Enabling Wargamers

Matt Caffrey

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https://sites.google.com/view/matthew-b-caffrey-jr

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Connections 2021

Individuals Have Impact

• The ACE Factor
• Most aircraft shot down by a few pilots
• Most ships sunk by a few sub skippers
• Most casualties inflicted by a fraction of your soldiers
• Turning Around Vietnam Air to Air losses
• Red Baron Study & The Hoyt Report
• Top Gun

Medal of Honor Pilot Richard Bong by P-38J-15- LO Lightning 42-103993 named Marge

Initial Training for Wargamers

• Air Force Material Command Wargame Course
• Tailored for spectrum of audiences
• Leaders
• Wargame consumers (Strategists, Planners, Budgeteers)
• Innovators
• Wargame Participants
• Wargame Aos
• Wargame creators
• Spectrum of attendance options
• Live
• Remote
• Test live online/self paced video hybrid

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Initial Training for Wargamers

• Air Force Material Command Wargame Course
• Dates
• 101 live/remote 21 – 23 September
• 101 video/remote 29 September
• 201 live/remote 5 – 7 October
• Naval Postgraduate School
• In-residence
• Mobile Training
• MORS Certificate Program

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Image from https://nps.edu/web/eag/air-force-helps-incorporate-operational-energy-into-wargaming

Initial Training for Wargamers

• US Naval War College
• US Naval Academy
• US Army Command & General Staff College
• USMC Command & Staff College
• Georgetown University, DC
• King’s College London
• McGill University, Montreal

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Image from https://nps.edu/web/eag/air-force-helps-incorporate-operational-energy-into-wargaming

Maintaining > Increasing Proficiency Connections

Origin Story

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It was the eve of Christmas Eve 1992…

(click hotlink above for Origin Story text)

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Col Warden’s Concerns

• Wargaming to develop strategies
• Indirect effects ignored
• Human factors ignored
• Effective plan shown as ineffective
• Wargaming to develop strategists
• To much time learning interface, too little learning strategy
• Same areas ignored
• “Distraining” equivalent in education

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Colonel Warden as Commandant of the Air Command and Staff College (1992)

Solutions

• Commercial interfaces effective
• Each service doing somethings right
• No one going everything right

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• What can we do?
• A conference to cross tell best practices?
• OK, (next question)

Our inspiration

Initial Plans

• Mission: Advance the art, science and application of wargaming
• Annual Conference
• Invitational orders to key wargame innovators
• Target audience – wargame practitioners
• Multi disciplined – areas not wargamed or not wargamed well
• Especially airpower
• Hollywood connection
• 365/24 website reference and connector

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The first Conference

Airpower Education & Wargaming Conference

• 1993
• Sponsor, Air University Commander
• Host, ACSC
• Maxwell AFB, Alabama
• 63 participants
• All services
• Dr. Peter Perla & all stars from popular wargaming; James Dunnigan, Dr Al Nofi, Joseph Miranda and many more

The Air University Years

• Great Command support
• AU Commander (Lt Gen) opened conference
• ACSC Commandant signed invitations
• Many innovations
• 1996, “First Timers” program, Demo Night
• 1997, Co-host with Wargaming Institute, Demo Night
• 1998, Bigger Demo Night, Game Night
• 2002, Working Groups, Demo Afternoon

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The Traveling Conference

2003 AFRL Information Dir, Rome NY

2004 AF Modeling and Simulation Agency

2005 AFA*

2006/8 Concurrent w. Defense M&S Conf

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Others included NDU, AFRL, USMC, AWC, Lemay Center Wargaming Institute

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2020 USMC 🡪CNA

2021 USA CGSC live then virtual

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Going International

• 2013 1st Connections UK
• 2014 1st Connections OZ (Australia)
• 2015 1^st Connections NL (Netherlands)
• 2017 1^st Connections North (Canada)
• 2020 1^st SGC/Connections France
• 2020 Only Connections US/Connections Global
• 2021 1^st Connections Online

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Interest expressed in; Connections Nordic, Connections South (Brazil) & Connections Japan

Connections addresses a deficiency that goes back to the Air Corps Tactical School, unlike the other services there has not been a good educational wargame on airpower. Each of the last three commandants have addressed this deficiency. General Brooks may have said it best, “We need wargames as comprehensive as our curriculum.

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Yet how do we fix this problem, Col Warden saw the conference as a way to bring in leaders in military and commercial wargaming, so they could learn from each other. We would also bring in subject matter experts in areas normally not modeled or not modeled well - like aerospace power.

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The go decision for the conference that became Connections was given in December of 1992. Air University became the official sponsor for Connections before the first conference was held in Spring of 1993. CADRE has co-hosted Connections with ACSC since 1997. They have added a lot, principally Demo Night the most popular event of the Conference.

Continuity and Innovation

• Mission: Advance and sustain the art, science and application of wargaming
• Annual Conferences
• Keynotes & Speaker Panels
• Game Demo, Night, & Showcase
• Working Groups/workshops & Game Labs
• 24/7 Websites & Facebook communities
• Info from previous conferences
• Links to sister conferences
• References; glossary, Guide to learn more
• YouTube Channel Cx_Wargaming

Benefits from Connections

• For DoD:
• Educated Participants
• Advances in Art & Science
• New Applications
• Year-Round Reference
• For Host:
• Specific Issue Addressed by Community
• Outreach to Wargame Community

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Crouching Figure of Atlas

1481–1536

Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi Italian

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/340471

Connections is not a formal organization but a community of volunteers whose vocation and/or avocation is the improvement of wargames.

Conclusion

• Wargaming increases our chances of military success while reducing the cost in lives, time and treasure – for the side that wargames more effectively
• Connections conferences increases the odds it will be the US, our allies and friends who wargame more effectively

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