U.S. Central Command told IG investigators that “Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict.”

While the report provided no details on damaged military facilities, it did include specifics on damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities.

The State Department told investigators that “U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries suffered physical damage from Iranian strikes, with an estimated total cost of about $184 million.”

U.S. diplomatic sites in Iraq suffered more than 600 attacks, while the embassies in Kuwait City and Riyadh were also hit.

Operation Epic Fury had cost the United States $33.4 billion as of June 29, based on Pentagon estimates. The amount includes $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion in equipment losses and $7.4 billion in costs beyond CENTCOM’s normal operating expenses.

However, these estimates do not count the costs of repairing infrastructure.

The Department of Defense “did not include the cost of military construction for damaged infrastructure in its estimate because the DoD has not determined what its future posture will be in the region, how it will construct its bases, and what percentage of the construction costs allies and partners will contribute,” the report states.

Because Congress did not appropriate funds for the war in Iran, the money is being funneled from normal operating budgets, such as amounts set aside for training and maintenance.

“The absence of a dedicated appropriation for OEF means that it can be difficult to calculate the total ‘cost’ of OEF,” noted the report, which is among the first official assessments of Operation Epic Fury since it began on Feb. 28.

Funding is also becoming an issue for U.S. Transportation Command, which flew more than 1,500 missions to support the mission.

“During peak OEF times, airlift surged to 30 to 40 daily missions directly into the CENTCOM [area of responsibility], with an additional 20 to 30 daily aircraft pushing into the USEUCOM AOR for transload operations,” the report said.

This cost nearly $2.4 billion as of June 30.

“While these obligations have been largely reimbursed by the military services to date, USTRANSCOM reported that it anticipates delayed payments moving forward as service funding is depleted without a supplemental appropriation,” the IG said.

The report confirmed that dozens of U.S. manned and unmanned aircraft have been destroyed or damaged, based on data from a Congressional Research Service report released in May and “vetted” by CENTCOM as of Aug. 24.

The tally of destroyed aircraft includes four F-15Es, one A-10, four AH-6 helicopters, one AH-64 and one MH-60, as well as an MQ-4C drone and as many as 30 MQ-9 Reapers.

The report listed 18 dead U.S. military personnel as of Aug. 27. The Pentagon claimed 417 wounded as of June 30, though casualty figures released in late August soared to 774.

The Pentagon now wants artificial intelligence that can cut through the confusion.

It’s seeking “AI-based software tools to turn fragmented sensor data into a continuously updated understanding of space and missile threats fast enough to drive operational decisions,” according to the Defense Innovation Unit solicitation, which is due Sept. 24. “Existing tools struggle to distinguish closely spaced objects, track emerging threats, and keep threat models current.”

The project, known as the “Space Threat Intelligence Synthesis Engine,” will leverage AI’s greatest strength: the ability to quickly analyze reams of data. The software will fuse “massive streams of multi-source data, including live video, satellite imagery, radar and sensor feeds, geospatial data, and classified intelligence reports.”

“By automating advanced cross-data correlation, the architecture aims to uncover hidden patterns, complex operational relationships, and predictive threat behaviors far beyond the capabilities of human analysis alone.”

Ultimately, the system should “generate actionable, confidence-scored alerts supporting analyst-in-the-loop, human-on-the-loop, or automated workflows.”

The AI will help human operators — and other machines.

It will provide “intuitive, human-readable visualizations for frontline operators and low-latency, machine-to-machine APIs to drive automated command-and-control (C2) workflows.”

DIU is aiming for an open-source system with a latency delay of no more than five seconds — and preferably no more than two seconds — between the arrival of data and the results being displayed. Throughput should be 20 to 30 megabytes per minute, with bursts of up to five gigabytes.

Contractors should demonstrate that their products show “significant speed and accuracy improvements in event detection, characterization, and attribution compared to existing baseline systems.”

