Looking for information on actual military war games

[Mgellis]

Just curious...

Does anyone know how to find information on actual military exercises that took place in the past? I imagine that some of it is not yet available to the public, but I wonder if information on earlier exercises, maybe from the 1980s or 1990s (or perhaps even more recent), has been released. I'm interested in things like the exercise background (i.e., the scenario, fictional timeline, etc. used), the ships, aircraft, etc. that took part, any "after action/lessons learned" reports, etc.

In short, I'm looking for the information that would let me design a Command scenario (or a series of them) that assumes this fictional war or battle actually happened. To do that, I need to know the "plot" and the Orders of Battle. Or, at least, get a pretty good idea of what they were.

For example, would this kind of information be available for RIMPAC 96? Or Northern Wedding 86?

I'm sure there are reports, etc. somewhere that includes this information, but I've exhausted my Net-Fu search abilities. Is there an online archive anywhere that collects these documents?

Thanks.

[bsq]

ORIGINAL: Mgellis

For example, would this kind of information be available for RIMPAC 96? Or Northern Wedding 86?

Three more years for latter and a full 13 for the the former [:(]

You'll need to look before 1983 I am afraid

[navwarcol]

bsq is right, it takes quite awhile for those things to go through the system. One of the more famous ones that nearly resulted in a real war was Able Archer 83.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 There are a lot of cool scenarios in that, for the WW3 NATO/WP confrontation ideas.

[Mgellis]

Even so, that means the ones for the 1960s and 1970s should be available somewhere. That's a lot of possible scenario ideas. Now...where do I find them?

[El Savior]

The National Secutiry Archive is one place to start researching. It has some unclassified documents about Able Archer 83.

Youtube also have several documents:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=able archer documentary&sm=1

[navwarcol]

I think that Able Archer was just my idea for one example the OP could use. As far as a lot of what you are looking for McGellis, on the FLEETEX type of "scenarios"
Most of what is declassified you can look up and see oob information even on Wikipedia. Just type the exercise name into any search engine and you will pull up a lot.
I am not sure how much it will help you however. For most of recent history, the countries, both blufor and opfor, have been fictional, and the storylines not very imaginative either [:D] You could probably come up with better storylines just by randomly saying "A attacks B because of XYZ" and fill in hot spots and reasons from anywhere on the globe [;)] Most of the normal FLEETEX exercises are not really designed to teach "lessons learned" as much as they are designed to prepare a unit for deployment, make sure all the kinks are out, etc.
As for the other, large "wargame" scenarios such as the aforementioned Able Archer, they are more complex and do have some complex "storylines" behind them, but still I have seen far more creative scenarios designed by people the same as yourself, because in these also, the idea from the military view isn't the storyline or even specific "lessons learned" as much as it is testing already created hypotheses and testing how fast/well your own forces do specific tasks, so most of the AAR type writing by observers will not be concerned with the "story" or even the "oob" as much as "it took 16 hours to do this task" etc.

[Russian Heel]

http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=41446 I'm sure you read says basiclly the 'plot.' Every 'plot' is basically the same in every exercise/training rotation/field problem/etc. I have ever done. Evil fictitious bad guy country with a name based on the location or some foreign language (eg: Atlantica, Pacifica, Krasnovia) is messing with their smaller fictitious helpless neighbor with an equal type of name. BLUEFOR is tasked with stopping them. This information is used for 'flavor' but mainly is there for the intel people to get training and for leaders on the ground to know possible courses of action based on enemy motivations.

OOBs vary based on whoever is participating, OPFOR is usually a small force representing a bigger templated force and while they might fight with whatever doctrine, they still maintain the same TLPs of their actual service and the capabilities of the equipment they have.

I don't think you really need to know too many details about exercises unless you are trying to exactly recreate one - but even then they are just separated in 4 or 5 missions of different types. For the army side the typical exercise has a meeting engagement, a deliberate attack, a deliberate defense, a hasty attack, a hasty defense, and some COIN and OOTW stuff usually thrown in as well. Of course this is changed up based on the threat actually being trained for - if there is one, or purpose of the exercise. Any scenario available for Command could conceivably be an exercise.

I typed this before navwarcol's post and just never hit "ok" but yeah the focus of exercises is never really the story it's the training. I got on some detail one time when I was a private in like 1996 or so where I was getting coffee and hand tracing giant overlays for a 'Warfighter' exercise BTCP or whatever its called - the exercise for Corps commanders and division commanders to train and practice their command. Of course this isn't done with troops in the field but with a highly complicated computer simulation with hundreds of computers and people detailed to do data entry, it happens in real time fore 7-9 days.

The scenario was literally "Iraq has invaded Kuwait and is moving into Saudi Arabia along the coast. Hey XVIII Airborne Corps, go stop them" That was the whole'plot' if you will.

[Combatengineerjrgmail]

Every Corps sized and larger exercise I have participated in, CPX, were all pretty generic. US and Allie units were based on who was in the exercise and the OPFOR sized was based on that. Nothing really special about them.

Remember the main purpose of these exercises was NOT to try to predict a possible outcome of a battle\conflict but to train the various Amry\Corps\Division\Bde Staffs that were involved. The outcome was really secondary.

[Rudd]

Here's a couple of recent RIMPAC ones if you're still interested,

2014 participants even include a private contractor, who fly Hawker Hunters[X(]

http://www.cpf.navy.mil/rimpac/2014/participants/
http://www.cpf.navy.mil/rimpac/2012/forces/

[Casinn]

Even the Marine Mammal Systems, RIMPAC is bigger than I thought it was.

[mikmykWS]

Think Paul has already done the scenario but Operation Mainbrace was a big one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Mainbrace

Soviet Okean Exercises (I really encourage people to buy the NI Guide to the Soviet Navy. You can find it cheap these days.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tkGDkp ... es&f=false

Can get some insight into what the USN War college has been gaming lately here:

https://www.usnwc.edu/Publications/Game-Reports.aspx

Mike

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: combatengineerjr

Every Corps sized and larger exercise I have participated in, CPX, were all pretty generic. US and Allie units were based on who was in the exercise and the OPFOR sized was based on that. Nothing really special about them.

Remember the main purpose of these exercises was NOT to try to predict a possible outcome of a battle\conflict but to train the various Amry\Corps\Division\Bde Staffs that were involved. The outcome was really secondary.

+1

Predicting combat outcomes is never the goal of collective training exercises.

Rather, exercising communication links, logistics and staff procedures predominate training goals.

Regards,
Feltan