How Did We Play?For those interested, the games used are all part of GMT’s Next War Series, designed by Mitchell Land and Greg Billingsley. I have found these commercial games are far more sophisticated and truer to what we expect future combat to look like than anything being used by RAND, which employs rules and methods designed for Simulations Publication, Inc. (SPI) games in the 1970s. But they are not alone in this, as most of the Department of Defense’s wargaming community is decades behind commercial game publishers when it comes to designing realistic games. In fact, if I was to fault the Next War series for anything, it is that it may be overly realistic and therefore very complex and difficult to master, and time consuming to play. Thankfully, the designer has agreed to produce a simplified rule-set that will allow for more student iterations without sacrificing realism.The War College was also ably assisted by Col. Tim Barrick and Mark Gelston from the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Wargaming Division, and by some folks from the local gaming community who were indispensable in helping with the mechanics of each game, allowing the students to focus on operational and strategic decision-making.
Very cool read