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Army Transformation Wargame (ATWG)

The Army Transformation Wargame (ATWG) series was a follow-on effort to the Army After Next Wargames conducted in past years. The ATWG effort was modified to better support the Army's new vision by informing the Army's leadership about warfighting concepts and capabilities required for the Objective Force, focusing on the demands of the strategic and operational environments. This linkage will require a continuous improvement process over the next 30 years.

The Army's first annual Army Transformation Wargame was conducted in May 2000, and investigated the design of the Objective Force, focusing on the strategic and operational levels of war. The game demonstrated the critical need for transformed strategic lift-even for the lighter Objective Force built around the future combat systems - and the pivotal role combat support and combat service support will play in the transformed Army. The ATWG effort continued with follow-on force projection and operational wargames in the next year, all tailored to feed Army and joint concept development and experimentation.

From 5 April through 5 May 2000, the Collins Center and Army War College hosted the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Army Transformation Wargame 2000. TRADOC conducts the wargame as a major part of its overall efforts in support of transformation to the Army's future Objective Force. This year's wargame was a multi-sided, joint and combined, military examination for a single regional theater of the operational environment in each potential future mission area (e.g., engagement, response to crisis, warfighting, and post-hostilities).

The game's scenario is set in the 2015 time frame with the United States entering a conflict to defend a NATO ally over water rights in Southwest Asia. ATWG 2000 attempted to highlight thedimensions of the Army's contribution to national security, the use of Objective Force, and compelling insights for the Army in 2015. The adversary was the the New Independent Republic (NIR), a union of Iran and Iraq. All of the military operations are conducated against the Iraqi end of the NIR.

The scenario featured a six-corps attack by the New Independent Republic (NIR) into Syria to gain physical control over the Euphrates River. At dawn, 26 April 2016, in the mountains of Southwest Asia, a decade of preparation, founded on a deliberate modernization program and careful analyses of previous failures, paid off. The NIR made a rapid strike to the north to control the headwaters that fed the life-giving rivers in this water-starved region. Under cover of repetitive, large-scale exercises, the NIR attacked rapidly on a broad front. After NIR forces attained their objectives in Syria, they quickly transitioned to preplanned defensive autonomous groups of mutually supporting force elements. The Blue President directed a notional Commander in Chief (CINC) west to defeat and eject NIR forces. During the game, II Marine Expeditionary Force deployed into Tripoli and V Corps (1st Infantry Division, 1st Armored Division, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment) deployed into Beirut. In addition, V Corps exercised operational control over coalition forces: 1st United Kingdom (UK) Armored Division, 3rd UK Armored Division, and 7th German Mechanized Division. These forces rapidly cleared Syria and advanced to positions north of Baghdad.

The second scenario featured an airborne assault by NIR forces to secure the Ataturk Dam at the headwaters of the Euphrates River. The NIR advanced into Turkish territory with its II Corps in an attempt to link with these airborne forces. Blue helped break up this attack through vertical envelopment of the NIR 44th Mechanized Division using two brigades from 101st Air Assault Division (Objective Force).

In both scenarios, the Blue President set the objective of dismembering the NIR (i.e., detaching Iraq from Iran, and establishing an acceptable government in Iraq). At game's end, Blue Army forces were closing on Baghdad in the culmination of successful campaigns. Following establishment of a UN mission in Iraq, panel members foresaw that the US Army would remain deployed in Iraq for years, possibly as long as a decade. The Army would have to secure Iraq's border for several years. It would also need to assist in internal security if Iran sponsored terrorism and guerrilla activity in Iraq. The Army would help equip and train new Iraqi forces while instilling democratic practice.

Since the Army will not likely be able to pick its future battlefields, its air-mobility support forces must achieve a high level of throughput into even austere aerial ports of debarkation. Army war games and studies have shown that on many battlefields, the Army's ability to maneuver effectively will depend on a reliable theater air-mobility system that can move major forces on any terrain in any weather. The Army Transformation Wargame 2000, for example, involved a multiple-brigade force's operational-level air movements, first to "rip out the enemy's rear, and then to block his retreat from the advance of a friendly coalition army."