Tom Clancy - the wargamer

[bayonetbrant]

good article

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/11100-Tom-Clancy-The-Writer-And-The-Wargamer

[Toonces]

That was a good read.  I look forward to part 2.

Man, what an experience that must have been to be able to play Harpoon against and with a bunch of pros like that.

[Nefaro]

Man, what an experience that must have been to be able to play Harpoon against and with a bunch of pros like that.

Not only that but with the refereed multi-blind setup between different commands. 

I knew they used Harpoon to game out the big carrier attack in Red Storm Rising but I didn't realize it was such a large and involved gaming setup.   :D

[bayonetbrant]

OK, so the one the Staff Wargaming Team will be doing at Origins won't be quite as large / snazzy, but you should still come check it out!  :)

[DennisS]

Interesting article!

In the late 80's and into the mid '90's I was actively engaged in developing, testing, and training a program called a Tactical Decision Aid, or TDA.

This TDA, through several versions, took USAF weapon sensor data, and married/matched them with environmental data, to produce target acquisition and target lock-on values.

Here's an example: The planners would come to me, with a target in mind, could be a bridge, armored unit, building, anything. The would give me target type, ToT (time or target), and as much information as they had on the target background, whether it was trees, sand, rock, whatever.

I would plug in the known sensor type, and all the target characteristics, sun angle, moon angle, percent illumination, and a VAST number of other parameters, then add in my own, weather guesser's input.

As you can appreciate, you wouldn't want to use a visible-mark 1 eyeball guided weapon in dense fog, and you wouldn't want to use an active seeker using microwave energy in a driving rainstorm.

For a Maverick missile, if the target was a big shiny bridge, you may see it at 20 miles, and lock on at 15. For a tank, at night, in the woods, not running its engine, and camoflauged, you might not see it, even if you flew right over it. For an armored vehicle, in desert storm, at night, with its engine running, a thermal sensor (infrared) would show this target standing out at a very great range. This was one reason why our (the US) weapons were so effective. The sensor heads were designed to ferret our the Russians on the north German Plains, where there was more cover, more vegetation, and more thermal/visual discontinuities than in the uniform desert.

For the first time in military history, the planners had to come to the weathermen, and gain THEIR input, during the target selection process. This was a big win for the ops guys, and a big win for me and my weather team, during Desert Storm.

I do remember one "Alpha" strike, in iffy weather, that my idiot Colonel made the call on. We had strongly advised him that the weather would probably no cooperate with this massive attack, and it did not, and he got his ass reamed by a three-star.

Having access to the weapon sensor data was...interesting, and highly classified. You could absolutely reverse-engineer the USAF's weapon sensor capabilities by evaluating the target and MET (meteorological) data. When I wrote training scenarios for this program, I used a random number, not a name, when I wrote up the scenario sheet. They were still classified, but I was able to get their classification knocked down to just "Secret." Good times, good times, and I LOVE Tom Clancy!!!

(oh..all this got me something red and white for my ribbon rack!!)vv ;)