Classification
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Distribution
Limited Distribution C: Restricted to U.S. citizens who are employees of the federal government or its contractors. See Security information for instructions on participating in short courses with limited distribution.
Instructor
Dr. Bonnie Johnson
Duration
Half-day morning course runs 0800-1200
Credits awarded
2 CLPs
Course Fee
Standard Registration*: $300 (includes Government Registrations)
Current Full-Time Students*: $100
* $50 Discount on two courses
Course Description
Directed energy (DE) is challenging long-standing assumptions about how military forces sense, decide, maneuver, and engage. But understanding the operational value and limitations of high-energy lasers, high-power microwave systems, and other directed energy capabilities require more than engineering analysis or performance modeling. Wargaming provides a powerful way to explore how DE changes the behavior of warfare when it is placed in the hands of commanders and employed against a thinking adversary.
This half-day course introduces participants to the use of wargaming to explore directed energy from the tactical engagement through the campaign level, with particular emphasis on what changes when DE is introduced into the force mix. Participants will examine how characteristics such as speed-of-light effects, deep magazines, power and thermal constraints, weather and propagation, target vulnerability, engagement geometry, and logistics can create both expected and unexpected operational consequences.
The course explores how to design and execute DE-focused games, including the development of scenarios, player roles, rules, adjudication methods, data collection, and analysis. Practical examples and mini exercises will illustrate how wargames can be used to examine questions ranging from “Can this laser or high power microwave device defeat this target?” to “How does a force equipped with directed energy fight differently over an extended campaign?”
A particular emphasis will be placed on the often-overlooked challenge of incorporating directed energy into major existing wargames. Rather than treating DE as an isolated technology demonstration, participants will explore how to inject DE capabilities, constraints, and effects into established tactical, operational, and campaign-level games. This includes considering how DE affects existing weapons, sensors, platforms, logistics, force allocation, target sets, rules of engagement, and adversary behavior—and how seemingly small changes at the tactical level can propagate into significant campaign-level consequences.
The course will also address the reverse problem: using wargaming to identify the engineering and capability questions that matter most. What DE performance characteristics actually drive operational outcomes? Which assumptions are most important to test? Where do technical limitations become operational limitations? And what capabilities or concepts might be overlooked when DE is evaluated solely as a weapon system rather than as part of an integrated force?
Ultimately, Wargaming Directed Energy challenges participants to think beyond the question of whether directed energy works and explore a more consequential question: How does warfare change when directed energy works well enough to matter?
Intended Audience
The course is designed for junior and senior technical engineers and managers who seek an understanding of experimentation wargaming and its application to support weapon system concept development and transition to the warfighter.
Instructor Biography
Dr. Bonnie W. Johnson, Teknicare
Dr. Bonnie W. Johnson is a systems engineer and recognized expert in directed energy warfare, wargaming, and advanced combat systems. With more than 30 years of experience in government, industry, national laboratories, and academia, she has led interdisciplinary defense research spanning high-energy lasers, high-power microwaves, counter-directed-energy warfare, combat-system integration, kill-chain decision-making, and AI-enabled wargaming.
A former Professor of Systems Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School, Dr. Johnson has led research using modeling, simulation, experimentation, and wargaming to explore how emerging technologies change tactical engagements and warfare at the campaign level. Her work includes laser engagement modeling, airborne directed energy, shipboard laser integration, high-power microwave warfare, counter directed energy warfare, and AI-enabled wargaming decision aids.
She currently works for Teknicare and serves on the Board of the Directed Energy Professional Society. She is the Mission Engineering Lead for the AIAA Airborne Directed Energy Systems Committee and is an associate editor of the Naval Engineers’ Journal.