UK’s First Dedicated Wargaming Center Unveiled

The UK’s first dedicated, purpose designed wargaming centre has been unveiled by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). The Defence Wargaming Centre (DWC) on Dstl’s Portsdown West site near Portsmouth, UK, will host wargames for all three services, with the Royal Air Force (RAF) having conducted the first exercise, Eagle Warrior 19, in December 2019.

Wargame participants experience the rigour and implicationsof decision making in a “safe to fail” environment, without the risk, expenseand disruption of live exercises or real operations.

The DWC has been established to respond to the increasingdemand for wargaming as a tool both to support decisions and to develop insightinto complex issues faced by Defence and Security now and in the future. TheDWC will become Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s only dedicated, purpose designedwargaming facility, and will bring together expertise and technology fromacross Dstl, wider Defence, industry and other partners.

The DWC can beconfigured to deliver a wide variety of wargames of different types and sizesfor a range of purposes. The DWC is also intended to be a focus for researchinto wargaming methods, tools and techniques. Future upgrades are being plannedto the physical space, computing and communications, as well as furtherexpansion to the wargaming teams (including greater integration of industry)and the range of tools available to them.

Exercise EagleWarrior 19 was designed and developed by Dstl and involved staff from acrossthe RAF and other services. Eagle Warrior 19 initiates a series of wargames toevaluate warfighting Command and Control at the operational level and willprovide a test bed for assessing structural, process and/or technologicalimprovements. Eagle Warrior 19 also demonstrated the ability of the RAF to holdrapid and agile wargames which will be developed further in future years.

The Head of the Defence Wargaming Centre, Mike Larner,commented: “The DWC brings together the people, expertise, infrastructure andtechnology needed to develop and deliver a wide variety of wargames. Itrepresents a significant step up in capability and signals our intent to keepdeveloping in response to growing MOD and wider government demand for wargaming– which is, in turn, a response to the increasing complexity of conflict.Wargaming enables commanders to anticipate and rehearse future conflicts which,ultimately, increases the UK’s capability to deter aggression and protect itsinterests.”

Group Captain Christopher Platt, Dstl’s Senior Air Advisor,commented: ““Eagle Warrior 19 was a genuinely ambitious experiment thatchallenged participants to think about Command and Control of the NextGeneration Royal Air Force. Staying one step ahead of an information savvyadversary is a constant challenge: we will need to embrace a combination ofinformation technologies such as cloud computing, edge processing, machinelearning and automation, so this wargame was a good step towards understandingthe pros and cons of different approaches.”