CIVIL WAR ON-LINE
War College

School of Advanced Studies
Campaign Course

Overview

The School of Advanced Studies offers the Campaign Course for the training of operational (corps/army or theater) commanders and their staffs. This course is open for use by either nation in its training program.

While this course is designed for operational level training, the Secretary of War may desire to conduct "multi-echelon" training by incorporating brigade and division level commanders. This option is open to the national training program if time is limited.

NOTE: multi-echelon training requires more supervision and may diminish the training of operational level skills. It is suggested that the Battle Course be used for the training of basic tactical skills, and the Command Course be used to train future unit commanders in grand tactics.

The cadre of the School will assist in the processing and administration of the course as coordinated by the Secretary of War. Any supplemental mentoring and/or remedial instruction is the responsibility of the appointed national Inspector General.

Course Objective

The Campaign Course seeks to train selected players in the skills that are needed to be

• Theater, Department or Army Commanders;
• their Chief of Staff;
• Adjudant General {Plans & Operations officer};
• or, Quartermaster {Logistics officer (to include transportation)}.

The scenario of the course centers on the operational context of the War College Common Training Scenario and the objectives that the opposing study groups derive as they develop the operational level campaign plan for their assigned forces. Battlefield success is not the important end result of this course. Success is measured by how well the study group develops its plan by:

• conducting an objective analysis,
• an analysis of the situation,
• deriving an estimate of friendly capabilities,
• and the formulation of a course of action (COA)
• The course of action is expressed as
  • The friendly force package(s) to be employed;
  • A narrative describing the COA maneuver;
  • A concept sketch (including delination of the COA decision points).

The optimum utilization of this course is by assigning players as

• theater commander,
• Chief of Staff
• Adjudant General
• Quartermaster {includes Wagonmaster (transportation) duties}
• major subordinate commanders {which are at brigade level in this scenario}
• 
  NOTE: bold italic indicates the principle target audience for this training

Procedures

The School of Advanced Studies operates in a de-centralized fashion. The Secretary of War for the national player teams coordinates all use of School materials plus control the administration and instruction of their national team. The Secretary coordinates training directly or appoints a national Inspector General who administers the course(s). However, to insure timely support of the national training program and the smooth administration of the course there is some coordination required by the School. These guidelines and procedures are outlined below.

Player Responsibilities

• To use the Campaign Course, all students are required to have SAS version 2.xx installed on their systems. Go to: Shot and Shell Download Site and follow the instructions
  {if you have SAS v1.3.4 or below installed - disregard this step and proceed to the next one}
• Once the SAS version 2.xx is installed, players download the Campaign Course .bin file
• Once the player has the Campaign Course .bin file loaded and operating on his system, he contacts his national Inspector General and alerts him that he is prepared for training.

While not mandatory for this course it is strongly suggested that all students visit the Web Site on Adaptation of Campaign Planning in CWOL and ACW Era Command & Control

National Inspector General Responsibilities

• Notify the School cadre that he will be running an exercise and request GA support
• Identify the time period of the training {start and stop dates}
• Coordinate with Course GA the turn frequency of the exercise (1x, 2x, or 3x per week)
• Perform Super User functions for the exercise by issuing assign orders initially and ensuring that all assignements stay current
• Gain the email account for orders and issue it to the students
• Issue instructions to the students concerning the Course training objectives and player requirements {see Campaign Course Inspector General's Handbook for suggestions}

This document is a passworded file intended for the use of the Inspector General only. The Inspector General must coordinate with the Campaign Course GA to get the password.

The Campaign Course GA Responsibilities

• issue the password for the course handbook upon request
• setup a POP3 email account for order submissions
• run the turn(s)
• post the exercise Battle News to a Web Site
• provide a "ground truth" map for the Inspector General, if requested
• provide an archive file of the exercise to the Inspector General

The exercise GA can stop the exercise without notice for player non-compliance of game procedure or failure of player participation

School of Advanced Studies Links

• For information on the procedures for campaign planning, go to: Adaptation of Campaign Planning in CWOL
• For training in grand strategy for the national leadership, go to: Grand Strategy Tutorial

War College Links

• For ACW era doctrine & CWOL lessons learned, go to: The CWOL War College School of Doctrine
• For the tactical exercises, go to: The CWOL War College School of Tactics
• For campaign planning and grand strategy, go to: The CWOL War College School of Advanced Studies
• For CWOL victory conditions and critical city list, go to: Strategy & Victory

CWOL (Civil War OnLine)

• "Civil War OnLine Index Page"

Any comments, questions or suggestions about the CWOL War College can be sent to the Board of Directors

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