he does describe the three factors that contribute to
it: friction, disruption, and lethality.

16. Herman, 1997 and 1999

17. Herman, 1999, p. 86
18. Herman, 1999, p. 87

19
 Figure taken from Herman, 1999, p. 87

In model terms, “Friction comprises those activities the unit performs

that increase its entropy level. Disruption includes those activities an
enemy conducts to expand the unit entropy level. Lethality is the fire-
power that a unit has to directly reduce an enemy through physical
contact.” 19

If two or more factors converge, the effects on a unit’s entropy level

become more severe. A direct attack on a critical C3 node is an exam-
ple of the combination of lethality and disruption. Interdiction of a
unit forced to maneuver in response to a threat is an example of the
intersection of lethality and friction. Computer network attack or

19. Herman, 1999, p. 87

20
other information-warfare techniques applied to disrupt the move-
ment orders and logistical support for arriving reinforcements could
be an example of the combination of disruption and friction. Over-
laying such an effort with direct attack using multiple-launch rocket
systems against roads jammed with confused traffic is an example of
the three-way intersection, the spot no unit wants to find itself in.

Indeed, information warfare is a major element of the so-called revo-

lution in military affairs, one that the paper addresses at length. “In
this new form of warfare, networked computers and databases are
manipulated to create a real-time picture of the battlefield that links
all echelons through the commander's intent. Force interactions gen-
erate effects synchronized in time to inflict high-order consequences
on an enemy. These effects are captured by the entropy-based warfare
paradigm.” 20

Herman contrasts the “RMA force” with its outmoded “platform-

based” opponent. The RMA force is based on

an interconnected architecture [that] will utilize advanced

information assets to understand, locate, and target vital
enemy capabilities. Through application of advanced long
range munitions and information warfare techniques, an
enemy force can be dismembered by coalescing military
strength on precisely coordinated timelines from spatially
dispersed locations. The platform-based force will find itself
disconnected, unsupported, and unable to mass platforms
… [it] is defeated before it can effectively respond because
it masses force much more slowly than its munitions-based
counterpart.21

Time has explicitly entered the mix of model elements. Speed of

acquiring, processing, disseminating, and acting upon the highly pre-
cise information available to the RMA force is the source of its domi-
nance over its more ponderous enemy. This is the speed promised by
network-centric operations. To achieve such dominance in speed of
action, the RMA force is “enabled by information-driven computer

20. Herman, 1999, p. 89

21. Herman, 1999, p. 88

21
 networks that confer information superiority, which stresses precision
strike, dominant maneuver, information warfare, and space conflict.
… When effects are coalesced in time, well within the ability of the
enemy to react, the capacity to concentrate lethality against enemy
critical functions can cause sudden surges in entropy. Vital functions
lost to precision strike are often those that could otherwise reimpose
order on units.” 22

But the technologies and techniques that give the RMA force its tre-
mendous advantages when things go right can also lead to disaster
when they go wrong. If the information network should suffer signif-
icant degradation for any period of time, “information superiority,
maneuver agility, and precision strike capabilities should suffer simi-
lar impacts. This loss of cohesion and the corollary rise in entropy
could see the RMA force incapacitated while it sustains only low
attrition.” 23

Herman concludes his argument by contrasting EBW with attrition-

based models. “Where attrition-based models primarily emphasize
quantity, the entropy-based model creates a more balanced view by
emphasizing the physical impacts of attrition and asymmetrical
effects of attrition, friction, and disruption on the unit or society.”
This broader approach holds the promise of applying equally well to
different regions of the conflict spectrum. “Guerilla, mobile, and con-
ventional war utilize lethality, friction, and disruption with different
emphases that rely on strategic factors, relative strength, and charac-
ter of the forces. When conflict is depicted in terms of friction, disrup-
tion, and lethality, the common threads that link various types of
warfare become more visible and illuminate where the revolution in
military affairs may be going.” 24

Many of the ideas contained in the concepts of EBW can be seen

reflected in some of the published games that Herman has designed.
Not surprisingly, then, many of the immediate implications of

22. Herman, 1999, p. 89

23. Herman, 1999, p. 90
24. Herman, 1999, p. 90

22
 adopting these ideas in a game system will be apparent to the game
designer. Some of them include:

1. The effective capability of units should be derived by applying

a measure of their current entropy state to their baseline phys-
ical capability.

2. The system should include effects of friction based on activity

of friendly units.

3. Players should be able to affect the entropy levels of their oppo-

nent’s system by making both physical attacks (lethality) and
information-based attacks (disruption).

4. Units that suffer high levels of entropy should be subject to tem-

porary and even permanent elimination from play.

5. All these effects should be applicable at multiple levels, from

subunits to entire societies.

6. To model information warfare and network-centric operations,

the system must reflect the significant advantages in timely
action that a force with information superiority has over its
opponent, particularly how “Small differences in
synchronization can measurably affect performance.” 25

7. This must be balanced by some mechanisms to reflect the “fra-

gility” of such an RMA force when it suffers relatively minor
physical damage to critical network nodes.

8. Time, and the ability of the contending forces to use it

effectively, must be a critical parameter in the game system.

Van Creveld: command and uncertainty

Clausewitz has argued that the will of the commander can overcome
(at least to some extent) the deleterious effects of friction. Even in
Clausewitz's own time, however, that will was seldom exerted directly
by the commander on his forces. Instead, it was transmitted, filtered,

25. Herman, 1999, p. 90

23
 and in rare cases even amplified by the workings of a command
system—whether that command system was embodied by a few care-
fully chosen aides riding around the battlefield or the layered organi-
zation of Napoleon's Grand Armée. Herman expands on the
Clausewitzian concept of friction by broadening the analysis to incor-
porate other deleterious effects of warfare on human organizations.
These elements of disruption and destruction (a better word in this
context, perhaps, than lethality) interact and magnify each other and
friction to produce entropy. Herman defined entropy in terms of a
steady degradation of a system. In the context of military operations,
a more persuasive definition may be one given in the dictionary:
entropy is “a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermody-
namic system …”26 This notion of “unavailable energy” resonates well
with the concept as applied to military forces.

If friction, disruption, and destruction produce entropy, and entropy

is a measure of how much of a force's combat power (or energy) is
unavailable for effective application in warfare, then finding a way to
reduce or overcome entropy and the forces that generate it is the
essence of military success. In his book Command in War, Martin van
Creveld addressed the issue of the development and application of
command systems to deal with the problems of warfare. 27 He
describes command as

a function that has to be exercised, more or less continu-

ously, if the army is to exist and to operate... The need for
command arises from, and varies with, the size, complexity,
and differentiations of an army...once a force of any size is
subdivided into several subunits, however, the problem of
assigning a specific mission to each, and of ensuring proper
coordination among all, becomes much more
difficult...The role of command, in other words, increases
with the sophistication of the forces. 28

In essence, command is the means to mitigate entropy.

26. Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, 1963.

27. Van Creveld, 1985
28. Van Creveld, 1985, pp. 5 - 6

24
Conveniently for the purposes of game designers, van Creveld also
characterizes both the responsibilities of command and what com-
mand actually does. Its responsibilities include, first, “looking after
itself,” along with “function-related” responsibilities, like arranging
and coordinating “everything an army needs to exist—its food supply,
its sanitary service, its system of military justice, and so on.” It also has
“output-related responsibilities,” which are those that enable “the
army to carry out its proper mission, which is to inflict the maximum
amount of death and destruction on the enemy in the shortest possi-
ble period of time and at a minimum loss to itself.” He includes the
functions of gathering intelligence, making plans, and monitoring
operations among these output-related responsibilities.

As far as what a command system does, the situation is a bit murkier

because of the difficulties inherent in trying to separate its many activ-
ities into neat bins. For purposes of study and analysis, however, he
accepts the challenge of articulating an “ideal command system.”
Such an ideal system

• Should be able to “gather information accurately, continuously,

comprehensively, selectively, and fast”

• Should employ reliable means to “distinguish the true from the

false, the relevant from the irrelevant, the material from the
immaterial”

• Should create “clear, detailed, and comprehensive” displays of

its information

• Should analyze the information and transform it into an esti-

mate of the situation based on a “mental matrix, individual or
collective,... [that] correspond[s] to the actual world rather
than one that existed twenty-five years previously or not at all”

• Should select objectives that are “both desirable and feasible,

two requirements that are not always compatible”

• Should present to the commander and staff alternative courses

of action that are “real, not subterfuges presented as a matter
of form. (As Moltke remarked to his aides, the enemy always
seemed to have three alternatives available to him and he
usually chose the fourth.)”

25
 • Should “adhere firmly” to decisions that are made, “but not
under any and every circumstance”

• Should issue “clear and unambiguous orders” that “tell subor-

dinates everything they should know, but nothing more”

• Should monitor execution of operations closely enough to

“secure reliable execution, but not so close as to undermine the
authority and choke the initiative (or even, as sometimes hap-
pens, the very ability to act) of subordinate commanders at all
levels.”

Van Creveld divides the means through which a command system car-
ries out these functions into “three categories: organizations, such as
staffs or councils of war; procedures, such as the way in which reports
are distributed inside a headquarters; and technical means, ranging
from the standard to the radio.” He argues persuasively that “the
history of command in war consists essentially of an endless quest for
certainty—certainty about the state and intentions of the enemy's
forces; certainty about the manifold factors that together constitute
the environment in which the war is fought,...and, last but definitely
not least, certainty about the state, intentions, and activities of one's
own forces.”29 Key elements in this quest include a system of regular
reports to provide updates about important information. Because
such reports tend to become distorted as they make their way through
the system, van Creveld argues that, “To guard against this danger and
to keep subordinates on their toes, a commander needs to have in
addition a kind of directed telescope—the metaphor is an apt one—
that he can direct, at will, at any part of the enemy's forces, the
terrain, or his own army in order to bring in information that is not
only less structured than that passed on by the normal channels but
also tailored to meet his momentary (and specific) needs.” 30

This quest for certainty is at the heart of the developments in com-

mand systems from the earliest times to today's ideals of the Global
Information Grid. Van Creveld proposes that, “Certainty itself is best

29. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 264

30. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 75

26
understood as the product of two factors, the amount of information
available for decisionmaking and the nature of the task to be per-
formed...Everything else being equal, a larger and more complex task
will demand more information to carry it out. Conversely, when infor-
mation is insufficient (or when it is not available on time, or when it
is superabundant, or when it is wrong, all of which can be expressed
in quantitative terms), a fall in the level of performance will automat-
ically ensue.” The development of command systems reflects their
constant “race between the demand for information and the ability of
command systems to meet it.” 31

For the wargaming theorist or game designer, van Creveld provides

useful guidance about dealing with command systems. “Uncertainty
being the central fact that all command systems have to cope with, the
role of uncertainty in determining the structure of command should
be—and in most cases is—decisive.”32 But it is not only the task the
command system is called on to perform that determines the infor-
mation required to carry it out; “equally important is the structure of
the organization itself. The more numerous and differentiated the
departments into which the organization is divided, the larger the
number of command echelons superimposed upon each other, the
higher the decision thresholds, and the more specialized its individ-
ual members, then the greater the amount of information processing
that has to go on inside the organization.”

There are two, logically exhaustive, ways for a command system to

deal with situations that require more information than it has avail-
able, or to improve its performance overall. It can either increase its
“capacity for information processing or … restructure the organiza-
tion in such a way as to enable it to operate with a reduced capacity.
The former approach will lead to the multiplication of communica-
tion channels (vertical, horizontal, or both) and to increase the size
and complexity of the central directing organ; the latter, either to a
drastic simplification of the organization so as to enable it to operate
with less information (the Greek phalanx, and Frederick the Great's
robots) or else to the division of the task into various parts and to the

31. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 265

32. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 268

27
 establishment of forces capable of dealing with each of these parts
separately on a semi-independent basis” 33 (Napoleon's corps d'armée).

Tellingly, however, he also argues that

the two basic ways of coping with uncertainty, centralization

and decentralization … are not so much opposed to each
other as perversely interlocking. In war, given any one state
of technological development, to raise decision thresholds
and reduce the initiative and self-containment of subordi-
nate units is to limit the latter's ability to cope on their own
and thus increase the immediate risk with which they are
faced; in other words, greater certainty at the top (more
reserves, superior control) is only bought at the expense of
less certainty at the bottom. … Properly understood, the two
ways of coping with uncertainty … consist … of a distribu-
tion of uncertainty among the various ranks of the hierar-
chy. Under the first method the security of the parts is
supposed to be assured by the certainty of the whole; under
the second, it is the other way around.34

Any command system must make this choice of how to distribute

uncertainty, either implicitly or explicitly, if it is to function at all. But
it is not some “technological determinism that governs the method to
be selected for coping with uncertainty. At various periods in history
…different military organizations … approached the problem from
radically different angles and with radically different results. There
was nothing in the nature of any single technology … to dictate which
of the two solutions should be adopted.” 35

Van Creveld's historical review and his analysis of it led him to a con-
clusion that may be surprising to some in light of current emphasis
(dare we wonder if it's really over-emphasis?) on advanced technology
and the “information revolution.”

Far from determining the essence of command, then, com-

munications and information processing technology merely
constitutes one part of the general environment in which

33. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 269

34. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 274
35. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 275

28
 command operates. To allow that part to dictate the struc-
ture and functioning of command systems, as is sometimes
done, is not merely to become the slave of technology but
also to lose sight of what command is all about. Further-
more, since any technology is by definition subject to limita-
tions, historical advances in command have often resulted
less from any technological superiority that one side had
over the other than from the ability to recognize those lim-
itations and to discover ways—improvements in training,
doctrine, and organization—of going around them. Instead
of confining one's actions to what available technology can
do, the point of the exercise is precisely to understand what
it cannot do and then proceed to do it nevertheless.36

Based on these ideas, we propose some postulates for incorporating

command and its ability to deal with uncertainty into wargame
design. The game system should:

1. Reflect the interrelationships and interactions among the com-

mand system's information processing and organizational
structures associated with the distribution of uncertainty
among the various elements of the structure

2. Employ mechanisms to represent the regular flow of informa-

tion through the system's organizations and procedures, using
available technology

3. Provide the players with an ability to apply a directed telescope

to gather additional or different information about the enemy,
environment, or friendly forces and activity

4. Offer payoffs and limitations that reflect the tradeoffs required

between centralized and decentralized aspects of command
organizations and processes

5. Include the effects of uncertainty and the efforts to overcome

it in mechanisms provided for the players to

• Gather, interpret, display, and analyze information

• Select objectives consistent with the mission

36. Van Creveld, 1985, p. 275

29
 • Define and assess alternative courses of action that forces can
pursue

• Give direction to subordinates about actions to take

• Monitor execution of directives.