As skies fill with missiles and drones in conflicts like the ones with Ukraine and Iran, AI is increasingly being seen as an indispensable partner to overworked human operators. In particular, with a perpetual shortage of expensive interceptors, such as the Patriot air-defense system, operators must quickly decide when and where to allocate them.

Defense contractors and AI firms are teaming up to incorporate AI into missile defense.

For example, Northrop Grumman announced in July that it was partnering with AI firm Camgian to incorporate artificial intelligence into integrated air and missile defense systems. BAE and Scale AI have also teamed up for AI-enhanced missile defense.

Or more specifically, the service would like transport aircraft and their retinue of drones to deploy to Air Force bases. Once there, this swarm of AI-controlled drones would autonomously defend the bases — and any aircraft parked there — from attack.

The goal is to transform cargo planes into “adaptive, force-multiplying launch platforms” that provide “a rapidly deployable swarm for base security,” according to an Air Force Small Business Innovation Research solicitation. The deadline is Oct. 21.

The Air Force is looking for a 3-for-1 deal. One mission is to provide transport aircraft with onboard intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities by enabling them to become high-altitude drone motherships, as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency demonstrated in 2021 when a C-130 recovered an X-61 Gremlin in mid-air.

A footnote in the SBIR also cites discussion by Air Mobility Command of using KC-135 tankers as launch platforms.

Another mission is “self-protection for Mobility Air Forces operating in contested airspace.” Such a capability would have been welcome in the Iran war, during which Iranian strikes destroyed or damaged American tankers and airborne warning and control system aircraft parked at Persian Gulf airbases.

Meanwhile, drone swarms would protect forward bases from which the transports and other aircraft operate.

Transport planes can be “significantly augmented with enhanced organic self-protection and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to maintain operational overmatch,” explained the SBIR. “Similarly, forward operating bases can bolster their security posture by leveraging rapidly deployable, autonomous perimeter defense networks.”

In a sign of how far drone and AI technology has advanced, the project is skipping the customary Phase I of an SBIR and going straight to Phase II.

“The fundamental scientific and technical merit of coordinating multiple uncrewed aerial systems via artificial intelligence has already been established by the private sector,” the Air Force noted.

Phase II involves contractors demonstrating how cargo planes can deploy drone swarms “at operational altitudes to simulate operational Mobility Air Forces scenarios.” As for the drones, companies should show “the swarm’s ability to autonomously monitor and defend a designated perimeter using onboard visual and thermal sensors.”

The Air Force wants the same AI drone software to handle both missions. This means “the artificial intelligence software should be adapted to seamlessly transition from aerial deployment into a coordinated flight pattern and autonomously execute a perimeter defense monitoring route.”

Another key is keeping the drones from being hacked. The Air Force is looking for “secure, encrypted military communications, replacing readily available data links to ensure secure command and control that aligns with Department of the Air Force standards.”

The SBIR also offers potential Phase III dual-use applications, including domestic missions by the National Guard.

“By rapidly deploying a high-altitude drone swarm from mobility launch platforms, rescue units gain an instant, wide-area sensor net to expedite the location of survivors during natural disasters, while ground units can deploy the swarm for persistent, autonomous border surveillance,” the Air Force suggested.

Other potential uses include National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration drone swarms flying into hurricanes.

Commercially, the ruggedized, secure swarm capability could be expanded for advanced disaster response, large-scale search-and-rescue, and commercial aviation monitoring, the Air Force said.

The Ground-Based, Medium-Caliber Gun Weapon System project is aiming for a weapon “that fires affordable munitions, enables defense against air and missile threats with an initial focus on subsonic cruise missiles (CM) and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to provide persistent defense in support of United States Air Force assets,” according to the Air Force’s Request for Information published Thursday. The deadline is Oct. 9.

Iran has unleashed retaliatory strikes at U.S. military installations and civilian infrastructure across the Middle East amid bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces.

U.S. troops were killed when an Iranian one-way attack drone evaded U.S. air defenses and struck a makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait. More troops were killed in attacks on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan and on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian strikes have also damaged U.S. aircraft, including five KC-135s on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base.

