Description
The Craft of Wargaming is designed to support supervisors, planners, and analysts who use wargames to support their organizations' missions. The authors focus on providing analysts and planners with a clear methodology that allows them to initiate, design, develop, conduct, and analyze wargames. Built around the analytic wargaming construct, organizations or individuals can easily adapt this methodology to construct educational and experiential wargames.
The book breaks the wargame creation process into five distinct phases: Initiate, Design, Develop, Conduct, and Analyze. For each phase, the authors identify key tasks a wargaming team must address to have a reasonable chance at designing, developing, conducting, and analyzing a successful wargame. While these five stages are critical to the process of constructing any wargame, it should be understood that the craft of wargaming is learned through active participation, not by reading or watching. This craft must be practiced as part of the learning process, and the included practical exercises provide an opportunity to experience the construction of an analytical wargame.
The authors also discuss critical supervisory tasks that are essential to manage the wargaming team's efforts. While the creators are focused on the design and development of the game itself, supervisors must set conditions for the wargame to be a success (best practices) and beware of the pitfalls that may set the wargame up to fail (worst practices). The book demonstrates using the analytical wargaming framework to create relevant and useful planning wargames. It also reinforces using the analytical wargaming framework for seminar wargames that, without rigor, are useless. The book demonstrates the benefits of using the analytical wargaming process to design educational and experiential games.
About the Author
COL. Jeff Appleget, USA (RET.), raised in Vermont, graduated from West Point in 1979. Jeff served as an artillery officer and an operations research analyst, providing analytic support for combat operations and acquisition programs. Upon his retirement from the Army in 2009, Jeff joined the Naval Postgraduate School's Operations Research Department faculty, where he teaches wargaming and combat modeling.
COL. Robert Burks, USA (RET.), raised as an Army brat, enlisted in the Infantry in 1982 and spent more than 30 years serving the country. He retired from military service in 2013 and joined the Naval Postgraduate School where he has focused on teaching quantitative methods and wargaming to Special Operation Forces students from around the world.
Fred Cameron served as a civilian analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defence for over 35 years. For nearly a decade he has been teaching analytical wargaming in courses provided by the Naval Postgraduate School. He resides on Vancouver Island.
Reviews
For the past three decades the professional wargaming community around the world has been wrestling with a debate on the very nature of wargaming. Is it art or is it science? In this book Professor Appleget and his colleagues have cast new light on the issue. They make a cogent argument that, art or science, the design and creation of wargames is a craft--a craft which anyone with perception, patience, and practice can learn to apply productively to professional problems requiring the exploration and understanding of human decision making under the stress of both cooperation and conflict. As a handbook for learning and engaging in this craft, The Craft of Wargaming deserves a place in the library of every serious wargamer." --Peter P. Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming, Principal Research Scientist, Center for Naval Analyses "A must read primer on the craft of war gaming. From the initiate through to senior Commander's this 'how to' text should be in every military school house and training establishment library. However, its applicability goes well beyond the military context and its simple instruction can be easily adapted to first responders, crisis management, the UN and NGOs, and even business." --Maj. Gen. (rtd) Dave Gawn, MBE; former Commander Joint Forces and Chief of Army, New Zealand; former Head of Mission UNTSO "Drawing on their unrivalled experience teaching wargame design and delivery, Jeff, Rob and Fred present a coherent and comprehensive guide that is essential reading for any practitioner of professional wargames, whether analytical, educational or experiential." --Graham Longley-Brown, author of the UK MOD Wargaming Handbook and Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner's Handbook "The analytical war game is a vital tool in the arsenal of the military planner who faces no greater challenge than determining the concepts and capabilities required in a rapidly changing global environment. The Craft of Wargaming is a must read for any military leader sponsoring or developing analytical war games." --Lieutenant General Michael K. Jeffery (Ret.); former Commander Canadian Army
Book Information
ISBN 9781682473764
Author Robert Burks
Format Hardback
Page Count 376
Imprint Naval Institute Press
Publisher Naval Institute Press
Weight(grams) 733g
Dimensions(mm) 231mm * 154mm * 33mm
The book breaks the wargame creation process into five distinct phases: Initiate, Design, Develop, Conduct, and Analyze. For each phase, the authors identify key tasks a wargaming team must address to have a reasonable chance at designing, developing, conducting, and analyzing a successful wargame. While these five stages are critical to the process of constructing any wargame, it should be understood that the craft of wargaming is learned through active participation, not by reading or watching. This craft must be practiced as part of the learning process, and the included practical exercises provide an opportunity to experience the construction of an analytical wargame.
