Wargaming Small Wars (merged thread)

[Stevely]

Here's what's going on now with JSAF down at JFCOM. We are also looking at incorporating aspects of PMFserv into a first person shooter that already links up with JSAF through a HLA link.

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~npelecha/...V_CROWDS05.pdf

I hate to talk down our own products, but I am deeply skeptical of the utility of the "non-kinetic" models being developed here (=JFCOM) and elsewhere, like SEAS and JNEM. Creating a complex, social environment that reacts to a training audience's actions in simulation in realistic ways, is not just beyond the technology as it exists today, I don't think we understand that sort of thing mathematically well enough to model it to the degree where it could be a useful interactive training tool. Maybe it is not even possible?

"Simulation-driven exercise" (as opposed to MSEL-driven exercises) is the latest craze and is supposed to be the fruit of increasingly sophisticated behavioral modeling, but I don't think we'll see the day. Automated red/white/gray forces might work at a very tactical level (like maybe in VBS2), but at a larger scale it gets too complicated, too quickly. I am also concerned we're barking up the wrong tree if we think we can reduce complex social, cultural and political contexts and interactions to something calculable. I know the adage "all simulations are wrong, but some are useful," but improperly used simulation can also be counterproductive, because it can teach the wrong lessons and/ or breed false confidence in the assumptions underlying the models.

Simulation is excellent for creating simulated physical reality that allows training where it would otherwise be impossible or impractical in a completely live setting, but falls far short of simulating human reality.

EDIT: it is nice to see this discussed on SWC

[Ron Humphrey]

I hate to talk down our own products, but I am deeply skeptical of the utility of the "non-kinetic" models being developed here (=JFCOM) and elsewhere, like SEAS and JNEM. Creating a complex, social environment that reacts to a training audience's actions in simulation in realistic ways, is not just beyond the technology as it exists today, I don't think we understand that sort of thing mathematically well enough to model it to the degree where it could be a useful interactive training tool. Maybe it is not even possible?

Which is one reason that design should be more focused on what the audience needs to learn, then on what the sim needs to be able to replicate.

"Simulation-driven exercise" (as opposed to MSEL-driven exercises) is the latest craze and is supposed to be the fruit of increasingly sophisticated behavioral modeling, but I don't think we'll see the day. Automated red/white/gray forces might work at a very tactical level (like maybe in VBS2), but at a larger scale it gets too complicated, too quickly. I am also concerned we're barking up the wrong tree if we think we can reduce complex social, cultural and political contexts and interactions to something calculable. I know the adage "all simulations are wrong, but some are useful," but improperly used simulation can also be counterproductive, because it can teach the wrong lessons and/ or breed false confidence in the assumptions underlying the models.

Defining the scope of a programs capabilities to replicate reality would seem to always be a losing proposition. That said should the main concern with any simulation meant for training be not to replicate reality so much as to have the ability to create in those who use it a similar decision making requirement to that which they will experience in real life.

Much like raising our own children there is too often IMHO the habit of providing direction rather than guidance. By that I mean we tell them what to and what not to do in circumstances as they arrive. This may be effective in preparing them for much of what they will face but it leaves out a key component of learning. By providing solutions we infer a lack of necessity to prepare for that which is different or unplanned for. They may make the right decisions when they see similar things but when it comes down to something completely different what tools have we actually provided them with for effectively making the right choices on their own.

Yes, I realize we're talking about adults here but in order to honestly do our best to provide good tools we must be willing to recognize that which we may not like too. To often adults tend to follow the same pattern of looking for the answers rather than seeking out how to find the answers and as such there is often a repetition of bad answers since those were the ones most readily available. Precedent may be a good thing in some constructs but over all they tend to negatively reinforce bad habits just as much as they help. There is a difference between principles and prescriptions and if we don't make a concerted effort to delineate between them we will continue to fail in efforts to provide workable tools for decision making.

In relation to things becoming too complicated as the training audience gets larger, I simply ask that we consider this. Anything whole is made up of it's parts. If you can train the parts with relative efficiency why does it not follow that training the whole would be any more difficult since each of those parts still have the main requirements to fill which you train at the smaller scale.

This is what I think those who seek to teach how to think rather than what to think really are trying to get at and personally I can't see what the problem is with that.

Simulation is excellent for creating simulated physical reality that allows training where it would otherwise be impossible or impractical in a completely live setting, but falls far short of simulating human reality.

As I said true enough, just keep in mind what the learning objective actually is.

[nichols]

Which is one reason that design should be more focused on what the audience needs to learn, then on what the sim needs to be able to replicate.

This is exactly what we are doing. The requirements from TECOM are based off of Cognitive Task Analysis and T&R standards based training.

About 5 years ago we would get a sim and 'fit' it into training, today the sim has to fit the training requirement.

The drive behind that AI is for mission rehearsal on the tactical level (VBS-2 & DARPA's Real World).

[jcustis]

I just sat through a tech div brief at the Combined OAG, and that prompted me to find and download the FO sim and CAPT. Interesting tools, although there has to be a better way of navigating to a single point on the portal, and downloading one zip file that has everything. It seemed like files were saved haphazardly.

[nichols]

I just sat through a tech div brief at the Combined OAG, and that prompted me to find and download the FO sim and CAPT. Interesting tools, although there has to be a better way of navigating to a single point on the portal, and downloading one zip file that has everything. It seemed like files were saved haphazardly.

I've had a strange 'task organized' three weeks. I pulled booth babe duties on Monday for the OAG (black Trasys shirt). That Friday was booth babe duties at HMX-1 hangar for the Congressional Staffers. The week before that my boss decided to take me out of my swim lane and throw me into a completely different swimming pool. I attended a Hybrid War wargame, I ended up in Col Walters group. I was kinda hoping that he would post something in here. I pushed to get rid of the yellow footprints in bootcamp

Referencing your comment on the portal, no excuses, we need to dedicate manpower to that. We have been running it haphazardly since we took it out of the .com domain. The Tactical Language site is running pretty smoothly but, it is .com.

If you find some time pop an email to Maj Mcdonough JP, Capt Dmochowski, and myself (paul.nichols.ctr@usmc.mil). TechDiv and Trasys are getting ready for the summer PCS moves so the sooner you get this in....the better.

S/F

Paul