The Air Force’s RFI doesn’t request a specific caliber for the new weapons system, but “medium-caliber” suggests a weapon in the 20mm to 50mm range. In August, the U.S. Army published a Sources Sought notice for a 50mm anti-drone cannon and ammunition. The Army plans to conduct a live-fire test using Northrop Grumman’s XM913 Bushmaster 50mm chain gun, with companies supplying 50mm ammunition.

The Air Force’s weapon will have 15 baseline parameters, including its probability of kill, or PK, against subsonic cruise missiles, as well as Group 1 to Group 5 UAVs, meaning small drones all the way up to very large unmanned aircraft flying above 18,000 feet.

Contractors “must carefully select the organic sensor capability and phenomenology—integrating the right mix of radar, electro-optical, infrared, or radio-frequency sensors—to ensure reliable target acquisition and tracking across varying weather conditions, environments, and countermeasure scenarios,” the Air Force emphasized.

Weapons will also be assessed for range and elevation, magazine capacity, number of crew needed and integration with other sensors and command networks. They must also be capable of stopping saturation attacks by drones and missiles.

The Air Force is also looking for a portable air defense weapon with “a lightweight, modular, and transportable footprint that can be swiftly projected into austere theater environments to meet emergent threats.”

Based on the RFI, the Air Force appears cognizant of modern air defense’s biggest challenge: air defense systems that are either much more expensive than the drones and missiles they are trying to stop, or systems that run out of ammunition before an attacker does.

The new weapon “must optimize munition performance versus munition cost and gun capability, ensuring that the interceptor’s velocity, maneuverability, and terminal effects are maximized without driving the cost-per-engagement to unsustainable levels or exceeding the physical constraints of the host platform,” the RFI said.

The Department of Defense wants to take that idea one step further and wield AI-generated “personalities” to mimic real people — and fool enemy AI trying to identify patterns in friendly cellphone traffic.

The goal is to mask “digital exhaust,” the metadata automatically emitted by mobile phones, such as location and specific device IDs. Intelligence agencies, law enforcement, militaries and even criminals have become adept at using this digital debris to locate users and analyze their behavior.

In particular, “accessing foreign mobile phone networks exposes individuals and organizations to surveillance and espionage threats,” warned the DoD Small Business Innovation Research solicitation, which opens Sept. 23 and closes Oct. 21.

“Adversaries can leverage this data to track daily routines, identify deviations indicating special events (e.g., VIP visits or mission preparation), and map sensitive facilities based on cell phone concentration or periods of inactivity,” the solicitation explained.

The solicitation doesn’t specifically mention AI-created people chatting on their mobiles. But DoD does envision a “digital exhaust deception system” in which AI “personas” generate cellphone signals that mimic the behavior of real people.

Each device should have a minimum of two personas, and eventually four or more. The device should weigh fewer than 2 pounds and have a battery life of up to 36 hours.

Merely generating fake cellphone signals isn’t enough. The device must “mimic realistic patterns of life to defeat automated network analysis,” DoD said.

At a minimum, this means defeating basic traffic analysis. Ultimately, the Pentagon wants a system that can defeat behavioral tracking by advanced AI.

Phase I of the project involves creating a design concept and algorithms, as well as listing any “proprietary software required to conduct AI-enabled mission planning and operations.” Phase II will generate a prototype, followed by Phase III and delivery of “fully integrated mission management software and hardened decoy box form factors (e.g., Wi-Fi router-sized team devices and puck-sized personal devices).”

The technology could lend itself to civilian applications. A capability to obscure cell phone metadata “directly translates to protecting high-value corporate assets, personnel, and intellectual property from commercial espionage and tracking,” the solicitation states.

Analyzing signal traffic has long been a useful intelligence tool. For example, in World War II, the U.S. Navy used it to derive intelligence on Japanese naval deployment. Today, police have software that uses cell phone data to trace a user’s past movement for months.

