Experiential Learning in Action: Wargaming at AOC

By Maj Alex Buck - August 28, 2024

Reading Time: 30 min

The Army Operations Course (AOC) conducted by the Canadian Army Command and Staff College (CACSC) is designed to develop Army Junior Officers, so they are capable of executing the duties of a staff officer in a Battle Group (BG) or Brigade (Bde) Headquarters (HQ). This includes the planning and conduct of operations, as well as the leadership of staff and specialist teams. Students on the course are initially exposed to and trained on “The Estimate Process”¹ as a means of understanding the tactical problems that are presented to them and developing plans that properly address those problems and achieve the tasks required of them. Their first exposure to the estimate occurs through a deliberate “crawl” stage conducted through a series of Battle Group Exercises (BGXs), the first two of which are known as BGX 1.1. and BGX 1.2. These initial exercises form the foundation of the path students will follow as they develop an understanding of how to implement and apply The Estimate as a framework for understanding the tactical situation and develop a plan. This initial training is excellent and provides the students with a strong understanding of how to consider key factors and form their deductions into a plan. However, the resultant plan is not used in any functional way after being developed. They are generally discarded as the students move forward with their learning through subsequent BGXs.

Identifying that there was potential for additional learning opportunities by executing the plans developed by the students, I looked for methods to do so. So, during the most recent iteration of AOC, I introduced a tactical wargame session following BGX 1.1 and BGX 1.2. My aim was to bridge the gap between planning and execution, and to provide the students with a dynamic, experiential learning environment. I believed that by wargaming their plans, the students would have the opportunity to identify how their understanding of the situation and the deductions they made based on linked factors matched with potential outcomes of the operation.

Wargaming as a Learning Tool

Wargaming is a tool that can be used to visualize, test, evaluate, and refine, tactical approaches in a controlled environment. This makes it an excellent pedagogical tool for military education.² There are several concepts that make wargaming an ideal tool for AOC, in particular.

1. Experiential Learning: Army Junior Officers, in general, come from a background based on time in the field spent learning their craft. They are familiar with a training environment that puts them in positions that test their decision‑making and technical skill. The curriculum during the majority of the BGX series of exercises is theoretical and focused on making academic deductions based on the tactical problem and situation. Through wargaming, students can apply this theoretical knowledge in practice and learn from the outcomes that are generated. Moving from theory to practice is a transformative, and necessary, step for the students.
2. Risk Management: It is easy to create a plan in a vacuum where outcomes of planning are not assessed. During AOC, the students are consistently reminded that when they develop plans, they should always remember that someone will have to execute that plan on the ground someday. However, maintaining that mindset in an academic environment is challenging. Wargaming offers a framework to examine, understand, and manage, the risks of military operations in a controlled environment. Through  the simulation of the operating environment, students can identify potential risk in their plans, test mitigation strategies, and develop the nuanced understanding of how their plans may unfold under a variety of conditions that we expect from an AOC level staff officer.
3. Decision-Making: Military operations inherently involve varying degrees of uncertainty. Again, it is easy to develop plans that have no outcomes. It is worthwhile for students to see early that the plans they create may not fully fit within the situation to achieve their operational aims and understand that they will need to make decisions throughout execution that may not be in perfect alignment with their plan. Even the simplest wargame forces students into opportunities to make decisions in uncertain environments, and rapidly consider factors that they may have overlooked in the planning process. Having to make decisions in real-time, that they did not consider during the planning process, helps orient them to higher levels of analysis. In future planning iterations, the students can then integrate this knowledge gained through wargaming.

Experimenting with Tactical Wargaming During AOC

In early 2024, I integrated an experimental wargaming program into BGX 1.1 and BGX 1.2. Using a set of wargaming rules that I borrowed from 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and LCol Cole Petersen³, I adapted the ruleset for AOC’s purposes and started playing the student’s plans from the BGXs against their assessed Enemy Courses of Action (ECOAs). This provided the students a facilitated learning environment within which they were able to observe the outcomes of their plans and make decisions in a controlled and low-consequence environment. Through executing their plans against their assessed ECOAs, the students were able to rapidly develop an appreciation and understanding for synchronization, impacts of terrain, weapons effects, and risk that they would otherwise not have been able to strictly through an academic discussion of the estimate process and plan development. Wargaming allowed the students the opportunity to be immersed in the battlefield dynamics and uncertain environments that significantly impacted the timing and sequencing of operations, which influenced outcomes in ways that they did not expect or consider through their planning process.

The Importance of Understanding Practical Outcomes

One of the critical benefits of wargaming is the ability to visualize how a plan that was created in a theoretical bubble can play out in practice. While theoretical scenarios provide a basis for understanding, they can often seem abstract and disconnected from reality. Wargaming allows students to transition from theory into an immersive scenario where the decisions they made in planning have tangible consequences. The experiential learning process demonstrates to students that their plans have outcomes, and they need to consider factors effectively in order to achieve positive results. It also puts them into a state of competition with their peers playing the enemy, which increases the stakes of developing a plan that will be successful and making good decisions so that they win. The adversarial nature of the wargame demonstrates to the students that even if their plan is “good” from an academic perspective, the enemy might also have a “good” or even a “better” plan. In these cases, the planning is essential to drive dynamic decision making, which the students can participate in and learn from.

