IAF’s War Gaming Centre to prepare strategic and tactical doctrines

New Delhi: The Indian Air Force is setting up a war gaming centre which will enable it to train for warfare anywhere in the world by simulating scenarios both at strategic and tactical levels.

The Delhi-based War Gaming Centre (WGC) is expected to be functional in about three years from now and will be more advanced than its Gwalior-based Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE), according to top IAF officials.

The WGC is modelled on the Indian Army's Delhi-based WARDEC or War Gaming Development Centre, but the IAF claims its WGC would go much beyond the latter capabilities in developing doctrines for strategic warfare.

The WGC would be able to generate scenarios and simulation at strategic and operational levels in collaboration with other agencies, both military and civil, at the national level, IAF officers said.

The facility will have the capability to play war games in coordination with, or independently, from varied locations across the country. It will generate scenarios for any location in the world.

The centre will provide for out-of-area contingencies, and include army and naval forces deployment in overall simulation models, to help in planning and execution of joint operations.

The WGC will carry out strategic and operational doctrinal selection, integrate aerospace elements in the planning, and allow for execution of the war game in "real and turbo" time.

With a seamless integration of existing tactical war gaming tools and packages in the IAF, the centre, once established, will undertake creation of a bank of scenarios and objectives, including secondary ones, of various types for use in all planned exercises of the IAF.