See the recap of Round Three here:
Just to reiterate, this scenario and all actions taken within the game are notional.
By this point in the war, the Blue (U.S.) and Red (PRC) teams have suffered huge losses and expended enormous quantities of long-range, precision-guided munitions.
Both sides have been struggled to gain information superiority and this battle has escalated in the space, cyber, and cognitive/public domains.
The Red team used social media to exploit U.S. socio-political divisions. Combined with Red’s attack on Hawaii and feint at Alaska, this kept key Blue assets like fighters, subs, MPA, and missile defense stateside, vice in theater.
The Blue team hacked the great firewall and reported the attrition taken by Red forces. Chinese citizens are using their brief window of Internet freedom to assail the regime. In response, the PRC deployed People’s Armed Police that were earmarked for Taiwan to quell unrest.
The dynamics of the battle inside the First Island Chain have stayed constant since the opening move.
Red owns the skies over Taiwan, except for brief windows when Blue pulses airpower forward. These pulses create huge attrition on both sides, but only Red can quickly replenish those losses. The rest of the time, Red aircraft pummel Taiwan and its ground forces.
Blue owns the undersea domain, except for chance encounters with Red subs or UUVs close to the Red shore. Blue exploits this advantage to kill Red ships, but the impact on the battle is limited by the small number of U.S. subs and their limited weapons capacity.
Neither side can gain lasting maritime superiority on the surface. The enormous quantity of sensors and weapons trained on any large surface vessel make the seas around Taiwan like no-man’s land at the Somme.
The ground stalemate on Taiwan grinds on. Red has few light forces ashore, but near-total air superiority. This means Red can neither seize ground, nor can Taiwan push them into the sea.
At this point, the war becomes a bloody calculus equation: which side can flow more forces and weapons to the critical point while stemming attrition and the ebb of public and international support?
Blue can flow significant forces from its global posture but: 1) Blue’s running low on munitions, 2) homeland demands are siphoning key assets, and 3) Red’s attacks on Blue’s fuel architecture would eventually throttle movement.
Red is closer to the fight but: 1) Red’s also running low on munitions, 2) Red lacks effective means of reinforcing or resupplying its forces on Taiwan without large ships and access to ports, and 3) Red hasn’t planned or prepared for this war to last months, vice weeks.
Our war ended after roughly 10 “game” days of high-intensity combat. It would be useful to keep players together for weeks to play out months of the war, but it’s not feasible when players have day jobs. Nevertheless, insights from 10 “game days” are useful.
This is one possible narrative out of nearly infinite possibilities. We must be careful to put too much weight on the outcome. Early choices and random chance had impacts throughout the game. Still, some trends align with broader thinking about the future of warfare.
Information was absolutely critical to the outcome of combat engagements. The most impactful actions for both teams were attacks on their opponents’ command and information systems, because these attacks had systemic impacts on every action the teams took.
Munitions took precedence over platforms, which is a shift from our current platform-centric way of thinking.
The opening phase of conflict was bloody and ugly for both sides. This shouldn’t be a surprise. There is a reason that the #NDS emphasizes #lethality and #resilience. The Contact and Blunt layers did their job. The fait accompli failed. Taiwan held.
The outcome of the fight would now depend the Surge layer and, given the U.S. advantage in global military power, that’s likely a good outcome. . . PROVIDED that logistics, mobility, and basing access are up to the task.
A final note on remote wargaming: it was difficult, but well worth it. The separation of the teams and the players allowed Control to manipulate information in ways that made the game more realistic.
At the same time, the friction of working remotely using technology that wasn’t always cooperative was a good exercise in the difficulties of operational command in a contested information environment. DM me if you'd like tips on how to run a remote game.
CNASdc is using wargaming and analysis to delve into each of these issues as part of our project on developing A New American Way of War. We hope you’ll continue to follow our work and support us on the journey.
