Wargaming: From Concept to Conflict

Turning theory into tactics — validating doctrine through rigorous simulation.

In Phase II, AFD35’s insights will be taken to the table, tested through multi-domain wargames designed to simulate contested environments, future force structures, and adversary responses.

This phase will shape AFD35's doctrinal strengths in contested and denied conflict conditions, translated into warfighter perspective, and integrated into evolving AFDP structures.

This crucible for transformation. tests emerging technologies, future concepts, and operational constructs in high-fidelity, multi-domain simulations. A robust scenario must stress doctrinal assumptions, expose capability gaps, and reveal opportunities to evolve how we command, control, and execute airpower. Shaping Blue Team predictive offensive and defensive play through Red team counters and actions in realistic, future-centric scenarios, will allow AFD35 to generate the friction necessary to refine and reinvent doctrine for the next generation of warfighters.

Though agile and iterative, simulations need to be designed as a series of “sets and reps” to build doctrinal muscle memory across a spectrum of challenges—from AI-driven kill webs to quantum disruption and swarm saturation.

Each game is constructed with doctrinal objectives in mind, guided by joint planning experts and analyzed by dedicated observers. Using tools like the LeMay Doctrine Watchboard, insights are collected in real-time that can be directly translated into Air Force Doctrine Notes (AFDNs)—short-form doctrinal products that feed immediate updates across the force and shape ongoing discussions.

Ultimately, Phase II ensures that the discoveries of Phase I are not left on whiteboards or in research labs but instead forged into operational relevance.