Sample fo messages posted to Milgames since June, 1998


Updated as of most current message

For those of you who don't work in the interactive courseware and computer
graphics industry, New Media is a superb monthly magazine sent out free to
most of us who work in the trade.

They also have a web site which mirrors the hardcopy magazine, and an archive
of past issues and articles.  Well worth reading cover to cover most months
and particularly insightful on emerging computer technology trends like DVD,
MPEG2, 3D video cards, etc.

This recent issue focused on computer games, with a special tip of the hat to
the E3 expo (there were stacks of free New Media at the show).  There is a
good article on computer games, complete with interviews from several major
name (old head) designers:

http://newmedia.com/NewMedia/98/07/feature2/Gaming_Fresh_Blood.html

Gary C. Morgan, Educational Applications Developer


From: Jfdunnigan

There was in interesting military simulation article in the June, 1998
issue of Armed Forces Journal (page 34.) The article was wrapped around
comments coming out of a March DoD/NDU workshop looking at using simulat
ion/wargaming to shorten the weapons development cycle. The idea was to
use more simulation to supplement (not replace, everyone seemed to agr
ee on that point) testing of new systems. Live testing is expensive, an
d because of the expense, you don't get many data points. While there i
s a role for simulation based testing, there is also a feeling that the
re will be a lot of resistance from within the development bureaucracy.
Much was made of successful civilian use of these simulation technolog
ies. This was especially noted in the automotive, ship building and air
craft industries. By building simulation in at the beginning of the des
ign process, simulation can be used continuously, rather than when the
system was ready to be built, or after that. Many of these simulation t
ools are useable by the military without modification, as least for non-
combat functions. Things like 3-D structure models that designers can
move simulated people through to make use access and usability are adeq
uate. Wargames are another matter, and this is where the article pitche
d the concept of DoD taking the lead in developing standard combat simu
lation tools that weapons manufacturers can use to build betters system
s more quickly. This was seen as unlikely, or a least very difficult, g
iven the various bureaucracies involved and the dismal track record of
similar efforts in the past. But the article did make it clear what the
preferred direction was. The only problem remains, as always, executio
n. Check out the article if you can, if you haven't already.

Was anyone on this list at that conference? If so, comments would be welc
ome.

Reading this article made me think of doing a game on the efforts to do t
he series of simulations under discussion. It would be interesting to d raw up
the Order of Battle (each of the bureaucracies, their characteri stics, as
well as same for the different entities trying to build the " Master
Simulation" (MASSIM? Gotta have a cryptic acronym to confuse the civilians)
Anyone here been involved in the various MASSIM projects of the past?

In a message dated 6/11/98 12:10:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
tonyzal@umahexagon.com writes:

> Couldn't agree more with your points.  Am happy to report that Hexagon
>  is currently under contract to do such a game for the DOD using a lot of
>  the concepts for high-tech war developed by Joe
>  Miranda.

The trick is getting the game into use. The normal drill over the three
decades has been that games are developed and then, for the most part, either
used briefly or promptly shelved. Ran into a fellow last year from JCS who
belongs to an outfit that is tasked with finding out how many of these games
there are and how many (the suspicion is "many") can have their funding
terminated for lack of use. He already had a bunch of war stories regarding
what he had found. Basically, a lot of old "wargames and sims" were
"maintained" at considerable expense but never used. The maintaining
organization had no incentive to report this lack of use and apparently this
had been going on for some years. You'd think in these days of shrinking
defense budgets no one could get away with this. But apparently the DoD budget
is convoluted and opaque enough in spots for people to get away with it.



In a message dated 6/11/98 12:55:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
tonyzal@umahexagon.com writes:

>
>  What impressed us with our brief is that the DOD specifically wanted
>  something radical, and not something that supported any particular
>  service or weapons system.  Essentially a blue-sky "anything goes"
>  strategy sim that would provide new ideas and some quantitative analysis
>  of their effects.  I think it's great that Joe's concepts that he's been
>  working on for years will finally bear fruit.

To their credit, there have always been some folks in DoD who would scrounge
up funding for new projects like that. Andy Marshall was always good in that
regard. But the other side of the coin (as pointed out in the Armed Forces
Journal article) was overcoming the many pockets of resistance to keep a
wargame in use. Take MTM (McClintoc Theater Model) of the early 80s. This
project was put in motion by COL Ray Macedonia down at the Army War College
(AWC) and sponsored (vigorously) by the chairman of the JCS himself (GEN
Meyers.) Even so, after Ray retired (for medical reasons) a few years later,
MTM almost disappeared. But it was so useful, organizations grabbed and held
onto copies and maintained it themselves  for over ten years. Again, the Armed
Forces Journal article brought this danger of being "orphaned" issue again and
again. It's a big problem.


In a message dated 6/11/98 5:49:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
merlands@msosa.dmso.mil writes:

>
>  I think you got it backwards.  Once someone in DoD buys or develops a sim,
>  it never seems to go away.  Sure there are people who still resist
>  wargaming and the use of simulations, but there are lots of people willing
>  and eager to use wargaming and M&S in DoD.  The reason that there are so
>  many sims in DoD is that people want to continue to use the old ones when
>  new ones are introduced.  It is hard to find a simulation in DoD that
>  someone doesn't like and want to keep alive forever.  I actually played
>  MTM.  It was a pig to use as were most first generation computer
>  simulations.  The reason it went away is that everyone finally realized
>  that there were better sims available to replace it.  The Army developed
>  CBS and BBS to replace MTM and WARSIM is now under development to replace
them.
>
You missed the bit in my first post about the JCS guys tasked to find all the
sims DoD was paying for and what he found. While many WERE still being used,
many (he estimated perhaps half or more, but he wasn't finished yet) were
moribund. Remember, these are the ones still getting funded. He didn't care
about the ones that were dead and gone (ie, DoD wasn't sending checks anywhere
for their maintenance.)

The other problem DoD has always had is validation. I'm the one who came in 20
some years ago (by invitation) to explain all these historical wargames the
junior officers (and a handful of senior ones) were so excited about.
Naturally I talked about validation. If you don't get a historical sim to
perform historically, no one will buy it. When I asked the DoD crowd about
validation I either got an embarassed silence or a bit of technobabble from
the resident OR weenie. Over the years I was told, point blank and by some
pretty senior people, that DoD games were not generally validated the way
historical games and the reason was that such validation could create
"political problems." That's changed a bit since the 70s, but it has not
entirely gone away.

>  In a previous posting, you noted the problem of all the sims that continue
>  to be sustained after they have been placed on the shelf.  The problem is
>  that they never really went on the shelf.  Higher headquarters may consider
>  a sim obsolete and ready for retirement, but someone out at Camp Swampy
>  likes it just fine and is willing to use O&M money (the stuff that units
>  use to buy the gas and ammo) to keep it alive.  I don't know of any
>  simulation that has been kept alive after it was no longer being used.

A lot of the sims that keep going are manual or coded locally and thus
maintained locally. These are often some of the best stuff available, but
because it did not come "from the center" (an old Soviet term...), it was not
worthy to be used on a wider basis. This, too, may be changing. But remember
that the "bureaucratic resistance" talked about in the Armed Forces Journal
article was generally meant to come from "the center."



X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

Yes, I've seen some of that played out in "International Security." The three
"Quick & Dirty Guide to War" books I did with Austin Bay (an Army LTC who does
his reserve service in the Pentagon) took on this sort of thing and, while
I've been told again and again by various academics that "it can't be done,"
the methodology we use in the book has been very accurate. There also
thousands of risk managers out their (mainly on Wall Street and the Fortune
500) who do it all the time, with real money in play. We win most of the time.
What surprises me is how unaware many people in the CIA/DoD community have
been about the commercial risk management community. I remember back in the
1980s showing a CIA section chief some risk management type stuff (unclass, of
course) and he was shocked (and grabed the stuff and ran with it.) There's a
lot more to COTS than pickup trucks and CPUs.

In a message dated 6/11/98 4:16:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
gregory.wilmoth@js.pentagon.mil writes:

> There is an interesting article in the Summer 1998 issue of Parameters, the
>  U.S. Army War College Quarterly.  It's called  "The Maginot Mentality in
>  International Relations Models," by Kevin Falk and Thomas Kane.
>
>  It basically criticizes "formal modelling" and "quantitiative analysis," as
>  applied by political scientists, for being too rigid and trying to make the
>  real world fit their models.  (They mention the legend of the computer
model
>  run for President Nixon in 1969 which predicted the U.S. won the Vietnam
War
>  in 1964.)  It's worth reading for pitfalls by anyone considering trying to
>  build a predictive model or game.  (Which the authors think is ultimately
>  impossible.)
>
>  You can read it online at:
>  http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/



In a message dated 6/11/98 4:24:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
merlands@msosa.dmso.mil writes:

> I was at the conference.  The workshop was co-sponsored by NDIA not NDU.
>  The focal point of this article is simulation-based acquisition (SBA).
>  This is the hottest topic in the DoD M&S community at the moment.  If you
>  want to learn more about SBA, I suggest you check out the MSOSA web site at
>  http://www.msosa.dmso.mil.

I always have trouble keeping those Ns straight. It's the curse of speed
reading.

>  Look for the link to the SBA Special Interest Area.  You will find several
>  briefings and studies on the SBA.  All of the slides from the conference
>  you referred to are there for instance.  Under the "core" documents
>  section, check out the briefing by Dr. Pat Sanders.  She is the Director
>  for Test, Evaluation, and Engineering for DoD and the person who is leading
>  the SBA charge.  Note the briefing and memo from Jack Gansler, the
>  Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology.  He has solidly
>  endorsed Sanders' efforts.  By the way, Gansler is the person in charge of
>  M&S policy, plans, and procedures for all of DoD, including the training
>  and military operations community.  In the next few days the MSOSA SBA site
>  will be updated to include the briefing delivered at the DMSO annual M&S
>  briefings to industry and government held last week.  The focus this year
>  was SBA, with fresh briefings from Gansler and Sanders as well as a number
>  of major acquisition program managers.

What do you think that chances of SBA succeeding are?



X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

I did not miss your comment about the JCS guy and his survey.  I just doubt
his conclusions.  I'm paid by DoD to be the director of the operations of
the Modeling and Simulations Operational Support Activity (MSOSA).  The job
of MSOSA is to serve as an M&S help desk and information exchange agency
for all of DoD.  We are funded by DoD as a service to the M&S community.
We are effectively the research librarians of M&S for DoD.  I have some of
the most experienced guys in the world in M&S on my staff.  I've asked
several of them for their opinion about the statement that DoD was
continuing to fund models and simulations that were no longer being used.
None of them could think of a single example.  It just doesn't make sense
unless you believe the DoD is filled with corrupt people.  It is hard
enough to find money to sustain the sims we do want to use, particularly
for those guys out in the field trying to maintain the stuff they need
locally.  We at MSOSA don't have all the answers because the world of M&S
and wargaming in DoD is incredibly complex.  I would sincerely appreciate
having you place this guy working for JCS in touch with us.  Did he site
any specific examples?  We all agree that there are a number of models and
sims on the self and on someone's inventory list that are no longer being
used.  Think of them as being in the "bone yard."  They are effectively
retired, but sometimes like the old battleships they are brought back into
service when a new requirement for them emerges.  This is especially true
at analytical agencies where many models are developed for very specific
functions.  Old sims are also sometimes cannibalized for parts.  The souls
of old simulations like MTM and Janus often reside in the hearts of modern
simulations.


I think you are wrong about the "bureaucratic resistance" referred to in
the journal article as coming from the "center."  I assume by this term you
mean the people inside the "Belt way," the people at the top of the
bureaucracy.  Most of the people quoted in the article are at the top of
the bureaucracy.  They are lining up behind SBA and calling for change.
They are not the source of resistance.  When you introduce a new way of
doing business, the people at the end of the chain are often the ones who
get their rice bowls chipped.  If you are someone who has spent their
entire career doing live, full-scale operational tests of new weapons
systems, you might naturally be inclined to dispute the validity of a
simulation that is about to replace you.  The program managers of new
weapon systems that are being encouraged to more aggressively employ and
integrate the use of simulations in there programs are also typically
reluctant, because they will have to fund initiatives that will not produce
benefits on their watch.  The companies like Boeing that have been
successful in employing these new methods talk about the need for a
cultural change in their organization.  That is what will be required for
SBA to succeed in DoD as well.

X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

It is hard to say whether SBA will succeed.  The technical as well as
bureaucratic obstacles it must overcome are enormous.  It already has
succeeded to a certain extend.  At the DMSO annual government and industry
conference last week,  the program managers from F22, AAAV, Joint Strike
Fighter, and the Future Attack Sub all gave presentations in which they
described their efforts at taking an SBA like approach in their program.

X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

It is hard to say whether SBA will succeed.  The technical as well as
bureaucratic obstacles it must overcome are enormous.  It already has
succeeded to a certain extend.  At the DMSO annual government and industry
conference last week,  the program managers from F22, AAAV, Joint Strike
Fighter, and the Future Attack Sub all gave presentations in which they
described their efforts at taking an SBA like approach in their program.


