War Gaming is Everything: Classes from the Navy’s Golden Age of War Gaming

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The opinions and views expressed are these of the writer alone and don’t essentially characterize these of the U.S. Government, U.S. Department of War or its parts, to incorporate the Department of the Navy or the U.S. Naval War College.

A century in the past, the employees and college students on the Naval War College routinely performed battle video games as a good portion of the 11-month lengthy programs taught yearly from 1919 via 1941, the primary “golden age” of battle gaming at Newport. Ever because the finish of World War II, army leaders, analysis students, and lecturers have portrayed Newport’s interwar video games as coaching, planning, experimentation, analysis evaluation, and the whole lot in between. Characterizations of the interwar battle gaming have been chameleon-like, serving the aim and wishes of whoever is advocating for battle gaming. How ought to the Navy take into consideration these 20 years of battle gaming at Newport? More importantly, what classes ought to at the moment’s protection enterprise apply from the Navy’s battle gaming of practically a century in the past? The Navy’s interwar video games succeeded not as analytical instruments for prediction, however as experiential simulations that developed strategic pondering—“habits of mind”—making ready officers for wartime decision-making beneath uncertainty and with new applied sciences that had emerged within the pressure.

Many cite the work of the late Peter Perla to argue what is helpful about battle gaming then and now. In the mid-Nineteen Eighties, Perla positioned battle gaming within the context of a “cycle of research,” emphasizing the position of battle gaming as an evaluation device. Perla’s description of battle gaming, analysis, and evaluation is a mirrored image of his period, the pre-eminence of operations analysis and evaluation and the pc age. When evaluating Newport’s battle video games within the Nineteen Eighties, Perla wrote that battle video games “are of little use in providing rigorous, quantitative measures to ‘objectively’ prove or disprove tactical or technical theories.”^[1] What he and different battle gaming proponents advocated for was the mixing of findings and outcomes from different analysis actions with the human choice making experiences of the video games—actions that fostered technological and tactical innovation. Perla is to not be dismissed. Indeed, he understood higher than anybody the facility of battle gaming in making ready leaders for battle and informing analysis evaluation.

Nevertheless, essentially the most enduring sources to grasp this golden age of American naval battle gaming are Michael Vlahos’ The Blue Sword (1980), John Lillard’s Playing War (2014), and Norman Friedman’s Winning a Future War (2017). Each of those monographs emphasizes the inherent worth of what William McCarty Little meant for the naval officers to achieve from conducting battle on a map or “chart maneuver” as he known as it. Vlahos explains how the Newport video games created a warrior ethos within the American naval officer corps popping out of the First World War. Lillard’s historical past portrays the significance of the Newport battle gaming within the skilled army training of the officers, in accordance with the steering of Admiral William S. Sims. Friedman’s examine highlights the connections of the Newport battle video games with the Fleet issues to beat Treaty Navy limitations and produce the American fleet that fought within the Second World War. All three of those remedies provide essential analogs to the position of battle gaming for the Navy and the protection institution within the twenty first century. In quick, battle gaming was needed for constructing warrior expertise, educating naval and joint leaders conduct battle, and informing the Navy useful resource the maritime forces required for future safety challenges and battle.

War gaming then, and now, is how the U.S. Navy plans. Similar to Eisenhower’s oft quoted remark, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything,” William McCarty Little advocated battle gaming as a method to situation officers for operational battle.^[2] By 1941, the worth of the battle faculty’s use of battle gaming was plainly evident to the Navy. As head of the Navy’s Bureau of Navigation, Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz spoke to the college’s graduating class 5 days previous to Pearl Harbor. He asserted that Naval War College graduates have been “better and more useful… to the Navy, [and] able to attack [the] perplexing problems” that they may anticipate sooner or later. More importantly for Nimitz, the faculty “strengthened and regularized” reasoning, enabling its graduates to work independently, individually, and attain supporting selections that might contribute to a basic plan.^[3]

The energy of battle gaming for gamers is enduring. In the analysis enterprise, battle gaming is essentially the most human-centric exercise. Naval leaders need to battle recreation towards a vigorous, believable adversary, normally represented by essentially the most succesful staff of intelligence subject material specialists out there. Not solely do battle video games educate gamers on recognized and rising battle preventing capabilities of good friend and foe, however additionally they create “band of brothers” moments that improve understanding of commander’s intent. In impact, battle video games allow subordinates to struggle in accordance with management steering, and to include essentially the most related rising capabilities within the struggle.

