Wargame Related Acronyms and Terms
Matthew B. Caffrey Jr.
matthewbcaffreyjr@gmail.com
These are the acronyms, terms and definitions that I find useful in my professional wargaming activities:
AB: Air Base.
Adjudication: The determination of the net effect of Blue and Red’s moves as well as the determination of what Blue and Red would know of those effects.
AFTEG : Air Force Technology Exploration Game.
Analysis: The process of increasing understanding of complex subjects through a number of methods, principally by breaking a subject into constituent parts.
Analytic Wargame: A wargame designed and conducted in such a way to maximize its contribution to a larger analytic effort.
AOR: Area of Responsibility, often the theater of combat.
Assessment: Process of drawing lessons from a wargame. Distinct from adjudication.
Attrition: Loss of personnel and/or equipment. Losses are typically both permanent (for example death or sinking) and temporary (for example sickness, wounds/breakdowns, battle damage).
Attrition Warfare: Style of warfare that focuses on gaining an advantage by inflicting disproportional attrition of the adversary.
Blue Team: Friendly Forces.
Board Wargame: Wargame conducted using a map (often mounted), counters (typically cardboard), printed rules/tables, manual random number generators (dice) and a live opponent (almost always).
BOGSAT: Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table. Assessment through judgment.
CAS: Close Air Support, Joint counter land operations.
COA: Course of Action.
Comparative Game.
Comparative Simulation.
Complexity: In wargame terms complexity is the breath of factors considered.
Computer Wargame: Wargame conducted using a computer. Adjudication rules and random number generation are programed. Opponents are either generated by artificial intelligence routine or live via network.
DCA: Defensive Counter Air.
DEAD: Destruction of Enemy Air Defense.
Decision Cycle: Process followed to make and implement a decision during armed conflict.
Decision Support Wargame: A wargame designed and conducted in such a way to maximize relevance, accuracy and timeliness of insights provided to decision makers.
Design: The basic architecture of a wargame, typically includes decisions on type, scenario, complexity, granularity.
Design Elegance: Art of designing a wargame to maximizing accuracy while minimizing difficulty of execution.
Deterministic: A method of adjudication that attempts to establish the single most likely outcome. For example if Red has a 50% chance of shooting down each of 10 Blue aircraft exactly 5 aircraft will be adjudicated as being shot down.
Educational Wargame: A wargame designed and conducted in such a way to maximize effectiveness of wargame as an aid to education. Effectiveness depending on the optimum tradeoff between reticence, accuracy and time needed.
EW: Electronic Warfare.
EWR: Early Warning Radar.
FCC: Functional Combatant Commander, Joint functional command, i.e. USTRANSCOM.
Fidelity: In the fields of modeling, simulation and wargaming fidelity refers to the degree to which the modeling, simulation and wargaming reproduces the state and behavior of a real world object, process or conflict. Fidelity is therefore generally equated with realism.
Fog of War: The uncertainty of friendly, adversary and environmental conditions experienced by leaders in armed conflict.
Friction: Propensity of unexpected delays to occur during armed conflicts.
GCC: Geographic Combatant Command, Joint theater command, i.e. USCENTCOM.
Generations of War: Concept that divides the history of warfare into four generations.
Granularity: Degree of detail that considered aspects of warfare are depicted. While some equate increased granularity with increased realism there is no guarantee that the factors examined in great granularity are those most decisive to the outcome of the armed conflict under consideration.
Hexes: Hexes are six sided shapes. Both map/board and computer wargames sometimes overlay the depicted conflict area with a grid of hexes to make the calculation of movement and ranges easier.
IAP: International Air Port.
IPL: Integrated Priority List, list of needs compiled by GCCs & FCC through Wargaming.
JSCP: Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan.
Kriegspiel: German for wargame. As modern wargames originated in Prussia early wargames used around the world were often called Kriegspiels.
