The Game in Action

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Tactical Training Group Pacific (TacTraGruPac) con­ducted the war-game portion of BFIT 88-2 from 21 to 24 March 1988. One of the most complicated games ever attempted on the enhanced naval warfare gaming system (ENWGS), BFIT 88-2 was a distributed game among players located at the host site. TacTraGruPac in San Diego, California, and two remote sites. Twenty-four ENWGS player stations were involved at each remote site. For this game, TacTraGruPac was augmented with three additional player stations shipped from East Coast sites. Voices from remote sites were connected through four digital, secure voice channels originating at TacTraGruPac. Data from remote sites were connected through a secure Digital Data Network.

BFIT is sponsored by Commander Third Fleet and 88-2 was last in a series of three war games, spanning the theater level to the tactical level. In the first two games, two battle groups, a Third Fleet force and a Seventh Fleet force, secured the sea lines of communi­cation and conducted follow-on power projection strikes. In this third game, the two battle groups joined forces to complete the power projection strikes and achieve air superiority in support of an amphibious landing conducted on the last day of the game. The game structure consisted of approximately 600 sea and land units, with aircraft contributing to the track count as they were launched.

Major Commanders represented in this game in­cluded Commander Third Fleet (the game’s sponsor), TacTraGruPac (the game’s host), Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, Commander Seventh Fleet, Commander Submarine Forces Pacific, Commanding General I Ma­rine Expeditionary Force, Commander Special Warfare Command, Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Group Five, Commander Carrier Group One, Commander Carrier Group Three, Commander Service Force Group One, Commander Antisubmarine Warfare Forces Third Fleet, Commander Mine Warfare Group One, Commander Amphibious Group Three, Commander Submarine Group Five, Commander Special Warfare Group One. Commander Tactical Air Control Group One, Com­mander Amphibious Squadron Five, Commander Car­rier Air Wing Fifteen, Commander Carrier Air Wing Two, Commander Patrol Wings Pacific, Commander Destroyer Squadron Seven, Commander Destroyer Squadron Seventeen, Commander Special Operations Pacific, Fleet Deception Group Pacific, Commander Mine Division Five, the USS Ranger (CV-61), and the USS Bunker Hill (CG-52). In addition, the Naval War College, Tactical Training Group Atlantic, TacTraGruPac Reserve Unit 119, and CinCPacFlt R^e' serve Unit 119 provided game-support personnel from their commands necessary for the full complement of support required for a game the size of BFIT 88-2.

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Scott A. Boorman, The Protracted Go'^[1] _ajid

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²Porter, p. 29.

cally or randomly. Suppose in a particu­lar situation the computed probability of kill (Pk) is .6. In game processing, this Pk = .6 is compared to a reference: if the Pk is greater, a kill is scored, and if less, a miss is scored. In deterministic play, the reference is fixed before the game begins, so any situation that results in a Pk greater than the reference always re­sults in a kill. In random play, the refer­ence is not fixed, but is a random number selected for each situation, and the Pk might be greater than the random refer­ence and it might not. The concept of an uncertain event permeates ENWGS, ap­plying to all phases of play—sensor de­tections, weapon employment, aircraft launch, and equipment operation.

When ENWGS acts as an impartial umpire, the game control function is smoother because the director, facili­tators, and staff make fewer decisions, and make them by exception, allowing them to devote more time to orchestrating the game. But the automatic processing aspect of ENWGS is sometimes criti­cized, because it eliminates some deci­sions that the player has had to make elsewhere and has come to regard as es­sential. With ENWGS, the approach is to eliminate details in favor of emphasizing the more complex decisions that must be made. Electronic surveillance measures bearing lines, for example, are listed on an AStaB but not displayed on the GeoTac. ENWGS assumes the correla­tion and fixing function, and presents the player with an evaluated track on the GeoTac. The lack of bearing lines on the GeoTac bothers some players but these lines represent a relatively mechanical function compared to the decisions that the player must make once the track is detected and fixed.

The second complaint the game direc­tor faces is more difficult to handle. For one reason or another, a player will bring an antiwar-gaming bias to the game. Whether the negative bias is for the game at hand or war-gaming in general, if the player possesses significant influence, he can undermine the game overtly or co­vertly. The worst occurs when the spon­sor or a valued assistant is openly antago­nistic or cavalier. Directors, however, welcome a healthy, honest, “show-me” attitude because such individuals tend to play earnestly, and the value of the game rests in earnest play.

The largest game played to date at Tac­tical Training Group Pacific has been a two dual-carrier battle force game. The smallest has been a six-submarine, four- ship antisubmarine warfare exercise preplay game that involved P-3C and S-3A shore-based aircraft. In this game.

blue submarines were played qd>^te cessfully as individually captain⁰¹¹ 1 forms.      _kj!is

The ability to test plans and while pushing a scenario to its lim^|ts’_eXj_St weapons-free environment, does in peacetime seagoing exercises- are artificialities both in the EN ^_ut game floor and in seagoing exercis⁰*^, the two complement each other. By ^ ^ sures of time, dollars, and blood °_gntfie decks, it is better to make mistakes game floor first.

York: Oxford University Press, 1969);

Elizabeth Morris, The Game of Go (New pof' American Go Association, 1951); anti Davj Th^c ter, Origins of Military Wargaming, ^Uy₀| !$• Bulletin of Military Operations Research.

No. 3, September 1987).

³Robert McQuie, What Good is a Man in Phalanx, The Bulletin of Military Op^cra[' search, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1987, pag^e

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