Vebber: wargaming network effects37

If we are to represent the way command deals with entropy in warfare,
we must be able to represent the way command systems function in
themselves. We must also represent how command interacts with
other elements of war, such as the operational environment, friendly
and enemy forces, and the full range of information (and disinforma-
tion) about each that swirls around everyone and everything involved
in warfare.

Recent works on network-centric warfare, or information-age war-

fare, or so-called fourth-generation warfare, have identified three
domains of interaction in warfare—the physical, the informational,
and the cognitive.38 These domains represent, respectively, the actual
reality that exists; the ways that physical reality can be sensed, ana-
lyzed, and reported; and the perception of the physical reality, as
communicated by sensing and understood through analysis, in the
minds of the participants—most importantly the respective decision-
makers. The physical domain is reality, or ground truth, but the par-
ticipants in the conflict have their own information domain based on
their sensing and analysis of the physical domain. Most modern con-
flicts have at least three participants—a minimum of two adversaries
and the rest of the world (or ROW), which observes and analyzes the
actions of the adversaries, usually by means of reports from local, or
international information media. What goes on in each of these infor-
mation domains affects the others. Similarly, all participants under-
stand and interpret the information available to them within their
own cognitive domains, again interacting with each of the others.

37. Much of this section is derived from Vebber, 2004

38. See, for example, Alberts, 2001.

30
 Own Co gn it ive Doma in
(un de rsta nd in g of wha t is co mmu nica te d a nd
a na lyzed in t he In fo rma tio n Do ma in)

Own In fo rma tion Doma in

(rep rese nt atio n o f wh at is occu rrin g
in th e Physical Do main)

in
ma
Ad

Physica l

Do
ve

a in
Domain
rsa

tio n

m
Ad

Do
(Gro un d Trut h)
ry

ma
ve r

In fo

t i ve
fo r
s

gni
rm
ar

) In
y C

at io

Co
di a
og

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ip )
Me
n

h
itiv

om

W(

ers
e

ad
Do

in

RO

(L e
ma
in

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RO

Each of the principals in the conflict (to keep things simple for now,
we will assume there are only two) senses what is going on in the phys-
ical domain through a variety of sensors and sources to which they are
linked by some sort of communications pathway. This process of sens-
ing and communication produces data that the participants refine
into information by embedding the data into the context of the deci-
sion-maker in their information domain. The end result of the pro-
cess produces perceptions about the physical domain and the
relationships that exist there—which we define as knowledge—in
each decision-maker's cognitive domain. For our purposes we con-
sider knowledge to exist exclusively in the cognitive domain. So,
when cognitive domains interact, they do so through the information
domain, as information is derived from knowledge and shared with
others. Information that is rooted in historical or shared knowledge
can be misinterpreted or simply not comprehended and so can be

31
 knowledge in the cognitive domain of the originator, but may be
transferred imperfectly to others. Data and information are things
that can be exchanged; knowledge itself cannot.

This transition from “physical reality” to “sensed data” to “informa-

tion” to “knowledge” is the basis for defining some key relationships.
We define awareness to be the degree of agreement between ground
truth in the physical domain and the perception of that reality in the
cognitive domain, based on knowledge developed from the informa-
tion domain. A high level of awareness indicates the perception is
close to the reality; low awareness indicates that the decision-maker
has not integrated important elements of the physical reality into his
cognitive domain. This can result from poor sensing (the transition
from the physical domain to the information domain) or poor syn-
thesis of relationships (the transition from the information domain
to the cognitive domain).

Similarly, we define prediction as the ability to project the next state of

the information domain from the trends in the current one. It is akin
to “dead reckoning” from the present state of the information
domain to the next, between opportunities to sample the physical
domain. When the rate of sensing the physical domain for data is
small compared to the rate of change in the physical domain state,
then prediction is not as important because the decision-maker
receives updates from the physical domain often. When the sensing
rate is relatively long, however, prediction must account for the wider
range of changes in the physical before new sensor data become
available.

The third key relationship is understanding. Understanding goes

beyond prediction by incorporating an estimate of how the adversary
might respond to the situation, not simply projecting the future
based on current trends. Understanding includes the processes of
producing and evaluating alternatives. The degree to which aware-
ness and knowledge coincide with physical reality will allow the deci-
sion-maker to make good or poor predictions of what changes will
occur in the physical domain in the near future. Looking at the con-
flict systems as a series of “states,” if you understand the physical
domain state at time t then you can make a good estimate of the

32
physical domain state at time t + 1. Because sensing and developing
information into knowledge takes time, you need good understand-
ing to predict the interim states accurately to avoid “losing the
bubble” about the situation by the time the next update arrives.

The final key relationship we define here is influence. Influence is the

degree to which one decision-maker's cognitive domain changes the
cognitive domains of other decision-makers by weight of the relative
power positions of those decision-makers within the command sys-
tem. In any system with multiple decision-makers, those with high
degrees of influence will have their information and awareness
accepted by others based on influence alone—not necessarily on the
basis of relative quality—more often than those with low influence.
Note, however, that in a relationship similar to that between informa-
tion and knowledge, awareness can be shared, but understanding
cannot.

Based on these ideas, we propose some key postulates about how to

integrate the operational, command, and information topologies
into a coherent representation of warfare at the operational level.

1. Command systems are networks of nodes and links

2. Command systems sit at the nexus of the physical, informa-

tional, and cognitive domains of warfare

3. Data and information from these domains flow through the

nodes and links of the network to enable the decision-makers
in the system to build awareness, make predictions, and
improve their understanding of the situation they are in and to
influence the awareness, predictions, and understanding of
others in the system

4. The products of these command processes are decisions that

direct the taking of action on the part of the component units
and forces under their authority

5. In addition, command systems may produce and manipulate

information related to those actions that it communicates to
the commanded units in order to increase the likelihood of suc-
cess for the actions those units are ordered to undertake

33
 6. The speed, accuracy, and quality of direction and information
produced by the command system are the major determinants
of the ability of the overall force to minimize its entropy.

34
The framework connecting war and wargame
If we accept the construct that there are three domains of warfare, the
physical, informational, and cognitive, how can we relate it to the
dimensions of wargaming, which we defined earlier as time, space,
forces, effects, information, and command? To answer this question
is the fundamental task of the wargame designer.

From war to wargame

The real world, and so real war, is effectively infinite in its complexity
when considered from the perspective of human mortality. Efforts to
model that complexity by recreating it artificially in all its glory using
advanced computer techniques are misguided. The closer the model
mimics reality in details, the more difficult populating the model with
data and analyzing the model's output become. Essentially, the model
becomes as difficult to use and interpret as reality.

The wargamer’s approach is different from that of the true believer

in the power of simulation über alles. The wargame designer must con-
dense the nearly infinite complexity of the real world into a small
number of variables and parameters, based on the six dimensions of
wargaming, and represent as best he can the real world and its com-
plexities using this reduced set. Our conception of the task of game
design is based on the notion of condensing the infinite dimension-
ality of the domains of warfare into a finite system of linked topolo-
gies, defined and constrained by the six dimensions of wargaming.

35
 Condense Domains
Real-War Domains to Topologies Wargame Topologies

Information Cognitive Information Command

Dimensions of
Physical Wargaming Operational

Time
Space
Forces
Effects
Information
Commanders Command Players

To do this, we define three wargame topologies: the operational topology,

the information topology, and the command topology. Consider each of
these topologies as specific simplified condensations of the complex
real-world interconnections among the physical, informational, and
cognitive domains of war, mediated through and by the six dimen-
sions of wargames.

The operational topology is where we condense from reality into war-

game space the activity of forces in the physical domain, as directed
and informed by the cognitive and informational domains. The infor-
mation topology is where we condense the flow of data and informa-
tion to and from the physical domain into and through the
informational and cognitive domains. The command topology is a bit
more difficult to describe. Because the cognitive domain is such a
central part of the process of command, it is important that our con-
densation of reality find a way to integrate the actual cognitive activity
of the human players of the game with a representation of the real-
world cognitive domain relevant to the commanders, staff, and other
humans that are represented collectively in the game system itself.

36
Thus, the operational topology condenses the real world to the game-
world relationships among forces, operating areas or environments,
and tasks; the command topology reflects the structure and workings
of the command systems relative to that operational framework; the
information topology reflects the structure and dynamics of flows
among the physical domain, the informational domain, and the cog-
nitive domain.

The topologies of the wargame define the interface between the play-
ers and the game, as well as between the game and the real world.
They are thus the key link that players experience between the play
of the game and real-world experience. The players must, therefore,
relate to the topologies of the game in ways that are analogous to the
way real humans relate to the domains of real war. And the most
important of those relationships are the ones we defined earlier:
awareness, prediction, understanding, and influence. It is the degree
of agreement between the relationships of the real world and the rela-
tionships of the game world that are the true measure of the so-called
realism of the wargame.

The goal of the wargame designer is to employ the six dimensions of

wargaming to condense the domains of real warfare into the topolo-
gies of the game, so that the players can relate to the game through
those topologies in a manner as closely as possible to the way real
combatants relate to the domains of real war.

Although we cannot yet fully articulate precisely how to do this—even

assuming such a thing were possible—we can illustrate at least some
of the thought processes involved by describing in detail an underly-
ing theoretical construct for thinking about the task. We then supple-
ment the theoretical discussion by describing in some detail a specific
practical example of how we designed a wargame to represent the
2003 war with Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Truth in advertising
demands that we admit that our example of a wargame design did not
flow completely from the theoretical framework we propose here, but
it was closely intertwined with, and influenced, the development of
that framework.

37
Theoretical view of gaming the operational level of war
The discussion of the preceding section applies generally to all types
and levels of wargaming. In what follows, we will focus specifically on
wargaming at the operational level of war.

Traditionally, the U.S. military's understanding of the term operational

art has focused on the use of maneuver to apply combat power in the
physical domain. But successful application of operational art origi-
nates in understanding and exploiting the information and cognitive
domains. Superiority in those domains allows your command system
to exploit a disparity in its ability to produce coherent information
and direction relative to that of its opponents. This disparity enables
you to surprise and disrupt an opponent’s systems and operations and
so decrease his ability to make informed decisions and act upon
them. In other words, it enables you to increase your opponent's
entropy, possibly to disabling or even disarming (literally) levels.

To represent the functioning of operational art based on these ideas,

our wargame’s topologies must involve a set of mechanisms that
reflect the key elements of operational-level warfare as we described
earlier. The usual wargame designer’s bag of tricks includes many
widely accepted methods for determining the effect of raw combat
power on losses, advance rates, and achieving objectives. But there
are few methods in general use designed to represent the effects of a
disparity in information and command.

So we begin by developing a framework for representing the effects

of information and command on operational-level warfare. This
framework will comprise representations not only of the physical con-
nectedness of the command networks, but also of the nature—and to
the extent required, the details—of information and direction flow-
ing to and from the command system's decision-makers. We then con-
nect information and command to the dynamics of operations.

These dynamics inherently involve the notion of change over time.

The representation of time, then, must be a key component of our
framework. Time is the engine that propels the players through their
game experience through the interfaces of the three topologies. It is
also the most elusive and slippery component of all. Because the

38
 whole concept of information-age warfare revolves around the notion
of the self-evident benefits of gaining a time advantage over the oppo-
nent in operations, gaming information-age warfare requires that we
find some way to represent the mechanisms for creating—and the
effects of exploiting—such an advantage in the game system. The
trick, of course, is to find a technique that accomplishes this without
requiring us to play the game itself in real-time, with all the support-
ing infrastructure such a game would demand.

We present theoretical descriptions of the topologies of wargaming as

abstractions or schematic representations of general architectures
rather than specific structural details. They form part of the theoreti-
cal framework that a wargame designer can use as the foundation and
starting point for developing specific applications of the theory to
represent a specific approach to condensing reality into a wargame
dealing with a specific subject. The resulting diagrammatic views of
the three topologies are merely one way of thinking about them. In a
very real sense, they embody some fundamental assumptions, beliefs,
or constructs based on our underlying mental model of warfare and
its domains and relationships. It is our intention in articulating them
and the underlying model they spring from to be as general—and as
generalizable—as possible. But it is important to emphasize that
other theoretical constructs may be proposed to reflect different
interpretations of which characteristics of the major real-world
domains are most important to condensing the real world into the
game world.

Command topology
In our conception, command is all about decisionmaking. Com-
manders make decisions in the cognitive domain based on knowl-
edge, awareness, and understanding and affected by the influence of
others in the system. There are two fundamental components of deci-
sionmaking: determining that a decision must be made (a decision
point is at hand), and making the decision. Decision points arise from
the interactions in the physical domain coupled with the com-
mander's ability to estimate the effect of those interactions on plans
for future events (prediction). As long as “the plan is working,” then
most often the key decision points will be those planned around

39
 branches and sequels within the plan itself. If the commander's assess-
ment of the state of the physical domain begins to diverge from what
he anticipated in the plan, however, then decisions may be necessary
to change the course of ongoing operations or of operations planned
for the future. In our context, a decision point occurs when some-
thing happens in the flow among the physical, information, and cog-
nitive domains to trigger a decision-maker's need to evaluate whether
to respond to a situation. On the other hand, the lack of data, knowl-
edge, awareness, or understanding may result in a decision point’s
being missed.