The authors also discuss critical supervisory tasks that are essential to manage the wargaming team's efforts. While the creators are focused on the design and development of the game itself, supervisors must set conditions for the wargame to be a success (best practices) and beware of the pitfalls that may set the wargame up to fail (worst practices). The book demonstrates using the analytical wargaming framework to create relevant and useful planning wargames. It also reinforces using the analytical wargaming framework for seminar wargames that, without rigor, are useless. The book demonstrates the benefits of using the analytical wargaming process to design educational and experiential games.
About the Author
COL. Jeff Appleget, USA (RET.), raised in Vermont, graduated from West Point in 1979. Jeff served as an artillery officer and an operations research analyst, providing analytic support for combat operations and acquisition programs. Upon his retirement from the Army in 2009, Jeff joined the Naval Postgraduate School's Operations Research Department faculty, where he teaches wargaming and combat modeling.
COL. Robert Burks, USA (RET.), raised as an Army brat, enlisted in the Infantry in 1982 and spent more than 30 years serving the country. He retired from military service in 2013 and joined the Naval Postgraduate School where he has focused on teaching quantitative methods and wargaming to Special Operation Forces students from around the world.
Fred Cameron served as a civilian analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defence for over 35 years. For nearly a decade he has been teaching analytical wargaming in courses provided by the Naval Postgraduate School. He resides on Vancouver Island.
Reviews
For the past three decades the professional wargaming community around the world has been wrestling with a debate on the very nature of wargaming. Is it art or is it science? In this book Professor Appleget and his colleagues have cast new light on the issue. They make a cogent argument that, art or science, the design and creation of wargames is a craft--a craft which anyone with perception, patience, and practice can learn to apply productively to professional problems requiring the exploration and understanding of human decision making under the stress of both cooperation and conflict. As a handbook for learning and engaging in this craft, The Craft of Wargaming deserves a place in the library of every serious wargamer." --Peter P. Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming, Principal Research Scientist, Center for Naval Analyses "A must read primer on the craft of war gaming. From the initiate through to senior Commander's this 'how to' text should be in every military school house and training establishment library. However, its applicability goes well beyond the military context and its simple instruction can be easily adapted to first responders, crisis management, the UN and NGOs, and even business." --Maj. Gen. (rtd) Dave Gawn, MBE; former Commander Joint Forces and Chief of Army, New Zealand; former Head of Mission UNTSO "Drawing on their unrivalled experience teaching wargame design and delivery, Jeff, Rob and Fred present a coherent and comprehensive guide that is essential reading for any practitioner of professional wargames, whether analytical, educational or experiential." --Graham Longley-Brown, author of the UK MOD Wargaming Handbook and Successful Professional Wargames: A Practitioner's Handbook "The analytical war game is a vital tool in the arsenal of the military planner who faces no greater challenge than determining the concepts and capabilities required in a rapidly changing global environment. The Craft of Wargaming is a must read for any military leader sponsoring or developing analytical war games." --Lieutenant General Michael K. Jeffery (Ret.); former Commander Canadian Army
Book Information
ISBN 9781682473764
Author Robert Burks
Format Hardback
Page Count 376
Imprint Naval Institute Press
Publisher Naval Institute Press
Weight(grams) 733g
Dimensions(mm) 231mm * 154mm * 33mm