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 6/12/98 9:34:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
merlands@msosa.dmso.mil writes:

> I did not miss your comment about the JCS guy and his survey.  I just doubt
>  his conclusions.  I'm paid by DoD to be the director of the operations of
>  the Modeling and Simulations Operational Support Activity (MSOSA).  The job
>  of MSOSA is to serve as an M&S help desk and information exchange agency
>  for all of DoD.  We are funded by DoD as a service to the M&S community.
>  We are effectively the research librarians of M&S for DoD.  I have some of
>  the most experienced guys in the world in M&S on my staff.  I've asked
>  several of them for their opinion about the statement that DoD was
>  continuing to fund models and simulations that were no longer being used.
>  None of them could think of a single example.  It just doesn't make sense
>  unless you believe the DoD is filled with corrupt people.  It is hard
>  enough to find money to sustain the sims we do want to use, particularly
>  for those guys out in the field trying to maintain the stuff they need
>  locally.  We at MSOSA don't have all the answers because the world of M&S
>  and wargaming in DoD is incredibly complex.  I would sincerely appreciate
>  having you place this guy working for JCS in touch with us.  Did he site
>  any specific examples?  We all agree that there are a number of models and
>  sims on the self and on someone's inventory list that are no longer being
>  used.  Think of them as being in the "bone yard."  They are effectively
>  retired, but sometimes like the old battleships they are brought back into
>  service when a new requirement for them emerges.  This is especially true
>  at analytical agencies where many models are developed for very specific
>  functions.  Old sims are also sometimes cannibalized for parts.  The souls
>  of old simulations like MTM and Janus often reside in the hearts of modern
>  simulations.

You should hunt this guy and his operation down. Looks like you guys have
something to talk about. I bumped into him last year (or maybe it was 1996) at
the Georgia Tech short course on wargaming. He came by to introduce himself (I
forget if he gave me a card) and we talked. He described his adventures to
date and we traded experiences. The guy that runs the Georgia Tech course
(terry.hilderbrand@gtri.gatech.edu) should be able to scan the attendee lists
for the last two courses and find this guy. Since I don't work for the Justice
Department or the DoD Inspector General, I have never pursued any of the cases
of "shelved but funded" sims. Some pretty reliable people have told me of the
ones they have come across. I was quite heartened when I ran into that fellow
at Georgia Tech. Then again, maybe he only found one or two questionable cases
out of the hundreds of sims in the J-8 catalog. After all, he was just getting
started when I ran into him (he was attending the course to brush up on his
knowledge of wargames.)


>  I think you are wrong about the "bureaucratic resistance" referred to in
>  the journal article as coming from the "center."  I assume by this term you
>  mean the people inside the "Belt way," the people at the top of the
>  bureaucracy.  Most of the people quoted in the article are at the top of
>  the bureaucracy.  They are lining up behind SBA and calling for change.
>  They are not the source of resistance.  When you introduce a new way of
>  doing business, the people at the end of the chain are often the ones who
>  get their rice bowls chipped.  If you are someone who has spent their
>  entire career doing live, full-scale operational tests of new weapons
>  systems, you might naturally be inclined to dispute the validity of a
>  simulation that is about to replace you.  The program managers of new
>  weapon systems that are being encouraged to more aggressively employ and
>  integrate the use of simulations in there programs are also typically
>  reluctant, because they will have to fund initiatives that will not produce
>  benefits on their watch.  The companies like Boeing that have been
>  successful in employing these new methods talk about the need for a
>  cultural change in their organization.  That is what will be required for
>  SBA to succeed in DoD as well.

Well, to continue these imperial analogies, before the Soviets came along with
their well defined concept of "the Center," one of the czars washeard to
comment that, "I do not rule Russia, 10,000 clerks do." Twenty years ago when
I first ventured through the looking glass, I got the impression that making
O-6 made people somewhat brain dead and terrinbly onstinate. Every project
that was stalled seemed to have one or more O-6s very much involved with
gumming up the works. I later found that GS-14s could dig in their heels to
good effect. Since there are more "clerks" in beltwayland, I expect there will
be more resistance.

We need a game on all this....


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 6/12/98 10:26:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
merlands@msosa.dmso.mil writes:

> It is hard to say whether SBA will succeed.  The technical as well as
>  bureaucratic obstacles it must overcome are enormous.  It already has
>  succeeded to a certain extend.  At the DMSO annual government and industry
>  conference last week,  the program managers from F22, AAAV, Joint Strike
>  Fighter, and the Future Attack Sub all gave presentations in which they
>  described their efforts at taking an SBA like approach in their program.
>

Yes, the mere fact that SBA is getting this much ink in the professional press
shows that a lot of folks up the food chain are taking Simulation Based
Aquisition seriously. Historically, though, it takes a war, or a very strong
personality, to get things like this done. In peacetime there are too many
people who can raise objections that stop progress. This, in turn, points how
much we have neglected the human element in the procurement process. Think
about it. Many will mention the "bureaucratic obstacles," but no one dares to
attempt modeling them. I suppose that simply affirms that humans are the most
dangerous species...

But seriously, the continued success of SBA in the commercial area is getting
harder and harder to ignore.



X-MSMail-From: Bryan S. Ware

Mark,

I'm willing to concede that the inside-the-beltway folks at DMSO you refer
to are not resisting SBA;  however, I can't think of a single better example
of a bureaucracy than DMSO!!

:-)

X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

Byran

Since I work for DMSO, you might expect that I have a fairly positive view
of it.  I am curious why you view DMSO as the "single best example of a
bureaucracy."  I assume you don't mean that as a complement.  It is a
relatively small organization that was created to help break through the
stove pipe bureaucracy that has characterized the DoD M&S community for
many years.  Because of DMSO there is a coordinated M&S master plan that
provides a future vision for DoD, and there is also a forum for
coordinating DoD M&S policy.

The DoD bureaucracy does not end at I 495.  The problems facing SBA, in my
view, are largely from sources outside of the belt way.  By the way, are
you with the Sonalyst folks on the 3rd floor of 1901 N. Beauregard?  If so,
I'm one floor above you.  Why not stop by for a chat?


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 6/12/98 1:22:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
simpson_jrw@quantico.usmc.mil writes:

> Please tell me more about the Georgia Tech Wargame Course.
>  Is it still being offered?

Yes, been going strong since 1980. I've been doing my bit since 1982. It's a
week long and always well attended. I do three sessions, including demos and
how-to stuff. The guy that runs it is at terry.hilderbrand@gtri.gatech.edu.
The course also has a web page, but, shame on me, I don't have the URL handy.


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 6/12/98 2:44:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
bware@sonalysts.com writes:

>
>  I'm willing to concede that the inside-the-beltway folks at DMSO you refer
>  to are not resisting SBA;  however, I can't think of a single better
example
>  of a bureaucracy than DMSO!!
>

Evan Brooks can say a lot more about this, but it would be odd indeed if DMSO
didn't adapt some of the coloration of the beasts it has to do battle with. If
you don't look and smell like a bureaucracy within the beltway, you are set
upon as an alien organism and expelled.


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

The item below discusses another DoD "explore the future" wargame. Has anyone
ever done a study on the track record of these exercises? Anyone ever tried to
use this methodology to "predict the past" (or "backtesting" as the commercial
game developers call it.)


WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Plans and operations staff people from
throughout the military services and unified commands converged in Alabama
Monday to look at the Air Force's new strategic vision and how it meshes with
joint warfare.

Global Engagement '97 -- a computer-assisted war game -- began Monday and is
scheduled to run through Friday at the Air Force Wargaming Institute at
Maxwell Air Force Base. The players -- including 10 flag officers from the
unified commands -- will deal with a simulated major theater conflict in the
northeast Asia of 2012.

Throughout the week, the players will devise a plan to meet the challenge, put
the plan in motion and make adjustments. The result will not be an all-
encompassing solution for joint operations, says the game's director. Far from
it. Success will come as players learn how Global Engagement would work and
ask ``better questions'' about its effect.

Col. C. Parks Schaefer is the chief of resource management for the Air Force
Studies and Analysis Agency and the Air Staff game director for Global
Engagement '97. He drew a distinction between this war game and training
exercises such as Ulchi Focus Lens held each year in Korea.

``Exercises are designed to train organizations and people on their mission
and make them better at what they already know how to do,'' Schaefer said. ``A
war game allows players to explore issues about which they do not have
complete information.''

Global Engagement '97 thus gives players the chance to take strategic vision
concepts -- the Air Force core competencies -- off the chalkboard and put them
in motion.

For many players in the joint arena, this could be their first experience with
how the Air Force employs its core competencies of air and space superiority,
global attack, rapid global mobility, precision engagement, information
superiority and agile combat support.

However, these concepts had their first in-depth look during Strategic Force
'96 staged in November 1996 at the wargaming institute. That led to these
warfare planning insights:

Crisis planning and execution under short warning are likely in future
conflicts. Asymmetric force can be used effectively by adversaries as well as
the United States. A strong, joint theater plan is the key to winning in
short-warning conflicts. Air and space power provided the greatest degree of
battlespace superiority available to the commander in chief. Air and space
power can make up for deficiencies in other force areas for a limited time.
This makes early availability of air and space assets particularly important
in a short-warning war.

Global Engagement '97 steps off from the Strategic Force '96 findings. This
year's games, according to Schaefer, will look at space, information
operations, deployment and logistics operations.

``We know what issues we want to explore,'' the colonel said, ``and we use the
vehicle of the games to tie them to our core competencies.''

No matter how thorough any war game, Schaefer explained, they do not offer
broad solutions for strategies and tactics.

``The key to war games is that you can't replicate them,'' the colonel said.
``Human players make the decisions. If we give the same scenarios under the
same conditions even to the same people, we could have different results. If
you can't replicate, you can't draw conclusions any better than you would by
betting on horses.''

This was why he emphasized the importance of forming ``better'' questions as
the mark of a war game's success.

``If we ask better questions,'' he said, ``we can get better answers or see
the need to do more work. We might need to ask our engineers for more hard
data on an issue.

``If we ask high-quality questions and feel like we understand the issues,
then we can turn war game results into a training issue. And until you
understand the issue, you cannot employ your forces.''

Schaefer said the Air Staff wants to create a game that ``allows us to explore
new issues and come out with a better understanding of that issue. Better
understanding leads us to better capabilities training.''

-----------------------

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving this information for research and educational purposes.



X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

Anyone had any experience with this outfit (National Training Systems
Association)? They have a retired rear admiral as a director.

http://www.trainingsystems.org/

X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

Ah, here's something on NTSA.

From Commerce Business Daily, June 15, 1998 PSA-2116

NAVY SURFACE WARFARE BRIEFING TO SIMULATION AND TRAINING INDUSTRY

Naval Surface Warfare Briefing to Industry The National Training Systems
Association (NTSA), an affiliate of the National Defense Industrial
Association (NDIA), is pleased to present an important briefing to Industry on
Navy Surface Warfare Training. The Director of the Navy Surface Warfare
Division (N86) and other senior leaders will discuss current issues and key
initiatives of afloat, imbedded, and shore based training, Battle Force
Tactical Training, and new developments in Littoral Warfare Training within
the new naval strategy. . July 22, 1998, Ramada Hotel Old Town, Alexandria,
VA. Agenda and Registration information may be found at the National Training
Systems Association website http://www.trainingsystems.org


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 6/25/98 11:12:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
bspeer@compassnet.com writes:

> Question: Do you folks think of the Pentagon's strategy of two wars is
viable?
>
>  As I understand it, they are assuming  that the second war begins no sooner
>  than  45 days after the first using the logic that it would take that long
> to
>  put a nation's military forces on a war footing. Seems to me that is
wishful
>  thinking. Any simulation work been done on this?

It all depends on the assumption, most particularly who the bad guys are and
how well these fellows can fight. The usual assumption is Korea and the
Persian Gulf. . Given all the readiness problems of late, there would be
problems. But given our industrial capabilities, and suitable motivation, we
could do it. But the current assumptions assume what we got is ready to go.
Ain't so. Some DoD sims show this, some don't. Most of this stuff is
classified. And for good reason, the results could be embarassing.



In a message dated 7/1/98 4:42:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
donald.hinton@cadre.maxwell.af.mil writes:

> 1.  The need is to adjudicate 2 - 40 days of air/sea/land warfare.
>  Manual is OK if results are better/quicker than a computer.

OK. There few, if any, games covering Iran. There are some dealing with the
Persian Gulf. Gulf Strike was actually used in the Pentagon the day after Iraq
invaded Kuwait. I cover this in my Wargames Handbook
(http://hyw1.erudite.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm#)
You can easily modify the probability tables to suit your preferences.

>  2.  Computer game does not need monte carlo capabilities.  In some
>  cases, a deterministic model is preferable.  Quality of result is most
>  important.
>

Another option is to use the Aide de Camp software to create a computer
assisted manual game. Are you familiar with the Aide de Camp software? It's
pretty easy to use and allows you to use a converter box to project the game
onto a larger screen. By using Aide de Camp, you could also customize your
game map and still have it looking clean and easy to understand.



In a message dated 7/1/98 10:58:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
donald.hinton@cadre.maxwell.af.mil writes:

>
>  I could use some help.  I'd like to enter real-world data into a
>  commercial, theater-level southwest Asia wargame.  Does anyone know of a
>  commercial wargame capable of this?

Does game have to be computer based, or manual? You have options either way,
depending on what degree of realism you want, or need. If a computer game,
does it require monte carlo capabilities?


In a message dated 7/1/98 4:42:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
donald.hinton@cadre.maxwell.af.mil writes:

> 1.  The need is to adjudicate 2 - 40 days of air/sea/land warfare.
>  Manual is OK if results are better/quicker than a computer.

