Most Marines are familiar with TDGs, whether from The Basic School, Advanced Infantryman’s Course, or  garrison “whitespace” (free) time. Normally conducted over a rough map on a whiteboard or PowerPoint, Marines are placed in command of notional units and given a fragmentary order that pits them against a fictional enemy force.

 

The Warfighting Society considers TDGs to be an indispensable tool for the effective training of both leaders and subordinates. Each month, The Warfighting Society will post a Tactical Decision Game (TDG) on its Facebook and Instagram pages for readers to analyze and write their own orders. At the end of the month, we will select several courses of action and publish it for your comments and critiques! Additionally, we will continue to archive past TDGs for your own use for PMEs or unit training!

 

Finally, if you’re look to take decision-making training to the next level, check out our Wargaming page! Wargames differ from TDGs in that war games actively pit participating Marines against each other in a simulated tactical scenario, whereas TDGs have all Marines solving a single, written scenario.