war game 
noun
1A military exercise carried out to test or improve tactical expertise.Even now, Gardiner said after the war game, the military sees post-conflict operations as peripheral to its duties....
- THE US spent £165 million on the biggest war game in military history earlier this month.
- Members from all branches of the Army participated in a week-long war game to help dictate the future of the Signal Corps.
1.1A simulated military conflict carried out as a game, leisure activity, or exercise in personal development.Battle of Britain is a war game for the personal computer from noted designer Gary Grigsby....
- They are also organising a paintball war game for deaf and hearing members.
- It was a war game based on the American Civil War.
verb [with object] (war-game) North American
Engage in (a campaign or course of action) using the strategies of a war game: there seemed to be no point war-gaming an election 15 months away...
- No team was assigned to diligently unearth the plan's shortfalls or over-sights - or to thoroughly war-game the various courses of action while planners considered and developed them.
- They then must war-game different scenarios to ensure that the goal is realistic and that it has a 10-percent overage of all stocks to compensate for any deficiencies in planning.
- In 1994, James F. Dunnigan and I war-gamed several Indo-Pakistan war scenarios for a commercial project.
Derivatives
war-gamer
- If a thriller novelist or war-gamer thinks of a particular terrorist operation, I fear there's a decent chance that a dedicated terrorist has already tried or is attempting to execute it.
- In the most notorious instance, when Van Riper knocked out several US navy vessels in the Persian Gulf with suicide speed boat attacks, the war-gamers stopped the exercise and ‘re-floated’ the ships.
- At that point, fear war-gamers, Pakistani planners would seriously consider a nuclear response.
war-gaming
- We also have an extensive program of experimentation, simulation, war-gaming and analysis, which looks at the future environment.
- Mann includes a stunning, disturbing chapter about the war-gaming during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
- There has to be lots of war-gaming - hiring consultants to see if they can infiltrate the enemy and find out its weaknesses.