On the other hand, traffic analysis can boomerang on its creators. Japan used decoy radio signals in 1941 to convince U.S. analysts that the Japanese fleet was at home, rather than steaming toward Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

In 2021, a DoD Inspector General audit found that snoopers were able to access the protected health information, or PHI, of “well-known DOD personnel.” Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that VA staff — often out of simple curiosity — had improperly accessed records of then-vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz.

The Defense Health Agency has since tightened access to health records of well-known personnel, according to a follow-up DOD IG audit published Monday. But what DHA isn’t doing is investigating access by people who are not on a designated list of approved users.

The DHA “rarely investigated users who accessed the EHRs [electronic health records] of well‑known individuals to determine whether the access was improper,” said the IG report, which was heavily redacted.

DHA maintains a whitelist of authorized medical providers who can access health records, as well as a watchlist of users who are suspected of unauthorized access. Individuals on the watchlist are supposed to be referred to DHA’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Office, or to “the military medical treatment facility chain of command, for breach reporting, investigation, mitigation, containment, and sanctions if applicable,” the report noted.

DHA is also supposed to review weekly logs to determine whether access was justified.

Yet, DHA neither investigated users who were not on the approved list, nor those on the watchlist. Auditors examined the cases of 25 DoD personnel who were either senior officials or whose names had appeared in the media after a highly publicized event.

“Of the 2,600 users who accessed the PHI of those 25 well‑known individuals, 1,482 of the users were on the DHA’s Whitelist, and 15 were on the DHA’s Watchlist,” IG investigators found. “Of the 1,103 users (42 percent) who were not on the DHA’s Whitelist or Watchlist, the DHA did not investigate any of the users.”

In the case of one senior DOD official, 334 users accessed that person’s health records. Of that number, 94 were neither on the whitelist nor watchlist. There were no follow-up investigations.

One DHA policy — redacted in the report — isn’t meeting DoD guidelines, and it may also violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the audit said. In addition, it “may not support the Executive Order and National Counterintelligence Strategy that warned that access to sensitive information of well‑known individuals could threaten national security.”

“Without proper monitoring and inquiry, users who improperly access these EHRs would not be held accountable as required by DHA guidance.”

The IG recommended that DHA contact any user not on the approved whitelist who accessed the health records of well-known individuals. The agency should also maintain a complete audit trail of all correspondence between DHA and the user.

If the Defense Health Agency lacks the resources or authorities to complete these inquiries, it should coordinate with the appropriate DoD or other federal components for assistance, the report suggested.

The goal is to create a family of drones that can “represent the full range of airborne threats, spanning from inexpensive ‘hobby drones’ to the most advanced adversary fighter and large-scale aircraft,” according to the Air Force’s Request for Information, which has a deadline of Sept. 28.

At the same time, the Air Force desires next-generation target drones that are so inexpensive and easy to manufacture that they can be “treated as attritable or expendable when required.”

As with drones and other new technologies, the Pentagon is turning to private industry for fresh ideas, “including commercial, modified commercial, dual-use, and non-developmental solutions,” the RFI said. “The government is particularly interested in non-traditional, commercially derived, or dual-use solutions that offer advantages in cost, scalability, and simplicity over legacy systems.”

The new target drones are expected to simulate a wide array of capabilities.

For fighters, the drones should have “supersonic capabilities (up to and exceeding Mach 1.6 at 40,000 feet), high-agility/high-G combat maneuvers, precise low-observable Radar Cross-section (RCS) profiles, multi-spectral Infrared (IR) signatures, active RF emissions, and integrated Electronic Attack (EA) capabilities,” according to the RFI.

To simulate C-130-sized multiengine aircraft, the focus is less on high performance and more on “matching the physical scale, slow subsonic flight envelopes, and propeller or turbofan propulsion characteristics of larger multi-engine aircraft. These platforms must prioritize representative physical volume, basic RF/IR emissions, and realistic radar returns to verify missile seeker guidance, and warhead lethality against large-frame targets.”

For even bigger aircraft, such as strategic bombers and AWACS planes, the key is “replicating the massive physical dimensions, multi-spectral thermal signatures, and heavy-aircraft radar strategic threats.”