As Norman Friedman explains in Winning a Future War, the interwar battle video games have been additionally vital to informing the Naval War College’s suggestions to the General Board of the Navy. Mainly via the efforts of Harris Laning, the employees and battle players at Newport systematically designed the video games, collected the outcomes, and wrote stories that knowledgeable the Navy’s General Board fleet design selections for the absolute best fleet allowed inside Treaty Navy limitations. Naval War College employees not solely performed the battle video games, however additionally they served as umpires in the course of the Fleet Problems and did obligation on the battle planning employees in Washington. Ideas about new platforms and weapon methods realized or strengthened in battle video games made their method to the fleet all through the interval.

With respect to the position of battle gaming and nationwide technique, the Navy centered on operations required to realize anticipated coverage ends. During the interwar interval, a key army goal was to be ready to defeat Japan, or no less than the Japanese navy. As early as 1920, Holloway Frost, William Pye, and Harry Yarnell promulgated the pamphlet, “The Conduct of an Overseas Naval Campaign” the place they outlined the plan for a trans-Pacific joint naval marketing campaign to defeat Japan. This doc was one of many essential underpinnings of Blue-Orange operational video games performed all through the interwar period. National technique assumptions should be the inspiration of the battle video games.

If there may be one takeaway from the Navy’s interwar expertise for at the moment, it’s to leverage the experiential deserves of battle gaming and conditioning for battle time choice making with essentially the most present capabilities. Just because the interwar video games pressured gamers to combine aerial reconnaissance, submarines, and provider aviation, at the moment’s video games pressure gamers to adapt area, cyber, and unmanned capabilities into joint warfare. Iterative battle gaming just isn’t predictive, however quite it’s illuminating, a supply of paths to failure and paths to success. Newport’s battle video games produced leaders able to preventing and successful a battle basically totally different from what they’d anticipated. Those battle video games enabled the American custom of improvisation throughout battle, creating leaders with the “habits of mind” to adapt doctrine, expertise, and the fleet to beat the unpredictable challenges of battle. Through battle gaming, the Navy can do that also.

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^[1] Peter P. Perla, “A Guide to Navy Wargaming,” Center for Naval Analyses Report 118 (May 1986) 12.

^[2] 1958, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, Remarks on the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference, Date: November 14, 1957, Start Page 817, Quote Page 818, Published by the Federal Register Division, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Washington, D.C. (HathiTrust Full View) link.

^[3] December 2, 1941. Address by Bureau of Navigation Chief at commencement, by Chester W. Nimitz, RG16_02_05_05. Naval War College Archives.

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Dr. Jon Scott Logel is a professor within the War Gaming Department of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies on the United States Naval War College. Since becoming a member of the War Gaming Department school in 2011, he has centered his analysis on the usage of historic strategies in battle recreation evaluation for gaining insights into maritime and joint operational points. Specifically, he has collaborated in qualitative analysis and analytical tasks which have knowledgeable the Navy’s growth of future naval warfighting ideas, and the drafting of operational plans to deal with present and rising threats. He is the writer of Designing Gotham: West Point Engineers and the Rise of New York, 1817-1898, co-author of a number of white papers and chapters on battle gaming and evaluation, and a number of battle recreation stories. He served twenty-one years as an Army Aviation officer, together with fight deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. He holds B.A. from Wake Forest University and Ph.D. from Syracuse University.