The Rain of Drones – Onside Report by Nick Luft

“The basis of air power is its exploitation of height, speed, and reach within the air environment, which facilitates the four core roles of air power: control of the air; attack; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); and air mobility. Control of the air underpins all air operations because it secures freedom of action in the air domain, while limiting or denying its use by an adversary” – Joint Doctrine Publication (JDP) 0-30, UK Air Power

Game Idea

I was inspired to put this game on after a discussion on the Diogenes WhatsApp group (mostly available to Wargame Development members) about Drones and Drone Warfare . My comments inspired John Bassett to volunteer me to make a presentation at Virtual COW (Conference of Wargames) about the future of drones in war and how to wargame Drones.

I was so inspired by the presentations and discussion that I decided to make an online game and open it up to both CLWG or WD membership and host it on my own Discord Channel on 28th February – a date that selfishly coincided with my half-term holiday.

The game had three teams of 2 each, and 2 Control and was played entirely online. We used Discord to chat and Spreadsheets to buy drones, send orders, deploy drones and update outcomes.

Player Rules

I have copied and pasted relevant sections of the Player Rules below this game write up. I will make reference to concepts in the game that are explained in these rules. You might want to familiarise yourself first before reading further.

Game Setting

I have chosen to set the game in a near-future conflict between Mexican Drug Cartels, and Government Forces. I have done this as I want to simplify the game so that drones are the main “weapon system” we model in the game, plus some other factors.

The Cartels are businesses, not idealogues, and want to make money. They also want to have an advantage over their rivals. Opposing them, besides their rival Cartels are the US and Mexican Government forces who just want to stop the Drugs Trade.

The game background and setting is a future history by being set in 2028. It is based on current events and slightly modified.

The game is set in a time when high-tech military grade Drone, UAV and Counter-UAV technology have become available to Government civilian security forces. This might be a game changer.

Game Report

On the day we had the following players and teams

Canalists (Cartel)

Jim W &  Terry M

Legión Extranjera (Cartel)

Michael D &  Pete S

Department for Security Achievements (DSA) (US Govt)

Jim R

Heroic Assistant (Control)

Martin F

From the start I was pleased to be asked questions by the players that showed they were engaged with the scenario, and the topic. Jim R spent a happy few minutes renaming all of his drones to have suitably patriotic names – Bomber drones were Curtis, and Kamikaze drones, Doolittle etc.. Jim W wanted to know technicalities of some of the drone types – (see below for a description of Drone Types used in the game).

I then took the players through my scenario, how to play the game and the setup. 

And then the first set of orders came in. What pleased me was that I could see from their orders they had worked out a strategy based on the player rules and based on their analysis of what should “really” happen. The Combat Resolution Table was hidden from the players, only available to Control.

Canalists – Bait and Switch

The Canalists decided to use a bait and switch strategy. To do this the bought the cheapest of drones – the Kamikaze – and threw a large bunch of them to protect a diversionary ground based smuggling operation and at the same time had an unsupported “real” smuggling operation elsewhere. They reasoned that as the DSA (US Govt) was going to dominate the ISR and Airspace domains they could not expect to go undetected. So by providing the DSA with an “expected” target of drones they would attack it!

Of course my rules had not expected this. First contact with the players and all that. I had abstracted the ground smuggling into one “target” or area to attack and defend. Now I had two such operations. I also knew that the DSA were putting some resources into winning the ISR battle putting up a ISR HALE UAV (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, High Level Long Endurance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) with covering support from Interceptor drones. And they had bought themselves a Battlefield Management System – so some of their decisions might be a little one-dimensional – where does the enemy have the most drones? That is where their main effort is!

So I did the combat outcomes for two smuggling operations. 

Canalists – Turn 1

Diversionary Smuggling Op

The diversionary op was covered by 15 Kamikaze Canalist’s drones against 2 DSA Interceptor drones. This resulted in a lot of drone casualties – all the DSA and half of the Cartels. 

Of note is the cost. This is an important aspect to this game. The Cartels are profit making businessmen. I gave the Cartel teams a limited amount of cash with an income each turn generated by successful smuggling. The DSA had a large budget at the start, but no source of income, so had to husband their resources.

The cost of the losses was 

DSA – 2 Interceptor * $5 = $10

Canalists – 7 Kamikaze * $1 = $7  

Real Smuggling Op

I diced for an unopposed and undetected ground smuggling operation and that succeeded netting the Canalists $7.

So in the first turn they lost $7 and gained $7. 

Canalists – Turn 2

In turn two the Canalists did the same bait and switch strategy and were opposed by only 1 or 2 Interceptors. On a lucky dice roll no Canalist’s Kamikaze were lost and all DSA Interceptors were lost. Nice result for the Canalists. Bad result for the DSA!

Canalists Summary

First turn the Canalists broke even, second turn they made a small profit of $7

DSA lost $10 + $10 = $20 per turn. Not sustainable

Legión Extranjera

Turn 1 – Legion – Drone Smuggling

They also decided on a single strategy, they opted to use 6 Heavy Lift Drones to stealthily carry small loads of drugs over the border. They supported them with between 1 and 3 Interceptors. The DSA put up 1 or 2 Interceptors to interdict this.