To mimic big Group 5 unmanned aerial vehicles, the target drone should be capable of flying at 50,000 feet. For Group 3 and 4 UAVs, the targets should be capable of flying at Mach 0.5 to 0.8, and maneuver at 3 to 6 Gs. For small Group 1 and 2 drones, the targets should fly at speeds of less than 150 knots and be capable of drone-swarm operations.

Remote-controlled target drones have been used for nearly a century, including Britain’s Queen Bee — a converted Tiger Moth trainer — in the 1930s.

More recently, the U.S. Air Force has relied since 2007 on the subsonic — and subscale – BQM-167A. At 20 feet long and with a wingspan of 11 feet, it hardly resembles a 67-foot-long Chinese J-20 stealth fighter or a 108-foot-wide Chinese H6 bomber.

The Air Force also has the QF-16, a converted F-16 that can play the role of a full-sized target, such as a fourth-generation fighter. While a practical way to make use of retired jets, they aren’t meant to simulate fifth-generation stealth fighters or large aircraft, nor are they cheap enough to be expended in quantity.

At Camp Courtney and Kadena and Yokota Air Bases in Japan, investigators with the Defense Department Office of Inspector General found “visible corrosion, visible mold, visible fire damage, visible cracks on the building exterior and interior, visible concrete spalling and exposed rebar, water intrusion, lead‑based paint, asbestos‑containing material and inoperable communication connections.”

The findings came during an audit of Pacific Command infrastructure, during which IG investigators visited 11 PACOM bases in May 2025. They examined operations and communications infrastructure, as well as base housing.

Though the report is heavily redacted, the descriptions — and the photographs — show some structures on the verge of collapse, including two photos of homes at Kadena with crumbling ceilings and living room furniture strewn with debris.

“DoD officials told us that in some areas, falling debris — ranging from small fragments to large slabs — poses an ongoing risk to personnel safety,” the report states.

The audit was originally aimed at assessing the state of “mission-critical systems,” such as operations and communications infrastructure. Investigators determined that housing and water infrastructure are “critical to support the Service members in the USPACOM AOR as they complete their mission.” Their examination of those facilities revealed numerous problems.

Photos of a 50-year-old pier at Camp Courtney show corroded steel fenders and damaged concrete beams.

One Kadena building had eight inches of standing water on the roof, asbestos and cracked pillars and walls.

A Kadena aircraft hangar had holes in the walls.

A 50-year-old water pipe at Kadena had a 12-foot crack. Broken pipes at Kadena and Yokota have caused flooding and collapsed sidewalks.

At Kinser Tower base housing at Kadena, concrete damage has affected 544 homes, according to the IG.

Sebille Manor Housing at Kadena received 100 reports of mold, and dozens of Kadena residents were forced to move due to mold and concrete concerns.

DoD officials told IG investigators that “aging infrastructure, construction choices, or environmental conditions caused accelerated degradation.” In addition, facilities in Japan experience the effects of typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis.

DoD officials also blamed the problems on a lack of funds and the high cost of services in places like Japan.

They said that while the Japanese government provides host-nation funding, often it can’t be used to fix infrastructure. Instead, these funds tend to be allocated to new construction, or to “broader strategic objectives, such as reducing the impact of U.S. forces on the people of Okinawa.”

The IG recommended that various base commanders in mainland Japan and Okinawa submit a list of priority repairs. But this raises some interservice issues. For example, Army officials said that while Fort Buckner is used only by Army units, the Marine Corps is the real property owner.

The IG also recommended that the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force — as well as the commanders of PACOM and U.S. Forces Japan — conduct a root-cause analysis of infrastructure problems and find funding to fix them. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Infrastructure Modernization and Resilience concurred with the IG’s recommendations.

Dilapidated military facilities are not confined to the Pacific. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report estimated an infrastructure maintenance backlog of $137 million as of 2020. Housing on military bases in the United States has long been afflicted by issues like toxic mold.

