Peter Perla has been around the industry a while, although I have never intersected with him. He was the keynote speaker at the Connections Wargaming Conference in 2017. His presentation was “Peter Perla on Prediction,” which has great alliteration. It is here: https://paxsims.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/connections-us-2017-wargaming-conference-proceedings.pdf
Early in his presentation he quotes Trevor Dupuy (on page 5 of his presentation). He states that he said to Trevor Dupuy “Good grief, Trevor, we can’t even predict the outcome of a Super Bowl game much less that of a battle!” Trevor Dupuy responded “Well, if that is true, what are we doing? What’s the point?”
He then quotes Jim Dunnigan as saying (on page 7): “If you want your wargame to predict the future, you better make sure it can predict the past.”
Of course, this last point is why The Dupuy Institute has developed databases on the Battle of the Bulge, Kursk, Battle of Britain, some 1200 battles since 1600, and over 100 post-WWII insurgencies.
Now, I do happen to agree with those two gentlemen. Dr. Perla presentation then goes on for a while (and I have gotten into the shameful habit of speed reading most things now) and finally concludes (on page 43) in response to the question “Why do we wargame?” with  “We do it to help us all make more accurate predictions by leveraging all our combined knowledge, experience and creativity, so that we can make more effective decisions in complex and uncertain situations.”
Let quote his entire paragraph, so I don’t look like I am just cherry-picking the phrases I want (as opposed to how some people our using our report The Historical Combat Effectiveness of Lighter-Weight Armored Forces):
We do it to help us all make more accurate predictions by leveraging all our combined knowledge, experience and creativity, so that we can make more effective decisions in complex and uncertain situations. We do it to question, to learn and to understand. We do it because Wargames entertain; they stir the imagination. Wargame engage; they stimulate the intellect. And Wargames enlighten; the create synthetic experience. And it is experience, both real and synthetic, that makes abstract risks tangible and effective planning possible.
And as Matt Caffrey has said on so many occasions, we do it because wargames save money, and most importantly, wargames saves lives. That’s why I have been doing this for forty years. I hope you all will continue to do it for forty more.
I gather this is different than what he used to state.
Anyhow, the next Connections Wargaming Conference is up in Carlisle, PA on 13-16 August, 2019. See:Â https://connections-wargaming.com/. I probably will not be attending. Still, this is a worthwhile effort that has been run for decades by Matt Caffrey, now of the Air Force Research Laboratory, along many others.
P.S. In Peter Perla’s presentation he uses this picture of Trevor Dupuy. The photograph was taken by Gary. S. Schofield on 2 June 1995.
