How do you physically challenge Marines and sailors, test their cognitive capacity when fatigued, train them to make decisions under duress, all while teaching them the principles of maneuver warfare?
Achieving this goal requires a think-and-fight drill. Such drills integrate physical fatigue, complex decision-making, and an opponent acting against you in real time. Popularizing think-and-fight drills across the services will increase the ability of personnel to rapidly assess information in chaotic environments, make sound decisions when under duress, and apply violence of action in pursuit of victory.
There are many ways to design of think-and-fight drills, but one that has proven to be successful, engaging, and fun is a competitive event called “maneuver chess.” In short, each team races through a physically challenging course to make their move at a chess board.
The kick is this: You don’t take turns. Instead, you make moves as rapidly as you can get a team member through the course and to your chess board. In addition, you must play at more than one board, creating a dilemma regarding on which board each team should focus its efforts. Points are won by capturing pieces, but decisive points are earned via checkmate. Additional rules add opportunities for observing the boards and coordinating efforts, challenging a team to figuratively shoot, move, and communicate. Ultimately, team members aim to both physically and cognitively outmaneuver one another. By applying these simple principles to unit training, Marine Corps and Navy leaders can cheaply and effectively train their personnel to rapidly make sound decisions during combat operations.
Training Elements and Design
Maneuver chess, and think-and-fight drills like it, aim to simultaneously achieve several objectives in a single training event. The intent of such a drill necessarily informs its design. So, these elements must be present to build an effective think-and-fight drill:
Physical challenge. Like so many training events in the military, think-and-fight drills are physically demanding and build toughness and endurance required for sustained combat operations. But success demands far more than physical toughness; sailors and Marines must think, decide, and act while fatigued, and while the environment and the enemy are working against them. It is easy to make decisions when well rested, but difficult to do so when under internal and external duress. Think-and-fight drills thus require a physically demanding element as the base around which the rest of the event is designed—but it is merely the base by which to impose fatigue onto decision-makers. The physical element alone is not decisive.
Cognitive challenge. Think-and-fight drills must include a cognitively complex task, one that requires a rapid assessment of information linked to a required decision.
Contrast this with Kim’s Game, or “Keep In Mind” Game—a commonly employed drill in military formations in which participants are briefly exposed to a set of random items they must commit to memory. After performing a physical task, players are then evaluated on their ability to remember what they saw. This requires memorization and recall while fatigued, but it is not a complex task, requires no decisions, and lacks an adversarial component.
In contrast, integrating chess demands that competitors rapidly assess the position of their pieces (or friendly forces) relative to their opponent’s pieces (or enemy forces), and make a move (or decision) that best advances them toward victory. Still, this only combines a physical and a mental task in a turn-based environment. The think-and-fight drill is not yet fully formed.
Real-time enemy action. Adversarial play in real time is what truly brings the think-and-fight drill together. Just as calm seas make poor sailors, training without an active adversary simulation makes poor warfighters. The drill designer must include an element that allows each team to maneuver in real time against the other, such that speed and tempo can generate more opportunities for decision-making—a fundamental aspect of war’s nature, and a key element of the Marine Corps’ maneuver warfare philosophy.
A well-designed think-and-fight drill integrates a physical challenge, a complex cognitive challenge, and adversarial action in the form of a live, active opponent. The military is full of drills that integrate physical training with a mental task—again, the Kim’s Game is a classic example—but such events test only simple cognitive functions under physical duress and lack an adversary component. Think-and-fight drills require physical, cognitive, and real-time adversary components. Maneuver chess is one example of a fully developed think-and-fight drill.
The Rules of Maneuver Chess
Setup. Assume a single Marine battalion or squadron is organizing the event, with teams composed of Marines from each company—Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Headquarters companies. Each team may select a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 competitors to assign to their team.
The event is built around a physical training circuit course. One lane is assigned to each company, with five exercise stations in each lane. At the start of the course, each company also is assigned three ammo cans. Each exercise station is separated by ten yards along the lane, with lanes and stations clearly marked. Stations one through five are completed by executing the following exercises: Station one = 10x ammo can pushups; station two = 10x ammo can squats; station three = 10x ammo can push-presses; station four = 10x ammo can lunges; station five = 10x ammo can burpees.
At the end of the circuit course, four chessboards are set up on tables. Each company is assigned one board on which they play as the white pieces, and one on which they play as the black pieces. Company positions are marked via an easily visible indicator in front of each board in this fashion: At board one, Alpha is white and Bravo is black; at board two, Bravo is white and Charlie is black; at board three, Charlie is white and Headquarters is black; and at board four, Headquarters is white and Alpha is black.