OK. There few, if any, games covering Iran. There are some dealing with
the
Persian Gulf. Gulf Strike was actually used in the Pentagon the day
after Iraq
invaded Kuwait. I cover this in my Wargames Handbook
(http://hyw1.erudite.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm#)
You can easily modify the probability tables to suit your preferences.

>  2.  Computer game does not need monte carlo capabilities.  In some
>  cases, a deterministic model is preferable.  Quality of result is
most
>  important.
>

Another option is to use the Aide de Camp software to create a computer
assisted manual game. Are you familiar with the Aide de Camp software? It's
pretty easy to use and allows you to use a converter box to project the game
onto a larger screen. By using Aide de Camp, you could also customize your
game map and still have it looking clean and easy to understand.


>I'm unfamiliar with Aide de Camp software... unless this is software
>that makes coffee & follows generals around.

Nah, this is a much mroe useful aide de camp (software, rather than mushware,
so to speak.) Below is its URL. You won't find it in many stores, so you order
direct. The nice thing about this is that you can have any graphics artist
available execute the map and playing pieces (from your OB). Then you take the
rules from any appropriate (or preferred) manual warpage and apply them. You
then play it out like a manual game, except you do it on a PC. This is one of
those things that could be executed in hours (5-10 hours for the artist, even
less for the gamer that adapts the game rules.) Have you asked Chuck Kamps or
Mo Morgan about this? They could help you out (or just be available to bail
you out should you run into any problems.)

 http://www.hpssims.com/adc2.htm URL for: Aide de Camp 2.0



Jim Dunnigan asked me to write about my recent experiences with the Chief
of Staff of the Army's "Army After Next" (AAN) wargaming series.

I participated in the AAN 1998 Spring Wargame this past April.
Aprroximately 200 people played in the strategic level role playing game.
Booz Allen was the chief contractor, US Army Training and Doctrine Command
(TRADOC) was the proponent agency.

As a consultant to TRADOC, I worked in the "white cell" (control).
Originally I was hired to help control information warfare play and
"in-game media" play. The white cell consisted of a team of about 15
military intelligence information warfare specialists (familiar with the
whole range of IW, from computers to communications to info deception)
handling the play among the Blue, Red, Orange, Brown, and Green teams
("Green was a "multiple" team representing several nations). Two Regular
Army colonels (one from TRADOC Wargaming division) and I were in the White
cell with the team.

The game explored a scenario set in 2021. A "greater Persia" of sorts,
consisting of a united Iran and Iraq and labeled "The New Islamic Republic"
provoked a "super Desert Storm" crisis. India and Pakistan were also close
to war. Indonesia had already lost part of Sumatra to "The New Nationalist
Movement" (NNM). The NNM had ties to Sumatra but was also linked with a
shadowy global investment group.

The day I arrived I was told that the soldier who was supposed to play the
"World News Network" (WNN) anchorman would not be at the game. Basically,
the AAN wargame takes advantage of the US Army War College's wired
building, Collins Hall, and runs a pseudo-CNN during the game. This was
part of what I was to monitor and control and make certain WNN stayed
current and relevant to the game, and, when the controllers thought
appropriate, use it as one of the sources for partial or distorted
information. (We also had a "newswire" running on the Intranet.)

Since the actor failed to show up I was told the game director, my friend
COL Mike Starry, had told everyone that morning that Austin could play a
newscaster. I ended up being both a controller and a "player" of sorts. It
was an experience.

US News and World Report's Pentagon correspondent and USA Today's main
defense writer both participated in the game and US News wrote up the
scenario in a recent issue.

From 7 June to 19 June I did a reserve tour at TRADOC at Ft Monroe to help
beginning planning the 1999 Spring Wargame. While I much prefer working as
Dr. Bay, being LTC Bay for a couple of weeks also has its explicit and
implicit rewards. Ft. Monroe is a fabulous place for a historian. Briefly,
the fort never fell to the Confederacy. Sited right on Hampton Roads, it
was the jumping off point for the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. The fort became
a coastal defense artillery post and the outer works are still in very good
condition, with several of the old three-inch support guns still in the
parapets (no heavy pieces, as far as I could tell).  I usually parked in
the post office parking lot and walked to TRADOC Wargaming's offices inside
the oldest part of the fort, the rebuilt Civil War era fort. I had to walk
across the bridge over the moat (still filled) and walk through the
one-lane wide sallyport.

Anyway, we roughed out suggestions for players,  support requirements,
scenario possibilities, etc. in the two weeks I was there. Once the powers
that be make the call as to what they want to look at in 1999 I'll let you
all know some more about the 1999 spring game.

I'm told by folks who play in both, the AAN spring wargame has become the
Army's rough equivalent to the Navy's Global game.

                   Austin Bay


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 7/6/98 1:35:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
austinbay@worldnet.att.net writes:

>
>  I'm told by folks who play in both, the AAN spring wargame has become the
>  Army's rough equivalent to the Navy's Global game.

Which wargame did you use to drive the combat aspects of the exercise.

Updated 7 July 1998

In a message dated 7/23/98 10:28:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Douglas.Bonforte@bmdo.osd.mil writes:

> Do you know anything about DoD's "cutting edge" wargames,"JWARS"?.  I'd love
>  to hear how this Joint Staff wargame (now being designed/developed) is
>  doing. My fear is that it is son of JANUS, and is just another numbers
>  cruncher.

JWARS is supposed to start Alpha testing this November. For more official info
check out their web page; http://www.dtic.mil/jwars/. Anyone got more info on
this one?


X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

JWARS might be more correctly described as the son of TACWAR.  It will be a
closed loop, constructive simulation, with a relatively high level of
aggregation.  Whereas tanks and helicopters are represented as individual
entities in JANUS, in JWARS they are aggregated into division sized units.
As I understand it, the first planned use of JWARS is to support the next
DoD Quadrennial Review.  If you would like to see a fairly up to date JWARS
status briefing, I suggest you check out the slides from the presentation
Dr. Jim Metzger, the JWARS director, delivered at DMSO Industry Days, June
1-2.  See the Industry Days link at the bottom of the DMSO home page at
www.dmso.mil.  Also check out the Q&A feature that lists answers that Dr.
Metzger provided to several questions directed toward him at Industry Days.

Marc Erlandson
MSOSA Director of Operations

X-MSMail-From: Marc Erlandson

JWARS might be more correctly described as the son of TACWAR.  It will be a
closed loop, constructive simulation, with a relatively high level of
aggregation.  Whereas tanks and helicopters are represented as individual
entities in JANUS, in JWARS they are aggregated into division sized units.
As I understand it, the first planned use of JWARS is to support the next
DoD Quadrennial Review.  If you would like to see a fairly up to date JWARS
status briefing, I suggest you check out the slides from the presentation
Dr. Jim Metzger, the JWARS director, delivered at DMSO Industry Days, June
1-2.  See the Industry Days link at the bottom of the DMSO home page at
www.dmso.mil.  Also check out the Q&A feature that lists answers that Dr.
Metzger provided to several questions directed toward him at Industry Days.

Marc Erlandson
MSOSA Director of Operations

----------
> From: Jfdunnigan@aol.com
> To: Douglas.Bonforte@bmdo.osd.mil; milgames@ns1.erudite.com
> Subject: milgames Re: mil list serv
> Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 5:14 AM
>
> In a message dated 7/23/98 10:28:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Douglas.Bonforte@bmdo.osd.mil writes:
>
> > Do you know anything about DoD's "cutting edge" wargames,"JWARS"?.  I'd
love
> >  to hear how this Joint Staff wargame (now being designed/developed) is
> >  doing. My fear is that it is son of JANUS, and is just another numbers
> >  cruncher.
>
> JWARS is supposed to start Alpha testing this November. For more official
info
> check out their web page; http://www.dtic.mil/jwars/. Anyone got more
info on
> this one?

X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

I currently had a discussion with someone regarding human factors in wargames.
I thought this group would find it iof interest.

As you probably suspected, I've had a lot of personal (with various DoD
entities over the years) and practical (I've always put a lot of human factors
into my wargame designs) aspects of human factors in wargames. Let me put some
of this in writing. You may be able to use it. There are two serious problems
with human factors in DoD models. One juristictional, the other  political.
The juristictional problem has to do with the continued lock the OR crew has
on DoD wargaiming and modeling. Although I have seen these folks losing some
ground over the last 25 years, they still have a pretty serious impact on
where you can go with wargames. Andy Marshall, even though he was one of them
in the beginning, would butt heads with the OR Dinosaurs over human factors,
and usually lose. I think there are two problems here. First, human factors
are harder to work with than purely technical items (weapons performance, for
example.) Part of this has to do with attitudes that were formed in the OR
community after World War II. That's a whole nother story, but there it is.

Second, we have a political problem. Human factors deal with people and
looking under that rock can show things that a lot of folks would prefer to
keep hidden. We're not talking any conspiracy here. Just, well, human nature.
On the surface, this has to do with protecting doctrine and customs. I've run
into this many times over the years. First time was a real shocker. I was
creating a wargame for GEN Bill Dupuys TRADOC (he was the first CO.) The game
modeled command and control. At one point, I got a visit from a TRADOC LTC
from Benning (on a Sunday, no less) to inform me that there were two things
that had to be changed to bring the game into conformity with current
doctrine. One was to remove any Command and Control ("the US Army does not
have problems with C&C," I was told) procedures. The second problem was that
we had modeled the vegetation for the two game maps (one from Benning, another
from a German training area) and this showed that, as per German studies and
WW II experience, the average clear line of sight was about 500 meters. Then
current doctrine called for 2,000 meter shots ("what you see, you can hit,
what you hit, you can kill.") Our little bit of reality got in the way, so we
had to do an Agent Orange number on Benning and Germany. At least we didn't
have to flatten the hills.

Now this LTC (who quit the Army, before 20, shortly thereafter) was a grunt
and had been under fire quite a bit. I looked at him about the C&C stuff and
he shrugged.

After that experience I began to investigate more closely how military
organizations operated, in peacetime and wartime. What I found was that there
were two sets of rules (or "victory conditions"). One for wartime, another for
peacetime. I've talked about this in some of my books, where I refer to metal
bullets in wartime and paper bullets in peace time. One of the last paper
wargames I designed, "NATO Division Commander" was done largely to explore
these human factors. At least in wartime. If I had stayed in the wargame
business, I would have eventually done a peacetime version (think "Bettle
Baily Meets Dilbert.") I discussed these human factors problems at the command
level with Trevor Dupuy many times, as his studies had also shown considerable
differences in capability between US World War II divisions and he concluded
that this was a result of human factors. I have found the same thing in my
wargame work. Human factors have always been more crucial than hardware items.
As Napoleon put it, "the moral is to the material as three is to one."
Napoleon knew how important human factors are and spent a lot of time
attending to these items at all levels of his armed forces and government.

Doing human factors in games is not difficult. If you can count it, you can
model it. And you can count the cause and effect of human factors. So why has
it not been done? Mainly because it is politically difficult to deploy that
kind of capability, as it can be used on peacetime organizations with
potentially very embarassing results. For example, have you ever noticed the
enormous attrition among the upper ranks of any military organization in the
first year of a war. I'm not talking about commanders getting KIA, but fired
(and sometimes shot in the process) as their peace time snowjobs are revealed
to be hiding an inability to handle wartime operations. We have seen this in
peacetime out at the NTC. But there's more. In peacetime you will have a hard
time convincing a lot of congresscritters that these "games" are accurately
determining who is a likely battlefield hotshot and who will just get a lot of
Americans killed to no effect. Need examples? Look at how procurement issues
are argued, or how the women in combat issue is "argued."

If you try to introduce human factors into DoD wargames, you will be entering
a minefield. Don't be dissuaded, but be warned, and be careful. Very careful.



Just wanted to let you folks know, on September 12th  the University of North
Texas in conjunction with the AHA and the World History Assoc. of Texas are
sponsoring a conference: The Impact of War Upon Society.

Presenters include: James McPherson, Paul Gilji, Thomas Bellows, Michael
Pierce, Adrian Lewis, Calvin Allen, Char Miller and Heidi Roupp. Topics will
include: The Impact of WWI on Far Eastern Societies, Jihad and Its
Consequences
for Islamic Society, The Impact of the ACW on American Society, The Impact of
the Comanche Wars on Texas Society and more.

For information call Randolph Campbell (940-565-3402) or Bullitt Lowry
(940-565-4215)


As long as you're checking out cutting edge military games, take a look at
the Joint SIMulation System (JSIMS) home page: www.jsims.mil

It's the next generation wargame that will be used to train joint and
service commanders.  IOC Apr '01.