In the first combat the Legion lost half its Heavy Lift ($3 each) and all of its Interceptors ($5 each) and the DSA lost all of its Interceptors ($5 each) .

DSA – 1 Interceptor * $5 = $5

Legion – 3 Heavy Lift * $3 = $9

Legion – 2 Interceptors * $5 = $10

The Legion had three successful “lifts” of drugs which at $4 each lift gave them a nice income of $12. 

Legion TOTAL = losses of $19 – $12 profit = loss of $7

Turn 2 – Legion – Drone Smuggling

The Drone Smuggling by 6 Heavy Lift drones was supported by 3 Interceptors and was able to get through with out casualties to the Heavy Lift to earn a healthy $24. They lost 2 Interceptors at a loss of $10:  giving an overall profit of $14

The DSA lost all their Interceptors at a loss of about $5 or $10.

Legion – Ground Smuggling

The legion also sent over a few Recce, Bomber and Kamikaze drones to support their ground based smuggling operation. 

My rules for this – not known to the players – was the Recce has to be adjudicated first. If the smugglers out Recce’d the DSA they avoided them and got across the border with no losses. If the DSA won the Recce there was a scrap with losses. 

In turn one the DSA managed to interdict and reduced the Legion’s ground smuggling profits to $3. But against this the Legion lost a Recce and Kamikaze ($1 + $1 = $2) and a Bomber ($2) for a loss of $4. An overall loss of $1.

In turn two the DSA missed them and the Legion got through but lost its 3 Recce (-$3) and made $7 from smuggling: a profit of $4. 

Department for Security Achievements (DSA)

I have already indicated they opposed all the smuggling operations – which I would characterise as spreading their Counter-UAV forces thinly and not successfully stopping much smuggling.

The DSA did start to dominate the Airspace – which is a long term goal – that will eventually pay off in giving them a bonus when they interdict Smugglers. I noticed that the Cartels put up token opposition to Airspace incursion – 1 Interceptor – with the intent to make the DSA Interceptors fight them and thus cause some expensive casualties.

The DSA also opted to attack a drone base and were successful and managed to get through and damage the base of the Canalists. All drones in the attack and defence were lost. It was quite a costly operation for both sides. Drone bases contribute an overall bonus to all drone operations – again a long term strategy. In turn 2 there was a better defence and no damage to the base was caused, but all drones were lost.

Analysis of the Game

I was really pleased by the thought and engagement of the players. They were thinking up strategies and tactics that as one player said in the feedback was really a strategic air campaign.

I had deliberately avoided a full combat battlefield like the Ukraine v Russian War (2022 – 202?) as that would be too complex to model in a game. There would be too many counter weapons, too many different roles, targets and missions to make a simple CRT for.

In that my game worked. However…

Analysis of Game Mechanics and Elements

This was the first ever online game I designed to use Spreadsheets. I had planned to use concept boards with counters but thought better of it last minute and then had spreadsheets that were not sufficiently efficient for use in the game. I had to move a lot of data about myself, rather than automating it. Jim W even volunteered to mod my spreadsheets – which he did and it worked well – but I could not quickly do this to all spreadsheets as they were slightly different.

My rules were immediately found wanting and I had to start improvising. I realised straight off that the damage done to the Smuggling Targets was not reflective of the income generated. I had opted to use a sliding scale of damage with trigger points to reduce or increase income when they were passed. This was too slow, cumbersome and did not really reflect the reality of having 15 Kamikaze’s bait and switch the enemy or 6 heavy lift drones overwhelm any defences.

The unfortunate outcome was that the first turn took 30 minutes to process. We sped up in Turn 2 and took a rapid 15 minutes. Sorry guys; too long. At least you could have a nice chat in Discord.

Future

I have plans to do this again – CLWG digital session, on 18th June.

I have taken advice from the players. I will

• • reduce the number of Drone Types
  • Change how income is generated – to be based on each combat’s outcome
  • automate the spreadsheets 
    • sharing purchasing and casualty data between player and control sheets
    • automagically display drone deployments to missions / targets 
      • This last point caused me the most trouble in the game – matching deployments before then doing the CRT.
  • rationalise the Combat Results Table into one page

Appendixes – Sections of the Player Rules

A Future History

In 2028 we have seen the slimming down and amalgamation of several USA Federal Agencies by the DOGE Muskrats to make them more efficient into the Department for Security Achievement (DSA). The use of technology, including drones and battlefield AI management systems is now becoming the standard for counter immigration and drug smuggling on the Mexican border. Obviously there are no mistakes made by these machine; at least there a no witnesses to any mistakes.

The Mexican Cartels have had to “tool up” to cope with this. They have hired mercenaries and surplus military equipment that have been made available from the eventual end of the Ukrainian war in 2026 after the economic collapse of the Russian Federation into many warring mercenary and war-lord groups.

