IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v5y1957i1p1-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Operational Gaming in Operations Research

Author

Listed:
  • Clayton J. Thomas

    (Operations Analysis Office, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.)

  • Walter L. Deemer

    (Operations Analysis Office, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.)

Abstract

The scientific investigation of an actual conflict situation usually leads to the study of a simpler conflict situation that may be formulated as a game a set of rules that govern and fully determine the possible courses of conflict. The study of a game involves its formulation, its solution, and instruction in its implications. The two principal techniques employed in such study of a game are the use of analytic game theory and the use of operational gaming. It has been inadequately recognized that the analytic game-theoretic approach and the operational gaming approach, different as they are, both require the use of a model of reality. Neither deals directly with reality itself. Moreover, once reality is represented by a rigorously formulated game with a complete set of rules, its solution, though unknown, is determinate. In their efforts to find the solution of such a game, users of analytic game-theoretic methods and users of operational gaming must start from the same point, the rules of the game. The process of operational gaming suffers greatly from its lack of a rigorous method for calculating the required size of the sample of plays. This required size, though not known exactly, is far greater than is commonly suspected. Whereas chance effects require a sample of plays to be statistically adequate, competitive effects require a sample of plays to be strategically adequate. It is the latter requirement that is most often overlooked.

Suggested Citation

  • Clayton J. Thomas & Walter L. Deemer, 1957. "The Role of Operational Gaming in Operations Research," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 5(1), pages 1-27, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:5:y:1957:i:1:p:1-27
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.5.1.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.5.1.1
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.5.1.1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roger Koppl, 2023. "Public health and expert failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(1), pages 101-124, April.
    2. Craig Caulfield & David Veal & Stanislaw Maj, 2011. "Teaching Software Engineering Project Management – A Novel Approach for Software Engineering Programs," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 5(5), pages 1-87, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:5:y:1957:i:1:p:1-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.