>X-Authentication-Warning: ns1.erudite.com: majordom set sender to
owner-milgames@ns1.erudite.com using -f
>From: "Marc Erlandson" <merlands@msosa.dmso.mil>
>To: <milgames@ns1.erudite.com>, <Jfdunnigan@aol.com>
>Subject: Re: milgames Re: mil list serv
>Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 18:12:56 -0400
>X-Msmail-Priority: Normal
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161
>Sender: owner-milgames@ns1.erudite.com
>
>JWARS might be more correctly described as the son of TACWAR.  It will be a
>closed loop, constructive simulation, with a relatively high level of
>aggregation.  Whereas tanks and helicopters are represented as individual
>entities in JANUS, in JWARS they are aggregated into division sized units.
>As I understand it, the first planned use of JWARS is to support the next
>DoD Quadrennial Review.  If you would like to see a fairly up to date JWARS
>status briefing, I suggest you check out the slides from the presentation
>Dr. Jim Metzger, the JWARS director, delivered at DMSO Industry Days, June
>1-2.  See the Industry Days link at the bottom of the DMSO home page at
>www.dmso.mil.  Also check out the Q&A feature that lists answers that Dr.
>Metzger provided to several questions directed toward him at Industry Days.
>
>Marc Erlandson
>MSOSA Director of Operations
>
>----------
>> From: Jfdunnigan@aol.com
>> To: Douglas.Bonforte@bmdo.osd.mil; milgames@ns1.erudite.com
>> Subject: milgames Re: mil list serv
>> Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 5:14 AM
>>
>> In a message dated 7/23/98 10:28:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>> Douglas.Bonforte@bmdo.osd.mil writes:
>>
>> > Do you know anything about DoD's "cutting edge" wargames,"JWARS"?.  I'd
>love
>> >  to hear how this Joint Staff wargame (now being designed/developed) is
>> >  doing. My fear is that it is son of JANUS, and is just another numbers
>> >  cruncher.
>>
>> JWARS is supposed to start Alpha testing this November. For more official
>info
>> check out their web page; http://www.dtic.mil/jwars/. Anyone got more
>info on
>> this one?
>

In a message dated 8/19/98 5:48:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
rbolling@mitre.org writes:

> As long as you're checking out cutting edge military games, take a look at
>  the Joint SIMulation System (JSIMS) home page: www.jsims.mil
>
>  It's the next generation wargame that will be used to train joint and
>  service commanders.  IOC Apr '01.

Anyone in that shop taken a look at the differences (and simularities) between
how JSIMS is being developed (organization of development team, how obstacles
are overcome, what does, or does not, keep the program on track) versus
commercial entertainment and non-entertainment (the latter mainly internal
user projects) projects. I've noticed some big differences (having worked in
all three areas) and was wondering if anyone else had.


I have worked on most of the pieces of JSIMS over the last 4 years.

The Chief Architect of the system is a "gamer".  He has been involved in board
gaming for years and has designed an air power game that he is in the process
of
publishing.

During conversations with him we have discussed the dirth of people who
understand games as models of combat.  There are some excellent software
engineers on the project, but few who have a background in wargaming.  Though
several have built virtual simulators.

I had a discussion with the some contractors who were designing the user
interface for the system.  I seriously suggested that they go to the
Electronic
Boutique, buy games like Close Combat and Panzer General, and copy that user
interface.  Of course they laughed at this idea.

Roger

Jim Dunnigan says:
>Anyone in that shop taken a look at the differences (and simularities)
between
>how JSIMS is being developed (organization of development team, how obstacles
>are overcome, what does, or does not, keep the program on track) versus
>commercial entertainment and non-entertainment (the latter mainly internal
>user projects) projects. I've noticed some big differences (having worked in
>all three areas) and was wondering if anyone else had.

Roger Smith says:
>The Chief Architect of the system is a "gamer".  He has been involved in
board
>gaming for years and has designed an air power game that he is in the
>process of
>publishing.
>
>During conversations with him we have discussed the dirth of people who
>understand games as models of combat.  There are some excellent software
>engineers on the project, but few who have a background in wargaming.  Though
>several have built virtual simulators.


Since I'm the Chief Architect that Roger refers to, I thought I'd weigh in
with my comments.

I for one am keenly aware on a daily basis on the stark differences between
the way we build wargames for the military -- especially the training
community -- and the way they are crafted commercially. The most significant
differences aren't in fidelity or completeness of representation necessarily
(which may surprise people) but rather in the fundamentally different
management and development approaches used.

Commercial developers have the opportunity to define their own requirements
and build a system with little or no external interference. If they produce
a set of unfeasible requirements, they will pay for it out of their own
dollars. If they choose a sub-optimal architecture, the result will be a
game with reduced features or a competitive disadvantage. If the user's
needs are not met, the game will not be bought.

In the military world, the contracting structure dictates a very different
approach. The requirements are decided in advance, often by people who may
not be able to confidently assert whether they are feasible. While the
system is under development, it is continually perturbed by outside forces
from a wide variety of stakeholders. Innovation is often stifled in an
attempt to reduce uncertainty. The customer wants particular algorithms or
techniques used, which often restrict the available trade space for
engineering judgement. And, ironically, often the declaration of success or
failure of the project is only partially influenced by the quality or
completeness of the end product since so many other factors enter into the
evaluation.

Some of the differences that cause people to shake their heads the most are
driven by good intentions: trying to reduce uncertainty, the search for
repeatable, optimal processes, the desire to increase fidelity, the serving
of multiple communities simultaneously, and insuring high quality.
Unfortnately, they often perversely have exactly the opposite effect,
producing systems which are simultaneously more costly, less flexible, and
substantially less accurate than their commercial cousins.

Yes, years ago when the DoD gamers first came across me they all complained
about the lack of focus when it came to goals in game design. The biggest
offenders then (and maybe still) was everyone wanting the game to spotlight
their particular need. No game deals with just one "union" and the broader the
games scope the more people will be arguing for a focus on their particular
needs (various flavors of ground combat, air, logistics, combat support, etc.)
I think these needs can be taken care of, but the problem remains that no one
person is in charge (there may be exceptions, and if there are, I think we'd
all like to hear about them.)

Can't really blame it on man Bill, as the end of the Cold War took away the
one element that was providing any enthusiasm for a large peacetime military
(something  unique in US history). We really are a nation of  isolationists
and peaceniks (look at what a lot of  our immigrant ancestors were trying to
get away from. Now we have terrorism (state backed or freelance) as a threat.
Do we have any DoD wargames for dealing with this? Such wargames are not
conceptually difficult to create.

In a message dated 8/20/98 11:34:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
gmorgan@max1.au.af.mil writes:

>
>  Interesting Statistics !!!!!!!
>
>     - 709,000 regular service soldiers;
>     - 293,000 reserve troops;
>     - Eight standing army divisions;
>     - 20 air force and navy air wings with 2,000 combat aircraft;
>     - 232 strategic bombers;
>     - 13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads
> on
>  232 missiles;
>     - 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads;
>     - Four aircraft carriers, and;
>     - 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus all the support bases,
>  shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force.
>
>
>
>  Is this country Russia?  No,
>  Red China ?                  Nope.
>  Great Britain ?               Hardly !
>
>
>  Give Up?  Well, don't feel too bad if you are unable to identify this
global
>  superpower because this country no longer exists.  It has vanished.
>
>  Please scroll down.
>
>
>
>  These are the American military forces that have disappeared since Bill
> Clinton
>
>   took office.


In a message dated 8/20/98 9:36:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
smithr@magicnet.net writes:

> I have worked on most of the pieces of JSIMS over the last 4 years.
>
>  The Chief Architect of the system is a "gamer".  He has been involved in
> board
>  gaming for years and has designed an air power game that he is in the
> process of
>  publishing.
>
>  During conversations with him we have discussed the dirth of people who
>  understand games as models of combat.  There are some excellent software
>  engineers on the project, but few who have a background in wargaming.
> Though
>  several have built virtual simulators.
>
>  I had a discussion with the some contractors who were designing the user
>  interface for the system.  I seriously suggested that they go to the
> Electronic
>  Boutique, buy games like Close Combat and Panzer General, and copy that
user
>  interface.  Of course they laughed at this idea.
>

A major downside of the decline of manual games (as computer games take over)
is the loss of all those manual gamers and their intimate knowledge of how
wargames work in detail. You can see everything in a manual game, and esaily
change enything. This is the easiest way to create more game designers. Much
is not obvious in computer games and users have to often guess at what is
actually going on. I have long urged DoD game designers to make their games
"transparent" so that the users can see what is going on inside and thus have
confidence in what is happening. While this is nice to have for a commercial
games (and many of them have it), it is essential for DoD games because here
lives are on the line if the users depend on the games for training and
planning. Ray Macedonia took this advice to heart when he created MTM back in
the early 1980s and over the years I heard many MTM users cite the
"transparency" as one of MTM's major strengths. When DoD later rewrote MTM and
added "improvements" (some of which were good, like a state of the art GUI),
they also took away the transparency and thus the son of MTM was much less
popular with the troops.




Actually, the "drawdown" or "unilateral disarmament" started during the
Ronney Reagan era.

I do not know of any specific army wargames handling the terrorist threat,
which doesn't mean they don't exist.


In a message dated 8/21/98 9:58:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
michael.robel@lmco.com writes:

>
>  I do not know of any specific army wargames handling the terrorist threat,
>  which doesn't mean they don't exist.
>
Yeah, not the sort of thing you'd post on a website....


Yeah, not the sort of thing you'd post on a website....>>

Sort of thing you'd think Joe Miranda would jump to do . . . and, aside from
being, perhaps, a bit un-PC, could be interesting.  To what end, tho, I'm not
sure.

And as for putting it on a website, hey, they've got virtually everyhting
else, why not that.

Saw you last nite, JFD - second I heard the missiles hit I knew the limo was
on the way;  looked snappy. I understand the Taliban has brought in Frank
Davis as their military spokesperson . . .

RHB

In a message dated 8/21/98 2:22:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time, BergBROG@aol.com
writes:

>
>  Saw you last nite, JFD - second I heard the missiles hit I knew the limo
was
>  on the way;  looked snappy. I understand the Taliban has brought in Frank
>  Davis as their military spokesperson . . .
>

Stopped using their limos years ago. NBC hires the low bidder, so you end up
with drivers not much better than your average cabbie. Last night they wanted
to keep me around to do color commentary until 10, until I pointed out that I
had to come in at 6 AM to do WNBC. That, and need to get away from "specials:
mode and run some commercials, got me out of there before 8 PM. I spent most
of my time feeding lines to the correspondent sitting next to me. Wouldn't the
Taliban be better off with Charles Vassey ot Keith Poulter?


In a message dated 8/22/98 10:28:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ibpanda writes:

>
>  A Prudent move, Jim. You don't want to wind up like Diana and Dodi :)
>

Yes, a lot of the NYC cabbies are Moslems. This gives the FBI and NYPD fits in
times like this, but from what I hear, the cops and feds are working on the
problem.


In a message dated 98-08-21 09:33:17 EDT, Jfdunnigan writes:

<<
 Can't really blame it on man Bill, as the end of the Cold War took away the
  one element that was providing any enthusiasm for a large peacetime military
   (something  unique in US history). We really are a nation of  isolationists
    and peaceniks (look at what a lot of  our immigrant ancestors were trying
    to
     get away from. Now we have terrorism (state backed or freelance) as a
     threat.
      Do we have any DoD wargames for dealing with this? Such wargames are not
       conceptually difficult to create.
          >>

Heck, we demobed about 80 divisions in 1945-46.



In a message dated 8/21/98 8:59:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
wargamer@wargamer.com writes:

> Rainbow Six is about the only game I can think of that deals with the
>  terrorist threat.  It's more of a first person shooter with a good dose of
>  tactical planning and realistic physics modelling, however.  It will be
>  publicly available in less than two weeks.

Nah, that won't help. What is needed is a a global game that deals with the
politics, media play, logistics and violence of terrorism. Imagine NetHack
with Semtex and press releases. Actually, you could easily set up a generic
model with adjustable parameters so you could reproduce just about any
situation. Piece of cake. I wonder why no one's done it yet?


In a message dated 8/21/98 2:17:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, BergBROG writes:

>
>  Sort of thing you'd think Joe Miranda would jump to do . . . and, aside
from
> being, perhaps, a bit un-PC, could be interesting.  To what end, tho, I'm
not
> sure.
>
>  And as for putting it on a website, hey, they've got virtually everyhting
> else, why not that.

I've been approached by several organizations (US government) about helping
with terrorist related games. None of these folks appeared terribly organized
or informed, and of course there was never any follow up. Not very inspiring.


What is needed is a a global game that deals with the
> politics, media play, logistics and violence of terrorism. Imagine NetHack
> with Semtex and press releases. Actually, you could easily set up a generic
> model with adjustable parameters so you could reproduce just about any
> situation. Piece of cake. I wonder why no one's done it yet?

Actually, Joe Miranda is doing this for the DOD.

Tony Zalewski

In a message dated 8/22/98 8:20:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jfdunnigan
writes:

<< Piece of cake [referring to a Global module situation]. I wonder why no
one's done it yet? >>

Yes . . . given today's situation, one does wonder. Couldn't be because it's
un-PC?  Altho the title might need some tweaking (applicable as it is . . . .)


In a message dated 8/21/98 8:06:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jfdunnigan
writes:

<< I spent most of my time feeding lines to the correspondent sitting next to
me.>>

Aaaaah . . .that;s why they appeared so incisive and informed.  Should havek
nown.

<<Wouldn't the Taliban be better off with Charles Vassey ot Keith Poulter? >>

Perhaps, but just wrap a towel around Frank Davis' head and put him in
Khartoum . . . and it's Clonetime . . . .

RHB

In a message dated 8/22/98 10:39:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ibpanda writes:

>
>  Interesting statistics indeed, especially when you consider that very
little
> of the pork-barrel infrastructure created in favored Congressional districts
> to sustain and support those vanished Cold War legions, fleets and air
> armadas has been dismantled, BRAC'd or downsized. I wonder why?

In one of my books, I think it was "Shooting Blanks," we found that there was
a direct correlation between congresscritters votes for defense spending and
money spent in their district. Coincidence? I don't think so.... And there's
an interesting game in there somewhere. Probably exists, but no one will give
it any exposure.

