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Little initially introduced three different games conducted at different scales: the Duel was a one-on-one contest between ships, the Fleet Tactical game pitted two fleets against each other, and the Strategic game captured the movements of multiple fleets across a wide geographic area.

8Īs for the game itself, over the years it too evolved from Little's initial conception. Navy's hull count grew along with it, War College games would develop doctrine and tactics that fed directly into live exercises for validation or correction. 7 Following World War I, as concern about Japanese expansion in the Pacific grew and the U.S. 6 At first, these games simply filled a training void created by the fact that the Navy's relatively few ships were often scattered by operational commitments that could not be justifiably abrogated to give a few officers hands-on training time on one rare occasion, Luce was able to assemble a fleet for some practical application, but bureaucratic in-fighting prevented a recurrence for many more years. Luce, it was only a few years later in 1889 that an old compatriot of Luce's, Captain William McCarty Little, ran the first "war problem" from 1894 onward, the Naval War College was running wargames annually. Formally established in 1884, thanks to the efforts of naval reformers like Commodore Stephen B. Naval War College and its adoption of wargaming as part of its curriculum has been exhaustively covered by others, though it is worth noting the relative speed with which the War College incorporated wargaming following its founding. Navy's significantly more robust wargaming culture, which developed in earnest near the end of the nineteenth century. The Marine Corps' early historical relationship with wargaming was tangential to the U.S. 5 The cognitive realm is the last open to Marines for securing an asymmetric advantage against competitors-the promise offered by a vibrant culture of educational wargaming is one that can no longer be left on the shelf, unfulfilled. Berger, made in his 2019 Commandant's Planning Guidance (CPG) is one that has been true since Ellis gored enemy fleets more than a hundred years ago: "wargaming is … a set of tools for structured thinking about military problems within a competitive framework-in the presence of that 'thinking enemy' who lies at the heart of our doctrinal understanding of war." 4 It is long past time that the Corps makes the value of this truth available to all its ranks as collectively noted by America's maritime Service chiefs, the aggressive growth and modernization of revisionist naval powers is leveling the playing field in the materiel realm. For the argument that the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David H. It will also offer recommendations on how the Corps can institutionalize its embrace of educational wargaming, so that its use as a tool for honing Marines' minds against those of thinking human adversaries does not ebb and flow based on the whims of individual leaders. Marine Corps, from its tentative engagement before the Great War through today. This article will review and assess the history of educational wargaming in the U.S. Marines could learn, adapt to their opponents, and demonstrate enthusiasm and brilliance when they embraced the promise wargaming offered too often, the Corps' institutional embrace slackened or vanished entirely, leaving the promise unfulfilled. Marines would have with educational wargaming in the century that followed. 3 Yet, the poem's very obscurity highlights a grimmer aspect of the relationship U.S. Navy leaders as equally vital in preparing naval officers for the challenges of the Pacific War.

The game in which Ellis "gored" his opponents was the Tactical Game used at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and which received accolades from senior U.S. Ellis, well known for his contributions to the amphibious warfare doctrine that would prove vital in digging Japanese forces out from their Pacific island holdings in World War II. 2 The "frisky" Ellis is, of course, then-Major Earl H. The events cited in the poem do not appear in the various brief descriptions of the subject's life at that time. He can hand you a whack From a torpedo attack, And with gleeful elation he'll quell us. He can plot on the board So your fleet's always gored. There's a frisky marine they call Ellis Whose ability makes some folks jealous He's a soldier all right But a tactical blight.