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September 4, 2002
The "Training With Simulations Handbook" is the official Department of Defense manual on how to use wargames and simulations for training. This is the 1999 edition. There was supposed to be a new edition out at the end of 2001, but that has been delayed. This manual is not classified and is available for download at this link.
The first edition came out in 1994, and finally provided, in one book, a lot of good, practical advice on how to plan a training exercise using simulations and wargames (the terms are often used interchangeably, even though they have different meanings.) Much of the material is often ignored in practice, mainly because wargames are still considered something of an alien experience in the military. There are, and always have been, thousands of troops who play (and sometimes design) wargames as a hobby, but their experience is rarely called upon. The "Training With Simulations Handbook" does, however, show how many of these recreational wargamers have gotten the basics into the official military documents on how to deal with wargames. All they need now is short list of things to avoid. This would fit on one page and would include things like warnings about bad intel play, unrealistic staging of "off map" assets and accurate march formations. You could probably get a good top ten list out of there. And eventually one of the uniformed wargamers will do it.
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