Wargaming Small Wars (merged thread)

[AdamG]

For any fans of Yeats poems and Dystopian Futures, how about a War of the League of Cambrai, 21st Century style scenario?
http://www.thelocal.fr/20130930/swis...ankrupt-french

[AdamG]

China Adopts Board-Game Strategy to Blunt U.S. Pivot to Asia

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...e-in-asia.html

[Rex Brynen]

Some of the following might be of interest:

• Review of commercial wargame BCT Command Kandahar (via PAXsims)
  
• Interview with me on conflict simulation, education, and policy at the Serious Games in the Office blog
  
• Profile of wargame designer (and CIA analyst/trainer) Volko Ruhnke in the Washington Post.

[BayonetBrant]

Also a review of the commercial wargame A Distant Plain from GMT covering Afghanistan (from the aforementioned Volko Ruhnke) over here
http://grogheads.com/?p=3815

[BayonetBrant]

If anyone is heading to Columbus OH for Origins, here's the info about the Wargaming program we're putting on there

http://grogheads.com/?p=4208

[Brian Train]

CONNECTIONS 2014 Conference: August 4-7, Quantico VA

The CONNECTIONS conference on professional wargaming will be held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, August 4-7, 2014.

What it is

Connections is the only national event dedicated specifically to professional wargaming. Since 1993, the annual Connections conference has worked to advance the art, science and application of wargaming by bringing together all elements of the field (military, commercial and academic) so participants can exchange information on achievements, best practices and needs.

The theme for 2014 is “Understanding National Wargame Cultures”: a rare occasion to hear about the history and progress of professional wargaming in countries outside the United States.

Who is coming

THE Professor Thomas Schelling will be the lead keynote speaker! Thomas Schelling’s most influential works that touch on negotiation behaviours and game theory as applied to the military are The Strategy of Conflict (1960) and Arms and Influence (1966). His 2005 Nobel Prize in economics was for his work in understanding conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis. If you have spent any time studying negotiation or game theory, you will have heard of Schelling – don’t miss this chance to hear him speak!

Other featured speakers include: Dr. Peter Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming, speaking on analytical wargaming; Dr. Joe Saur and Chris Weuve on wargame design, its basics and its pitfalls; and Matt Caffrey's comprehensive briefing on the history of military wargaming.

Can I come too?

Connections is open to all contributors to the field of wargaming: military, government, defense contractor, academic, and recreational. While not open to those who purely enjoy wargames, Connections does define “contributor” broadly. Connections welcomes everyone from the most senior wargame director to the newly assigned lieutenant, from the wargame publisher to the play tester. This is an unclassified event, so you do not require a security clearance.

Parts of the conference will also be made available virtually.

How do I sign up?

Details on registration (and if you can't make it in person, how to participate virtually) are still coming. If you needed something else to help make up your mind, there will be ZERO registration fee for the conference. While there will be options to buy lunch, if you bring your own lunch and live within driving distance of Quantico this conference can literally be free!

Contacts

Consult the Connections website for agendas, content of former conferences, and registration instructions: http://connections-wargaming.com/

If you have any questions, please contact me (brian.train@gmail.com) or Matt Caffrey at MatthewBCaffreyJr@gmail.com .

Hope to see you there!

Brian Train

[Rex Brynen]

CONNECTIONS 2014 Conference: August 4-7, Quantico VA

The CONNECTIONS conference on professional wargaming will be held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, August 4-7, 2014.

...

Hope to see you there!

Brian Train

I'll be there!

[Rex Brynen]

Anyone else attending the MORS (Military Operations Research Society) 82nd annual symposium in (Alexandria, 16-19 June 2014)? There's quite a bit of wargaming (and related analytical goodness) this year, and most of the sessions are no longer classified and NOFORNed.

http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2014/06...-from-mors-82/

[BayonetBrant]

I'll be there!

sigh... I'm waiting for the day when I'm in a position to come to Connections again.

[Rex Brynen]

sigh... I'm waiting for the day when I'm in a position to come to Connections again.

Can we get an inflatable Brant Guillory to bring to the conferences? I remember the splash you made in 2012!