>  But since the only weapons America can actually USE are cruise missiles (
> which deliver no POW Media Events when the Bad Guys shoot 'em down) maybe we
> ought to shut down production of some of those unusable manned aircraft and
> gear up to mass-produce  TLAM's as cheap as Plymouth Neons.

Pilots are getting less and less flight time. TLAMs can be trusted to do the
job and not mess up the carrier during a night trap on the return leg. USAF
and USN are working on all sorts of robotic flying machines. How long will be
before the CoS of the USAF is a geek?


Last I heard, efforts were still under way to try and get the concept to =
work.=0AMeanwhile, do the math on the number of messages involved daily, =
and the=0Abandwidth and storage capacity required to store it all. Of cou=
rse, not one=0Aevert accused the VOICE crowd of being particularly numera=
te...

In a message dated 8/D/YY 1:59:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time,=0Atonyzal@uma=
hexagon.com writes:

>
>  An article in the most recent edition of the Village Voice by Jason Ve=
st
>  examines ECHELON, the National Security Agency's massive surveillance
>  system that analyzes every phone, fax, email and telex message sent
>  around the world each day. Vest notes that the very existence of such =
a
>  system is denied by every US government agency, and that information
>  about ECHELON has only surfaced due to the diligent effort of British,
>  Australian and New Zealand journalists and a former Canadian spy, Mike
>  Frost, who shattered the inside world of signals intelligence with his
>  1996 book, Spyworld.
>
>  The facts drawn out by these sources reveal ECHELON as a powerful
>  electronic net--a net that snags from the millions of phone, fax, and
>  modem signals traversing the globe at any moment selected communicatio=
ns
>  of interest to a five-nation intelligence alliance. Once intercepted
>  (based on the use of key words in exchanges), those communiqu=E9s are =
sent
>  in real time to a central computer system run by the NSA;
>  round-the-clock shifts of American, British, Australian, Canadian, and
>  New Zealand analysts pour over them in search of . . . what?
>
>  Originally a Cold War tool aimed at the Soviets, ECHELON has been
>  redirected at civilian targets worldwide. In fact, as the European
>  Parliament report issued earlier this year noted, political advocacy
>  groups like Amnesty International, Christian Aid and Greenpeace were
>  amongst ECHELON's targets. The system's awesome potential (and potenti=
al
>  for abuse) has spurred some traditional watchdogs to delve deep in
>  search of its secrets, and even prompted some of its minders within th=
e
>  intelligence community to come forward, Vest says.<<
>


In a message dated 8/24/98 6:40:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>
>    There will be cargo pilots and space plane pilots, even if the fighter
>  jocks are made obsolete.  This is a control issue.
>
>    The Army pukes in back of the cargo planes and the politicos
>  controling the space planes are going to insist on it.
>

Cargo aircraft are likely the last ones to go robotic for practical reasons.
As for space planes, they will go robotic when NASA runs out of money.



X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko


>Cargo aircraft are likely the last ones to go robotic for practical
>reasons.  As for space planes, they will go robotic when NASA runs
>out of money.
>


Most space planes are going to be commercial or commercially derived. Paying
passengers and insurance companies will force them to be crewed. For much the
same reasons as cargo planes.

Given the lack of money for a mil-spec space plane development program, the
military will use commercially derived -- aka crewed -- vehicles.

  Gary Hudson's Roton will fly in 2000, for example.  The Zubrin-Clapp
    Pathfinder will be operational in 2001-2.  There is no way that you will
      see anything much more than the X-40's current drop tests before Roton
        is in service.


X-MSMail-From: BergBROG

In a message dated 8/25/98 9:06:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, perlap@cna.org
writes:

<< Do you think there is a market for such a thing? It is right up Ed's areas
   of expertise in subject matter.

 Teaming arrangements, anyone? >>

I raise my hand for "pic on front of the box" . . .

Aside from some government-funded in-depth view, it does not appear to be an
overly difficult subject to "simulate" on a superficial level. Trick is to
make a"game" of it . . .


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 9:44:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time, BergBROG@aol.com
writes:

>
>  I raise my hand for "pic on front of the box" . . .
>
>  Aside from some government-funded in-depth view, it does not appear to be
an
>  overly difficult subject to "simulate" on a superficial level. Trick is to
>  make a"game" of it . . .
>
No problem making a game of it, especially if you are an independently wealthy
terrorist ringleader on a mission from God. A guy like that has a lot more
options than your typical terrorist-under-the-heel-of-some-cold-war-
apparachnik
of the recent past. Plus, the Good Guys (tm) have cruise missiles and similar
neat stuff. Anyway, MSNBC has me booked (subject to getting bumped by a
zippergate story) for the 8-8:30 news show. If I get any more terrorist game
ideas by then, I'll try and sneak them into my on-air remarks. Might as well
share all this.


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 9:08:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time, perlap@cna.org
writes:

>
>  Mike Markowitz forwarded me this little exchange. I thought I had
>  signed up for this list, but apparently not. How might I do so?
>
>  As to the game, Ed McGrady and I have been kicking around half-baked
>  ideas for such a thing for years, ever since the Somali fiasco. Do
>  you think there is a market for such a thing? It is right up Ed's
>  areas of expertise in subject matter.
>

Go here to get the poop on the milgames listserv.

http://members.aol.com/jfdunnigan/private/index.htm


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 9:38:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>
>    Most space planes are going to be commercial or commercially derived.
>  Paying passengers and insurance companies will force them to be crewed.
>  For much the same reasons as cargo planes.
>
>    Given the lack of money for a mil-spec space plane development
>  program, the military will use commercially derived -- aka crewed --
>  vehicles.
>
>    Gary Hudson's Roton will fly in 2000, for example.  The Zubrin-Clapp
>  Pathfinder will be operational in 2001-2.  There is no way that you will
>  see anything much more than the X-40's current drop tests before Roton
>  is in service.
>

Well that's different. The current shuttle program would be a lot cheaper if
we could dispense with human pilots.


X-MSMail-From: Bryan S. Ware

Milgamers,

This discussion thread has been very interesting for me to watch over the
last couple of days.  As a result of some domestic counter-terrorism and
anti-terrorism work my company was doing last year, I developed a concept
for an integrated suite of planning, preparedness, training, and analysis
tools for terrorist scenarios.  All of the tools were based on simulating
and gaming terrorist incidents.  The focus was not on the geo-political
scale that some have suggested in this thread (although I have mused on this
subject as well).  Instead I designed a game framework for installation,
site, or event based games.

We built an early proto-type late last year.  We briefed everyone and their
mother in the anti-terror world (FBI, Secret Service, Defense Science Board,
three-letter agencies, DoD, etc.).  None of the powers were interested in
the program.  The reasons, of course, are typical.  Despite the fact that
Congress has increased the budget by more than $1B for this fiscal year, all
of the spending is in each agency's typical sandbox.  FBI is hiring more
agents, DoD is training first responders in NBC response (and they're not
using games for the training), intell agencies are hiring more analysts, and
so on.  When it comes to models and simulations, the DoD has chosen to focus
on modeling blast effects or CB agent transport and dispersion.  Nobody has
been gaming this stuff.  Who cares how much damage a truck bomb of explosive
x will do when it's y meters from a concrete building.  The important things
are:  when will it likely happen, where, who are the likely actors, what is
the likely target (event, location, etc), how do we prepare, what are my
options, how should I respond, what is the mix of materiel (sensors,
barricades, etc.) vs. procedural (training, guard rotations, etc.) responses
that will give me the greatest chance of averting or responding to a
terrorist incident.

Despite the fact that we were unable to get any financial interest, we have
worked on this project for a year now (some IRAD and alot of sweat).  We
have designed, prototyped, and built components of a tool suite that
encompasses planning (automated support through an expert system), real-time
gaming (at an installation or city level), AAR, and knowledge capture.  We
have based our methodology and doctrine on DoD manuals and have designed
with Khobar Towers, OK City, and similar incidents in mind.  We've spent
alot of time on non-conventional threats--chemical, biological, rad, etc.

The week before the bombings in Africa I was asked to brief a government
working group on our product.  Every agency involved in anti-terrorism was
present (75 people or so were present).  As usual, there was a little
interest, but most agencies had their own priorities, and a higher-level
planning and procedural (gaming) tool was not what they had in mind.  Since
the bombings I've been hoping to hear from one of these agencies since one
of the examples we showed was almost identical to one of the embassy
bombings.  But, with the exception of this group, I haven't heard anyone
talking about gaming this stuff.  I welcome any of your comments or
feedback.


X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>Well that's different. The current shuttle program would be a lot
>cheaper if we could dispense with human pilots.

What has that got to do with it?  NASA is a government jobs program for
aerospace companies.

The unmanned NASA rockets would be controlled by Marshall Space Flight Center
while the manned birds are under the aegis of the Johnson Space Flight Center.

JSC has a more powerful Congressional delegation.  End of story.

Something you all ought to be considering for simulating is the fact that
space technology is now primarily a commercial and not a government activity.
The digital revolution is going into space to deliver the "killer app" to the
masses.

Why mess with corrupt local government cable and the phone company regulators
to get video entertainment-on-demand bandwidth when you can bypass them all
via satellite, the FCC, and campaign contributions to the US Congress.

Commercial cheap access to space means *EVERYBODY* can go to and use
space.

How does the DoD deal with terrorist satellite surveillance purchased on
demand from a French, Chinese or Russian commercial vendor over the
Internet?

X-MSMail-From: gwilmoth

Trent Telenko wrote:
>  Something you all ought to be considering for simulating is the fact
> that space technology is now primarily a commercial and not a government
> activity.  The digital revolution is going into space to deliver the
> "killer app" to the masses.
>
>  Why mess with corrupt local government cable and the phone company
> regulators to get video entertainment-on-demand bandwidth when you can
> bypass them all via satellite, the FCC, and campaign contributions to
> the US Congress.
>
> Commercial cheap access to space means *EVERYBODY* can go to and use
> space.
>
> How does the DoD deal with terrorist satellite surveillance purchased on
> demand from a French, Chinese or Russian commercial vendor over the
> Internet?
>
For a "commercial" view of "commercial space operations," check out
"Rocket Flight, Or Lords of the High Frontier" by Phil Eklund of Sierra
Madre Games.  The web site is http://www.io.com/~wasson/smg.html  I
think you'll like it since you and he both seem to favor the libertarian
point of view.



X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 9:43:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
wargamer@wargamer.com writes:

> Will also try to sign up.  Interesting exchange.  Been so busy getting our
>  server move smoothed out, have had little chance to participate.  Concept
>  of a well-done terrorism strategy game is very appealing, however.  Maybe
>  with a Chris Crawford feel?  ;-)
>
As in nuclear war breaks out every game?


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 1:37:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>  What has that got to do with it?  NASA is a government jobs program for
>  aerospace companies.
>
>   The unmanned NASA rockets would be controlled by Marshall Space Flight
>  Center while the manned birds are under the aegis of the Johnson Space
>  Flight Center.
>
>   JSC has a more powerful Congressional delegation.  End of story.
>
>   Something you all ought to be considering for simulating is the fact
>  that space technology is now primarily a commercial and not a government
>  activity.  The digital revolution is going into space to deliver the
>  "killer app" to the masses.
>
>   Why mess with corrupt local government cable and the phone company
>  regulators to get video entertainment-on-demand bandwidth when you can
>  bypass them all via satellite, the FCC, and campaign contributions to
>  the US Congress.
>
>  Commercial cheap access to space means *EVERYBODY* can go to and use
>  space.
>
>  How does the DoD deal with terrorist satellite surveillance purchased on
>  demand from a French, Chinese or R

Don't underestimate the relentless impact of reality. The military bureaucracy
have been resisting war droids for a century now (and new technology in
general for a lot longer)  But the robots are making progress at a more rapid
clip of late. You work too close to the trogs, leaving you with the impression
that they are more almighty than they actually are.



X-MSMail-From: Bryan S. Ware

I noticed an ad in GameWEEK last night for Vigilance from SegaSoft.  It is
described as "3D action assault on world terrorism."  Sounds a bit like the
Rainbow 6 game.  Beyond the description, I doubt that this game has much to
do with terrorism---it sounds like a shooter.  Anyway, it's due this fall.

bware

>In a message dated 8/25/98 9:43:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>wargamer@wargamer.com writes:
>
>> Will also try to sign up.  Interesting exchange.  Been so busy getting our
>>  server move smoothed out, have had little chance to participate.  Concept
>>  of a well-done terrorism strategy game is very appealing, however.  Maybe
>>  with a Chris Crawford feel?  ;-)
>>
>As in nuclear war breaks out every game?
>

X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/25/98 1:02:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
bware@sonalysts.com writes:

>
>  This discussion thread has been very interesting for me to watch over the
>  last couple of days.  As a result of some domestic counter-terrorism and
>  anti-terrorism work my company was doing last year, I developed a concept
>  for an integrated suite of planning, preparedness, training, and analysis
>  tools for terrorist scenarios.  All of the tools were based on simulating
>  and gaming terrorist incidents.  The focus was not on the geo-political
>  scale that some have suggested in this thread (although I have mused on
this
>  subject as well).  Instead I designed a game framework for installation,
>  site, or event based games.
>
>  We built an early proto-type late last year.  We briefed everyone and their
>  mother in the anti-terror world (FBI, Secret Service, Defense Science
Board,
>  three-letter agencies, DoD, etc.).  None of the powers were interested in
>  the program.  The reasons, of course, are typical.  Despite the fact that
>  Congress has increased the budget by more than $1B for this fiscal year,
all
>  of the spending is in each agency's typical sandbox.  FBI is hiring more
>  agents, DoD is training first responders in NBC response (and they're not
>  using games for the training), intell agencies are hiring more analysts,
and
>  so on.  When it comes to models and simulations, the DoD has chosen to
focus
>  on modeling blast effects or CB agent transport and dispersion.  Nobody has
>  been gaming this stuff.  Who cares how much damage a truck bomb of
explosive
>  x will do when it's y meters from a concrete building.  The important
things
>  are:  when will it likely happen, where, who are the likely actors, what is
>  the likely target (event, location, etc), how do we prepare, what are my
>  options, how should I respond, what is the mix of materiel (sensors,
>  barricades, etc.) vs. procedural (training, guard rotations, etc.)
responses
>  that will give me the greatest chance of averting or responding to a
>  terrorist incident.