In real warfare, commanders, staff, and troops make decisions con-

stantly about myriad things, and those decisions interact in complex
and frequently indeterminate ways. In a wargame, the vast majority of
those real-life decisions are abstracted away, or washed out, through
the workings of the game system. It is to be hoped that the game's
design retains the most important or telling of the decisions in the
hands of the human decision-makers playing the game. Nevertheless,
the nature of the beast demands that the game system itself condense
the form and substance of many of those decisions relative to their
real-world complexities, and provide surrogates for the decisions
made by persons and organizations not physically played by other
humans in the game. This is the function of the command topology.

Without loss of generality, we can represent any command system as

a network of decision-makers who make decisions regarding when,
where, how, and with what to take action. Thus, you can think of the
organizational structure of any command system in terms of a set of
nodes, of which we can define two categories. C2 nodes represent indi-
viduals or groups who make decisions about the activities of the com-
manded forces. Information-storage nodes represent the databases
and administrative processes that inform or assist in implementing
the decisions. These nodes are tied to one another through links rep-
resenting channels of communication and contact, and through
which the processes of the system flow.

Within the network of nodes and links, we define two different classes
of content that flows through the system: directives and information.
Directives having a planning and coordination aspect to them;

40
information is not merely raw data but consists of processed and contex-
tualized relationships as well as “knowledge” derived from the raw data.
Feedback is a specific class of information that arises from the opera-
tional and information topologies and facilitates issuing new directives.

We also incorporate into the framework the notion that information

can be linked to a directive. This linked information represents the
effort the command system makes to ensure that the directive is more
effective, and that the executing units will thus have a greater chance
of achieving success when they carry it out (which will occur in the
operational topology). In general, we also assume that some amount
of feedback is required to facilitate linking information to a new
directive. You can make decisions in a vacuum, but it is very hard to
attach relevant information to a directive created in this fashion

As an example, the figureon the next page illustrates a command topol-

ogy as a network diagram. Rectangular boxes are C2 nodes. Curved-
ended rectangles are storage nodes. Directional links connect the nodes.
Boxes and links are labeled with numerical values that represent several
parameters that we can use to characterize how and how well the system
works to process information and pass information and directives to the
operating forces..

41
 7/3

4/1

4/2
6/1

20/5

6/2 3/1 7/2

5/1

3/1
5/1 4/1

3/2 5/2 3/1

4/1
5/2
7/3 7/4
6/2
4/2

4/1

8/4
Output to next level of
hierarchy or to OpTop

Output to next level of

Output to next level of hierarchy or to OpTop
hierarchy or to OpTop

Command nodes have a staff-point value (leftmost number) that rep-

resents the size and efficiency of the staff of that node. They also have
a relevancy rating that represents in some sense the level of command
the C2 node inhabits. High staff ratings indicate that a node is capa-
ble of producing more work. A natural way to think about the staff
points is that actions taken in the game require the system to “spend”
available points to take certain actions. For example, staff points
could be used in the game to process information, create directives,

42
link information to directives, decrease the entropy loss of a link
(more on that later), move information or directives from node to
node, and coordinate actions in the operational topology when an
interaction occurs there. High relevancy ratings, on the other hand,
indicate the relative quantity of information that might be relevant to
the tasks the node is responsible for. This is typically related to the
level of command that node inhabits. Nodes operating at a relatively
high level of command typically make use of a wider variety of infor-
mation than lower-level nodes.

Storage nodes have a capacity rating (leftmost number) and an

entropy rating. The storage rating is the total number of “information
points” that storage node can hold. The entropy rating is used to
increase the cost or difficulty of obtaining useful information from
the storage node. (We describe an example of this effect later.)

Links have directionality (shown by the arrowheads) and numerical

values that represent throughput and entropy. Throughput is the
number of “information points” that can flow through that link in a
unit of time. (Directives also flow across these links, but we would typ-
ically allow the directives to move freely when attached to informa-
tion.) Entropy is the number of information points lost when a
package of them passes through the link in the direction the arrow is
pointing. Double-headed arrows mean entropy cost is paid regardless
of the direction the information flows. C2 nodes are typically linked
with bi-directional arrows. Storage nodes are linked to C2 nodes with
the arrow pointing to the C2 node to indicate that the entropy cost is
paid only when accessing the stored data, not when storing the data
in the first place. (The information loses its value over time.) Usually,
the link between two storage nodes would have no arrowhead and
there would be no entropy cost to move information through a pure
storage network.

If the entropy cost for moving information across a link is greater than
1, additional staff points can be spent to reduce the entropy cost to a
minimum of 1. (Only a link whose entropy cost is 0 can ever provide a
free ride.) On the other hand, the cost (really the loss) for moving
information across a link may become higher than the printed value of

43
 the link when moving information from a storage node. This is when
the entropy rating of the storage node comes into play.

In this system, you would divide the number of information points in

the storage node by the entropy value of that node to determine the
added cost in lost information points for transmission from the stor-
age node to any other node linked to it. For example, consider the
bottom center storage node in the diagram, the one rated 8/4. If fully
stocked with 8 pieces of information, any attempt to move informa-
tion from that node would cost an additional 8/4 = 2 pieces of infor-
mation lost in transmission. Moving the full 8 information points
stored in the node across that 4/2-rated link would thus normally cost
a total of 4 of the points, resulting in an effective transmission of only
half the information available in the link.

To mitigate this entropy, however, we allow the system to expend staff

points to offset some of the entropy costs by representing the ability
of the staff to “maintain the picture” of the relevancy and context of
the information in the database. Normally, if we were to attempt to
move 4 information points from the storage node, the operation
would result in the loss of 4/4 = 1 point from the effect of the node
and an additional 2 points from the effect of the link, and we would
be able to transmit only 1 point total. By spending 2 staff points, how-
ever, we could negate the cost of two of the entropy points and suc-
ceed in transmitting 3 out of the 4 points we originally tried to move.

The fundamental model in this construct treats information as

quanta that move around the system and may decay through the
transmission process between nodes. The relevancy rating of a com-
mand node reflects the idea that information is not always used up in
the knowledge management process—but that a lot of staff activity is
associated with understanding the relevancy of information to any
given task. Although the information is not destroyed, it does take
time to create the relevancy link to a new task, which we measure here
in terms of staff points. By expending staff points up to the limit of
the C2 node's relevancy rating, the system can duplicate that number
of information points when moving information from one node to
another. (In essence, these points are cloned and then moved, allow-
ing copies of the information to remain in the originating node.)

44
Now that we have built this edifice of nodes and links and points and
flows, what does it actually let us do? How do the players interact with
the resulting command topology to play the game in ways that are
analogous to how real commanders command real wars? What can
the players use the command topology to do? Some of the answers to
that question are:

• Process information obtained from the information topology.

• Move information within the command topology.
• Create directives for action in the operational or information
topologies.

• Develop mission orders by linking directives and relevant infor-

mation in a C2 node.

• Move mission orders within the command topology.

• Issue mission orders to the forces (or other entities) that
inhabit the other topologies.

• Coordinate action in the operational and information topolo-

gies (including the possibility of providing direct leadership for
specific actions).

This construct, while perhaps somewhat complicated in game terms,

is infinitely simple when compared to the command systems of the
real world. By arranging the nodes and links, assigning their ratings,
defining the rules and costs to perform actions, and establishing the
context and the sequence in which those actions can be performed,
we can create a command topology to represent important character-
istics of most types of command organizations.

Practically speaking, to implement such a system we must define the

rules through which the players interface with the command topology
to achieve frequently competing ends: facilitating ease of play, and rep-
resenting a battle rhythm analogous to the real world. Accomplishing
this for a specific game environment may require us to incorporate
additional detail within the nodes. Alternatively, we could devise spe-
cific dynamics of play to define a temporal relationship between the
command topology and the operational and information topologies
that is not 1:1.

45
 Information topology
The command topology defines the set of knobs and levers and
switches the players of the game can use to change the nature of the
game's universe. The information topology delineates the boundaries
of what the players can learn about that universe and defines the win-
dows through which the players may observe its workings.

Generally speaking, command decisions lead to actions by subordi-

nate units. Actions may be performing an assigned task (including
the task “do nothing”), changing an assigned task, changing a
planned task, or adding a new task, either to a current operation or
to a planned operation. A series of related tasks designed to achieve
a common goal are frequently termed an operation—a potential
source of some confusion in the current context. At the operational
level of command, the important decisions are based on how confi-
dent you are in what you think you know about the environments in
which your forces are operating, the forces (on both sides) that
occupy those environments, and the effect the situation may have on
your chances of successfully completing the operation. Once you start
worrying too much about the particulars of that information, you
start down the slippery slope into tactics, the realm best left to the
commanded units to deal with.

But how do we distinguish between these various layers of command

and their associated networks? It is far too easy to get hung up on sub-
tleties of language and interpretation here. Let us agree that if we
assign the players of the game to represent the operational echelon, then
we can define three additional layers. The strategic echelon imposes its
goals and intent on the operational echelon represented by the prin-
cipal players. The formation and unit echelons carry out the direction of
the operational echelon in order to achieve the strategic goals and
intent. The unit echelon is the echelon of primary interaction with
the enemy and the environment in the physical domain. (More often,
this echelon is referred to as the tactical echelon. However, the word
“tactical” has too many overtones to avoid interminable misunder-
standings.) The formation echelon is the conduit through which infor-
mation flows from the units to the operational echelon, and direction
and supporting information flows from the operational echelon to
the units.

46
 The information topology is where we represent the interconnections of
the various echelons and their command and information networks.
These networks and the information that they process and deliver to the
various echelon commanders play a major role in determining the
results of physical interactions (which we represent in the operational
topology). The principles of information-age warfare predict that the
unit commanders who best understand the battlespace, their adversary,
and the plans and intentions of their superiors will enjoy at least a tem-
porary and frequently a meaningful advantage in combat power.

The existing physical networks constrain the possible information net-

works. If the communications pipes do not exist to connect the unit ech-
elon directly to the operational echelon, then information must go step-
wise through the formation echelon—taking time and adding potential
for error, but also adding the possibility of refinement and filtering as
well. Examples of a “traditional” and a “fully networked” set of connec-
tions are shown below:

St ra te gic Stra te gic

C o mm a nd C om m a nd

Op era tion al Op era tion al

C o m ma nd Co m m an d

Formation
Tact ica l Formation
Ta ct ica l
C o m ma nd Co m m an d

U nit U nit
C o m ma nd Co m m an d

47
 The situation is actually quite a bit more complicated as there are usu-
ally multiple formation commands under the operational command
and multiple unit commands under each formation. This results in a
rather complicated situation, even for the “simple” traditionally net-
worked organization, as shown below:

Strate gic
Com ma nd

Operation al
Co mm and

Formation
Ta ctical Formation
Ta ct ica l Formation
Tactica l
Co mm and Co mm and Comm and

Unit Un it Unit Unit Un it Unit Unit Un it Unit

Co mman d Co mm and Co mma n d Co mman d Co mm and Co mma nd Com ma nd Comm and Co mm an d

Of course, the existence of information and command networks is con-

strained by the corresponding need for physical networks. Although
the existence of some sort of physical network, whether fiber-optic
cable or bicycle messenger, is the essential prerequisite, the specific
technologies of the physical networks become most important when
you decide how vulnerable to information warfare the networks are, or
how much information they can exchange over time.

In game terms, the type, quantity, timeliness, accuracy, relevance, and

completeness of information made available to the players, and the
means through which they can acquire it, is the central question the
design of the informational topology must address. As game design-
ers, we pride ourselves on what we like to think is our intuitive grasp
of how to deal with this question. Articulating a set of fundamental

48
principles and procedures for doing so is not so easy. Here we can
only provide a first, rough, stab at it.

We can characterize our main ideas about how the designer can think
about information in the following contrasts:

• Content vs. container

• Look it up vs. watch it work
• Database vs. model.
In general, human players make decisions based on the content of
information, the facts and ideas that enter the player's cognitive
domain. In terms of the game mechanics and system, however, infor-
mation content may be less important (indeed, meaningless) as long
as some sort of container for the information is tracked. For example,
the discussion of the command topology above spoke of directives
and information points, which could simply be abstract representa-
tions of packets (or containers) of information that the game system
moves around to enable activity.

Players can acquire information about the state of the game in two
basic ways. They can seek out (look up) the information, for example
in data tables or the printed combat factors of boardgame playing
pieces. Or they can watch the outcomes of interactions to try to dis-
cern the underlying causes of events in the game even when they
cannot access the raw information.

The information itself can reside in two fundamental places in the

information topology and game system. Facts and figures can be
stored in databases of one form or another. Relationships, on the
other hand, are embodied in models of one form or another, from
simple look-up tables like the classic boardgame's combat results
table, to complex mathematical formulas used in computer games for
resolving the outcomes of combat. Databases reflect the state of the
game universe; models change the state of the game universe.

To sort through the complexities of what information is needed in

the game, what form it should take, where it should be stored, and

49
 how it should affect the evolution of the game, the designer can con-
sider the answers to several key questions.

• Is the information necessary or useful to the player or relevant

only to the game system itself?

• Why does the player need or want the information?

• What will the player do with the information if he gets it?
• If needed by the game system, is the content of the information
important or is the fact that some information is available and
transmitted through the system sufficient to perform the neces-
sary functions?

Another way to think about the information is in terms of several

broad characteristics of the information itself. Is the information:

• Fixed or variable?
• Known or unknown (by the players or by the elements of the
command or operational topologies beyond the players them-
selves)?

• Knowable or unknowable?
• Inherent (in situations or entities) or emergent?
All of these considerations, and probably others, must go into the
design of the information topology and its component parts. The
design of the information topology has significant effects on the abil-
ity of the game to help create the analog of the cognitive domain of
the real world in the minds of the game's players. It is the conduit
through which the players perceive and make sense of the opera-
tional topology and impose their will on that topology, as mediated by
the command topology.

