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Wargaming at the Naval Postgraduate School

Published in Journal of Cyber Security and Information Systems
Volume: 4 Number: 3 - Modeling and Simulation Special Edition: Wargaming
Authors: Jeff Appleget, Fred Cameron, Robert E. Burks and Jeff Kline
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Resident courses

For students taking degree programs at NPS, there are several wargaming courses to choose from. Within the Operations Research Department, there is a basic course on applications of wargaming as well as a follow-on advanced course. Within the Defense Analysis Department, there are courses that provide students with a deeper understanding of the analytical value of wargaming and historical wargaming. These NPS courses stress the contribution of wargaming to decision making and problem solving. Students learn how wargames must be developed and analyzed to provide high quality material for evidence-based decision making, whether in dealing with current operations, in exploring and evaluating options for acquisition projects, or for developing new concepts and doctrine. Beyond the courses specifically on wargaming, there are numerous NPS courses on tools related to analytical wargaming, for example computer-based simulation, data collection and analysis, and statistics.

Wargaming Applications

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Fred Cameron facilitates the Zefra seminar wargame with NPS resident students as part of the Wargaming Applications course.

The Naval Postgraduate School has taught the Wargaming Applications course in the Operations Research Department for well over three decades. This 11-week course for NPS resident students focuses on analytic wargaming, which is a wargame designed to collect and analyze information from wargame play, with results that either feed directly into a decision, or are used to develop other analytic products. The course is a mixture of lecture and hands-on practical exercises designed to develop student wargaming knowledge and skills. Since 2009, the course has integrated external DoD or defense partner organizations into the fabric of the course. By the third week of the course, the students have been introduced to their sponsor, and they partner with the sponsor to begin the design process of the wargame that the students will produce for the sponsor. After the completion of formal instruction and the Wargaming Apprentice Certification Exam during the sixth week, the student teams focus solely on designing, developing, executing, and analyzing their sponsor’s wargame. This capstone wargaming project, conducted for the sponsor during NPS “Wargaming Week,” serves as the students’ final exam. While most of the wargaming sponsors have come from DoD organizations, several sponsors have been from allied or partner nations. Additionally, defense industry partners have also sponsored NPS wargames. The course is offered in the fall and spring quarters, and three to four sponsored wargames are designed, developed, executed and analyzed per student section, one section in the fall, two in spring.

Recent sponsors include the U.S. Navy’s N-96 examining the Distributed Lethality concept, U.S. Special Operations Command J-3 (International) exploring the implications of a Russian hybrid threat in the Arctic, and U.S. Central Command seeking a better understanding of the implications of Shia Militia Groups employed against ISIS in Iraq.

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The Russian Hybrid Threat wargaming players contemplate the first scenario in the Arctic during NPS “Wargaming Week”

Advanced Wargaming Applications

The Advanced Wargaming Applications course student teams create a military modeling application for an external Defense sponsor and/or an NPS Faculty advisor that will examine sponsor/advisor approved issues with more focus and depth than the initial Wargaming Applications course permitted. While that wargame was a complete, playable wargame, the time restrictions of the course didn’t allow for the design and development of advanced adjudication, data collection, or analysis tools and techniques, or the analysis of their output. The concept of this course is to start with a Wargaming Applications wargame or a suitable capstone project or thesis proposal that provides a functioning framework where these modeling techniques can be designed, developed, integrated and then used to generate output to be analyzed and documented for the sponsor/advisor as the final course project deliverables. For our defense sponsors, this provides an opportunity for student teams to continue to work on their wargame for a second, consecutive quarter.

This course was offered for the first time in the fall quarter of 2016 and has two student team successes including Remote Advise and Assist and High-Arctic thesis projects for the Defense Analysis curriculum.

