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Operational Needs For Wargaming�An Overview

Col Matt Caffrey

Information Directorate

Air Force Research Laboratory

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Overview of Overview

  • Why
  • Total Need Space?
  • Operational (Applied) Wargame Needs
  • Strategic Needs
  • Operational Needs
  • Tactical Needs
  • The Need Capability Gap

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Why

  • Picture of full elephant puts more detailed descriptions in context.
  • In our case may help to identify:
    • Basic and applied research tasks common to multiple applications
    • Opportunity to develop application to meet multiple needs
    • Opportunity of spiral development that meets different needs each spiral

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Total Need Space?

Level

Education & Training

Operational/ Decision

Strategic

  • Apply all elements of national power to resolve crisis/conflict
  • Understand long term impacts of budget decisions
  • Forecast impact of all elements of national power on crisis/conflict
  • Understand long term impacts of budget & tech decisions

Operational

  • Apply service and Joint military power to achieve campaign end state
  • Better understand historical campaigns
  • Develop and compare Courses of Action (COA) in both the Crisis action Planning (CAP) and Deliberate Planning environments
  • Evaluate individual ATOs

Tactical

  • Employ all aircraft types to achieve synergistic effects
  • Apply combined arms and joint concepts
  • Understand air base ops
  • Plan aircraft routs/packages
  • Develop plan to maximize sortie generation in hostile environment
  • Develop plan to defend base
  • Plan service & joint battles

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Total Operational/Decision Need?

Level

Operational/ Applied

Strategic

  • Forecast impact of all elements of national power on crisis/conflict
  • Understand long term impacts of budget & tech decisions

Operational

  • Develop and compare Courses of Action (COA) in both the Crisis action Planning (CAP) and Deliberate Planning environments
  • Evaluate individual ATOs

Tactical

  • Plan service & joint battles
  • Plan aircraft routs/packages
  • Develop plan to maximize sortie generation in hostile environment
  • Develop plan to defend base

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Decisions At The Strategic Level

  • The Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan, JS’s strategic lever in the near term
    • Wargaming impact of allocations on all theaters
    • Depicting all elements of national power
  • The Budget, “the DOD budget is the ATO for the military strategic level.”
    • Title 10 wargames – future impacts of today’s decisions

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Decisions at the Operational Level

  • Selecting best course of action (COA) at both the Joint and component levels
    • During deliberate planning time is relatively plentiful, uncertainty is high and level of detail is great
    • During crisis action planning, time is short, uncertainty is somewhat lower and the need for detail somewhat less.
  • Evaluate individual Air Tasking Orders (ATOs)

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Decisions at the Tactical Level

  • Plan service & joint battles
  • Plan aircraft routs/packages
  • Develop plan to maximize sortie generation in hostile environment
  • Develop plan to defend base

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The Need Capability Gap

Strategic

Operational

Tactical

Physics Based

One on One

Few on Few

Many on Many

Models

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The Need Capability Gap

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Strategic

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Operational

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Tactical

Today

Contribution of 3rd Gen WG

Strategic

Operational

Tactical