About Wargaming

The auditorium is equipped with high definition projectors, video teleconferencing capability, and a large floor that can double as as an additional game cell or can hold a 25 foot by 40 foot map to conduct a Rehearsal of Concept Drill. The gaming cells can host over 400 computer stations that can be linked to one of four self contained networks. The gaming cells also have the capability to broadcast video teleconferences throughout the facility or externally to a worldwide audience. All gaming cells are capable of being secured during classified events. The Joint Command Center is the largest of the game cells and can host over 100 stations and contains a state of the art multifaceted projection system.

William McCarty Little (1846-1915) served the Naval War College for thirty years and made a lasting contribution. As a lieutenant who lost the sight of one eye, he had been forced to leave the active service. He offered his unpaid services as a volunteer staff member to Admiral Luce in the first year of operation and established the College’s first small library. He introduced war gaming to the College in 1886 and went on to become the College’s and the U.S. Navy’s first expert in naval wargaming. In 1903, Congress recognized his unparalleled contributions to the Naval War College by a special act that promoted him from lieutenant to captain and permanently assigned him to the faculty of the Naval War College. He remained on the faculty continuing to develop naval wargaming until he retired in January 1915. McCarty Little Hall was named in his honor in 1999.

Check out these links to view some of his writings:

• Strategic Naval War Game
• War Games - 1901
• War Games - 1902
• War Games - 1905
• Registry of Papers

Since William McCarty Little’s retirement, the War Gaming Department at the Naval War College has had 103 directors or chairmen. Until 1960, wargaming at the Naval War College was separated into tactics, strategy, and education; each led by a separate director. It wasn’t until 1960 that the name “War Gaming Department” was used, forming its own department and establishing the chairman position. The Wargaming Chairman provides overall leadership and management for all aspects of wargaming operations including internal and external generated requests, curriculum support, long-range departmental goals, and faculty recruitment and development. The chairman maintains close relationships and partnerships with peers and senior leadership in support of the Naval War College mission, educating future leaders and helping to define the future Navy.

The spirit of LT McCarty Little is embodied in our faculty of prominent scholars and leading practitioners from around the world. Their commitment to exceptional teaching and innovative research brings intellectual rigor as well as practical experience into our classrooms and game rooms at the Naval War College. Approximately 40 civilian and military faculty members serve as the core team of gaming professionals. Our faculty is supported by a unique, highly-skilled team of gaming technicians and enlisted Navy personnel. In addition to tackling tough, complex problems for various sponsors through wargaming, faculty provide an educational value to students through the teaching of war gaming theory and practice, as well as executing operational level student games.

There are a variety of definitions for a war game. Joint Publication 1 defines a war game as: "A simulation, by whatever means, of a military operation involving two or more opposing forces, using rules, data, and procedures designed to depict an actual or assumed real life situation."

Peter Perla, author of "The Art of Wargaming", defines it as: "A warfare model or simulation that does not involve the operations of actual forces, in which the flow of events affects and is affected by decisions made during the course of those events by players representing the opposing sides." Frank McHugh, naval wargaming expert, offered: "A simulation of selected aspects of a military operation in accordance with predetermined rules, data and procedures to provide decision making experience, or decision making information that is applicable to real world situations."

The common thread through these and other definitions is that war games involve PEOPLE making DECISIONS in a context of competition or CONFLICT (with themselves, other people, or their environment).

War games at the Naval War College are used for two broad purposes: educational games are used to provide players with decision-making experience and illustrate "teaching points," while analytic games seek to obtain information and data that will assist in future decision-making and provide insights into war fighting and policy issues. War games are useful for investigating processes, organizing ideas, exploring issues, explaining implications and identifying questions. As a learning tool, war games can help to organize information and improve understanding, explain how and why events unfold, and explore "what we didn't know we didn't know" through discovery learning. However, war games do NOT calculate outcomes, prove theories, predict winners, validate concepts or produce quantitative data.

According to William McCarty-Little, who introduced wargaming to the Naval War College in 1887, a war game's power "...lies in the existence of the enemy, a live, vigorous enemy in the next room waiting feverishly to take advantage of any of our mistakes, ever ready to puncture any visionary scheme, to haul us down to earth."

There is often confusion as to what is and what isn't a war game, as there is no universally accepted definition. At the Naval War College, we consider an exercise to be an activity designed to rehearse or practice, with actual forces or assigned staff, specific sets of procedures. Similarly confusing is the term 'seminar': an event with the primary goal of presenting, exchanging, discussing and/or gaining information. 'Seminar' and 'seminar game' are often incorrectly interchanged. A seminar event might use a round table discussion, a panel of experts, a single presenter with Q&A, or a game format. The extent to which the game "play" directly contributes to the seminar's objective tends to determine if you have a seminar using a game format, or a game using a seminar format. Another misused term is 'workshop': an event similar to a seminar, but with a specific product (the 'deliverable') to be developed during the activity by the participants. While these events may use gaming techniques, in and of themselves, they are not strictly games. Likewise, some organizations will refer to war games as "experiments." An experiment is a repeatable scientific method designed to test a hypothesis.

A hypothesis is proposed as an explanation for an observed phenomenon. Independent and dependent variables are defined, controls are established, multiple tests are run, actual outcomes compared to expected outcomes, repeat, etc. In this light, wargaming does not fit this model, though the term "experiment" is often casually used without strict adherence to its scientific definition in reference to games. Finally, a model is generally thought of as a representation of something, often on a smaller scale. It can be rendered in a variety of ways: physically such as with clay or plastic, or virtually such as a computer model of a jet fighter. When that model begins to interact with other models, or when we wish to represent the model's behavior within a complex synthetic environment, we now have a simulation. While they can be used as tools to support games, by themselves, models and simulations (or M&S) are not games.

Still want to know more?

Wargaming Department
Center for Naval Warfare Studies
United States Naval War College
686 Cushing Road
Newport, Rhode Island 02841

Tel: 401-856-6100
Fax: 401-841-6960

Email: LCDR John Hansen
john.hansen@usnwc.edu