Authors

Jeff Appleget
Jeff Appleget
Dr. Jeff Appleget is a retired Army Colonel who served as an Artilleryman and Operations Research analyst in his 30-year Army career. He teaches the Wargaming Analysis, Combat Modeling, and Advanced Wargaming Applications courses at NPS. He also teaches week-long Basic Analytic Wargaming Mobile Training Team (MTT) courses, with the most recent offering conducted in Adelaide, Australia for DST-Group (the Australian Government’s Defence Science and Technology organization). He is the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC) Chair of Applied Operations Research at NPS. His research interests include Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations modeling, Amphibious Operations modeling, Wargaming, Combat Modeling, and Integer Programming. He was a member of the NATO SAS-091 Specialist Team (2012 Research and Technology Organization Scientific Achievement Award winner) that developed metrics to support decisions for the transition of responsibilities from ISAF to the Afghanistan Government. His other major awards include the Richard W. Hamming Faculty Award for Interdisciplinary Achievement (2016), Army Modeling and Simulation Office Analysis Award (2011), Dr. Wilbur B. Payne Memorial Award for Excellence in Analysis (1991 and 2003), Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements, and Training (SMART) Award (2001 and 2003), and 1990 Concepts Analysis Agency Director’s Award for Excellence. He served on the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Board of Directors from 2000-2004.
Fred Cameron
Fred Cameron
Mr. Fred Cameron joined the Canadian Department of National Defence in 1974 upon graduation in mathematics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He recently retired after more than 35 years as an operational research analyst. He has since been appointed a scientist emeritus by the Centre for Operational Research and Analysis in Ottawa. During his career, Mr. Cameron provided operational research for all three Canadian military services. From 1976 to 1978 he supported NORAD in its North American air defence mission. He then spent three years in the Netherlands with NATO, with a focus on air operations in the European theatre. From 1983 to 1988 he led the OR team in Victoria, British Columbia supporting Canada’s west-coast navy, and had close collaboration with analysts at US Third Fleet on naval operations in the northern Pacific. His introduction to army problems came in 1988 with assignment to the Directorate of Land Operational Research in Ottawa. From 1998 he led an OR team in Kingston, Ontario dealing with future concepts for the Canadian Army. Mr. Cameron deployed to Macedonia and Kosovo in 1999 to provide OR support to the Commander of the Canadian Contingent in KFOR. Mr. Cameron has been an advisory director of the Military Operations Research Society since 2009.
Robert E. Burks
Robert E. Burks
Dr. Robert E. Burks, Jr. is a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis Department of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research form the Air Force Institute of Technology and a M.S. in Operations Research from the Florida Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Military Academy. He is a retired logistics Army Colonel with more than thirty years of military experience in leadership, advanced analytics management and logistics operations who served as an Army Operations Research analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, TRADOC Analysis Center, United States Military Academy, and the United States Army Recruiting Command. He has led multiple analytical study teams responsible for Army Transformation (organizational change) issues and his work includes applying analytical methods to develop solutions for complex problems in support of the Combined Arms Support Command, the Army’s sustainment think tank and premier sustainment learning institution. In addition, he has served as the technical expert on studies involving deployment, equipping, manning, training, and logistics operations of military forces in multiple theaters of operation. He currently teaches the Modeling for Decision Making and Statistics Courses at NPS. His research interests include Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations modeling, Information Operations modeling, Wargaming and Agent Based Modeling and Simulation. His recent major awards include the Military Leadership Award (2013), Joint Service Warfare Award (2013), Military Operations Research Journal Award (2011) for developing analytical methods for solving the Theater Distribution Problem, and the Omar Bradley Fellowship for the Study of Mathematical Sciences (2011).
Jeff Kline
Jeff Kline
CAPT Jeff Kline, USN (ret) is a retired naval officer with 26 years of service, two ship commands, and time as a naval analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Jeff is currently a Professor of Practice in the Operations Research department and holds the Naval Postgraduate School‘s Chair of Systems Engineering Analysis. He teaches Joint Campaign Analysis, executive risk assessment and coordinates maritime security education programs offered at NPS. Jeff supports applied analytical research in maritime operations and security, theater ballistic missile defense, and future force composition studies. He has served on several U.S. Naval Study Board Committees. His NPS faculty awards include the Superior Civilian Service Medal, 2011 Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) Award for Teaching of OR Practice, 2009 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Homeland Security Award, 2007 Hamming Award for interdisciplinary research, 2007 Wayne E. Meyers Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering Research, and the 2005 Northrop Grumman Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering. He is a member of the Military Operations Research Society and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science.

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