The border has become a no go zone for civilians on both sides – the Mexicans know the US AI will just attack them using the so called Gaza Algorithms on the assumption that they are sheltering the Cartels in schools, civilian buses, offices etc. The US citizens know that the Cartels are ruthless and will eliminate any potential opposition to their landing sites and routes. The US towns are generally safe places – for the militias and their backers – totting small arms and Electronic Warfare Rifles on their Cope Caged Pick-up Trucks.

The Trump administration withdrew any assistance funds to the Mexican State to fight the War on Drugs and demanded reparations for the damage caused by drug smuggling into the USA. The main concern of the Mexican Government has been to protect its citizens from “both” sides – the Cartels and the DSA. Needless to say the Guardia Nacional has had to be “creative” in how it funds itself. Its main aim is to reduce violence to the civilian population whilst taxing the Cartels. However it is a fine line to walk, as the Guardia Nacional has to be a credible threat to the Cartels or else they won’t pay their taxes. If the taxes aren’t paid they have to redress the situation.

And the Chinese are happily building, and supplying both sides whilst doing what they want in Asia and Africa whilst hosting the 47th in lavish “summit” meetings. 

And as for the EU, they were last heard of passing some laws about AI guidelines and debating NATO subsidies.

Teams

There are four teams

Department of Security Achievements (DSA)

The main aim of the DSA is to prevent, interdict and arrest drug smuggling gangs. They have a lot of drones and AI to do this. Achievements are measured in body counts, drone and UAVs destroyed and drugs seized.

Guardia Nacional

An amalgamation of many Mexican Federal security agencies. They need to maintain a presence and make some spectacular arrests or seizures of drugs. They do not want to see civilian casualties, then their Government withdraws funding. Sometimes things work out best if they let the Cartels sort each other out and give the Guardia tip offs to rival Cartels leading to those spectacular results.

Legión Extranjera

No one is entirely sure if this gang is Mexican, or Mercenary. It is a real mixture. There are many gunslingers for hire these days – though now they are called Drone Operators. But remember to keep those Ukrainian mercs separate from those Russian mercs!

Canalists

Who knows the origins of this group – was it from the tradition of Mexican peasant rebels, was it from displaced Venezuelan Civil War veterans or the Panamanian Refugees – the so called – Canalists.

Drone and UAV Tactical Roles

• UAV – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – winged like a small plane. Motor propulsion.
• Quad Drone – Four propellers, powered by electrical battery powered
• Hexa Drone – Six propellers, powered by electrical battery 
• Octo Drone – Eight propellers, powered by electrical battery or fuel driven engine

Targets

• • Each side have targets that the enemy will want to damage or stop. You can your see “targets” on the Concept Board.

• • These “targets” are game mechanics on the Concept Board. There is no actual map!

Combat

Combat is very abstract. Each “unit” of Drones / UAVs is deployed on a target and can be countered by defending Drones, C-UAV or EW.  

The “targets” are global factors in the game. They are not actual map based location based targets!

Combat Outcomes

Control assesses the “Friendly” factors and any “Defensive / Counter” factors and using the hidden combat table assesses the outcome.

• Combat Outcome Reports will include:
  • Effect on target
  • Number of Returning Drones that Return
  • Number of 1 Use Drones that Return because they were not used
  • Any other details relevant

SMUGGLING TARGETS

Ground Based Smuggling

Old fashioned but still effective, if properly defended. Smuggling large payloads by ground based teams in trucks and on foot who know the ground.  Drone units can scan ahead (recce) and Kamikaze and Bomber drones can attack any security forces trying to interdict your smugglers. And you can be attacked by similar drone forces.

Generates good income; but is less secure now that Recce Drones / ISR UAVs are present.

Relevant Units for Combat

Drone Based Smuggling

Can deliver drugs quickly and to many different locations. Quite stealthy when flying high, but can be detected by high tech kit available to Government Security Forces. Can only be interdicted by specialised and expensive Interceptor (AI) Drones. Carries low payloads compared to ground based smuggling. 

Generates low income; but is more stealthy and harder to interdict.

Relevant Units for Combat 

These units will be placed to smuggle or interdict these Smuggling Missions.

LOCATION BASED TARGETS

Drone Bases 

A place to store, repair drones and to secure and protect your operators. Should be well protected by EW. I have assumed all bases are screened, netted, camouflaged etc. I also assume there are several bases distributed in your territory.

Attacked by Bomber drones. Kamikaze drones are not very effective against well defended bases.

A fully effective drone base gives a bonus to ALL drone / UAV operations on your side.

Relevant Units for Combat 

Airspace

Each Cartel and Govt has its own Airspace, which is considered to be a “Target”. Every team can deploy Interceptors in to their Airspace to defend it against ISR UAVs.

ONLY Govt forces can use ISR UAVs to survey the opposition looking for patterns in behaviour and activities. They can find launch sites, secret bases and even smuggling ops as they occur. 

Winning this Airspace Battle gives an overall tactical advantage to the Govt forces over that specific Airspace.

Successful ISR can also supply data to Battlefield Management Applications (AI).

Relevant Units for Combat