II MEF Marines Apply Future Concepts in Wargame > US Marine Corps Flagship > News Display

U.S. Marines with II Marine Expeditionary Force attended the Basic Analytic Wargaming course, culminating in a wargaming scenario on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, July 18-22. The BAWC is a 5-day course that provides students with hands-on experience in designing, executing, and analyzing a wargame in an instructor-led environment.

Wargaming is a form of strategy game that simulates warfare in a realistic tabletop environment that can replicate historical military scenarios or create new ones. It helps military personnel train the mind in the art of strategic thinking as well as study real-world battles and future combat, essential to applying 21st century Marine Corps concepts.

“The idea is to bring a group of students up to speed on the war game and what it does to enable us to look at the human decision-making process,” said senior lecturer Dr Jeff Appleget. at the Naval Warfare Studies Institute and retired. U.S. Army Colonel, “which is essential for executing plans, getting ready to go into theater, and doing the things that we have to do in wartime.”

“…I learned to better understand how to think through the design of a war game…” Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Driscoll, II MEF Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans

Appleget said BAWC students learn the scope, goals and issues of the game as well as key constraints, limitations and assumptions. He went on to say that learning the war game is a crucial part of the military planning process, important to the future of II MEF and ultimately to the Marine Corps‘ implementation of Force Design 2030.

“Force Design 2030 gave us the commander’s vision,” said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Thomas Driscoll, II MEF’s deputy deputy chief of staff for plans, “what the service will be able to to provide in the future combat in terms of capabilities under certain conditions and certain capabilities, integrated into the naval force”

Wargaming was an important contributor to the annual Force Design 2030 update released in May, and is included in the Directed Actions and Areas for Further Analysis. Wargaming gives the Marine Corps insight into future operations and new concepts being developed so the force can better anticipate how to adapt to challenges that may be overlooked. “If we don’t use wargaming, we’re much more likely to be surprised on the battlefield by decisions we don’t anticipate,” Appleget said.

It is important for II MEF personnel who play a key role in decision-making or planning processes to know how to properly play the war game and use it as a tool to benefit the force in the long term, d especially as the Marine Corps positions itself to compete and win against adversaries. of the 21st century.

“II MEF is developing its wargaming capability,” said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Daniel Yurkovich, II MEF’s modeling and simulation officer. “It helps us take generally general questions and distill them into detailed questions where we can then place players in an experiential learning environment to answer questions senior leaders may have.”

Wargaming is also an essential part of the Marine Corps Learning Campaign, Marines can continue to learn in the fleet by applying maneuver warfare tactics as well as scenarios that assess alternative force concepts such as operations expeditionary amphibious base.

“As a student, I learned a better understanding of how to think about the design of a war game, which will then allow all of us students to be able to apply it to future situations and to reproduce and create new, different war games,” Driscoll said. .