What is 'Operational Wargame', a war simulation board game created by the US Marine Corps?
A large-scale simulation board game that recreates actual wars in detail is called a 'wargame.' Mitch Reed, a wargame player and game writer, explains the ' Operational Wargame ' series of military wargames developed by the US military.
The Operational Wargame Series: The best game not in stores now – No Dice No Glory
Operational Wargame is a board game that simulates combat from 2025 to 2050. The game focuses on the operational level of warfare and allows players to experience the military in a variety of domains. The developers, retired US Army Colonel Tim Barrick and the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (USMCWL), aim to recreate the difficult decisions that operational commanders make and the atmosphere of the field.
The game map used in Operation Wargame is made up of hexagonal grids, which show the overall battlefield. The scale of the map is 200 nautical miles (about 370 km) on a side, and 1 hex is 10 nautical miles (about 18.5 km) on a side.
Players use units such as naval ships, flying squadrons, SAM batteries, and mobile battalions or squadrons for land battles. Instead of pieces, cards called counters are placed on the hexes. These cards not only show the unit's position, but also show the unit's attack power, defense power, and status when it suffers losses.
Dice are used to make decisions in the game. Basically, 20-sided dice are used, but if a unit is damaged and degraded, 16-sided or 12-sided dice may be used depending on the situation. In addition, 4-sided, 6-sided, and 8-sided dice are also used to determine the effects of units.
The game is turn-based, but the only thing you do during your turn is plan your actions. When actually moving units, both sides move all of their units at the same time, make decisions, and then proceed in the following order: air combat, naval combat, ground combat.
For example, air units can return to the game even if they are destroyed by returning to their base. There is also a concept of logistics, and there is a regeneration phase at the end of the turn. 'The turns don't take very long, and a player's team can get through two or three turns in a normal workday,' Reed said.
Reed said he was invited to test play Operational Wargame in April 2021. There, about 30 students from the United States Marine Corps Military Academy were divided into two camps, 'America and its allies' and 'China and Russia,' and played on maps in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, North America, Taiwan, and the Baltic states.
The test play that Reed participated in lasted for three days. Through Operational Wargame, students simulate the tactical and strategic theories they learned at school.
Operational Wargame is a board game, but to understand the game, you need to understand 'how joint operations work and what functions are used during the campaign.' Therefore, even military veterans may not have enough knowledge to play the game well, and it depends on the planning of the operation and the experience of actual combat.
How would you command forces in the South China Sea? Assassin's Mace, the educational PME wargame by the USMC Wargaming Division, allows uniformed service members to explore the wicked operational problem. I learned a lot playing it this week. #wargaming #miltwitter pic.twitter.com/j967vn39cn
— Sebastian Bae (@SebastianBae) July 9, 2020
At the time of writing, Operational Wargame is only available to the U.S. Marine Corps and only available through the Department of Defense's wargame division. 'I think Operational Wargame would be a big hit if it were commercialized, but we don't have any plans to do so at the moment,' Reed said.
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