“The current industrial base has demonstrated significant challenges, including production delays, quality control issues, and critical obsolescence (i.e., diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages) across key engine components,” warned the Air Force’s Request for Information. The deadline is Aug. 28.

“The government will pursue a strategic competition requiring industry to innovate manufacturing and guarantee supply chain resiliency,” the RFI said.

The initiative comes as the Air Force struggles with its jet engines.

For example, F-35 fighter deliveries and upgrades have been delayed by engine issues, with a Government Accountability Office report noting last year that “the engine contractor is still not delivering engines to contract specifications after 20 years of production.”

Meanwhile, B-52 modernization has been stalled in part by engine issues that have raised costs by $3 billion and delayed initial operational capability by 15 months, according to GAO.

In turn, the Air Force is now embarking on a multiyear fighter engine procurement project that envisions more than 180 engines per year by 2034. The RFI specifically cites engines for the F-15EX and F-16.

The RFI promises “five foundational pillars designed to drive a paradigm shift in engine procurement and sustainment,” as the government shifts from “legacy procurement toward incentivizing industry-led technological evolution and capacity expansion.” These include “holding vendors accountable” for delivering new engines that are more capable, reliable and cheaper.

The Air Force will focus “on the total lifecycle cost of the engine, not just the initial purchase price.”

Contractors are also responsible for ensuring reliable supply chains.

“We will implement an acquisition strategy that prioritizes ease of maintenance and establishes a resilient, sustainable supply chain from day one,” the Air Force said. “This effort is designed to solve key fleet-level issues by requiring a newer engine with improved supportability.”

“The result is a streamlined logistics footprint that reduces downtime, lowers the burden on our maintainers, and ensures the continuous flow of parts and support to maximize flightline readiness.”

Ultimately, the question is whether the U.S. defense industrial base can deliver. The Air Force intends to “enforce stringent producibility requirements.”

“We will select a partner capable of scaling production to meet surge requirements, guaranteeing a steady and uninterrupted supply of engines for USAF/FMS [Foreign Military Sales] aircraft (e.g. F-15EX and F-16) programs,” the RFI reads.

Companies responding to the RFI are asked to provide a variety of details, such as a timeline for developing and manufacturing an engine. They should also specify “at what minimum volume your supply chain can justify private capital investments (such as facility expansion, tooling modernization, or advanced automation) and how those investments will structurally lower your long-term unit costs.”

With nations competing to obtain raw materials — and China restricting sales of rare earths — the Air Force wants to be certain manufacturers can find the raw materials they need.

“From your company’s market perspective, what are the primary raw material constraints (e.g., specialized titanium/nickel alloys) or manufacturing process bottlenecks (e.g., advanced casting or forging capacity) that pose the highest risk to scaling up fighter engine production?” the RFI asks.

But as America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is easy to forget that independence was not guaranteed. As they shivered at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778, George Washington and his troops would have scoffed at the notion that victory would come on a silver platter.

For the American Revolution to succeed, the colonists had to create an army. Whether the Continental Army was defeated on the battlefield — as it frequently was — mattered less. As long as the United Colonies could keep an army in the field, Britain would be forced to continue what seemed like a forever war.

“American Revolutionary War” is a computer wargame that depicts the battles of the American Revolution, or what the British call the War of American Independence.

With 148 scenarios, from small engagements like Hubbardton and Kettle Creek, to larger battles such as Princeton, Brandywine and Saratoga, American Revolutionary War is part of publisher Wargame Design Studio’s Musket & Pike series. These games depict warfare from the 15th through the 18th Centuries, an era where polearms were gradually replaced by gunpowder weapons, such as muskets.

By the 1770s, the pike had been replaced by the bayonet, and the primitive arquebus by more reliable flintlock muskets including Britain’s “Brown Bess.”

With a 114-page user manual, American Revolutionary War is not exactly casual entertainment. It is a highly detailed simulation not just of 18th Century European-style warfare — but also how difficult it was to conduct armies’ European-style warfare in the 18th Century North American wilderness.