1. Situational Understanding: The estimate process is based on identifying and considering key factors resulting in deductions that inform a plan. To conduct this process, the students must have an ability to understand the operational environment and which factors are relevant to their specific tactical problem. However, without executing the plans they develop, the students aren’t able to validate that their understanding is correct. Wargaming immerses the students in the scenario and offers them the opportunity to observe how their plan interacts with those factors in a simulated environment. This iterative process helped hone student understanding of key factors and deductions, as well as how those deductions influenced the success of their planning.
2. Identification of Weaknesses: Similar to the development of their overall understanding of the situation, wargaming allowed students to identify weaknesses in their plans. Wargaming challenged the assumptions and deductions students made during the planning process and allowed them to rapidly identify areas to improve in their plans. Traditionally, these weaknesses would be identified and discussed by the Directing Staff (DS) at CACSC. However, through wargaming the students identify these weaknesses by pitting their plan against their own assessment of the enemy. This self‑reflection and personal ownership of the areas to improve seems to increase student understanding and desire to implement those lessons in future planning cycles. This not only applies to their course of action (COA) development and planning process, but also their understanding of how the enemy would operate within the scenario.
3. Coordination: Truly understanding the importance of combined arms groupings and the nuance of synchronizing effects is challenging in a purely theoretical environment. Through wargaming, students are able to observe both of these concepts in a simulated situation and bridge the divide between theory and practice more rapidly. By executing their planned operations in a wargame, students gain an understanding for resource management, allocation and prioritization in time and space to achieve their objectives. They do this in theory through the planning process, but within the standard curriculum of AOC they are not offered the opportunity to validate their plans other than through DS feedback.
4. Development of Adaptive Thinking: Military operations are dynamic and unpredictable. For ease of learning, approaching tactical problems through a static lens is critical to fully understanding each step of the planning process and how they work in symbiosis with one another. However, this approach must be balanced by cultivating adaptive thinking within students by having them work through scenarios that require quick, informed decision-making that requires the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. During wargaming, students encountered unexpected challenges and factors that they may not have considered appropriately. These situations required that students think on their feet, fully understand the breadth of factors, adjust their plans, and develop innovative solutions, to be successful. By practicing this early in the course through low resource intensive methods, such as wargaming, students are better prepared to navigate future complexities in planning, digitized simulation, and eventual real-world operations. This is different than the standard COA and Plan wargames that are part of the Operational Planning Process and learned on AOC. Tactical wargaming is a method that injects the chaos and randomness of actual combat into an otherwise academic conception of warfighting. Students quickly learn that their “perfect” plan may not play out the way they think it will, but that through the planning process they are able to understand their environment and quickly adapt to changing circumstances.

Next Steps

During the first iterations of tactical wargaming during AOC, the student and instructor feedback was generally positive. Students became more personally invested in their planning process as they gained an improved appreciation for the resulting outcomes. The program drove students to consider different factors than they would have otherwise, as they were able to apply lessons learned from previous wargames to their current planning cycle. Additionally, the students became invested in improving the wargaming rules and scenario to make them even more immersive and realistic than they were at the outset of the program. All of this indicates that students were more interested in participating in the planning process overall and how they perceived the tactical problems presented during the course. Moving forward, a longitudinal study to evaluate the impacts of wargaming on student outcomes and performance should be conducted. This evaluation of the program should validate the utility of wargaming as a pedagogical tool beyond anecdotal evidence and will guide the refinement of the program overall.

Wargames can differ significantly in scale and complexity. This experimental wargaming initiative was intentionally kept simple and designed not to require any special skill or knowledge prior to playing (other than the general military doctrine understanding that we expect from any AOC student). It was also designed to be cost effective, utilizing 8½x11 printer paper to create game pieces and played on a 1:50k map. While some wargames are highly complex and require significant resources to play, tactical level wargames can often be very simple to construct and play. The return on investment from tactical wargames, such as the one implemented on AOC, can be substantial.

The integration of wargaming as a trial on AOC helped bridge the gap between theoretical and practical execution. By immersing the students in dynamic environments, wargaming allowed them to experience decision-making, risk management, and adapt their thought processes, which contributed to the consolidation of knowledge and complemented traditional teaching methods used throughout the course. The insights gained from this initiative can be applied to professional development programs across the Canadian Army, as the benefits of wargaming extend beyond simply AOC. Through the continuous immersion in dynamic scenarios, soldiers at every echelon can iteratively improve their tactical acumen over time. The benefit of this compounds itself as it fosters a culture of continuous improvement and readiness that is essential at all levels.

For further professional reading on wargaming:

• Educational Wargaming: Design and Implementation into Professional Military Education, article written by Major P. C. Combe II in the United States Marine Corps University Press.
• NATO Wargaming Handbook, 2023
• Ministry of Defence Wargaming Handbook, 2017
• Peter P. Perla (2012) [first published 1990]. John Curry (ed.). Peter Perla’s The Art of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists.
• Bae, Sebastien. Forging Wargamers: A Framework for Wargaming Education, USMC University.

Endnotes 

1. B-GL-300-003/FP-001 Command in Land Operations (DWAN only)
   The Estimate. The principal tool in command and staff decision-making is the estimate. Following his mission analysis, the commander, supported by his staff, evaluates all relevant factors, leading to an assessment of tasks and consideration of possible courses of action. Should a staff support the commander, then the staff assists the commander in completion of these functions. The commander then makes his decision, selecting a course of action. Following his decision, the staff, if available, will complete the detailed planning, which leads to a directive or operation order. At any stage in Battle Procedure, the mission or plan can be reviewed using mission analysis.
2. Fowler, Michael. Wargames as Pedagogical Tools: Using Wargames for Higher Education, 17 Aug 23
3. The rules set were showcased on a non-government non-CAF affiliated website, PAXsims.