96. Calling All Wargamers and Mad Sci Update!

[Editor’s Note: Crowdsourcing remains an effective tool for harvesting ideas and concepts from a wide array of individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions. Army Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource the intellect of the Nation (i.e., you — our community of action!) with two concurrent opportunities this Spring. In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we explore these crowdsourcing opportunities — Read the highlights here, listen to the podcast, then get busy crafting your inputs to both!]

In today’s episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientists Matthew Santaspirt and Raechel Melling discuss our two concurrent crowdsourcing opportunities: Calling All Wargamers and Wicked Problems Writing Contest — check out the highlights from this conversation below.

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

1. Calling All Wargamers!

Regular consumers of Army Mad Scientist content — via this blog site and The Convergence podcast — understand how wargaming can enhance Professional Military Education (PME), hone cognitive warfighting skills, and broaden our understanding of the Operational Environment. Wargaming removes hierarchies and encourages players to attempt innovative solutions, while also creating a safe environment in which to fail repeatedly and learn from mistakes. Wargaming can also help us assess concepts and capabilities with a reasonable degree of verisimilitude — before committing the Nation to costly, and in some instances, irrevocable courses of action. In challenging our assumptions and reinvigorating our thoughts about Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), wargaming can be a useful tool in facilitating life-long learning and guarding against that most fatal of flaws in assessing the Operational Environment — the failure of imagination!

Army Mad Scientist wants to hear from you about your wargaming experiences:

• What are you learning about LSCO?

• What wargames do you find useful for learning about military operations?

• If you could imagine the perfect wargame, what would it look like?

• What Great Power peripheral flashpoints are you gaming?

• What emergent technologies (or convergences) are you integrating into your wargaming?

• What compelling insights from gaming would you most like to share with the U.S. Army?

Submit your responses to these questions and more at: madscitradoc@gmail.com NLT 11:59 pm Eastern on May 1, 2024.

Check out the following Mad Scientist Laboratory blog posts on wargaming:

Live from D.C., it’s Fight Night (Parts One and Two) and associated podcasts (Parts One and Two)