The game depicts battles at the grand tactical scale, with battalions and companies of infantry, as well as batteries of artillery and the occasional horse soldier (cavalry was much rarer than the later Napoleonic and American Civil Wars). The American have Continental regulars and local militia, while the Crown fields a polyglot force of British regulars, German mercenaries, Loyalist troops and Native American allies.

These units maneuver across a 2-D hex-grid map of eastern North America in its pre-industrial glory. The terrain is studded with forests, fields, marshes and streams.

Units are rated for how many troops or guns they have, and their weaponry (musket, 3-pounder artillery, etc.). Most important is a quality rating from A to F, which affects combat proficiency and movement. The British regulars tend to be quality As and Bs, while the Continentals tend to be Cs and Ds, and the American militias Fs.

Players alternate taking their turns, with each turn representing about 15 minutes of real time. Each player conducts movement and fire combat, followed by a melee phase to resolve assaults. Combat inflicts casualties as well as “fatigue,” which saps morale and effectiveness until units break or rout.

Western battlefield tactics in the 18th and 19th Centuries centered on assuming the right formation in an era when troops fought shoulder to shoulder. Column formation was used to expedite movement, though at the cost of firepower and presenting a juicy target. When engaging in a firefight, infantry would assume line formation, standing in two or three ranks.

Units in line that move through rough terrain, or obstructions, such as walls, run the risk of becoming “disordered,” with movement and fire penalties. On the other hand, a densely packed column can take heavy casualties from enemy troops deployed in line. Dispersing troops into open order makes them less vulnerable to enemy fire, but penalizes them in melee.

One myth is that the conflict “was fought by the British in a strictly linear fashion, while the Americans were primarily in skirmish,” Mike Cox, designer of American Revolutionary War, told Military Times. Both sides were capable of assuming a variety of formations, though this presented challenges for under-trained Continentals.

“The Americans often tried to fight linearly, too,” added Cox. “It just didn’t often work out well.”

Particularly useful are the detachments of light infantry.

“Learning to master your light troops is extremely important,” Cox said. “When to deploy as skirmishers to delay or scout, or recall and use them to effectively melee to push back the enemy and take and hold ground.”

Command and control has always been the glue that binds armies, but especially so in the pre-radio era, when commanders personally led their troops.

American Revolutionary War features historical commanders, rated from A (George Washington) to F, that form chains of command in each army. Leaders can rally broken troops and provide morale bonuses, though they can also be felled by enemy fire.

“Keeping units in range of their leader and their leader in range of the next higher echelon makes an army work well,” Cox explained. American commanders will need to stay close to their militia: “Keeping them in command and preventing their disruption and breakdown is an art.”

One fascination of playing historical wargames is seeing how they model the little things. For example, the British Army’s Scottish Highlanders are given a bonus during melee combat “to reflect their impact on the minds of American troops, and their reputation for relishing close combat,” the game manual notes.

But ultimately, the question comes down to: How accurately does the game depict the battles that determined the fate of the American Revolution? And, how well does it capture the essences of a professional army versus a more amateur — but also more inspired — citizen army?

American Revolutionary War fares well on both questions.

The unit quality, morale and command systems model the capabilities of both sides, including how the Continental Army improved over time due to combat experience, as well as the tutelage of European instructors like Baron von Steuben.

“British forces are often outnumbered,” said Cox. “They need to learn to stretch their lines or get outflanked. They will usually have some high-quality troops and have the advantage of picking the point of attack.”

“The Americans usually have a high number of units. However, quality and strength can vary wildly. The Americans need to know when to give ground and when to hit hard.”

Perhaps what is most striking is the theater of war.

WDS has published almost 120 historical wargames that cover gigantic battles, such as Waterloo, Gettysburg, Kursk and the Battle of the Bulge. In these games, the maps are packed with masses of troops.

In American Revolutionary War, the maps are often big, while the armies are small. One can begin to appreciate how British soldiers and colonial settlers must have felt about fighting in a vast, untamed land.

As Americans mark the Declaration of Independence, this is a reminder of how far our nation has come.