* * *

With the recently-announced launch of a Connections conference in Australia, this year will see no fewer than three Connections interdisciplinary wargaming conferences being convened in different parts of the world:

CONNECTIONS 2014 (the original!), Quantico Marine Corps Base (VA), 4-7 August 2014. Details at: http://connections-wargaming.com

CONNECTIONS UK 2014, King's College London, 2-4 September 2014. Details at: http://www.professionalwargaming.co.uk

CONNECTIONS AUSTRALIA 2014, University of Melbourne, 8-9 December 2014. Details at: http://www.kriegspiel.com.au/connections.html

The Connections conference is primarily for professional wargamers in the military, intelligence, foreign policy and aid communities, as well as business wargamers and others. It also includes game designers, academics, and wargame hobbyists. You'll find information on previous conferences at PAXsims:

http://paxsims.wordpress.com/?s=connections

[BayonetBrant]

another list
http://grognews.blogspot.com/p/coin-wargaming.html

and more to be found over at PaxSims

[davidbfpo]

I have merged seven threads today, which all refer to wargaming and small wars. A couple of threads refer to major wars: South China Sea and Iraq - so have been left alone.

[Rex Brynen]

One of my undergraduate students, Alex Langer, is currently designing a wargame of the Syrian civil war as a class project--you'll find a link to the instalments in his "designer diary" below. I'm sure he would welcome comments, although he is only likely to see them if they are made on the original blog posts at PAXsims: http://paxsims.wordpress.com/tag/gam...ian-civil-war/

[Rex Brynen]

One of the issues that has been casually discussed at recent professional conferences (MORS, Connections, etc.) is the small number of women within the ranks of professional national security gamers. PAXsims therefore put together a virtual panel discussion on the topic, featuring women who work in the field. You’ll find the results here:

http://paxsims.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/women-and-professional-wargaming/

[AdamG]

1000 Days of Syria is a hypertext-based historical fiction game centered on the first 1000 days of the Syrian Civil War. Created in 2014 by Mitch Swenson, it is considered to be one of the first examples of an electronic literature newsgame.[1][2][3][4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Days_of_Syria
http://1000daysofsyria.com/

[Rex Brynen]

Last week a group of us assembled at the University of Ottawa to matrix-game the current conflict concerning the self-styled “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria. For practical reasons and to limit the number of players/teams, the game largely focused on Iraq. The purpose, as with an earlier game held at the UK Defence Academy, was to explore the value and limits of matrix games as an analytical method.

You'll find a full report at PAXsims: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2015/0...e-isis-crisis/

[Rex Brynen]

It hasn't had any discussion here (yet), but back in February US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work emphasized the need to "reinvigorate, institutionalize, and systematize wargaming across the Department."

If you haven't seen the memo, there's a copy on PAXsims.

[Rex Brynen]

AFTERSHOCK: A Humanitarian Crisis Game explores the interagency cooperation needed to address a complex humanitarian crisis. Although designed for four players, it can be played with fewer (even solitaire), or more (with players grouped into four teams).

The game is set in the fictional country of Carana, but is loosely modeled on disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake:

Carana has suffered years of sometimes violent turmoil, and has only recently taken the first tentative steps to national reconciliation and reconstruction. Poverty is widespread, government capacity is weak, and political tensions remain high. Nongovernmental organizations and United Nations specialized agencies are active in the country, including a moderately-sized UN civilian police (CIVPOL) contingent.

At dawn today, a powerful earthquake struck Carana’s capital city of Galasi, causing widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure. Tens of thousands of people are in need of urgent aid and medical attention. At the request of the Government of Carana, military forces from several friendly countries—operating as the multinational Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Task Force, or HADR-TF—are en route to assist, as are additional contingents of UN and NGO personnel, together with much-needed relief supplies.

We've been using it at McGill University for a couple of years now, and recently ran several simultaneous games for the Canadian Disaster and Humanitarian Response Training Program. You'll find an AAR at PAXsims.

If anyone is interested in using it for (academic or professional) educational purposes, feel free to email me.

[Rex Brynen]

Another AFTERSHOCK AAR, this time from the Chilean Joint Peacekeeping Operations Center (which has adopted the game for HADR training):

AFTERSHOCK at the Chilean Joint Peacekeeping Operations Center

[Rex Brynen]

The Military Operations Research Society recently held a multi-day workshop on professional wargaming. You'll find an informal summary of the event at PAXsims:

workshop: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/mors-special-meeting-on-professional-gaming-aar/


course: https://paxsims.wordpress.com/2015/0...ng-the-course/