Operational topology
Wargames traditionally represent the operational topology in terms
of maps showing the geographic territory over which a campaign
unfolds. They typically represent the forces that operate over that ter-
ritory during the campaign in some sort of symbolic manner. In

50
boardgames, such as the example described at the beginning of this
paper, the symbols are printed on physical playing pieces; in com-
puter games, they are usually represented by electronic counterparts
to such pieces, on-screen icons. The players move these pieces from
one physical location on the map to another. The characteristics of
the pieces reflect the capabilities of the real forces they symbolize.
These characteristics, defined and employed in the information
topology, will affect or determine the course and outcome of any
interactions that take place in the operational topology.

Although the vast majority of operational games use a map of the type
we normally associate with the word (a scaled representation of actual
terrain), they will also adapt the characteristics and form of the map
to perform game-related functions more easily and efficiently than a
standard operational graphic might (though, to be sure, operational
graphics can and have been used as the basis for wargames). Typical
conventions include the use of a hexagonal grid overlaid on the
actual terrain to regularize and regulate the positioning and move-
ment of forces. The map then represents an almost separable ele-
ment of the operational topology, the physical topography of the
battle space, if you will, while the pieces and their activities as
reflected by the way the players employ them on the map embody
most of the remaining elements of the operational topology.

We can generalize this practice of representing the battle space of the

campaign by considering such maps as simply a form of network dia-
gram showing relationships of adjacency and distance, as well as more
complex characteristics such as terrain and access. We can also more
closely couple the topographical representation with a representa-
tion of the activity of the forces by considering non-traditional
approaches to representing the operational topology. An example of
one way to do this is shown in the diagram on the following page.

51
 Ta ctical Man eu ver
Forma tion s Are a Aflo at
Assig ne d (Multip le
Alte rna tives)
Rea r
Ba se o f
O pe ratio ns
(Are a)
Pe ne tra tion
Area
(Mu ltiple
Alte rna tives)

Lin e o f
Su p po rt / In it ia l
Com mun ica- Op e ra tin g
tio ns Area M a ne uve r
(Primary (Prima ry Area Ash ore
L in e of Are a)
Area s) (Multiple
Su p po rt /
Alt ern ative s)
Co mmu nica -
tio ns In it ia l
Lin e o f
(S eco nd ary Op era ting
S up po rt/
Area s) Area
Comm un ica-
(Se con da ry Ob jective
tio ns
Area ) Area
(Tert ia ry
Area s) (Mu ltiple
In itial A lte rna tive s)
Ope rat in g
Area
(Te rtiary
Area )
Re tro gra de
Fo rwa rd Are a
Ba se o f (Multiple
O pe ratio ns A lt ern ative s)
(Are a)

Reco nst it u-
tion
Area
(Mu ltip le
Alte rn at ive s)

Each node in the diagram consists of an area (an element of the topog-
raphy or the more general environment) in which operations may occur.
One or more tactical formations may act within these areas to perform
tasks at any particular time. Each area thus defines a physical sub-domain,
if you will, of the true state of the world in that area. Corresponding

52
 information and cognitive domains derive from these physical domains
and drive the link between the operational topology and the information
and command topologies of the game.

Opposing forces interact physically within the physical domain. This

is the battlespace where each of the participants in the conflict
attempts to interact with the other at the unit level. Units, the basic
particle of force, are controlled and directed by the players as medi-
ated through the formation echelon, from one to several layers of
command below the operational level of interest to us. This is the tra-
ditional domain of interaction in wargames. Each adversary attempts
to maneuver to a position of advantage from which he strives to inflict
lopsided attrition against the opponent or, in the ideal of effects-
based operations, cause the opponent to surrender with a limited (or
no) actual combat, perhaps by increasing his entropy to disarming
levels.

Interaction at this level involves opposing forces that occupy the same
area and are assigned tasks that cause them to interact. The com-
mand networks and the information and direction that flow through
the networks to and from the commanders at the operational and the
formation echelons can be major determinants of the results of those
physical interactions. All of those threads from the command and
operational topologies ultimately feed into the databases and models
of the information topology to produce the information that the
players receive about the course and outcome of the actions taken by
the units and formations.

Timing is everything
And that brings us to the final crucial component of our framework:
time. And where better to start than with a few pithy quotes from two
experts on time: Napoleon Bonaparte and Albert Einstein.

“Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less

concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can
recover, lost time never.”
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

53
 “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like
a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's
longer than any hour. That's relativity.”
-- Albert Einstein39

Einstein goes on to explain his whimsical observation in more rigor-

ous terms. “As the observer's reference frame is crucial to the
observer's perception of the flow of time, the state of mind of the
observer may be an additional factor in that perception.”

Surprisingly, perhaps, Einstein's observation has, in fact, made its way

into the design of a commercial wargame. Piquet is a set of rules for
playing games with miniature toy soldiers.40 It originated as rules to
replay Napoleonic battles but has expanded to cover not only differ-
ent periods of warfare but also has been applied to the operational
level of war as well. In his attempts to explain (and, indeed, to justify)
his unique perspective on the design of the game, Piquet's designer
writes, “one other unique aspect of Piquet's ‘turns’ is that they are of
an undetermined and variable length. Some are made up of many
phases and initiatives and some are made up of just a few (or none).
When related to real battles this very effectively models ‘lulls in the
battle’, ‘sudden rushes’, and other battle descriptions. It also speaks
to Einstein's observation stated above that equal time isn't always
equal.”

A source of the difficulty game designers seem to have in dealing

effectively with time in wargames is the tendency to treat time as
something that lives outside the topologies of the game, a fourth
topology if you will, similar to the way we think of time in the real
world as a fourth dimension of space-time. But treating time this way
in our games may unnecessarily limit our ability to enable the players

39. Although this “quote” of Einstein's is repeated frequently in many

sources, there appears to be no documentary citation available. For the
best, and most entertaining of the stories associated with it, see Mirsky,
Steve, “Einstein's Hot Time: Great theoreticians know that hypothesis
must be confirmed with experiment,” Scientific American, September,
2002. Available on-line at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?arti-
cleID=0001AA08-864C-1D49-90FB809EC5880000
40. Jones, Robert. Piquet Master Rules for Wargaming. Highlands Ranch, Col-
orado: Piquet, Inc., 1996. See http://www.piquet.com/

54
to interact with the game's topologies in ways analogous to their
actions in the real world because, paradoxically, by trying to treat time
uniformly and sequentially in the game we disassociate it from the
way real commanders experience time in the real world.

Traditionally, board wargames control the activity of the play by

imposing fixed time intervals in which players may conduct their
actions. These time steps are typically called turns. These turns chop
up time into discrete, and usually equal-length, chunks, representing,
for example, a 12-hour span of time. The game system then scales the
activities of the forces and players to represent somehow an average
capacity for activity based on that time span. The problem, of course,
is that the essence of the promise of network warfare is to speed up
the ability of friendly forces to formulate, communicate, and carry
out plans and operations. The old model of fixed-length game turns
is an artificiality with little utility in this environment.

Many computer wargames adopted the same convention of the game

turn to regulate play. The game turn concept allows players to tackle
the problem of the game in identifiable chunks, giving them an
improved capacity to make themselves aware of their situation, predict
likely state changes, and understand the advantages and disadvantages
of possible courses of action open to themselves and their opponent
(in most cases, a virtual opponent provided by some form of computer
program). Recently, computer games have used a “continuous time”
mechanism to change the nature of the player's ability to interact with
the game. Instead of allowing the player to collect information about
the state of the game as a whole, ponder the implications of that state
for his existing plans, and develop and implement new plans in turn-
by-turn chunks, the computer imposed some sort of continuously
moving “game clock” on the player's decisions. Instead of updating the
physical domain only after the player had taken his turn, the computer
now updates that domain continuously. While the player observes and
gives orders to his forces in one part of the battlefield, the situation
elsewhere is changing without his being able to observe or affect it. Per-
haps surprisingly, at first blush, this approach is equally artificial. The
end result is often a ludicrous spectacle of the player riding around the
battlefield trying to react at the unit level to every changing situation
confronting the forces at his command.

55
 The lure of the continuous-time approach is that

It appears to be more faithful to reality and is more likely to

produce the kind of dynamic interactions that occur in real
operations. The price lies in potential distortions, especially
in the planning process, when the game-time to real-time
ratio (or game rate) is not one-to-one. If game time is
speeded up as is the usual case in operational or strategic
games, so that one minute of real time represents several
minutes of game time, players may find that realistic plan-
ning of operations takes too long in game terms and is
replaced by seat-of-the-pants or reactive decision making. At
the other extreme, if the game clock is slowed down, as is
most likely in tactical-level games, so that the players may
study the situation more carefully before acting, a false
impression of the effects of time pressure may easily
result.41

In our efforts to condense the real domains of warfare into the topol-
ogies of the wargame, we should care less about the operation of
clocks than about the battle rhythm of human decision-makers. The
precise clock time at which each event occurs, though important to
determining effects in the operational domain is of less importance
overall than representing correctly the flow of information and events
into the cognitive domain of the players, and the effects of that flow
on the four key relationships (awareness, understanding, prediction,
and influence) between the players and the game.

The complicating factor, of course, is that time does have an undeni-

ably real physical effect on the operational topology. Forces can move
only so fast. Planning cycles take so long to complete. (Can you spell
ATO?)42 I may make contingency plans, but I can respond to a con-
tingency only after it occurs.

The trick for the game designer is to find a way to combine the tick
of the clock and its inexorable effects on physical actions and

41. Perla, 1990, p. 223

42. ATO is the acronym for Air Tasking Order. The ATO is the principal
mechanism devised by the U.S. Air Force to schedule daily air opera-
tions in accordance with an overall plan of campaign. It is mythical in
its reputation for following a rigid, usually three-day, planning cycle.

56
interactions with the more subjective experiences of time in the
player's cognition. This linking of physical and cognitive domains in
the real world reflects, perhaps, the heart of the experience of real
command.

At some level, as Paddy Griffith has articulated it in his book of rules

for miniature wargames, generalship is all about managing your
time.43 If this is so, then representing time and its effects and modes
of experience cannot be a mere afterthought or choice of conve-
nience in designing a wargame. Instead, it is possibly the most crucial
and central decision the designer must make. If, indeed, the future of
warfare—whether you call it network-centric, information-based,
hyperwar or any other of the popular buzzwords in current fashion—
will revolve around creating and exploiting advantages in informa-
tion, communications, and coordination to achieve the information
dominance characterized by faster OODA loops, then treating time
as a constant for all sides or even all formations of the same side seems
fundamentally inconsistent with painting an experientially as well as
physically faithful representation of real operations.

How can we create such a faithful representation? Unfortunately, we

are better at asking the question than providing the answer. Yet. We
do know that we cannot do it using the same old techniques that have
so far proven of limited success in doing it.

There have been some attempts at introducing new, or at least non-

traditional, ways of looking at time in wargames. The Piquet minia-
tures rules mentioned earlier are one example. These rules use cards
of various types to introduce some unpredictability and chaos into the
party by replacing virtually all traditional elements of the fixed game-
turn sequence of play with uncertainty and asymmetry. Other games,
particularly operational and strategic games designed by Mark Her-
man, regulate the potential and pace of operations using cards in a
different manner, within a structure of much longer fixed-length
game turns. In our Road to Baghdad game, we have tried a third
approach.

43. Griffith, Paddy. Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun. London: Ward Lock, 1980

57
A different view of time: the Road to Baghdad game
As an example of how the framework we sketched out in the preced-
ing section can be applied to create a game dealing with a specific
operation, we have designed a board game to represent Operation
Iraqi Freedom. The rules and other components that embody the
design for this game, which we call Road to Baghdad, are provided in
appendix A.

Our thinking on the important issue of better reflecting the experi-

ence of time in a wargame is just beginning to develop. Our overall
approach in developing a new idea of dealing with time in Road to
Baghdad is to take conventional concepts of game design and turn
them on their heads. In this case, rather than fixing the time step and
scaling the activity of the units to that time step, we fixed the ability of
the units to conduct basic activities like moving or fighting, but varied
the time it takes them to carry out those activities.

The underlying notion is that unpredictable delay, Clausewitz's fric-

tion or Herman's entropy, causes units at the lowest level to function
in unexpected, and sometimes unpredictable, ways. Higher-level
commanders and staffs work to overcome the uncertainties and
unpredictability using their C3I systems and procedures to plan and
prepare operations and to react rapidly to changing circumstances in
an attempt to counter and reduce the effects of entropy. At the lower
levels, individual units work to self-synchronize their activities where
possible to overcome the same entropy. Over time, however, the over-
all system's entropy will increase and may ultimately reach levels that
bring the entire system to a state of extreme lethargy, or even grind it
to a halt. After an “operational pause” to recover and refit, the force
may once again conduct operations at a normal level of efficiency.

To represent these effects in a boardgame system, the Road to Baghdad

introduces the notion of “clock ticks” of varying lengths. During each
such tick, some or all units may be able to perform their usual activi-
ties. Shorter ticks mean that the units are performing quickly and effi-
ciently. Longer ticks mean that entropy is reducing the effectiveness
and efficiency of the units, causing them to take longer to carry out
the same sorts of activities.

58
The simplest approach to implementing this idea is to use only two
possible time spans—short and long, or fast or slow—to define two
classes of moves with fixed activity levels available in each. For exam-
ple, suppose that the short (or fast) turn represents 6 hours and the
long (or slow) turn represents 12 hours of activity. The fast turn rep-
resents efficient activity, well-planned and well-supported actions that
follow the predicted course. The slow turn represents the effects of
unexpected or unpredictable factors that create extraordinary
entropy and slow the efficiency of execution. This new approach to
sequencing turns and exposing the players to a different experience
of time in the game is clearly only a baby step in the direction we are
proposing. But it is one worth developing and exploring.

