Virginia Tech® home

Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab

Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab

The Wargaming and Crisis Simulations Lab at Virginia Tech serves as a hub for exposing users to teaching, research, and collaboration centered on experiential learning through wargames and crisis simulations.

The Lab promotes academic courses across the university that incorporate roleplaying, competition, and decision-making to explore complex challenges in security, policy, technology, business, and society.

This website catalogs Virginia Tech courses that employ wargaming and crisis simulations, highlights ongoing faculty and student research aimed at advancing these methods, and connects visitors to related wargaming and simulation programs at peer institutions.

Together, these efforts strengthen Virginia Tech’s commitment to innovative pedagogy, interdisciplinary learning, and real-world problem solving.

  • ISERC: https://pamplin.vt.edu/iserc.html 
    • Housed in the Corps Leadership and Military Science Building on Upper Quad, the ISERC is a purpose-built, multi-room facility that is ideal for hosting wargaming and crisis simulations. The ISERC has been used in wargaming-related classes, such as Professor Brantly’s Security Studies courses, as well as cyber competitions and the annual wargame for the Corps of Cadets’ senior class. The ISERC features state-of-the-art audiovisual and computing capabilities and reconfigurable, interactive spaces highly conducive to this type of experiential learning.
  • VTNSI CREATE Range: https://hume.vt.edu/engagement/create-range.html
    • The Virginia Tech National Security Institute hosts the Cyber Research Environment and Threat Evaluation (CREATE) Range, which was established to: (1) host cross-institutional student cyber exercises, competitions, and applied training; (2) enable cyber-related and data-intensive national security research; and (3) advance student-faculty-DOD collaboration. As such, it is ideal for enabling wargaming and crisis simulations--especially cyber-related simulations and competitions--at Virginia Tech.
  • Brantly - Tech4Humanity Lab: https://tech4humanitylab.clahs.vt.edu/
  • Cyber VT Club: https://cybervt.org/
    • The cybersecurity club at Virginia Tech (CyberVT) and the associated Corps of Cadets Cyber Team both participate in and host cyber competitions and simulations as part of their goal to advance cybersecurity education at Virginia Tech. In 2025, the Corps cyber team took third place in a national cyber competition sponsored by the National Security Agency, besting all other senior military colleges and the U.S. Naval Academy.

  • Professor Aaron Brantly, "Gateway and Captsone Courses"
    • Course: Security Studies: Theories and Concepts (CRN 86782)
  • Professor Jerry “Jay” Burkette, “Global Conflict and War”
    • Course: Global Conflict and War (CRN 89598)
  • Professor Chris Price, “Global War in Conflict”
  • Professor Robert Hodges, Diplomacy Lab

  • The Air Force Wargaming (SWARM) Club's Fall 2025 FTX
  • WarPaths - Annual Corps of Cadets Wargaming Exercise: warpaths.com

Virginia Tech Senior Military College Cyber Institute (SMCCI) has hosted various cyber simulations and exercises such as capture-the-flag (CTF) events. In November 2024, the SMCCI hosted “Cyber Brawl” in the ISERC, which was a CTF and pilot exercise using the recently installed CREATE range (server) hosted at the VTNSI in Blacksburg, VA. Seven teams, both in-person and remote, took part in a Jeopardy-style CTF that covered several tasks in three categories of challenges: network reconnaissance, cryptology, and web exploitation. Some of the individual challenge exercises included an insecure file upload, port scan, plaintext leak, and cracking a Vigenère cipher. Separately, in October 2024, the SMCCI hosted DECIDEX 2024--a virtual cyber tabletop exercise--in the ISERC. Other cyber events include the annual Summit CTF, an annual CTF competition hosted by the Cybersecurity Club at Virginia Tech (CyberVT).

  • Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets WarPaths Wargame
    • Date(s): 5 Feb - Wargaming Intro, 12 Feb - Wargaming 2, 19 Feb- Wargaming 3, 26 Mar- Wargaming 4, and Wrap Up
    • Location(s): ISERC, CLMS Building, and multiple locations
  • CIA wargames led by Gary Dodson
    • Date(S): February 2026
    • Location(S): CLMS Building, TBD

Wargaming Efforts in Other Institutions:

For more information, contact: 

  • Jamie Cogbill, Wargaming Research Faculty Advisor, jbcogbill@vt.edu
  • Peyton Coleman, Wargaming Research Student Lead, peytoncoleman@vt.edu
  • Michael Mazikin, Wargaming Student Researcher, mmazikin8@vt.edu
  • Xander Epperson, Wargaming Student Researcher, xander21@vt.edu
  • Cameron Cook, Wargaming Student Researcher, cameroncook@vt.edu
  • Rahil Ross, Wargaming Student Researcher, rahilr@vt.edu
  • Antonio Ko, Wargaming Student Researcher, antoniok@vt.edu

Wargaming in Action

Wargaming ISERC
Wargaming Student Research Team Colloquium Presentation
Wargaming ISERC