Exploring the potential military utility of future Air Force technologies is the key objective of a wargame held Aug. 10-14 by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Maxwell's Air Force Wargaming Institute, said the chief of AFRL's Strategic Planning Branch.
"This is a virtual exercise of potential war-fighting capabilities/system concepts," Dr. Tamara Chelette said. "It is a unique wargame that allows for a good deal more creativity, and that is something we don't get to do in other wargames we are involved in."
Scott Ley, team lead for AFRL Focused Long-Term Challenge Plans and Programs, said the wargame is joint in nature, as members from many services and organizations are participating.
"We have representatives from most of the Air Force major commands; the Army, Navy and Marine Corps; and some geographic commands, and they are serving as operators of these potential new system concepts AFRL has created," he said. "We also have AFRL scientists here to serve as subject matter experts on the proposed use of the new technologies, and to learn from the operators on how to use the new systems."
Mr. Ley said the Air Force has AFRL working on "40 approved problems," and research lab personnel are applying technology to build potential warfighting capabilities to solve those problems.
"We're creating capabilities for future warfighting, and are here to explore the value of these capabilities with the users [operators]," he said.
Matt Caffrey, AFRL lead for wargaming, said he felt, as of Wednesday, the game was "going well," and one explanation might be the high level of diversity in this wargame.
"We have every service represented, and one of the reasons for being comprehensive is that we need to anticipate the capabilities of warfighting concepts," he said. "We need to have all types of warfighters because a capability designed for one service might well be useful to another service for something other than the originally intended purpose. It is easy to say joint, but much harder to truly identify opportunities for joint advantage."
Mr. Caffrey said what "breathes life" into a wargame is the players, and he is "very impressed" with players in this game because they are adding as much value to the wargame as they can. He said three goals of the wargame are: to gain insight into potential military utility; support the Air Force Futures Game; and to learn as much as possible from this exercise to make next year's game better.
Dr. Chelette said the wargame also offers a chance to "fine-tune" the concepts of operation of the warfighting concepts being played in the game. She said AFRL devotes a lot of time and effort to its new technologies before they come to the game. Another possible advantage of the wargame is that operators may find better ways to do things that are presented during the game. Dr. Chelette said AFRL members who have come to this year's event have a challenge to make the systems better.
"Something else that deserves recognition is the help we have received from Air Force Wargaming Institute personnel and the leadership at AFRL," she said. "AFWI support could not have been better, and our leadership, especially our commander Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, has been very supportive of this project. This wargame is the culmination of the work of hundreds of scientists and engineers from across AFRL over the last year."
Mr. Ley said he too wanted to thank AFWI personnel for their support of the game, as AFWI is a "fabulous facility" for hosting the wargame, and "the staff has been great" to everyone.
Mr. Caffrey said this is the second year the research lab has conducted the wargame, which will be held annually. More than 70 individuals participated in this year's event, and AFRL has received help from Air War College and Air University's LeMay Center.
Dr. Chelette said in addition to its headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, AFRL has divisions in 10 other locations and satellite operations in 40 locations around the world.
Carl Bergquist
# END