59
The end of the beginning
Although this paper is the final report of the Transforming Naval
Wargaming project, it is, in a real sense, only the beginning of an
attempt to break new ground in meeting the promise of the project's
title. One thing that this research effort has demonstrated is that
accepting the conventional wisdom that considers the discipline of
wargame design as a slowly evolving art form, or craft, wholly depen-
dent on the talent, genius, or inspiration of its practitioners to pro-
duce useful and productive wargames, is neither wise nor necessary.
At the start, we game designers were skeptical that any form of scien-
tific approach—beyond the almost pseudo-scientific appellation of
“social science”—must be doomed to founder on the very humanity
of the practitioners of the art and the players of the games.

No longer. We have taken only one tiny, tentative step in the direction
of building a scientific foundation for wargame design at the opera-
tional level of war. This paper has presented some basic definitions
and proposed some fundamental postulates. It has articulated a view
of wargame design as a process of mapping the physical, cognitive,
and informational domains of real warfare to the operational, com-
mand, and information topologies of a wargame. And it has identi-
fied the representation of time and its challenging mixture of
objective and subjective effects on human activity and cognition as a
primary element to understanding what makes a game go.

A science of wargame design?

Can we make this foundation more rigorous? Can we build an edifice
of wargame-design science based on something more than the accu-
mulated wisdom (and errors) of the masters of the designer's craft?
We now are ready to answer those questions, boldly, “Yes!" It will not
be easy, but we are convinced that it may well be possible. It is cer-
tainly worth the effort.

61
 Why? Because to continue as we have been dooms us to the repetitive
cycles of wargaming fashion. It places our fate at the mercy of the
whims of the genius or the blandishments of the charlatan; wargam-
ing has been blessed with both, though too often more of the latter
than the former. We exist under the threat of an unfortunate equa-
tion of the work of the game designer with that of the computer pro-
grammer. As computing power increases and the high-priests of
technology claim (with more and more justification) that they can
“model” anything you might want in their black-box simulations, the
lack of a rigorous, scientific foundation for understanding, evaluat-
ing, and applying their wares judiciously leaves us distressingly vulner-
able to the wargaming equivalent of quack doctors peddling promises
of quick fixes for all the thorny operational problems that plague us.

To move beyond the difficult to discern differences between the prod-

ucts of genius and the elixirs of snake oil, we need the kind of firm
foundation in science that drove physicians from the hopeful practice
of bleeding the patient to the effective practice of scientifically based
medicine.

Moving onward
To continue the start we have made here, we suggest first of all that
you try out our Road to Baghdad game. Not because it is a finished
product, but because it is not. It is merely a first step, an admittedly
tentative departure from the norm. We hope that it can, nevertheless,
inspire or irritate you enough to take bolder and broader steps of
your own.

We have proposed some basic ideas for creating a framework for

operational wargaming and given an example of how it can be
applied. Using this framework, other game designers can create new
wargames that will allow small teams (let's say two to six players per
side) to explore operational-level military concepts, particularly those
associated with network-centric warfare, by allowing the disparate
concepts to compete with each other in easily replayed situations. Key
to implementing this framework is to develop a representation of the
functions and effects of command networks below the level of the
players by replacing the organizations, processes, and technologies

62
actually used in an operational situation by the elements of the game
system that can represent their behavior and key outputs based on the
mechanisms of the game system, assumptions inherent in the sce-
nario, and inputs from the players.

Our framework provides a conceptual basis for modeling and run-

ning a game at the operational level. Our application of these con-
cepts in the Road to Baghdad game are embodied not in the mind of
individual umpires or in computer code, but in simple mechanical
processes and straightforward tables of data and procedures for
applying them. These rules help to insulate players from getting
sucked down into the tactical domain of widgets, radar equations,
and third-order effects. They provide that structured context within
which players are freed to develop their own understanding about
what does and does not transfer from the game experience to reality.

On the other hand, the framework should not be rigidly constructed

or applied. It should guide players about what interactions they
should expect to see in the game, and about what the range of poten-
tial results of such interactions may look like. It should not, however,
straightjacket the players into accepting either the range of interac-
tions or their possible results as given. The beauty of the boardgame
approach we have taken here (whether applied literally as a paper-
based game or adapted to a computer-moderated environment) is
that everything is open to the players for them to understand, manip-
ulate, or replace with their own judgment easily and quickly.

The overarching purpose of our conceptual framework and practical

example is to present the players and game directors with a workable
system to govern the occurrence and nature of interactions and
advance the play of the game by resolving those interactions. These
resolution systems are in no way designed to predict actual combat
outcomes in any meaningful sense of the word. Instead, their purpose
and design is to provide a basis for discussion and evolution of think-
ing about concepts of operations, organizations, and decisionmaking
strategies. It is our intention and sincere hope that the framework
and the specific systems that implement it will evolve based on the
learning and thinking that occurs during each use of the game, as the
players themselves increase their understanding of what the likely
interactions are and how they may occur and influence each other.

63
 For our part, we seek to follow up our initial foray into creating a sci-
ence of wargaming and explore two complementary paths. The first
is the theoretical one. We have touched on some ideas from old and
new thinkers about war and about wargames. We have proposed some
ideas we boldly term postulates based on their explorations. Can we
now gather these postulates together into a rigorous system of
thought? Can we (dare we say it, even think it, in our most private
thoughts?) develop and prove “theorems” about wargame design
based on such postulates? Let's at least make the attempt.

The second path is the more practical and immediately applicable.

Let's design some games. Road to Baghdad is at best what the computer
industry would term an alpha-level product. We had intended all
along to try to use the game to “replay” the actual course of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, as some sort of demonstration of the “validity” of the
game, measured at least by its ability to reflect the real operation. We
found that our resources were too limited to carry out this goal within
the bounds of the current study. By conducting further playtesting
and development, not only can we carry out this program of compar-
ison, but also we expect to improve the existing ideas and develop
new ones as the game evolves in response to our experience and our
increasing understanding.

In addition—as our work with the SCUDHunt game has convinced

us—the development and use of distillation games can open up
interesting and fruitful avenues for research.44 Can we adapt this
nascent theory to guide us in the design of distillation games (or even
of abstract games) that would allow us to build tight connections and
understandable relations from the real domains of warfare to the
game topologies? If so, can we find ways to use such games to conduct
game-based research of topics like the relative effectiveness of differ-
ent command structures under different operational conditions?

44. Perla, Peter P. et al. Game-Based Experimentation for Research in Command

and Control and Shared Situational Awareness. CNA Research Memoran-
dum D0006277.A1/Final, May 2002.

64
 Finally, we can see some scope for marrying our new thinking about
games and game design to the new sciences associated with agent-
based techniques. SCUDHunt once again provides us some evidence
that marrying these two concepts holds promise for future
research.45 Can we link the techniques of gaming and agent-based
analysis in new and more rigorous ways to allow us to feed off their
strengths and develop a new and powerful approach to studying and
understanding complex problems associated with the integration of
human beings and complex systems?

When integrated in agent-driven wargames, human players and

agents complement each other in important ways. Human-played
games can help focus us on interesting phenomena, and multiagent
simulations can help us explore those phenomena more thoroughly.
In addition, we can embody variations of specific behaviors observed
in human-played games in multiple agents. We can then use those
agents to explore broader games involving large numbers of indepen-
dent decision-makers that share a common value system—precisely
the problem confronting us with representing extensive and diffuse
terror networks. Games played by the relatively small numbers of
human players will not act the same way, nor is it possible to use
human players to explore systematically the large space of possible
rules and behaviors. The promise is there. We need only take the
games seriously enough to explore the possibilities.

Prospective projects
To that end, we recommend that the Naval War College initiate a pro-
gram of research to develop further the scientific theory of wargame
design, and apply the learning based on that effort to revolutionize
the practice of wargaming at the operational level. In particular, we
recommend that:

45. Perla, Peter P. et al. Using Gaming and Agent Technology To Explore Joint
C o m m a n d a n d C o n t ro l I s s u e s . C N A R e s e a r c h M e m o r a n d u m
D0007164.A1/Final, October 2002.

65
 • The Naval War College develop the principles presented in this
paper into a comprehensive approach for wargaming informa-
tion warfare.

• The Navy establish a program of research to continue develop-

ing the scientific foundation for wargame design.

• The Naval War College apply the principles presented here to

the design of distillation games to help conduct game-based
research into topics like the relative effectiveness of command
structures under different operational conditions.

• The Naval War College further develop the techniques embod-

ied in the Road to Baghdad game to create new games to explore
broader warfighting scenarios for the future, particularly those
involving more extensive use of naval and amphibious
operations.

• The Navy support research and development to link the

nascent science of wargame design with the new science of
agent-based analysis to develop a new and powerful approach
to studying and understanding complex problems associated
with the integration of human beings and complex systems.

Specific projects that the Navy should consider for future research
include the following.

Apply social network analysis to wargaming information

operations

Background
Future scenarios faced by 5th Fleet in CENTCOM and 7th Fleet in
PACOM will require an understanding of information operations and
the effects of networks on the operational level of war. Although the
Navy has long experience with designing wargames that incorporate
the effects of kinetic weapons, there is a significant shortfall in its
understanding about how best to represent the effects of information
operations, specifically “who knows what, when did they know it, and
with whom did they communicate.”

66
 Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should investigate the application of
social network theory and agent-driven wargaming to the construc-
tion and dynamic adaptation of command and control structures
during wargames by examining how staffs organize tasks and informa-
tion flows between themselves. The WGD should gather social-net-
work data during the play of NWC wargames to understand how intra-
staff networks evolve during a game and to develop working hypoth-
eses for detailed experimentation. Such research would also help the
WGD construct future command and control structures and proce-
dures. For example, by understanding how a networked staff struc-
tures itself and uses its assets to accomplish its assigned tasks, it may
become possible to optimize dynamically network assets such as band-
width available to the distributed staffs and decision-makers as a func-
tion of the type and characteristics of the mission and task.

Benefit
Understanding how staffs self-organize will provide insights into com-
mand and control structures, dynamic adaptation, and procedures
necessary to investigate information operations in the challenging
warfighting scenarios faced by 5th Fleet and 7th Fleet.

Wargame antisubmarine warfare (ASW) for 7th Fleet

Background
The 7th Fleet is facing a serious and credible threat from submarines,
mines, and theater ballistic missiles (TBM). With 7th Fleet support,
the War Gaming Department has for several years been researching
detailed approaches to dealing with the threat. Conclusions to date
indicate that it is necessary to truly understand the tactical-level
details of a specific operational environment in order to understand
the operational-level issues. In many cases, commonly held opinions
about how to best proceed at the operational level are simply contra-
dicted by detailed tactical-level analysis.

Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop in detail a set of con-
ceptual models of ASW based on current research, implement the

67
 models in forms useful for gaming, and develop some initial practical
applications of the gaming approach and model to conduct initial
assessment of the utility and practicality of the approach.

Benefit
The War Gaming Department should use the resulting conceptual
models to explore combat interactions and novel command decision-
making concepts at the operational level of warfare within specific
scenarios faced by 7th Fleet. Such a practical application will demon-
strate the results of the research to operational commanders and will
facilitate the NWC’s using the models for precise and quick assess-
ments in fleet games.

Develop work-flow models of innovative concepts

Background
Wargaming innovative concepts and processes that are relevant to the
Fleet usually requires that staffs from those Fleets play the game. How-
ever, 5th and 7th Fleet are extraordinarily busy. Therefore, when
using staffs from these Fleets, it is necessary to make sure that the
innovative concepts have been refined as much as possible before the
wargame so that these staffs do not spend the time they commit to the
game discovering flaws and making recommendations that should
have been discovered in the laboratory. Furthermore, because a game
necessarily addresses only a limited number of possible trajectories
through the space of possible events and outcomes, it is necessary to
address the possibility that the game play missed combinations of
events that would prove important in a real conflict.

Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop formal process models
and workflow simulations of innovative concepts proposed for
wargaming. Where feasible, the process models should be embodied
in computer models written using the industry-standard and DoD-
mandated IDEF0 language. The WGD can use these models to define
and design innovative concepts in terms of the activities, resources
used by the activities, inputs and outputs of the activities, and guid-
ance to or constraints on the activities. The work-flow simulations

68
 would be dynamic models—designed using the process models—that
track work product through the process that uses the concepts in
terms of time and volume and track the potential work load of the
staff employing the process derived from the innovative concept.

Benefit
An IDEF0 model of proposed innovative concepts provides a strict
documentation of a well-defined process that is unambiguous, pro-
moting clear communication between Fleet staffs and laboratory sci-
entists and facilitating efficient modification of the process before
and after engaging in the expense of a full war game. A dynamic work-
flow simulation provides insights into problems like bottlenecks,
work-load imbalances, and information-flow delays that can be fixed
and tested before engaging in the expense of a full wargame. Addi-
tionally, by running the work-flow simulation in Monte Carlo mode,
you can explore a huge number of paths through the process to seek
out unanticipated problems that may not surface in a standard war-
game using small numbers of staff for limited periods of time.

Further develop the foundations of wargaming theory

Background
The professional military wargaming organizations of the DoD are
staffed with military officers who are usually assigned to their posi-
tions on a two-year rotation. To become an expert in something as
complex as the design, execution, analysis, and reporting of war-
games to support clients with complex military problems takes longer
than two years. Therefore, DoD wargaming organizations face a con-
tinual problem of training new staff and losing skills. Despite this,
DoD wargaming organizations have an excellent record based on past
performance of delivering high-quality product. However, as
warfighting becomes more complicated, the pace of change on the
battlefield speeds up, and billets are left unfilled in order to maintain
OPTEMPO overseas, the struggle to maintain corporate memory will
become a losing battle. DoD wargaming faces a near-term train wreck
in its ability to train staff in wargaming methodology, deliver innova-
tive high-value games, increase the number of games played in a year,
and retain necessary skills as staff members rotate out.