Welcome to the OR wars. The struggle between the OR (Operations Research, for
those who haven't bumped into this) community and historical wargamers over
who shall design DoD wargames and how it shall be done. OR made it's mark
during WW II and OR folks dominated wargame design for the following three
decades. The use of history was pretty much in eclipse until the 1970s. At
that point, historical wargames began to gain popularity among the troops (and
many in the OR community.) The military also went back to using history again.
My book, "Getting it Right" goes into this development in much detail (check
out amazon.com, or a library, if you want to check it out.) At the moment, the
you will often encounter a refusal to accept a game that has not been done
using OR techniques. This means engineering type simulations, and this
accounts for the large number of those and the lesser number of wargames as
most of us know them.


>  Despite the fact that we were unable to get any financial interest, we have
>  worked on this project for a year now (some IRAD and alot of sweat).  We
>  have designed, prototyped, and built components of a tool suite that
>  encompasses planning (automated support through an expert system), real-
time
>  gaming (at an installation or city level), AAR, and knowledge capture.  We
>  have based our methodology and doctrine on DoD manuals and have designed
>  with Khobar Towers, OK City, and similar incidents in mind.  We've spent
>  alot of time on non-conventional threats--chemical, biological, rad, etc.
>
>  The week before the bombings in Africa I was asked to brief a government
>  working group on our product.  Every agency involved in anti-terrorism was
>  present (75 people or so were present).  As usual, there was a little
>  interest, but most agencies had their own priorities, and a higher-level
>  planning and procedural (gaming) tool was not what they had in mind.  Since
>  the bombings I've been hoping to hear from one of these agencies since one
>  of the examples we showed was almost identical to one of the embassy
>  bombings.  But, with the exception of this group, I haven't heard anyone
>  talking about gaming this stuff.  I welcome any of your comments or
>  feedback.
>
You might have more success if you reconfigure your product presentation to
stress the OR elements and the predictive and C2 analysis capabilities.
Remember, you are pitching a lot of people who either don't really know what
you are talking about, or don't agree with your methods.



X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/26/98 6:53:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
bware@sonalysts.com writes:

> I noticed an ad in GameWEEK last night for Vigilance from SegaSoft.  It is
>  described as "3D action assault on world terrorism."  Sounds a bit like the
>  Rainbow 6 game.  Beyond the description, I doubt that this game has much to
>  do with terrorism---it sounds like a shooter.  Anyway, it's due this fall.
>
The only kind of "terrorist game" that will appeal to a wide audience would be
one that concentrated on explosions and shootouts.


X-MSMail-From: PHILEKLUND

Trent writes:

For a "commercial" view of "commercial space operations," check out
"Rocket Flight, Or Lords of the High Frontier" by Phil Eklund of Sierra
Madre Games.  The web site is http://www.io.com/~wasson/smg.html  I
think you'll like it since you and he both seem to favor the libertarian
point of view.

Yes, I admit to that ilk.

Phil Eklund
Sierra Madre Games Co.
3438 N Applewood Drive
Tucson, AZ  85712  U.S.A.
(520) 324-0523
phileklund@aol.com
http://www.io.com/~wasson/smg.html

X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko


>Don't underestimate the relentless impact of reality. The military
>bureaucracy have been resisting war droids for a century now (and
>new technology in general for a lot longer)  But the robots are
>making progress at a more rapid clip of late.
>You work too close to the trogs, leaving you with the impression
>that they are more almighty than they actually are.
>

After watching the USAF wipe out its combat electronic warfare forces -- The
F-4G Wild Weasals and EF-111 Ravens -- even after the O'Grady shoot down, I
have come to the conclusion that realisty and the senior USAF leadership has
parted ways.

As long as fighter pilots run the USAF, that is going to remain a problem.


X-MSMail-From: Tony Valle

At 7:44 AM -0700 8/26/98, Trent Telenko wrote:
>>Don't underestimate the relentless impact of reality. The military
>>bureaucracy have been resisting war droids for a century now (and
>>new technology in general for a lot longer)  But the robots are
>>making progress at a more rapid clip of late.
>>You work too close to the trogs, leaving you with the impression
>>that they are more almighty than they actually are.
>>
>
>  After watching the USAF wipe out its combat electronic warfare forces
>-- The F-4G Wild Weasals and EF-111 Ravens -- even after the O'Grady
>shoot down, I have come to the conclusion that realisty and the senior
>USAF leadership has parted ways.
>
>  As long as fighter pilots run the USAF, that is going to remain a
>problem.

Don't give up hope so fast, there. I have it on good authority that the
F-16 WW replacements are quite capable -- much more so than the pundits
gave them credit for -- and that they held up very well in recent exercises.

Now you can be cynical and say that it's just an accident or you can give
some credit for proper foresight in the face of stern opposition to change.
The answer is left as an exercise for the reader ;->.


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/26/98 10:45:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>
>    After watching the USAF wipe out its combat electronic warfare forces
>  -- The F-4G Wild Weasals and EF-111 Ravens -- even after the O'Grady
>  shoot down, I have come to the conclusion that realisty and the senior
>  USAF leadership has parted ways.
>
>    As long as fighter pilots run the USAF, that is going to remain a
>  problem.

Yeah, but what about the new uniforms and v neck t-shirts? We've seen many air
forces get a reality check in the last sixty years. Lotta air forces had to
adapt under fire when they entered WW II, and we got caught short in Vietnam.
We did well in Korea because we had many of the same pilots and commanders who
were successful in the Big One. Meanwhile, on the EW front, maybe the blue
suiters figured that if we can't get this new stuff to work, let's use the
USNs gear and let the swabies take the fall when the shooting starts?


F-16CJ "Stevie Wonder Weasals" and powered decoys in development does not an
electronic warfare doctrine make.

The "long term plan" is to replace the "combat support" AWACS/JSTARS and
electronic warfare forces with recce-sat constellations and killer drones
respectively.  While the "real men" fly F-22's and the JSF and maybe play
controller for 2-4 co-flying drones to absorb the bad guys long range AAM/SAM.

Actually, it works better the other way around.  Air-to-air is simpler to
replace with drones/telepresence than air-to-mud against mobile targets.

Everybody -- even the fighter jocks -- agrees that heavily defended stationary
targets are the meat for stand off and cruise missiles.


X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>Is the air force working on this via wargames yet?
>


Someone is, I'd guess that the Aerospace Corporation (?) folks in D.C. are
involved on the OR side of the world.

  These two concepts have been all over AvWeek for the last 18 to 24
    months.


X-MSMail-From: Tony Valle

At 3:58 PM -0400 8/26/98, Jfdunnigan@aol.com wrote:
>Is the air force working on this via wargames yet?

Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".

In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a skeptic
about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light of the recent
data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they "done good".


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/26/98 6:08:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
tvalle@mindspring.com writes:

>
>  Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".
>
>  In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
>  force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a skeptic
>  about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light of the recent
>  data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they "done good".

Score one for wargames. I know that in the 1970s the Navy (or was it the Air
Force, it was so long ago...) ran a test pitting an PRV F-4 against some
piloted ones. The RPV ruled. But this was never followed up. I'm sure a
roomfull of O-5s staffed a splendid list of reasons why the test was a
failure. This also happened when repeating rifles became available in the
1860s and modern machineguns in the 1890s (and so on.)


In a message dated 8/26/98 4:20:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>   Someone is, I'd guess that the Aerospace Corporation (?) folks in D.C.
>  are involved on the OR side of the world.
>
>    These two concepts have been all over AvWeek for the last 18 to 24
>  months.
>

AvWeek didn't go into much detail about just what kind of wargaming. In the
past, some of the "wargaming" was a rather dubious.


X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>Yeah, but what about the new uniforms and v neck t-shirts? We've
>seen many air forces get a reality check in the last sixty years.
>Lotta air forces had to adapt under fire when they entered WW II,
>and we got caught short in Vietnam.
>We did well in Korea because we had many of the same pilots and
>commanders who were successful in the Big One. Meanwhile, on the EW
>front, maybe the blue suiters figured that if we can't get this new
>stuff to work, let's use the USNs gear and let the swabies take the
>fall when the shooting starts?

It is real easy to laugh at the external manifestations of the USAF's internal
politics. The problem is that the results of the neo-stalinist purges by the
McPeak "Manly Men" fighter jock clique is that it has destroyed the heart of
the service's intellectual and professional culture.

The reason the USAF came into being was strategic airpower.  Which quickly
evolved into strategic nuclear warfare.  When SAC was stood down, the
professional heart of the USAF expired.

The purges of Col John Warden, Gen Corder, the entire electronic warfare
community, all the SAC legacy Navigator/EWO Col's and the undercutting of the
Air University at Maxwell AFB (whatever it is officially called now) shows you
just how far the Fighter clique is going to wipe out the institutional
opposition.

Two books put out by the Air University Press cover this internal USAF "war"
pre-Desert Storm through roughly 1994.  They are "Heart of the Storm: The
Genesis of the Air Campaign Against Iraq,"  by Richard Reynolds, Col, USAF and
"Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the Airpower Debates," Edward Mann
III, Col, USAF.

I know you and Austin Bay have seen the following message, but I think the
rest of the list might be interested in why I am so down on the USAF culture:

          ==============================================

A few years ago, at roughly the time of the O'Grady F-16 shoot down over
Bosnia, I had a long correspondance with a now likely ex-USAF Source.

I pulled it from my floppy files, edited it for clarity, and removed a number
of references.  I think it covers the real reasons why the USAF is suffering
such agonies between its junior and senior ranks.

(Hint, it isn't the "Gender Wars.")

I think the list will find this very much of interest.


                  ===========================



TRENT>>

I am particularly taken with the charges in the book THE ICARUS SYNDROME, by
Carl Builder of the RAND corp.  His evaluation of the "Fighter Pilot Mafia"
seem spot on.  That is, you ask an ex-Air Force officer what he was and he
says he "was a F-16C pilot" while an ex-Army officer says "I was an Army
officer."  IOW, the Air Force officer corps takes more pride in which piece of
heavy equipment they operated than in the institution as a whole.


Source>>
> I believe you and Carl Builder have interpreted the organizational
> loyalty  climate in the Air Force correctly--we don't seem to have
> any broad-service  identity like the Marines do.  We are very
> isolated and tribal.  Especially  fighter, bomber, controller,
> intell, and maintenance types--the fighter guys  divide into
> air-to-air and air-to-mud mentalities.  The same family atmosphere
> and loyalty a bunch of sharks have.


TRENT>>
  I am very tempted to say that "Air Superiority is to important to be
    left to Fighter Pilots."


SOURCE>>
> Air Superiority is becoming less and less an air combat (fighter to
> fighter) type activity.  More and more of our potential enemies are
> investing heavily  in surface-to-air defenses--primarily Third World
> countries who don't have  the technological culture to invest
> heavily and train intensely in  independent fighter maneuvering
> flying.  SAMs are there 24 hours a day, and in the case of radar
> SAMs, in any weather. Much easier to train a primitive in operating
> a SAM radar system than flying a supersonic jet fighter.  New  SAMs
> like the SA-15 are essentially like the Patriot--they do all the
> work  for you and you simply consent to fire.  More systems are
> refining their radars and missile kinematics to target cruise
> missiles (low radar cross section).


TRENT>>
The Fighter Pilot Mafia also seemed to have curious delusions fo "Beyond
Visual Range Godhood."  They think Sparrow and AMRAAM radar guided missiles
are far longer ranged than the Russians, when the opposite was true, and
absolutly ignored the possibility of air-to-air ARM's when the Russians have
large numbers of them both for anti-fighter and anti-AWACS work.


SOURCE>>
> BVR radar air-to-air missiles will be like our M1A1 tanks and Apache
> helicopters were in Iraq--we had the thermal sensors and the
> weapons to kill  enemy tanks, who didn't even know we were there.
> The AA-10 has some long-range motor models that shoot quite a long
> way, and some variants have an  ARM seeker (good to use on US
> fighters who ALWAYS use their radars).  We'll get a nasty surprise
> some day like Israel did in 1973.


TRENT>>
The contractor electronic warfare community, in its periodicals, seemed much
happier with the "SAC Generals" than the "TAC/ACC Generals."

The SAC Generals are shown to always appreciate ECM while the TAC Generals
seemed to think all you needed to be was a "Sh*t Hot" pilot in a high
performance plane to dodge the SAM's.  The "TAC boys" seem to change their
minds on ECM when the shooting started and forget as soon as it is over. The
recent downing of an F-16 over Bosnia seems a good case in point.


