Combat mission - serious gaming

[db_zero]

Appreciate the response I think the fact your a CMSF Beta Tester BF may cut you a little slack

I already own the whole thing-that's why I mention the $30 dollar thing.

I have a lead finger-that's why I burn out lasers fast!

Looks like you're from what we in the states refer as "down under" An old boss from my dot-com 1 days offered me a job in Melbourne. I so badly wanted to take it, but it was a temp gig with a start-up and the year was 2006. We had a housing bubble brewing here in the states and my previous past experience in the financial industry and start-ups told me I should stay put with my secure, but less than glamorous job.

One of the few wise decisions I made. Last I heard of my old boss was he was out of work. Lost touch since.

One of these days I will visit your neck of the woods. I also hear NZ is very nice.

[gibsonm]

Ah sorry thought you were starting from scratch.

Anyway drop me a PM/email if you get some SB time.

And if you do get "down" here drop me a line (beware NZ, its overrun with Hobbits ).

[BvDijen]

Wow a lot of responses thank you,

Something I'm still very curious about is what happens "outside" of the game.

Most serious games rely on reinforcement learning where the student can preform an array of actions and sort of check the waters and after the results of the actions are in it is time for reflection. Some of my colleagues have been calling it "Plan, Play, Ponder" as a way to describe the teaching setup of serious gaming.

My questions:

- What does your classroom/setup look like?

- Is there a designated time for planning, playing and reflecting?

- (Slightly unrelated) do you use games on higher levels to train comprehensive approach and decision making?

Again the info thus far has given me quite some insight on the application of some of the war games out there.

[gibsonm]

Well for us its:

1. Plan the plan

2. Test the plan (COA Analysis) with SB

3. Refine the plan / develop branches and sequels based on the "game" outcomes.

4. Execute the plan using SB to provide the inputs at LOWCON and HIGHCON with the people who created the plan "in the box" as the training audience.

Setup varies from location to location but usually clusters for LOWCON, HIGHCON, OPFOR and Controllers.

Those "in the box" get usually one or two screens as say a UAV feed or some sort of BMS / BLUEFOR tracker / FBCB2 installation but they are issuing orders to / responding to feeds from those actually "playing".

[ScoutPL]

Not sure what sort of detail you are looking for, then again this all seems pretty obvious to me, having lived/breathed it for so long. I lose sight of the fact that I tend to spend the majority of my life in a very small subculture (military) and that there are billions of people who have no idea what we do on a daily basis.

The US military (and I think most militaries, if not corporations these days) use a very formal After Action Review (AAR) process. It doenst matter if its a week long battalion exercise in the field or a platoon in a virtual simulator. You can find all sorts of documentation on AARs by simply googling them and US Army.

For a deeper analysis look up FM 7-0 which explains the Armys training philosophy and how to plan training events https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gordon.army.mil%2FSAMC%2FDownloads%2FTrainingtheForceFM7-0.pdf&ei=vdxeU72NA6nNsATijoGwDQ&usg=AFQjCNFuQB7saT06jWAIj7PH-vH428w--g&sig2=5MKHdC8xX-zSbch6LI60IA&bvm=bv.65397613,d.cWc

I think you might be looking for more educational or business applications of wargaming but you'll have to look elsewhere (probably an entirely different website) for that. ;-)

[JohnO]

Interestingly, we almost had a diplomatic crisis on our hands toward the end and it significantly impacted our operations. Essentially the Canadian casualty rate was so high their government was threatening to end their involvement in the coalition. Since they were our only armored force (outside of the host nation) their new restrictions inhibited our ability to transition to the offense and push to the Arianan border.

Another interesting point was the enemy's ability to keep our aviation assets (particularly our AH-64s) limited to operating in our rear areas (which still had significant insurgent activity) due to their air defense umbrella. We (the USAF mainly) reduced their big radar systems but it was the smaller MANPADS systems that took our biggest tank killer off the table. We could gain superiority and reduce the threat for specific operations but it required a lot of staff work.

Just looked at the Road To War for the next exercise and it is still the same for each exercise, the 82AB will still take the Embassy and other key objectives in the major city and the Canadian armor is replace by the US armor.