69
 Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop formal process models
and workflow simulations of the processes involved in designing, exe-
cuting, analyzing, and reporting on wargames. The process models
should be used to define and design the processes in terms of the
activities, resources used by the activities, inputs and outputs of the
activities, and guidance to or constraints on the activities. The work-
flow simulations should be designed using the process models, and
should track work product through the process in terms of time and
volume, and should also track the potential work load of the
participants at a game.

Benefit
A model of proposed wargaming processes provides a strict documen-
tation of a well-defined process that is unambiguous, promoting clear
communication between WGD staff and facilitating efficient
modification of the process before and after engaging in the expense
of a full war game. A dynamic work-flow simulation provides insights
into problems that can be fixed and tested before actually beginning
the game. Together, the two types of model capture knowledge about
how and why games are designed for specific purposes, thus facilitat-
ing training of incoming WGD staff, capturing knowledge and
experience from outgoing staff, and facilitating the design of novel
wargaming techniques for new types of games.

Explore knowledge management within an adaptive C2 structure

Background
If adaptive information architectures are to be of use to Fleet staffs,
then the system that manages information databases, access to those
databases, and the business rules in force must also be adaptive to the
changes in the C2 architecture. It is not good enough simply to pro-
vide staff members with access to new databases as the C2 architec-
ture—and so their role—adapts. This is called “information
management,” and while necessary it is not sufficient for improving
the effectiveness of C2 operations. What is missing and required is
“knowledge management,” a set of functions that includes but is not
limited to providing assistance to staff member to help them to

70
 understand quickly the significance of the new types of information
to which they have access.

Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop sets of proposed “busi-
ness rules” for handling information within a dynamically adaptive C2
architecture. It should also design experiments for testing these rules
within the current or future DoD systems. Further, the War Gaming
Department should investigate the feasibility of using or adapting
commercial systems (for example, the Microsoft Help System) to pro-
vide assistance to staffs in the use and meaning of information as their
access to databases adapts.

Benefit
This research will provide design advice for knowledge management
that can be incorporated into operational-level wargames proposed
to the Fleet and joint commands, whether or not adaptive C2 is used.
The results of the research will increase the willingness of Fleet oper-
ators to accept the use of adaptive C2 approaches by making those
approaches easier to use during exploratory wargames (and possibly
also during operational deployments).

Develop a wargaming system for information operations

Background
Future scenarios faced by 5th Fleet in CENTCOM and 7th Fleet in
PACOM will require an understanding of information operations and
the effects of networks on the operational level of war. There is a sig-
nificant shortfall in our understanding of how better to represent
information operations during wargames.

Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop an Information Warfare
Wargame Construction Kit that focuses on managing information and
information-processing assets (such as networks, bandwidth, connectiv-
ity routing) and on the effects of networks on the operational level of
warfare. The focus should be on information, with an interface to a
separate “traditional” wargame (one focused on representing kinetic
effects) to ensure general applicability of the techniques. Initially, the

71
 War Gaming Department should test the Information Warfare War
Game using a distillation game. It should then expand the approach by
adapting it to an expanded version of the Road to Baghdad operational-
level wargame described in the appendix. Finally, the War Gaming
Department should use the results of the research to provide design
advice for operational-level war games proposed to the Fleet, joint com-
mands, and others as appropriate.

Benefit
This research will provide design advice for wargames in which the
players must make decisions about handling information and their
information resources (such as bandwidth and processors) in order
to achieve their desired operational effects. The players will have to
“fight their networks” (in an analogous way to how they are currently
expected to “fight their strike systems”) when faced with opposing
players who attempt to wage information operations against them.
This will provide the Fleets with much more realistic wargames that
deal with current and future threats.

Develop an agent-driven wargaming system

Background
Future scenarios faced by the Navy, particularly by 5th Fleet in CEN-
TCOM and 7th Fleet in PACOM, will require representing concepts
that are fundamentally different from those explored in past games.
They will also require the development and analysis of multiple
games in order to develop a broad understanding of the potential
future scenarios. Undertaking multiple games is an extremely oner-
ous task for staffs already at war or planning for war. On the other
hand, single games provide only limited insight to the problems that
the Navy may encounter in these uncertain futures. An approach that
combines multiple and rapid simulation runs of the wargame with a
small number of fully manned war games would be a useful adjunct
to existing techniques.

72
Recommended research
The War Gaming Department should develop an agent-driven war-
game engine designed to enable the gaming of novel concepts in
future scenarios, based on CNA's agent-based approach developed by
Andrew Ilachinski's work on the EINSTein model46 and applied and
extended in the SCUDHunt research.47

Benefit
This research will provide rapid testing of multiple concepts and
courses of action in a scenario prior to fully manned gaming, thus
providing wargame design assistance that will enable the wargame to
make optimum use of valuable staff time. The research will also
provide a system rapidly to test out ideas and approaches generated
by the fully manned wargame.

46. EINSTein is a pioneering attempt to simulate combat on a small to

medium scale by using autonomous agents to model individual behav-
iors and personalities rather than specific weapons, synthesizing high-
level behaviors, from the ground up, using low-level agent-to-agent
interactions. EINSTein allows researchers to use an embedded genetic
algorithm to “breed” whole combat forces that optimize some set of
desirable characteristics. EINSTein has been used to explore the role of
fractal statistics to describe real-world combat, as a test-bed for explor-
ing squad and fireteam compositions in the U.S. Army and USMC, to
play “What If?” scenarios in studies of asymmetric warfare, to explore
reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance and the dynamics of battle-
field survivability, and was instrumental in introducing complex-systems
into the USMC's lexicon (with associated language changes appearing
in the USMC official doctrinal publications). There are currently more
than 500 registered users of EINSTein in academia, commercial, and
research organizations, the U.S. Department of Defense, and other mil-
itary operations research analysts worldwide. See http://www.cna.org/
isaac/
47. Perla, Peter P. and Julia Loughran, "Using Gaming and Agent Technol-
ogy to Explore C2," Proceedings of the 8th International Command and Con-
trol Research and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS), 17 to 19 June 2003.
Available through http://www.dodccrp.org/

73
74
Appendix A

Appendix A: Road to Baghdad Wargame

Road to Baghdad (RtB) is an operational-level two-player wargame
based on OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, covering the period 19
March – 10 April 2003.

The game emphasizes interactions between off-map command and

control systems and the flow of events on the map. The Command
system generates, stores and transports “Operations” (represented as
poker chips) which players “spend” to deploy, maneuver, and recon-
stitute their combat forces.

Game scale
Units are mostly brigades for the Coalition player and divisions for
the Iraqi player. A game turn represents 12 – 24 hours of real time.
Most units move from point to point on the map. Paths between cit-
ies, towns and “waypoints” range from a few km to 100 km.

Typical combat units

75
 Appendix A

Playing pieces
Combat units
Combat units are colored wooden blocks with a blank side and a label
side. Combat units are kept off the map, and represented on the map
by numbered Force markers. The blank side is kept facing the enemy
player, except during combat. The label side shows the following
information:

• Standard military map symbol and identifier. Coalition units

have a green symbol box, Kurdish units orange, Iraqi regular
gray and Iraqi Guard pink.

• Uppercase letter that indicates the unit Quality rating (A= elite,
B = regular, C = conscript D = armed mob).

• Number that indicates unit Firepower (Special Operations

units have a bullet rather than a number, since they execute
Missions rather than Combat).

• Lowercase letter (“tag”) that shows the unit’s Group. Units that
belong to the same Group enjoy a synchronization advantage
in Combat (minus 1 to the die roll).

• Status bars on the edge that indicate the unit’s current condi-
tion (Green = fully capable, Yellow = reduced, Red = critical.)
“Status” is a composite of fatigue, supply, and damage to people
and equipment. A unit’s Status may worsen as a result of
combat or improve through reconstitution. The unit is rotated
in 90-degree increments so that the current Status is always at
the top.

Force markers
Force markers are double-sided numbered counters that serve as on-
map “containers” for Combat units. When the hexagon side is face-
up, the Force is static and may not move. When the arrow side is face-
up, the Force is mobile, and must move in the direction indicated by
the arrow.

76
Appendix A

Force marker

1 1

Static side Mobile side

Time track with clock markers

Clock markers
Clock Markers are drawn from a cup and place on the Time Track.
The rabbit symbol indicates a Fast phase, the tortoise symbol indi-
cates a Slow phase. An hourglass marker indicates the current clock
“tick.” The fast turn represents efficient activity, well-planned and
well-supported actions that follow the predicted course. The slow
turn represents the effects of unexpected or unpredictable factors
that create extraordinary friction and slows the efficiency of
execution.

77
 Appendix A

Air strike (front and back)

50 50
System Strike Kill Box Strike

Air strike markers

Two-sided Air Strike markers represent about 50 strike sorties. The
blue side represents System Strikes, against enemy command and
control. The tan side represents Kill Box Strikes against enemy Forces
on the map.

Operations chits
Operations points (Ops) are an abstraction of command attention,
network capacity, staff work, logistic support, information and other
operational enablers. Ops are represented by poker chips and are
used to overcome friction in a local area and allow units that would
normally not be able to act during a move to carry out some limited
actions. Ops may also be used to enable a unit to recover combat
losses, to synchronize attacks of multiple formations, improve the
effectiveness of units in combat, enable a fast unit to conduct an
exploitation, to conceal the identity of units revealed through combat
or other means, or to entrench a unit in a critical defensive position.
Ops are placed, moved and expended on the Command Display.

Command cards
These cards represent Theater, Army, Corps and other command
nodes. They are placed on the Command display.

78
Appendix A

Other game markers

Bomb Damage, Dug-in, Decoy, WMD. The counter set includes a vari-
ety of markers for future options that are not implemented in the
Basic scenario.

Sequence of play

Sequence of play flow chart

O ff-clock Players
D raw a C lock M arker A dvance Tim e Track
M ay Spend O ps

21
9

9
9

M ove on-clock M obile M ove off-clock M obile

R esolve Com bat
Forces Forces

R eplenish O ps
Exploitation Plans Phase D ig in
R estore D isabled N odes
R einforcem ents
R eplenish units
R oad to B aghdad A dm inistrative M oves
Establish FA R P
S equence of P lay M ode change
A ir A llocation

Phase 1: Advance move and clock markers

If a player’s clock marker is in the space corresponding to the current
position of the clock (indicating that the player has just completed a
move), that player determines whether his next move is long or short.
(draw a marker from a container). Place the player’s marker one
space ahead for a fast phase or two spaces ahead for a slow phase.
Once both players have placed their markers, if necessary, advance
the clock marker one space (tick).

79
 Appendix A

Phase 2: Operations decision

If either player’s move marker is NOT in the space corresponding to
the clock marker (i.e., off the clock), that player may choose to
expend Ops to activate forces during that move. If both players are off
the clock, the advantaged player chooses which player will first
declare his decision about using Ops. Any player that chooses to use
Ops for this purpose must immediately spend one Op from an eligi-
ble command node to exercise this privilege.

Phase 3: The on-clock player moves his pieces

All mobile pieces of an on-clock player (or both players if both are on-
clock) must move to their designated destination, subject to the limi-
tations imposed by road capacity.

Phase 4: The off-clock player may move activated pieces

If an off-the-clock player chose to activate pieces during the move by
expending an Ops point in Phase 2, that player may now spend an
Ops point to activate an eligible space to allow units in that space to
move to their already designated destination (only). Place the Ops
chit directly on the Force Marker to keep track of which Forces are
activated. Remove the Ops chit after the Force completes its move-
ment. If the space the unit moves from contains enemy units, at least
one friendly unit must remain in the space for each enemy unit
present there. Any and all mobile pieces in a space and eligible to be
activated by the Ops point spent may move to their destination
regardless of the number of such pieces in the starting space. More
than one Ops point may be spent to activate different forces in the
same space (for example, units from different armies might require
the expenditure of an Ops point from their own army node).

Phase 5: Resolve combat

Combat takes place automatically in spaces that contain units of both
sides. If the order of resolution of the different combats matters, the
advantaged player chooses which battle to resolve first. After resolv-
ing that battle, he then chooses the next, and so on until all battles
are resolved. The details of combat resolution will be explained later.

80
Appendix A

Units that actively participate in a battle are tipped forward to reveal

their identity and capabilities. These units remain tipped forward in
this way until allowed to conceal themselves again, by the expenditure
of an Ops point or some other means. Combat may result in the
damage or destruction of pieces, or in their retreat. If a space is
cleared of enemy pieces as the result of combat, any friendly Forces
in the space may immediately and freely reorient their destination
arrows.

Phase 6: Exploitation phase

Either player may spend Ops points to move concealed fast units in
mobile mode (only) to an adjacent space. This space must be the cur-
rent destination of the unit. (Note that fast units that participated in
combat—which typically means actually used their combat capability
in the fight—are usually not eligible to exploit because they have
been revealed; this is where the use of Ops points to re-conceal such
units comes in handy, reflecting the concentration of resources at the
schwerpunkt of the attack.) If both players wish to conduct such exploi-
tation moves, the advantaged player chooses who will act first and
players alternate choosing towns to activate to conduct such moves.
Ops points must be spent on each move according to the same rules
and limitations of a normal off-clock activation, with the exception
that exploiting units may neither leave nor enter an enemy-occupied
space.

Phase 7: Plans phase

If both players are on-clock the advantaged player chooses who will
act first and players alternate their actions. Each command node may
replenish Ops, enter reinforcements, conduct administrative moves,
change mode or destination of units, or other actions specified in the
game or scenario.

81
 Appendix A

Command
Each side in the game has a command and control network, repre-
sented by an arrangement of cards (the Command Display). The
cards represent nodes in this network and the physical arrangement
(“topology”) of the cards represents the linkages of these nodes.

Iraqi command display

The number on each card represents its “storage” capacity for Ops.
At the beginning of the game, each Node receives its full storage
capacity. Each side has a top Theater-level node: Saddam for the Iraqi
side and CENTCOM for the Coalition side.

82
Appendix A

Generating Ops
During the Plans phase, each Functional node in the Command Dis-
play generates one Op, and may move any number of Ops to a linked
node that is Functional.

