Army Analytic Wargaming

The U.S. Army conducts wargames as part of training; operations as an inherent element of the military decision-making process (MDMP); capability development (CAPDEV); concept development and experimentation; and research. The Research and Analysis Center (TRAC), a direct reporting unit to the Army Futures Command (AFC) Commander, conducts analyses that inform decisions in support of AFC, Army, Department of Defense (DoD), and Joint concept development, capabilities development, and materiel acquisition. As part of nearly every study and analytic effort a wargame(s) is conducted to examine and explore unknowns. These unknowns are those elements that are characterized by some aspect of structural indeterminacy and often include potential solutions (system capabilities, formation organization, and/or concepts/tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP)) to identified challenges and/or how to employ those solutions; conditions that may stress the proposed solutions; adversary actions that create risk; and/or emergent interactions and considerations.

Our presentation describes how TRAC conducts analytic wargaming, specifically in support of capability development and concept analysis. We will describe how we apply wargame theory to designing, developing, executing, and analyzing wargames and how wargame outputs are used to inform our high-resolution combat simulations and the range of supported analyses.

A discussion topic includes TRAC’s recently delivered capability to enhance our wargaming capabilities. This wargame suite wargame leverages wargame theory and literature, DoD and commercial best practices, subject matter expert guidance, and historical data to provide TRAC with a leading-edge wargaming capability that can examine operational impacts associated with system, organization, and TTP changes. The partially digitized functionality allows for streamlined feeds to closed-form simulations and the capture of data to enable multi-event analyses across multiple study efforts.

Mr. Paul W. Works, Jr. serves as Director, Scenarios and Wargaming Directorate (SWD), The Research and Analysis Center (TRAC) – Fort Leavenworth (TRAC-FLVN), U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC). As SWD Director, he leads a team of highly skilled military, civilian, and contractor personnel to conduct analytic wargames, develop Joint and Army scenarios, and lead analyses.

Mr. Works is TRAC's senior leader responsible for anticipating, shaping, coordinating, developing, documenting, and communicating scenarios used across the Army for capabilities development. TRAC works with other Services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Staff to support Joint scenario development. TRAC is responsible for developing and maintaining AFC Standard Scenarios used for analyses, capabilities assessments, concepts development, experimentation, and integration