Levels of War: Concept that divides all warfare into three levels; strategic, operational and tactical. In general a single wargame can only depict one of these levels, as time needed for both decision cycle and events vary by level.
M&S: Modeling and Simulation.
Maneuver: The movement of military forces, typically to gain an advantage over an adversary.
Maneuver Warfare: A style of warfare in with the principle method used to gain an advantage over the adversary is maneuver.
Miniatures Wargame: Type of wargame played on a 3d model of terrain with 3d representations of the engaged forces.
Model : A static, to scale representation of reality. Examples include equations, scale maps, a small 3d version of a larger object.
Monte Carlo Adjudication: A method of adjudication that attempts to replicate the spectrum of outcomes plausible in the real world. For example if Red has a 50% chance of shooting down each of 10 Blue aircraft under Monte Carlo adjudication a random number is generated for each shot. The most frequent outcome is that 5 aircraft will be adjudicated as being shot down, but occasionally all or no aircraft will be adjudicated as lost.
Objective: The purpose for which an activity is to be conducted.
OCA: Offensive Counter Air.
OPFOR: Opposition Forces, also known as Red and/or enemy forces.
Operational Art: A military concept that holds that the skillful orchestration of can improve the outcome of campaigns.
Playability: The relative ease with which a wargame can be conducted. Wargames with low playability take a relatively long time to learn how to use and are cumbersome in execution. Wargames with good playability are quick and easy to learn and have initiatively obvious and convenient methods of execution.
Policy (War)Game: (War)games played typically at the strategic level that are designed not to gain insight into a specific situation but to help explore broad policies.
Realism: The degree to which a model, simulation or wargame matches the real world entity of interest. A one foot square map of the world can be realistic as long as all elements are correct/in scale.
Real-time: A real time wargame is one in which one minute of game time takes place during one minute of actual time. Flight simulators/air combat wargames typically run in real. The term is also sometimes applied to any wargame that runs continually even if one minute of game time represents one century of real time.
Red Cell: The wargame cell playing Red forces.
Red Team: A team of experts who attempt to find weaknesses in plans, concepts and ideas.
SAM: Surface to Air Missile, example Scud Missiles.
SEAD: Suppression of Enemy Air Defense.
SF: Special Forces.
Simulation: A model operated on over time, a to scale representation of a real world process.
Stochastic Adjudication: A method of adjudication that attempts to replicate the spectrum of outcomes plausible in the real world. For example if Red has a 50% chance of shooting down each of 10 Blue aircraft under Montecarlo adjudication a random number is generated for each shot. The most frequent outcome is that 5 aircraft will be adjudicated as being shot down, but occasionally all or no aircraft will be adjudicated as lost.
Strategy: How an objective is to be obtained.
SSM: Surface to Surface Missile.
Tactics: Methods of fighting effectively
Technology (War)Game: (War)Game designed not to gain insight into a specific situation but to help explore a spectrum of technology options. For example, in a Technology wargame one Blue team may be equipped with stealthy aircraft while a second Blue team is equipped with advanced electronic warfare capabilities.
Turn-based Wargame: A wargame in which Blue and Red can only effect the progress of the wargame at discreet times. Ideally a wargame should allow player turns at the same interval as real world decision cycles. Strategic and operational wargames typically turn-based.
White Team: Typically the adjudication team, but often includes assessment and may play higher HQs or management.
Wargame: Four definitions follow:
A simulation, by whatever means, of a military operation involving two or more opposing forces, using rules, data, and procedures designed to depict and actual or assumed real life situation. (DoD Dictionary of Military Terms)
Simulated battle or campaign to test military concepts or use. Conducted in conference by officers acting as opposing staffs.
A two-sided umpired training maneuver with actual elements of armed forces participating.
(Webster’s Dictionary)A simulation game depicting armed conflict. (AFRL Wargame Course)
A warfare model or simulation in which the flow of events shapes, and is shaped by, decisions made by a human player or players during the course of those events. (Dr. Peter P. Perla, Center for Naval Analyses)