Beyond the Battlefield: Simulated Logistics is Reshaping Air Force Wargaming

By Michael Ehrlich, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer

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Introduction: The Development of ISWAT in Partnership with the U.S. Air Force

A primary strength of the U.S. armed forces rests on its command -- and expert application -- for logistics on a global scale.

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For the U.S. Air Force, logistics and sustainment wargaming is an important tool for enhancing the service's ability to support extended air operations in various scenarios. By simulating complex logistical challenges, the Air Force better prepares for real-world contingencies and ensures the effectiveness of its global operations.

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Over the last 8 years, FTI has had the privilege of partnering with the U.S. Air Force to support wargaming activities, initially focusing on logistics and sustainment. One of the many positive outcomes of this partnership and collaboration has been the development of FTI’s ISWAT - Integrated Sustainment Wargaming & Analysis Tool, which is a sophisticated, highly scalable and easily extensible cloud-based modeling and simulation product.

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Although the initial emphasis was on helping address the logistics and sustainment challenges facing an Air Force that must operate globally, ISWAT has continued to significantly evolve, expanding its ability to support a larger wargaming community that continues to see increases in both complexity and demand.

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The Role of Wargaming in Advanced Simulations to Maintain Logistical Superiority

Like other military branches, the U.S. Air Force faces a complex challenge maintaining its logistical superiority in contested environments. Recognizing U.S. strength in this area, potential adversaries continuously push to develop their own advanced capabilities to disrupt supply chains and target critical infrastructure, like forward air bases around the world.

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To maintain excellence, the Air Force regularly evaluates and adapts its logistics and sustainment strategies to ensure operational effectiveness in future missions and conflicts. Adapting to changing threat landscapes requires a resilient approach to military logistics, particularly in scenarios involving vast geographic areas, evolving or uncertain enemy tactics, and prolonged engagements.

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To that end, the Air Force regularly conducts logistics and sustainment wargaming to test and improve its capabilities in simulated combat or mission scenarios. These wargames often focus on supplying and maintaining air operations around the world during extended operations or conflicts to ensure operational imperatives are met.

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Regular wargaming allows the Air Force to poke at assumptions and refine its logistics and sustainment capabilities in simulated situations. However, relying solely on physical wargaming has obvious limitations - while valuable, they're costly, time-consuming, and may not fully capture the complexities of extended conflicts or the full spectrum of potential theoretical disruptions to current or future supply chains.

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This is where advanced simulations become invaluable in wargaming efforts. Such tools help the Air Force to model complex, long-duration logistics scenarios at scale and with high fidelity. These simulations can rapidly test multiple strategies, assess vulnerabilities, and explore "what-if" scenarios that would be impractical or impossible in physical wargames.

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Simulations using real world data provide a more comprehensive and adaptable platform for evaluating diverse logistics strategies and are an irreplaceable diagnostic tool in their preparedness toolbelt.

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Simulated logistics wargames typically include vast, interconnected models running supply chain management, aircraft maintenance and repair, fuel and ammunition resupply, personnel management, and resource transportation and distribution, among other variables.

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Disruptions or specific scenarios can be tried and modeled accurately, allowing the Air Force to see where systems, processes, or dependency chains might break under novel pressure.

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Wargames are often conducted in conjunction with other military branches to simulate joint operations and test the interoperability of logistics systems. This helps ensure seamless support across different service components during complex military scenarios. This is also a benefit in simulations, providing multi-user or multi-service view. This approach enhances the realism and effectiveness of all wargaming exercises and contributes to developing more robust and flexible logistics systems capable of supporting Air Force and U.S. military operations around the world.

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Air Force leaders use these tools to make strategic decisions about logistics requirements outside of normal operations, identify potential bottlenecks, test new concepts, and develop innovative solutions to logistical challenges.

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By regularly conducting these wargame simulations, the Air Force can continuously evolve and refine its logistics and sustainment capabilities, adapting to new technologies, threats, battlefield conditions, and operational requirements, maintaining its global superiority.

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FTI ISWAT - Integrated Sustainment Wargaming & Analysis Tool

Designed to address these complex simulations and scenarios, FTI's Integrated Sustainment Wargaming & Analysis Tool (ISWAT) is fundamentally transforming the way logistics and sustainment modeling in military wargaming happens today.

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ISWAT offers real-time, multi-user access to a shared dashboard, enabling high-fidelity sustainment logistics play and visualization of resource consumption across various displays, including detailed geospatial representations.

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ISWAT's core capabilities include:

• Tracking and analyzing resources
• Providing defensible logistics analysis
• Assessing sustainment impacts in real time as scenarios unfold

It also supports post-wargame analysis through replay functionality and "what-if" scenario exploration, offering valuable insights for strategic planning.

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By enhancing the realism and depth of logistics play in wargaming exercises, ISWAT improves the quality of military preparedness simulations and provides a platform for standalone analysis and training, making it an indispensable tool for modern military logistics planning and execution.

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FTI: A Proud, Long-Time U.S. Air Force Partner

FTI's long experience working with the U.S. Air Force in logistics and programmatic support weapons systems, maintenance, modernization, and cyber security has been foundational in the development of our products and solutions and the expertise of our teams.

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Most recently, in August 2024, FTI supported the USAF, Joint, and Coalition partners in a two-week Long-Duration Logistics Wargame focused on the Pacific Theater. The ISWAT outputs of this ongoing series of Wargames are already helping shape the USAF’s Operational Imperative #5: Resilient Basing, and the key enabling concept of Agile Combat Employment.

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FTI Capabilities

FTI offers a broad, integrated, and seamless data analytic ecosystem, with capabilities including data integration, data analytics, data modeling, and defensive/resilient cyber security technologies and services. This ecosystem enables the U.S. DoD, Intelligence Community, and Federal Government to make the best decisions possible for their missions.

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FTI's extensive library of IP and technologies leverage more than $200M of U.S. Government and FTI R&D investment.

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FTI's data analytics solutions and services are built around the FTI Cortex Integration Platform, which leverages artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to deliver a wide range of analytics and visualization capabilities for acquisition and operational decision support across DevSecOps, enterprise architecture analysis, enhanced data visualizations, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), digital transformation, and system performance analysis.

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FTI's modeling solutions and services help our customers better track, visualize, simulate, and analyze trends and underlying mission drivers in wargaming, logistics analysis, and visualization, system performance modeling, synthetic systems, and data generation support.

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FTI's defensive/resilient cyber security solutions offer a portfolio of advanced technologies and services to help maintain and optimize cyber defense, including mission cyber risk analysis, supply chain Illumination, blue and gray space analysis, penetration testing, RF analysis, and cyber-enhanced threat intelligence analysis.

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About FTI

FTI provides deep data expertise, technology, and services that enhance the ability of the DoD, Intelligence Community, and other agencies of the Federal Government to make the best decisions possible. Drawing on nearly four decades of innovation, FTI's extensive portfolio of intellectual property and operational technologies has been augmented by more than $200 million of U.S. government and FTI R&D investment, and our agile solutions can often be mission-ready in a matter of weeks at a fraction of the cost of alternatives. Headquartered in Beavercreek, Ohio, FTI operates in 34 states, works at all classification levels, and offers seven facilities of varying clearance levels nationwide.

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