Functional nodes
A Theater-level node is “Functional” if it is face-up. Any other node is
Functional if it is face-up and linked to a Functional higher-echelon
node.

Broken link
A node may be turned face-down as a result of System Strike or
Regime Collapse. Any stored Ops are destroyed. A face-down node
may be restored during any subsequent Plans phase when a higher-
echelon node spends an Op. A face-down Theater-level node may
restore itself, but may not perform any other action during the phase.

Subordination
In general, a node may only spend Ops on units it directly or indi-
rectly controls. Every Combat unit “belongs” to a Command node.
For example, CENTAF may only spend Ops for Airstrikes, and V
Corps may only spend Ops on units of the 3rd Infantry, 4th Infantry,
101st Airborne, 11th Aviation Bde and 82nd Airborne.

Get Saddam
[We suggest you consider this an optional rule]. System strikes on the
Saddam node are resolved as follows: Shuffle the Saddam card with
the three “decoy” nodes and arrange them face down. The Coalition
player selects one randomly. If it is the Saddam card, Saddam is killed
and replaced by Uday. Otherwise, no effect.

Movement
Forces in Mobile mode must move in the direction indicated by the
arrow on the Force marker.

83
 Appendix A

Unlike many wargames, there are no “stacking limits” in RtB. An

unlimited number of combat units may be present in a space, but
there are strict limits on the size of Forces that can use Ground move-
ment along any particular Road segment during a phase.

If a force is larger than the road capacity, it must split off a Force,
equal or less than the road capacity, that can move in the current
phase. Any remainder must attempt to move in the next possible
phase, unless redirected or placed in Static mode by spending an Op.

Note: There is no differentiation of movement allowances in RtB. All

ground forces are motorized or mechanized. Moving one space takes
one movement phase. Administrative movement (up to 5 spaces
along roads clear of enemy forces) is an exception.

84
Appendix A

In the example shown above, Iraqi Force 22 and Coalition Force 7

are attempting to move down the same road in opposite directions.
This is a meeting engagement, resolved “on the road.” If Force 22
retreats as a result of combat, Force 7 may advance from Tallil to
Samawah. If Force 7 retreats, then Force 22 may advance to Tallil.
Force 8 must move into Nasiriyah. Force 10 must move from Jalibah
to Tallil. Note that if Force 5 were not present, Force 10 could not
move out of Jalibah, due to the presence of Iraqi Force 25.

Ground movement
Ground movement takes place along roads. Road capacity is mea-
sured in Combat units (Coalition brigades or Iraqi divisions). Feday-
een and Coalition SpecOps units count as “zero” for Ground
Movement purposes. A Force of up to six combat units may move
along a Primary Road in each direction. A Force of up to three combat
units may move along a secondary road in only one direction.

Airmobile movement
All units of the 101st Airborne Division, the 82nd Airborne, 173rd Air-
borne, Attack helicopters and the UK 16th Airmobile Brigade may use
Airmobile Movement. This takes at least two successive phases. In the
first phase, LIFT markers are placed on the units that will move.
These units must be in Static mode, but the placement of each LIFT
marker counts as movement, and requires an Ops point. On any sub-
sequent phase, units under a LIFT marker may move—off the road
network—to any FARP in the same or an adjacent air zone, or they
may establish a Landing Zone (LZ) anywhere in the same Air Zone or
an Adjacent Air Zone. The LZ marker is placed in any convenient
open terrain, adjacent to any space (town, city or waypoint). Units
that begin a phase in an LZ may enter the adjacent space.

Forward arming and refueling points (FARP)

The Coalition player may establish up to three FARPs during the
game. Only one FARP may be established per Plans phase. A FARP
functions like a ready-made Landing Zone for Airmobile Movement.
Establishment of a FARP expends two Ops.

85
 Appendix A

Administrative movement
A Force that begins and ends its movement in spaces free of any
enemy Force, and that does not enter or pass through a space con-
taining an enemy Force may move up to five spaces. This costs 1 Op
per Force. The Coalition player may only use Admin movement
through spaces that have previously been occupied by Coalition
Forces (i.e. through Iraqi territory that has been “liberated”.)

The Map
Map scale is approximately 24 miles per inch. International and prov-
ince boundaries (green or brown for Kurdish-controlled provinces)
are provided for reference only and have no effect on movement or
combat in the basic game.

Roads
Main roads (up to 6 units in each direction) are shown in red. Second-
ary roads (up to 3 units in one direction) are shown in gray.

Cities, towns and waypoints

Cities are shown as gray squares. Towns are gray circles. Waypoints are
dashed gray circles. Kurdish-controlled towns (Arbil, Zakhu, Sulay-
maniyah) are brown circles. The shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala
(indicated by a green crescent) may not be targeted by Airstrikes.
Critical Objectives, indicated by a red star are important in determin-
ing Regime Collapse. Note: the three city squares of Baghdad are
inter-connected by main roads.

Combat
Ground combat takes place between opposing forces in the same
space.

Ground combat may be either optional or mandatory. Optional

combat takes place when one side is Static and the other is Mobile.
Mandatory combat takes place when opposing Mobile forces collide
(a “meeting engagement”).

86
Appendix A

Combat is considered to be simultaneous between units of the same

Quality. All “A” units fire first, followed by all “B” units, etc. If a unit is
eliminated or forced to retreat before it fires, then it may not fire.

Combat is resolved by rolling 1d10 for each participating Combat

unit. A die roll less than or equal to the unit’s Firepower inflicts a hit
on an opposing unit. Combat die rolls against Iraqi units (only; a
“home court advantage” if you will) are modified by terrain: add 1 in
a town and 2 in a city. Add 1 if the targeted unit is dug-in. Subtract 2
for each Air Strike providing close support. Units at Yellow status add
1 to their die roll. Units at Red status may not fire.

Coordination
Units belonging to the same Group get a combat bonus (subtract 1
from the die roll for the second and all subsequent units of the same
Group firing at the same target.)

Combat example.

In the example below, Force 9 (5 Coalition units) and Force 22 (3

Iraqi units) fight in a town. All “A” units fire first. 101/Av fires on
SpRGd and rolls 4, which is modified to 5 for the town. SpRGd takes a
hit, rotates so that the yellow bar is at the top and retreats, forming a
new Force. All “B” units fire next. 101/3 was allocated to fire on
SpRGd, but cannot, since the target retreated first. 101/2 fires on

87
 Appendix A

10Fdyn. The die roll is 7, modified to 8, which is a miss. Seven is added

to the Coalition casualty total. 101/1 now fires, rolling 2. The coordi-
nation bonus ( subtract 1 for second unit of the same group engaging
the same target) cancels the town defense, so the modified roll is a
hit. 10Fdyn rotates so the first yellow bar is at top, but does not have
to retreat. 2 is added to the Coalition casualty total. Continuing with
“B” units, 3M/1 fires on III/6A.Die roll is 9, modified to 10 for the
town. Another miss, and 9 is added to the Coalition casualty count.
Now “C” units fire, but the only “C” unit, SpRgGd has already
retreated. “D” units now fire. The Iraqi player concentrates on the
fragile 101/Av, III/6A rolls a 5, for a miss, and 10Fdyn rolls a 1, for a
hit. 101/Av is rotated, putting the red Status bar at top, and must
retreat, forming a new Force.

Combat results
Combat results are applied differently depending on the side. For
Iraqi units, each hit causes the affected unit to lose a Status level.
Rotate the unit 90 degrees counter-clockwise. If this loss is a change
of color (green to yellow, or yellow to red) then the unit must retreat.
Exception: units in a city are never forced to retreat. For Coalition units,
each hit causes the affected unit to lose a Status level and the unmod-
ified die roll is added to the Coalition casualty total. A die roll of 10,
however is recorded as zero.

If an Iraqi unit at Red Status suffers a hit, it is immediately destroyed

and removed from play. Coalition units are never eliminated as a
result of combat. If a Coalition unit at Red Status suffers a hit, it must
retreat and twice the unmodified die roll is added to the Casualty
count.

Setup
See the OB spreadsheet for start locations and reinforcement sched-
ule.

Iraqi units set up in static mode, one Force per location. SAMs are
placed in their Air Zone. Coalition units set up in Kuwait, in Mobile
mode as follows:

88
Appendix A

• Udairi – Third Mechanized Infantry Division: 3M/1, 3M/2,

3M/3 in one Force (mobile)

• Al Salem – First Marine Division: Mar1, Mar5, Mar7 in one

Force (mobile)

• Al Salem – First UK Armoured Division: 7Ar/UK, 16Aa/UK,

M/Trw in one Force (mobile)

• Fao – 3Cdo/UK (static)

• Kuwait City – 11Av (static)
Coalition reinforcements enter at Kuwait City, except 173 Abn, which
may airdrop at Bashur.

Airpower
The Coalition player has a variable number of Airstrike markers each
turn.

The Iraqi player has a fixed number of SAM brigades assigned to Air
Zones at the start of play.

Airstrike availability
Airstrikes are allocated three days in advance on the Air Tasking dis-
play. The number of Airstrike markers for any given day is 10 + 2d6
(min 12, max 22). At the start of play, the Coalition player determines
availability and makes allocations for the first three days. At the begin-
ning of each turn, the Coalition player repeats this process for
another subsequent day.

Allocation
The Coalition player allocates Airstrikes by assigning markers to an
Air Zone, with either the blue (System Strike) or brown (Kill Box)
side facing up.

89
 Appendix A

System strikes
Iraqi Command nodes are marked with the Air Zone in which they
are located. To execute System Strikes, the Coalition player spends
one Op per Airstrike marker and places the marker(s) on the tar-
geted Node(s). All System strikes are placed before any are resolved.
Roll 1d6 for each marker. The node is disrupted (turned face down)
on a roll of 3 or less.

SAMs & kill box strikes

To execute Kill Box Strikes, the Coalition player spends one Op per
Airstrike marker and places the marker(s) on the targeted Force or
SAM. All Kill Box strikes are placed before any are resolved. Roll 1d6
for each targeted SAM. The SAM is killed on a roll of 1 and sup-
pressed (turned face down) on a roll of 2 – 4. SAMs that are not killed
or suppressed may fire at any Airstrikes in their Air Zone, rolling 1d6.
An Airstrike is forced to abort on a SAM die roll of 2 or less.

Resolving kill box strikes

If a Force is targeted by a Kill Box strike, the Coalition player draws
one BDA chit per strike, and (without looking at it) hands it to the
Iraqi player, who places it with one unit in the affected Force accord-
ing to the following priority schedule: Republican Guard armor,
Republican Guard Mech, regular armor, regular mech, regular infan-
try, Fedayeen.

Close air support

Airstrikes allocated to Kill Box missions may also be used for Close Air
Support (CAS). Place the Airstrike marker on any Iraqi Force that is
participating in combat. Add +2 to the Coalition player’s die roll. No
more than one Airstrike may be used as CAS in any individual com-
bat. Note that CAS is not allowed in Shrine cities (Najaf and Karbala).

Special operations
Coalition units marked with a bullet [•] rather than a firepower
rating are Special Operations (SpecOps) units. They do not move on

90
Appendix A

the road network or engage in normal Combat. SpecOps units do not

have Status bars. They are inserted or extracted in Air Zones, where
they can execute a variety of Missions. SpecOps have their own
“Black” helicopters, and do not use Airmobile Lift or Landing Zones.
All SpecOps units “belong” to the SOCCENT Command node. Each
SpecOp insertion, extraction and mission expends one Op.

Special missions
• Recon: pick an enemy Force in the Air Zone and roll 1D6. On
a roll of 1 – 5 the contents of the Force are revealed. On a roll
of 6 the mission fails and must be Extracted.

• Precision Targeting: pick an enemy Force that is not in contact

with friendly forces. On a 1d6 roll of 1 – 4 the Force is success-
fully targeted: each Kill Box airstrike draws two BDA chits
rather than one. Any other result is No Effect.

• PeshMerga support: Place a SpecOp unit with one or more Kur-

dish brigades. The Quality rating of the Kurdish units is
increased one level while the SpecOp remains with that Force.

• SAM site Takedown: Pick a SAM unit and roll 1d6. On a result
of 1 – 3 the SAM is destroyed. On a roll of 6, the SpecOp suffers
six casualties and must be extracted. Any other result is No
Effect. [The “SCUD Hunt” can be represented by requiring the
Coalition player to eliminate all SAMs in Air Zone III by a cer-
tain date.]

• Interdiction: Place the SpecOp unit on any road segment in the

Air Zone. When an Iraqi Force attempts to pass along the road,
roll 1d6. On a roll of 1 – 3, the move is aborted, and the Iraqi
Force remains in place. On a roll of 6, the SpecOp suffers six
casualties and must be extracted. Any other result is No Effect.

• Capture Saddam: Future addition to system.

• Command Node Takedown: Future addition to system.
• Iraqi Counter-SOF: Future addition to system.

91
 Appendix A

Fedayeen
Fedayeen “brigades” have a Black unit symbol marked with a white F.
They represent Ba’ath party loyalists, foreign fighters, and local mili-
tia. Five are present in the initial setup. The other five may be created
during any Plans phase in any Iraqi town or city by expending one
Op. No more than one Fedayeen unit may ever be present in a space.
Fedayeen have the option of not retreating from a town when they
suffer a combat result. Eliminated Fedayeen are eligible to be rebuilt
on subsequent phases, even in enemy-occupied spaces.

How to win
Coalition victory: The Coalition player must occupy at least five Crit-
ical Objectives (causing Iraqi Regime Collapse) before the end of the
30th game turn, otherwise the Iraqi player wins a Symbolic Moral Vic-
tory. The presence or absence of Iraqi units is irrelevant in determin-
ing “Occupation” for purposes of this rule. When regime collapse
occurs, all Iraqi regular unites (those with gray unit symbol boxes) are
removed from the map. All five Iraqi regular corps HQ’s are removed
from the command display (I, II, III, IV, V).