SOURCE>>
> SAC knew the threat its bombers were facing during the Cold War, but
> relied  on nuclear exchange for suppressing much of the radar
> threats-- it had a great track record for equitably caring for its
> navigators (especially radar navigators/bombardiers and EWOs).
> When TAC and SAC merged into ACC, TAC had to grudgingly accept many
> "promotable" navigators and EWOs into ranks of Colonel and even
> higher--this was unheard of in TAC.
>
> TAC fighter pilots were notoriously ignorant of threats and
> countermeasures/countertactics.  They seldom knew much threat
> knowledge.  There have been  two "privileged classes" of fighter
> pilots-- those hand-picked and groomed  "Golden Boys":  McPeak's
> F-15A air-to-air "Manly Men" fighter pilots exclusively selected in
> the late 70s who have all gone on to become TAC/ACC's generals, and
> the pilots selected to fly the F-117 in the 80s while it was still
> a black program (most are passing through Colonel now to stardom).
> McPeak was notorious for making any plan or mission highlight the
> F-117 since that was key to our buy of the F-22 and B-2.
>
> Many generations of navigators, EWOs, intell officers, and
> maintenance officers were sacrificed to promote these characters
> below-the-zone and to  create for them an atmosphere not unlike
> Napoleon's Grenadiers a Cheval of the Imperial Guard Cavalry
> enjoyed.  Much of the McPeak rottenness seems to have abated but
> I'm    <Deleted Reference>       <Deleted Reference>            In
> any case it did its damage over the past 5 years since the end of
> the War.  We rewrote history to show that the F-4G and EF-111
> really didn't do much in Desert Storm--the war was won by the
> F-117.  The Wild Weasel blitz of the Iraqi IADS the first week of
> the war is essentially covered up--Gen Profitt who was recently
> killed in an airplane crash, was a big proponent of the EF-111 and
> discounted the contribution of the F-4G.  There are very few
> Weasels still left in uniform to defend it.


TRENT>>
Who is the other "privledged class?"  Are they any good as flyers?

It sounds like you need a Israeli style pilot training system -- a
"Commissioned Warrent Officer Pilot" track and a seperate command track.

This system of "Highlands Clan cronyism" will destroy itself.  I can see signs
of it now in the hits the USAF is taking in the budget wars with the Army and
Navy.


SOURCE>>
> The two privileged classes of pilots were:  F-15A (late 70s) drivers
> and F-117 (early 80s) drivers.  Since the dates I mentioned, both
> jets have been opened up to a wider array of pilots but the early
> days of both mentioned were an incestuous interest-filled
> activity.  Hand-picked favorites and golden boys (some general's
> pet boy).

>  The Israeli AF, like many others like the RAF, has two tracks--one
> for a simple jock who just wants to fly with essentially no other
> responsibility (can be a warrant or more likely stay a company
> grader forever), and the other for a professional career military
> officer who has the capability and desire for more responsibility
> and demonstrates command potential.
>
> You are right--we are f*****g ourselves in the air force and I'm not
> sure even Fogleman can turn it around soon enough--he's making a
> valiant effort though.  <Deleted references>

>   Often, the handpicked Golden Boys of privilege and interest aren't
> very good in the jet.  They are usually specialists in f*****io and
> s*d*my for some  senior officer.          <Deleted Reference>
>                     <Deleted Reference>
>
>  The USAF institution is rotten to the core with its promotion and
> personnel  system.  They recently "reexamined" it but they never
> considered changing or ridding itself of the Below-The-Zone
> promotion concept which is the primal source of its rottenness.
> You wind up with someone getting a command billet who has never
> gotten his hands dirty working in the trade-- inexperienced and
> immature, and also someone who is such a careerist they don't have
> the guts to stand up for their people or make a decision (they
> might be WRONG!).  The Highland Clans may have had a cronyistic
> system but at least they all could FIGHT when necessary.  Look at
> the candyasses of the 1st Fighter Wing in  Desert Storm compared to
> the regular bubbas in the 33rd FW.  The 33rd got 16 MiG kills and
> the 1st "Golden Boys" got 0 (but don't think they weren't  trying,
> and CENTCOM was stacking the deck on CAP/Escort missions to put
> them  in position to get some).



TRENT>>  It is my belief that the draw down in USAF Electronic Combat
capability started when the Tacit Rainbow ARM UAV came out of the "Black
World," and the ASPJ, both went "tango uniform" in the late 1980's -
early 1990's.  It accelerated after the Gulf War with the cancellation
of the MAWS (missile attack warning system), the cancellation of the
EF-111 SIP upgrade, and the vetoing of a F-15E based Wild Weasal armed
with a laser blinder by McPeak.

  Your thoughts?


> The real drawdown of USAF EC capability began in around 1982 when
> the F-117 was fielded at Nellis--single-seat "fighter" capability
> that didn't need no dang confounded gadgetry and pencil-neck geek
> four-eyed EWOs (Chuck Yeager accent added for authenticity).
> Flaccid Rambo <<Note2 from Trent: a slightly pornographic reference
> to the cancelled Tacit Rainbow anti-radar cruise missile>> and ASPJ
> (a Navy program so it can't be good for us) were stillborn by the
> late 1980s--nonstarters.
> Corder had a pet black project that was probably also killed when
> he was fired but I don't know its status.  <<Note3 from Trent: Gen.
> Corder was the USAF's foremost expert on electronic warfare and
> developed the USAF's 1980's anti-SAM doctrine.  His first cancelled
> and now white world towed decoy hardware have become the "emerging
> fix" for F-16's EW problems.>>

>  Col Jock Patterson at TAWC/EC and _GENERAL RALSTON_ at TAC/DR
> basically stopped advocating any new EC systems because the senior
> leadership had essentially  bought off on stealth, hook line and
> sinker.

> Our F-111s are gone and our A-10s are essentially gone -- those and
> the F4s were the three jets (Gen.) Russ had on his "hit list" when
> Desert Shield kicked  off.  Schwarzkopf's replacement at CENTCOM
> had to call McPeak and personally order him to turn around some
> F-4Gs that were on their way to the boneyard after the end of the
> war--they were still needed to enforce the peace over  Iraq.
> (Gen.) Corder was fired for advocating that we keep squadrons of
> F-4Gs in the active AF when McPeak was trying to find a way to
> keep all the F-15C  squadrons at a time when
> the AF was shrinking by at least 1/3.

> We stopped buying new ECM pods, missile approach warning systems,
> new RWRs, improved flares, etc.

>  We've almost stopped testing threat weapon systems.

>   Our entire countermeasures industrial base and experienced
> engineers in the program offices dried up, probably never to
> rebuild until we lose half an air force in the next war and go back
> to the days of the late 60s again (Quick Reaction programs because
> we were too myopic to anticipate the threat).  All the things we
> learned from Vietnam and used so well in the Gulf are now gone.

> The electronic warfare community has essentially been "purged"--most
> EWOs were passed over for promotion and SERBed while they and the EC
> pilots (who  didn't get F-15/F-16 assignments) have gotten good
> jobs as contractors and  consultants.  EC/EW has now evolved into
> "Information Warfare", which  generally doesn't include SEAD or ECM
> and seems to rely on deception.  Our offensive and defensive
> domination of the electromagnetic spectrum has all  but disappeared
> and the generals have totally bought off on stealth as the  panacea
> to every threat.  If the Bosnian Serbs had deployed a few SA-10
> systems we would have been up a creek--they would have been able to
> dominate the skies and keep us away.



X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>At 3:58 PM -0400 8/26/98, Jfdunnigan@aol.com wrote:
>>Is the air force working on this via wargames yet?
>
>Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".
>
>In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
>force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a
>skeptic about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light
>of the recent data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they
>"done good".
>
>--tv
>_________________________________________________________________
>Tony Valle     855 Royalwood Ln    Oviedo FL 32765   407-366-3928
>tvalle@mindspring.com                                   "Killjoy"
>finger for PGP key      "...Specialization is for insects." --RAH
>


The problem with the USAF simulations on future fighter and SAM defenses is
that they are "doomed to succeed."  They are only as good as their initial
sassumptions.  Simple things like electronics upgrades to the old SA-2 radar
and fuzing to make the system usable don't show up in them.

There are U.S. fighters that were recently tracked and locked on to by such
improved North Korean SA-2 systems...and did not know it.  Their EW systems no
longer recognized such "obsolete" threats.

Why did that happen?  The simulations used to justify, make and program their
EW systems did not take into account the possibility!

The emerging Third World "Pink" threat that techno-mercs like the French,
Russian Federation, China and the Isreali's represent are going to eat the
USAF up because it got rid of its electronic combat specialists.  They cannot
even conceive, let alone ask for, realistic simulations of this evolving
future threat.


In a message dated 8/28/98 7:56:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>
>    It is real easy to laugh at the external manifestations of the USAF's
>  internal politics. The problem is that the results of the neo-stalinist
>  purges by the McPeak "Manly Men" fighter jock clique is that it has
>  destroyed the heart of the service's intellectual and professional
>  culture.

Speaking of the USAF facination with stealth and Information Warfare (IW,) I
constantly look for openings in my TV news work to get these stories out, but
there are two major problems; USAF politics are not sexy enough (unless they
involve sex, the "manly man" stuff was not enough), and anything dealing with
bureaucracy or technology is a hard sell. The TV reporters and producers find
all of this facinating, but not something they would put on the air (unless,
by some bit of good fortune, one or more of the major news organizations to
run with it, then everyone else follows suit. There's also the problem of less
military news coverage (especially when there's no shooting going on) and the
concentration on fewer than a dozen (usually much less) stories that are
followed for more than a day. All this makes helping any reform efforts a real
sporting proposition.


In a message dated 8/28/98 8:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>
>    The problem with the USAF simulations on future fighter and SAM
>  defenses is that they are "doomed to succeed."  They are only as good as
>  their initial sassumptions.  Simple things like electronics upgrades to
>  the old SA-2 radar and fuzing to make the system usable don't show up in
>  them.
>
>    There are U.S. fighters that were recently tracked and locked on to by
>  such improved North Korean SA-2 systems...and did not know it.  Their EW
>  systems no longer recognized such "obsolete" threats.
>
>   Why did that happen?  The simulations used to justify, make and program
>  their EW systems did not take into account the possibility!
>
>    The emerging Third World "Pink" threat that techno-mercs like the
>  French, Russian Federation, China and the Isreali's represent are going
>  to eat the USAF up because it got rid of its electronic combat
>  specialists.  They cannot even conceive, let alone ask for, realistic
>  simulations of this evolving future threat.
>

This is institutionalized in all military organizations, but particularly the
Air Force. We're going to go through the Vietnam mess all over again, except
this time we probably won't have ten years to get our act together. This kind
of arrogance got a lot of Israelis killed in 1973,  which just goes to show
you how hard it is to learn from experience (and we were warning the Israelis
about the dangers of depending too much on pilot skill.)



In a message dated 98-08-24 13:11:57 EDT, Jfdunnigan@aol.com writes:

<<
In one of my books, I think it was "Shooting Blanks," we found that there was
a direct correlation between congresscritters votes for defense spending and
money spent in their district. Coincidence? I don't think so.... And there's
an interesting game in there somewhere. Probably exists, but no one will give
it any exposure. >>

Yep.  A major reason why urban Members don't havemuch of a 'pro-Defense'
voting record, since most defense plants and installations are in suburban or
rural aras.



X-MSMail-From: Tony Valle

At 3:58 PM -0400 8/26/98, Jfdunnigan@aol.com wrote:
>Is the air force working on this via wargames yet?

Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".

In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a skeptic
about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light of the recent
data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they "done good".


X-MSMail-From: Jfdunnigan

In a message dated 8/26/98 6:08:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
tvalle@mindspring.com writes:

>
>  Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".
>
>  In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
>  force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a skeptic
>  about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light of the recent
>  data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they "done good".

Score one for wargames. I know that in the 1970s the Navy (or was it the Air
Force, it was so long ago...) ran a test pitting an PRV F-4 against some
piloted ones. The RPV ruled. But this was never followed up. I'm sure a
roomfull of O-5s staffed a splendid list of reasons why the test was a
failure. This also happened when repeating rifles became available in the
1860s and modern machineguns in the 1890s (and so on.)


In a message dated 8/26/98 4:20:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@hotmail.com writes:

>   Someone is, I'd guess that the Aerospace Corporation (?) folks in D.C.
>  are involved on the OR side of the world.
>
>    These two concepts have been all over AvWeek for the last 18 to 24
>  months.
>

AvWeek didn't go into much detail about just what kind of wargaming. In the
past, some of the "wargaming" was a rather dubious.


X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>Yeah, but what about the new uniforms and v neck t-shirts? We've
>seen many air forces get a reality check in the last sixty years.
>Lotta air forces had to adapt under fire when they entered WW II,
>and we got caught short in Vietnam.
>We did well in Korea because we had many of the same pilots and
>commanders who were successful in the Big One. Meanwhile, on the EW
>front, maybe the blue suiters figured that if we can't get this new
>stuff to work, let's use the USNs gear and let the swabies take the
>fall when the shooting starts?

  It is real easy to laugh at the external manifestations of the USAF's
  internal politics. The problem is that the results of the neo-stalinist
  purges by the McPeak "Manly Men" fighter jock clique is that it has
  destroyed the heart of the service's intellectual and professional
  culture.

  The reason the USAF came into being was strategic airpower.  Which
  quickly evolved into strategic nuclear warfare.  When SAC was stood
  down, the professional heart of the USAF expired.