Each company also must assign a referee to each board to proctor the games. A designated scorekeeper to tally scores at the end of the game also should be assigned.
Finally, each company also must select a forward observer, who will begin play staged near the chessboards and operate as described below.
Competitors will line up by company at the start of their lanes, prior to execution.
Entering the circuit course. On the command “begin,” companies send their first competitor onto the circuit, carrying one ammo can. Competitors cannot enter the course without an ammo can. The next competitor from each company may begin the circuit with an ammo can once they observe the prior competitor from their company complete the third station. Competitors must complete all assigned exercises at each station before progressing to the next station.
Chessboard movement. Once a competitor completes the final station in the circuit course, they may progress to any of the two chessboard positions assigned to their company and make a move. They do not have to wait for their opponent to move in the typical turn-based rules of chess; they may make moves as quickly as they can get competitors to one of their board positions. If an illegal move is made and the competitor leaves the chessboard area without correcting their move, the referee will move that piece from the board as “fratricide”: The piece is forfeited, and points are awarded to the other team as though it were captured. Should a competitor move the opposite team’s piece and leave the chessboard area without correcting themselves, referees will move the piece back and that competitor’s move is forfeited.
Sustaining the starting position. On completing their move, competitors run to the starting position at the beginning of the circuit course and restage their ammo can before returning to the end of their company’s line, prepared to move through the course again when they return to the front of the line. With an ammo can returned as “sustainment,” another competitor is postured to enter the circuit course.
Forward observers. Forward observers can observe chessboards and move about freely within their company’s lane. They may not interfere with a competitor’s ability to negotiate the circuit. They may communicate with competitors in their company, recommending moves and on which board to move. However, once a competitor exits the circuit course, the forward observer can no longer communicate with them and should focus on communicating with the next competitor en route to the boards. Forward observers who violate these restrictions are targeted and “killed.” They are eliminated from play and that company loses their forward observer for the duration of the event.
Checkmate. If a checkmate occurs, no more moves can occur on that board—the board is eliminated from play. Referees will complete scoring for that board, consolidate scoring with the scorekeeper, and prevent further use of that board.
Duration. This evolution will last 30 minutes or once all boards have been eliminated from play via checkmate, whichever happens first.
Scoring. Scoring will assign points per captured pieces per traditional chess values: Pawn = 1, knights/bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9. A checkmate awards 50 points to the company that won that board. Companies will each have a single score inclusive of points for all captured pieces and all checkmated boards.
Scoring Example: On one board, Alpha company got a checkmate (50 points), but also captured one pawn (1 point), one bishop (3 points), and one knight (3 points), for a total of 57 points on board one. On another board, Alpha company lost the game, but also captured three pawns (3 points), one knight (3 points) and one rook (5 points), for a total of 11 points on board two. Their total score, for both boards, would be 57 + 11 points, or 68 points.
Victory. The company with the highest number of points is the winner. In the event of a tie, each tying company will choose one competitor and they will race through the ammo can agility circuit, with the Marine finishing first declared the winner.
Variations. This set-up can be varied as needed to suit individual unit needs. The circuit course and the exercises within it can be tailored with different exercises and repetitions. The circuit course could be replaced instead by a requirement to complete a Marine Corps obstacle course or sprinting one lap around a track. To tie in the physical fitness of the rest of the unit, another event for those not competing in the maneuver chess portion of your event might need to complete another evolution during which points can be gained or lost, such as a battalion run at a set pace when personnel who are run stragglers or run drops cause point deductions for their team’s overall score. In this option, the entire unit must figuratively ‘fight to get to the fight’, while illustrating through point deductions that even individual deficiencies will adversely impact the strength of the team.
While these are the essential elements, an example letter of instruction, with enclosures and a diagram, are available for download here.
Think, Fight, Win
Military units abound with small-unit physical training events, and personnel train to tactical and technical standards they must apply in combat operations. But all too often, these elements are divorced from each other, while the presence of a notional enemy in training is absent. While force-on-force training exercises may not be feasible to conduct as frequently as desired, leaders can simulate all the combat elements: physical fatigue, cognitive challenges, and real-time enemy action.
These elements can be combined cheaply and feasibly, allowing regular execution, via think-and-fight drills. One such example, provided here, is maneuver chess. Through think-and-fight drills such as maneuver chess, leaders can train their personnel to rapidly make sound decisions while under duress and in competition with a live, thinking opponent to generate tempo and outcycle the enemy. This is vital to training forces to fight in accordance with the nature of war, and essential to building a culture that values initiative, tempo, and violence of action.