If the Coalition player suffers more than 500 casualties, the Iraqi
player wins an Arab Media Virtual Victory, regardless of Regime Col-
lapse.

92
Appendix A

Explanation of game components

In addition to the rules above, a complete set of RtB components
includes the items provided in the following pages:

• Counter sheets (six sheets): Artwork for the game pieces. The
combat units (sheet 1) are labels that must be affixed to
wooden blocks. 30 Green blocks are required for the Coalition
forces and 36 Red blocks for the Iraqi forces. The 16 Iraqi SAMs
on this sheet go on cardboard counters, not blocks. Force
Markers and AirStrikes are double-sided counters. All other
counters are single sided.

• Artwork for Command Node cards (2 sheets of Coalition and 2

sheets of Iraqi). These should be glued or printed on card
stock, and cut apart. Card protectors (sold in hobby shops) are
recommended; 15 blue for the Coalition and 15 red for Iraq.

• Artwork for the game map. We provide the map in sixteen

8.5x11” pages which you can tape together. You may also try to
blow up the single-page reduced-size sheet.

• Setup sheet, a spreadsheet listing all combat units, with starting

locations or earliest time of arrival.

• Graphics for the Sequence of Play, Red and Blue Force Holding
boxes, Air Tasking display and Time Tracks (4 pages) .

In addition, to play the game you will need to provide a set of poker
chips or other markers, some ten-sided and six sided dice, and blocks
to paste the counter faces on. Blocks may be obtained from various
game supply shops or publishers. See, for example, Columbia Games.
h t t p : / / w w w. c o l u m b i a g a m e s . c o m / c g i - b i n / q u e r y / c f g /
search.cfg?search=blocks&submit=Go

93
 Appendix A
B/6
SAM
x

Combat Units
B/5
SAM
x

16Aa/UK 3ACR 4Kurd IV/18 4Fdyn 10Fdyn B/4

I/38
D3m
A4c

C3k
B3j

D 2x

D2x
D3q
x

SAM
xx

xx

x
F
x

7Ar/UK 2ACRL 3Kurd I/8 IV/14 3Fdyn 9Fdyn B/3

C3k

D3m

D3q
A5c

B3i

D2x

D2x
xx
x

xx

SAM
x

x
F

3Cdo/UK 173Abn 2Kurd I/2 2Fdyn 8Fdyn B/2

IV/10A
D3m
B4g

C3k
A4c

D2x

D2x
D4q
xx

SAM
x
x

xx
x

x
F

3M/3
4M/3 1Kurd Bagdad III/51M 1Fdyn 7Fdyn B/1
B5a

D2x

D2x
C3k
A6h

D3p
x

C3r
xx

xx

SAM
x
x

x
F

x
3M/2 4M/2 SOTF-W Medina III/11 6Fdyn IV/2
B5a

26 SF
A 6h

A •s

C 2x
D3p

D2x
x

C4r

xx
x

xx

SAM
x

x
F

x
3M/1 4M/1 SOTF-N Adnan IV/1
III/6A 5Fdyn
B5a

3 SF
A6h

A •s

D2x
C2x
D4p
C3r

xx
x

SAM
x

xx

x
x

x
101/Av Mar/Tw CSOTF
Al Nida II/34 II/1 III/2
A 6d

D 3n
V/16
A 6b

A •s

C3r

D3t

SAM
X
x

xx

xx

SAM
x

xx

x
101/3 Mar/7 11Av Nbchdzr II/15 I/3 III/1

D3n
V/7
A6b

A6d

C3r
B5d

SAM
D3t
xx
X

xx
x

SAM
x

xx

x
101/2 SOTF-S Hmrbi II/3A
Mar/5 I/2
V/4 II/3
A6b
B5d

C3r

D4n
A •s

xx

xx

SAM
D3t
xx

SAM
x

x
Mar/1 SpRGd
101/1 82A/1 I/5M V/1M I/1 II/2
B5d

D4m
A6b

A4e

C4r

D4t
xx

xx

xx

SAM
X

SAM
x
x

x
x
94
 Appendix A
BDA Chits
E LIM E L IM E LIM E LIM E L IM E LIM E L IM E LIM E LIM E LIM
1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p

E LIM E L IM E LIM E LIM E L IM E LIM E L IM E LIM E LIM E L IM

2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p

No No No No No No No No No No
E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t

No No No No No No No No No No
E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t

E LIM E LIM E LIM E LIM E LIM E L IM E LIM E LIM E L IM E LIM

2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 2 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p 1 S te p

No No No No No No No No No No
E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t

No No No No No No No No No No
E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t E ffe c t
95
96

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Six Nine

Force Markers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Six Nine

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Appendix A
Appendix A
Clock Chits
TO D A Y
W EEK
T H IS
97
98

50 50 5050 5050 50
50 50
50 50
50 50 50 50

Air and Misc Markers 1

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Bridge Bridge Bridge Bridge Bridge Bridge Bridge

Nuke Chem Bio Out Out Out Out Out Out Out

Pvt. Jessica
FARP FARP FARP FARP SCUD LIFT LIFT LIFT

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy

decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy decoy

Appendix A
 Appendix A
LZ A LZ B LZ C Dug In Dug In Dug In Dug In Dug In Dug In Dug In

Air and Misc Markers 2

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
99
100

4 3 3 3
Central Air Component Maritime Land
Command Command Component Component
(CENTAF) Command Command
(NAVCENT) (ARCENT)

2 3 3
Special
Operations V Corps I Marine
Command Expeditionary
Central
Force
SOCCENT

Appendix A
 Appendix A
1 1 1 1
3 rd Infantry 101 st 1 st 1 st UK
Division Airborne Marine Armoured
Division Division Division

1 2 2 1
82nd
Airborne 4th Infantry
Division Division CAOC
8 th Air Force
Prince Sultan
Barksdale
Saudi Arabia
Louisiana
101
102

3 2 2 1
Saddam R G C o rp s R G C o rp s I C o rp s
N o rth S o u th
N S
B IV II IV

1 1 1 1
II C o rp s III C o rp s IV C o rp s V C o rp s

II I I IV

Appendix A
 Appendix A
2 2 2
Northern Southern Central
al-Douri al-M ajid Q usay Hussein

IV I B

2
Fedayeen
Uday Hussein Safe House H ide Site Cave

B
103
 Appendix A

Turkey
Zakhu
DAHUK

Syria

Mosul

 Bashur

NINAWA

Arbil
ARBIL

AT TAMIM Sulaymaniyah

Kirkuk
Al Qaim SALAH AD DIN AS SULAYMANIYAH

Tikrit

H-1 Hadithah
Dam


Samarra
H-2 
Rutbah 
Khanaqin

Fallujah
Mudaysis Jct. Ba’qubah

North
Ramadi BIAP Baghdad
 DIYALA
Center

South
Aziziya
Musayyib
KARBALA
Numaniya

Kut
AL ANBAR Hillah
WASIT
Hindiyah
“The Elbow”
Kifl Afak

Najaf Qalat
Diwaniyah Sukar
QADISIYAH
OBJ Amarah
RAMS
Shatrah
AN NAJAF DHI QAR

Nasiriyah MAYSAN

Saudi Arabia Samawah

Tallil Iran
Jalibah
AL MUTHANNA
Rumaylah

Waypoint
AL BASRAH
Basrah
City Town or Objective
Zubayr

River Kurdish
Province Province
boundary boundary Um Qasr Fao
Primary Road

Critical Objective Udairi
Secondary Road Shrine City
Al Salem

Air Zone
boundary
Bridge

Kuwait

104
Syria
NINAWA
 Turkey
Zakhu
DAHUK

« Mosul

Q Bashu

Arbil
ARBIL
ur
Jordan

Rutbah
Al Qaim

H-1 Hadithah
Dam
H-2 Q
Q

Mudaysis Jct.
Ramadi
 AT TAMIM
«
Kirkuk
SALAH AD DIN AS SULA

Tikrit

m
«
Samarra

Fallujah
Ba’qubah
i Baghdad
BIAP
Q « « North DIYAL
Center
« South

Aziziya
Musayyib
 Sulaymaniyah

AYMANIYAH

Khanaqin

LA
Saudi
 AL ANBAR

AN NA

i Arabia
 KARBALA
Numaniya
Z
Hillah
Hindiyah
“The Elbow”
Kifl Afak
Z
Najaf
Diwaniyah
QADISIYAH
OBJ
RAMS
S
AJAF DHI

Na

Samawah

Tallil

Jalibah
AL MUTHANNA
a

Kut
WASIT

Qalat
Sukar

Amarah
Shatrah
QAR

asiriyah MAYSAN

Iran
h

Rumaylah
 Waypoint
City Town or Objective

Kurdish
River Province Province
boundary boundary
Primary Road
« Critical Objective

Secondary Road
Z Shrine City

Air Zone
boundary
Bridge
AL BASRAH « Basrah

Zubayr

Um Qasr Fao
Udairi
Al Salem

Kuwait
Appendix A

U n it ID C la s s S tr e n g th ta g e n d u ran ce S ta r t L o c
3 M ID 1 st B d e 1 /3 B 5 a GGYR U d a iri
3 M ID 2 n d B d e 2 /3 B 5 a GGYR U d a iri
3 M ID 3 rd B d e 3 /3 B 5 a GGYR U d a iri
I M EF 1 RC T M a r1 A 6 b GGYR A l S a le m
I M EF 5 RC T M a r5 A 6 b GGYR Al S a le m
I M EF 7 RC T M a r7 A 6 b GGYR Al S a le m
I M E F T F T a ra w a M /T rw A 6 b GGYR Al S a le m
U K 7 th A rm o u r B d e 7 A r/U K A 5 c G YYR Al S a le m
U K 1 6 th A a slt B d e 16 A 4 c G YYR A l S a le m
U K 3 C do Bde 3 A 4 c G YYR Fao
1 0 1 A b n 1 st B d e 1 0 1 /1 B 4 d G YR 2 1 -M a r
101 A bn 2nd Bde 1 0 1 /2 B 4 d G YR 2 1 -M a r
1 0 1 A b n 3 rd B d e 1 0 1 /3 B 4 d G YR 2 1 -M a r
1 0 1 A b n A vn B d e 101 A 6 d GR 2 1 -M a r
82nd A bn 1 Bde 8 2 /1 A 4 e GGYR 2 6 -M a r
1 1 A vn B d e 11 Av A 6 f GR K u w a it
173 A bn Bde 173 B 4 g G YR 2 6 -M a r
"C S O T F " S p e cO p A • s o ff m a p
S O T F -N S p e cO p A • s o ff m a p
S O T F -W S p e cO p A • s o ff m a p
S O T F -S S p e cO p A • s o ff m a p
4 M ID 1 st B d e 4 /1 A 6 h GGYR 4 -A p r
4 M ID 2 n d B d e 4 /2 A 6 h GGYR 4 -A p r
4 M ID 3 rd B d e 4 /3 A 6 h GGYR 4 -A p r
2 n d A rm C a v R g t (L ) 2AC R B 3 j G YR 6 -A p r
3 rd A rm C a v R g t 3AC R B 4 j G YYR 6 -A p r
1 K u rd ish "B d e " 1 K u rd C 3 k G YR Z akhu
2 K u rd ish "B d e " 2 K u rd C 3 k G YR A rb il
3 K u rd ish "B d e " 3 K u rd C 4 k G YR S u la y m a n iya
4 K u rd ish "B d e " 4 K u rd C 5 k G YR S u la y m a n iya

S p e c R e p G u a rd D iv SpR G d C 4 r G YR B a gh d a d C e n te r
H a m m u ra b i R G D iv H m rb i C 3 r GR B IA P
N e b u ch a d n e za r R G N b ch zr C 3 r GR K irk u k
M e d in a R G D iv M edna C 4 r G YR B a gh d a d S o u th
A d n a n R G D iv Adnn C 3 r GR T ik rit
A ln id a R G D iv A ln d a C 3 r GR B a gh d a d N o rth
B a g d a d R G D iv Bgdd C 3 r GR Kut
2 n d In f D iv I/2 D 3 m GR K irk u k
8 th In f D iv I/8 D 3 m GR K irk u k
3 8 th In f D iv I/3 8 D 3 m GR K irk u k
5 th M e c h D iv I/5 M D 4 m GR K irk u k
3 rd A rm D iv II/3 A D 4 n GR R am adi

121
122

Off-clock Players
Draw a Clock M arker Advance Time Track
M ay Spend Ops

21
9

9
M ove on-clock M obile M ove off-clock M obile
Resolve Combat
Forces Forces

Replenish Ops
Exploitation Plans Phase Dig in
Restore Disabled Nodes
Reinforcements
Replenish units
R oad to B aghdad Adm inistrative M oves
Establish FARP
S equence of Play M ode change
Air Allocation

Appendix A
 Appendix A
Road to Baghdad Time Tracks
Su M Tu W Th F Sa
19-Mar-03 Wednesday
20-Mar-03 Thursday
21-Mar-03 Friday
1
22-Mar-03 Saturday
23-Mar-03 Sunday
Begin 24-Mar-03 Monday
19-Mar-03
25-Mar-03 Tuesday
26-Mar-03 Wednesday
27-Mar-03 Thursday
28-Mar-03 Friday
2
29-Mar-03 Saturday
30-Mar-03 Sunday
31-Mar-03 Monday
Air Tasking Track 1-Apr-03 Tuesday
2-Apr-03 Wednesday
Day 1 3-Apr-03 Thursday 3
I II III IV B S 4-Apr-03 Friday
5-Apr-03 Saturday
6-Apr-03 Sunday
Day 2 7-Apr-03 Monday

I II III IV B S 8-Apr-03 Tuesday

9-Apr-03 Wednesday
10-Apr-03 Thursday 4
Day 3
I II III IV B S
123
124

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20

Coalition Force Holding Boxes

Appendix A
 Appendix A
21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

Iraqi Force Holding Boxes

125
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CRM D0010807.A2/Final