  The purges of Col John Warden, Gen Corder, the entire electronic
  warfare community, all the SAC legacy Navigator/EWO Col's and the
  undercutting of the Air University at Maxwell AFB (whatever it is
  officially called now) shows you just how far the Fighter clique is
  going to wipe out the institutional opposition.

  Two books put out by the Air University Press cover this internal USAF
  "war" pre-Desert Storm through roughly 1994.  They are "Heart of the
  Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign Against Iraq,"  by Richard
  Reynolds, Col, USAF and "Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the
  Airpower Debates," Edward Mann III, Col, USAF.

  I know you and Austin Bay have seen the following message, but I think
  the rest of the list might be interested in why I am so down on the USAF
  culture:

          ==============================================

   A few years ago, at roughly the time of the O'Grady F-16 shoot down
   over Bosnia, I had a long correspondance with a now likely ex-USAF
   Source.

  I pulled it from my floppy files, edited it for clarity, and removed a
  number of references.  I think it covers the real reasons why the USAF
  is suffering such agonies between its junior and senior ranks.

  (Hint, it isn't the "Gender Wars.")

  I think the list will find this very much of interest.


                  ===========================



TRENT>>

  I am particularly taken with the charges in the book THE ICARUS
  SYNDROME, by Carl Builder of the RAND corp.  His evaluation of the
  "Fighter Pilot Mafia" seem spot on.  That is, you ask an ex-Air Force
  officer what he was and he says he "was a F-16C pilot" while an ex-Army
  officer says "I was an Army officer."  IOW, the Air Force officer corps
  takes more pride in which piece of heavy equipment they operated than in
  the institution as a whole.


Source>>
> I believe you and Carl Builder have interpreted the organizational
> loyalty  climate in the Air Force correctly--we don't seem to have
> any broad-service  identity like the Marines do.  We are very
> isolated and tribal.  Especially  fighter, bomber, controller,
> intell, and maintenance types--the fighter guys  divide into
> air-to-air and air-to-mud mentalities.  The same family atmosphere
> and loyalty a bunch of sharks have.


TRENT>>
  I am very tempted to say that "Air Superiority is to important to be
  left to Fighter Pilots."


SOURCE>>
> Air Superiority is becoming less and less an air combat (fighter to
> fighter) type activity.  More and more of our potential enemies are
> investing heavily  in surface-to-air defenses--primarily Third World
> countries who don't have  the technological culture to invest
> heavily and train intensely in  independent fighter maneuvering
> flying.  SAMs are there 24 hours a day, and in the case of radar
> SAMs, in any weather. Much easier to train a primitive in operating
> a SAM radar system than flying a supersonic jet fighter.  New  SAMs
> like the SA-15 are essentially like the Patriot--they do all the
> work  for you and you simply consent to fire.  More systems are
> refining their radars and missile kinematics to target cruise
> missiles (low radar cross section).


TRENT>>
  The Fighter Pilot Mafia also seemed to have curious delusions fo
  "Beyond Visual Range Godhood."  They think Sparrow and AMRAAM radar
  guided missiles are far longer ranged than the Russians, when the
  opposite was true, and absolutly ignored the possibility of air-to-air
  ARM's when the Russians have large numbers of them both for anti-fighter
  and anti-AWACS work.


SOURCE>>
> BVR radar air-to-air missiles will be like our M1A1 tanks and Apache
> helicopters were in Iraq--we had the thermal sensors and the
> weapons to kill  enemy tanks, who didn't even know we were there.
> The AA-10 has some long-range motor models that shoot quite a long
> way, and some variants have an  ARM seeker (good to use on US
> fighters who ALWAYS use their radars).  We'll get a nasty surprise
> some day like Israel did in 1973.


TRENT>>
  The contractor electronic warfare community, in its periodicals,
  seemed much happier with the "SAC Generals" than the "TAC/ACC Generals."

  The SAC Generals are shown to always appreciate ECM while the TAC
  Generals seemed to think all you needed to be was a "Sh*t Hot" pilot in
  a high performance plane to dodge the SAM's.  The "TAC boys" seem to
  change their minds on ECM when the shooting started and forget as soon
  as it is over. The recent downing of an F-16 over Bosnia seems a good
  case in point.


SOURCE>>
> SAC knew the threat its bombers were facing during the Cold War, but
> relied  on nuclear exchange for suppressing much of the radar
> threats-- it had a great track record for equitably caring for its
> navigators (especially radar navigators/bombardiers and EWOs).
> When TAC and SAC merged into ACC, TAC had to grudgingly accept many
> "promotable" navigators and EWOs into ranks of Colonel and even
> higher--this was unheard of in TAC.
>
> TAC fighter pilots were notoriously ignorant of threats and
> countermeasures/countertactics.  They seldom knew much threat
> knowledge.  There have been  two "privileged classes" of fighter
> pilots-- those hand-picked and groomed  "Golden Boys":  McPeak's
> F-15A air-to-air "Manly Men" fighter pilots exclusively selected in
> the late 70s who have all gone on to become TAC/ACC's generals, and
> the pilots selected to fly the F-117 in the 80s while it was still
> a black program (most are passing through Colonel now to stardom).
> McPeak was notorious for making any plan or mission highlight the
> F-117 since that was key to our buy of the F-22 and B-2.
>
> Many generations of navigators, EWOs, intell officers, and
> maintenance officers were sacrificed to promote these characters
> below-the-zone and to  create for them an atmosphere not unlike
> Napoleon's Grenadiers a Cheval of the Imperial Guard Cavalry
> enjoyed.  Much of the McPeak rottenness seems to have abated but
> I'm    <Deleted Reference>       <Deleted Reference>            In
> any case it did its damage over the past 5 years since the end of
> the War.  We rewrote history to show that the F-4G and EF-111
> really didn't do much in Desert Storm--the war was won by the
> F-117.  The Wild Weasel blitz of the Iraqi IADS the first week of
> the war is essentially covered up--Gen Profitt who was recently
> killed in an airplane crash, was a big proponent of the EF-111 and
> discounted the contribution of the F-4G.  There are very few
> Weasels still left in uniform to defend it.


TRENT>>
  Who is the other "privledged class?"  Are they any good as flyers?

   It sounds like you need a Israeli style pilot training system -- a
   "Commissioned Warrent Officer Pilot" track and a seperate command track.

  This system of "Highlands Clan cronyism" will destroy itself.  I can
  see signs of it now in the hits the USAF is taking in the budget wars
  with the Army and Navy.


SOURCE>>
> The two privileged classes of pilots were:  F-15A (late 70s) drivers
> and F-117 (early 80s) drivers.  Since the dates I mentioned, both
> jets have been opened up to a wider array of pilots but the early
> days of both mentioned were an incestuous interest-filled
> activity.  Hand-picked favorites and golden boys (some general's
> pet boy).

>  The Israeli AF, like many others like the RAF, has two tracks--one
> for a simple jock who just wants to fly with essentially no other
> responsibility (can be a warrant or more likely stay a company
> grader forever), and the other for a professional career military
> officer who has the capability and desire for more responsibility
> and demonstrates command potential.
>
> You are right--we are f*****g ourselves in the air force and I'm not
> sure even Fogleman can turn it around soon enough--he's making a
> valiant effort though.  <Deleted references>

>   Often, the handpicked Golden Boys of privilege and interest aren't
> very good in the jet.  They are usually specialists in f*****io and
> s*d*my for some  senior officer.          <Deleted Reference>
>                     <Deleted Reference>
>
>  The USAF institution is rotten to the core with its promotion and
> personnel  system.  They recently "reexamined" it but they never
> considered changing or ridding itself of the Below-The-Zone
> promotion concept which is the primal source of its rottenness.
> You wind up with someone getting a command billet who has never
> gotten his hands dirty working in the trade-- inexperienced and
> immature, and also someone who is such a careerist they don't have
> the guts to stand up for their people or make a decision (they
> might be WRONG!).  The Highland Clans may have had a cronyistic
> system but at least they all could FIGHT when necessary.  Look at
> the candyasses of the 1st Fighter Wing in  Desert Storm compared to
> the regular bubbas in the 33rd FW.  The 33rd got 16 MiG kills and
> the 1st "Golden Boys" got 0 (but don't think they weren't  trying,
> and CENTCOM was stacking the deck on CAP/Escort missions to put
> them  in position to get some).



TRENT>>  It is my belief that the draw down in USAF Electronic Combat
capability started when the Tacit Rainbow ARM UAV came out of the "Black
World," and the ASPJ, both went "tango uniform" in the late 1980's -
early 1990's.  It accelerated after the Gulf War with the cancellation
of the MAWS (missile attack warning system), the cancellation of the
EF-111 SIP upgrade, and the vetoing of a F-15E based Wild Weasal armed
with a laser blinder by McPeak.

  Your thoughts?


> The real drawdown of USAF EC capability began in around 1982 when
> the F-117 was fielded at Nellis--single-seat "fighter" capability
> that didn't need no dang confounded gadgetry and pencil-neck geek
> four-eyed EWOs (Chuck Yeager accent added for authenticity).
> Flaccid Rambo <<Note2 from Trent: a slightly pornographic reference
> to the cancelled Tacit Rainbow anti-radar cruise missile>> and ASPJ
> (a Navy program so it can't be good for us) were stillborn by the
> late 1980s--nonstarters.
> Corder had a pet black project that was probably also killed when
> he was fired but I don't know its status.  <<Note3 from Trent: Gen.
> Corder was the USAF's foremost expert on electronic warfare and
> developed the USAF's 1980's anti-SAM doctrine.  His first cancelled
> and now white world towed decoy hardware have become the "emerging
> fix" for F-16's EW problems.>>

>  Col Jock Patterson at TAWC/EC and _GENERAL RALSTON_ at TAC/DR
> basically stopped advocating any new EC systems because the senior
> leadership had essentially  bought off on stealth, hook line and
> sinker.

> Our F-111s are gone and our A-10s are essentially gone -- those and
> the F4s were the three jets (Gen.) Russ had on his "hit list" when
> Desert Shield kicked  off.  Schwarzkopf's replacement at CENTCOM
> had to call McPeak and personally order him to turn around some
> F-4Gs that were on their way to the boneyard after the end of the
> war--they were still needed to enforce the peace over  Iraq.
> (Gen.) Corder was fired for advocating that we keep squadrons of
> F-4Gs in the active AF when McPeak was trying to find a way to
> keep all the F-15C  squadrons at a time when
> the AF was shrinking by at least 1/3.

> We stopped buying new ECM pods, missile approach warning systems,
> new RWRs, improved flares, etc.

>  We've almost stopped testing threat weapon systems.

>   Our entire countermeasures industrial base and experienced
> engineers in the program offices dried up, probably never to
> rebuild until we lose half an air force in the next war and go back
> to the days of the late 60s again (Quick Reaction programs because
> we were too myopic to anticipate the threat).  All the things we
> learned from Vietnam and used so well in the Gulf are now gone.

> The electronic warfare community has essentially been "purged"--most
> EWOs were passed over for promotion and SERBed while they and the EC
> pilots (who  didn't get F-15/F-16 assignments) have gotten good
> jobs as contractors and  consultants.  EC/EW has now evolved into
> "Information Warfare", which  generally doesn't include SEAD or ECM
> and seems to rely on deception.  Our offensive and defensive
> domination of the electromagnetic spectrum has all  but disappeared
> and the generals have totally bought off on stealth as the  panacea
> to every threat.  If the Bosnian Serbs had deployed a few SA-10
> systems we would have been up a creek--they would have been able to
> dominate the skies and keep us away.



X-MSMail-From: Trent Telenko

>At 3:58 PM -0400 8/26/98, Jfdunnigan@aol.com wrote:
>>Is the air force working on this via wargames yet?
>
>Yes they are -- this is why I was talking about "recent exercises".
>
>In fact the doctrine is being tested both in tactical sims and
>force-on-force sims, and I'm most surprised by the result. I was a
>skeptic about the switch just as Trent seems to be still. In light
>of the recent data, though, I've had to suck it up and admit they
>"done good".
>
>--tv
>_________________________________________________________________
>Tony Valle     855 Royalwood Ln    Oviedo FL 32765   407-366-3928
>tvalle@mindspring.com                                   "Killjoy"
>finger for PGP key      "...Specialization is for insects." --RAH
>


  The problem with the USAF simulations on future fighter and SAM
  defenses is that they are "doomed to succeed."  They are only as good as
  their initial sassumptions.  Simple things like electronics upgrades to
  the old SA-2 radar and fuzing to make the system usable don't show up in
  them.

  There are U.S. fighters that were recently tracked and locked on to by
  such improved North Korean SA-2 systems...and did not know it.  Their EW
  systems no longer recognized such "obsolete" threats.

 Why did that happen?  The simulations used to justify, make and program
 their EW systems did not take into account the possibility!

  The emerging Third World "Pink" threat that techno-mercs like the
  French, Russian Federation, China and the Isreali's represent are going
  to eat the USAF up because it got rid of its electronic combat
  specialists.  They cannot even conceive, let alone ask for, realistic
  simulations of this evolving future threat.


In a message dated 8/28/98 7:56:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trent_telenko@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>
>    It is real easy to laugh at the external manifestations of the USAF's
>  internal politics. The problem is that the results of the neo-stalinist
>  purges by the McPeak "Manly Men" fighter jock clique is that it has
>  destroyed the heart of the service's intellectual and professional
>  culture.

Speaking of the USAF facination with stealth and Information Warfare (IW,