PACE is an unclassified educational game intended to quickly teach the strengths and weaknesses of various communications capabilities in a Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) environment. PACE also stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency, and is a concept that is used throughout the Department of Defense as a planning aid to assist in creating communications plans capable of withstanding the rigors of a contested environment. PACE, the game, puts players in the role of a planner responsible for establishing communication systems at a contingency operating location. Players must then use these communication systems to deliver messages pertinent to the fight. For each message successfully delivered, the player earns victory points.
In the game, players build communications plans, called a PACE plans. Once PACE plans have been built, players execute missions and defend against adversary kinetic, electromagnetic, and cyber-attacks all while attacking adversary communication systems. Successful players will build a plan that utilizes a wide variety of technologies and communications systems, including exquisite high-bandwidth satellite systems, old-school high-frequency radio bounced off the atmosphere, Host-Nation wired mil-networks, hand-held iridium phones, and even hand carrying messages. Each communication system has its strengths and vulnerabilities. A well devised PACE plan mitigates risk from attacks by providing redundancy and balancing the vulnerabilities of the systems. In the game, players may experience failure caused by reliance on one system or they may deliver critical missions despite their opponents’ attempts to block the traffic by degrading and destroying systems. Failure and success are determined by the luck of the draw, the persistence of enemy attacks, and skill in establishing PACE plans. The game takes 30-to-60 minutes to play and is highly repeatable. Who knew that learning about comm systems could be so fun?
Click Here to Access the PACE Print to Play Game (CaC Access Required)