An analysis of the influence of signals intelligence through wargaming

Abstract

Signals intelligence (SIGINT), information derived from the monitoring, interception, decryption and evaluation of an adversary's electronic communications, has long been viewed as a significant factor in modem warfare. However, relatively little research has been conducted to quantify the influence of SIGINT in war. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and quantify the influence of SIGINT in warfare by developing an interactive wargame based on the McCue simulation of the U-boat War in the Atlantic. The research comprises two phases. Phase one consists of constructing an interactive wargame version of McCue's simulation. In the wargame, a human player directs convoys across a chessboard representation of the North Atlantic while the computer controls the movement of the U-boats and tabulates the number of U- boat attack-days. Phase one tests how well the wargame models reality using historical data. The second phase of research consists of experimenting within the wargame to explore the effects of varying levels of SIGINT. Each iteration of the wargame, reflecting one of four possible SIGINT conditions, is repeated to derive statistics about the influence of signals intelligence. The results show about a twenty-five percent net change in the number of attack-days for the side utilizing SIGINT.