Computer Combat : Military: Marines use cost-effective electronic war games to train command officers for the real thing.

Lt. Col. Bob Robichaud’s men are dying somewhere and he’s moving around in his dusty command post, anxiously awaiting field reports.

He fidgets with his helmet’s tight chin strap, chewing and spitting so much tobacco juice on the ground that there’s almost no safe place to step any more.

Robichaud’s Marine battalion had been fighting elusive bands of guerrillas in the Honduran countryside when a large enemy force suddenly began pushing up from the south.

He ordered part of his battalion to rush south and block the enemy, but something went wrong. A key bridge was blown, stalling the Marine’s advance. When the clash finally occurred, it was in a strategically weak position, far from where the Marines had plotted to engage.

The field report was chilling as it came to Robichaud’s cramped command post over the radio: “We are all wounded or in hiding or KIA. Please advise.”

A 40-man Marine platoon had been mauled, and, although the clash then broke off, enemy troops were scurrying to flank the main Marine units and pass northward to a key objective, a city where they could hold out in long house-to-house combat.

The situation was critical, and it called for a harrowing, decisive command decision.

Just the time to take a break. Talk about the day’s events and maybe relax for a spell. Wander over to the Coke machine or watch the plump black cat that coyly meanders, quite unimpressed, through these tense proceedings.

You can do that when war is a game, serious, but still a game in which winning and losing is less important than how well it’s played.

Robichaud is real, right down to his beard stubble, dropped verb endings and Red Man chewing tobacco. And his staff officers are real, too. But otherwise, this is a battle using computer simulation and largely phantom forces.

More Camp Pendleton command staffs are training this way as the new stability in Europe brings military budget cuts that have persuaded the top brass to rely on cheaper ways to teach war.

This program is called the Tactical Warfare Simulation Evaluation Analysis System, and the man who runs it, Lt. Col. Hugh O’Donnell Jr., figures the paltry $150 cost for a battalion-level staff exercise is far less expensive than turning a 900-man Marine battalion out for maneuvers.

“It costs money to take people out into the field,” he said.

The system was used nine times in the last fiscal year, but with the changing budgetary climate, O’Donnell expects 20 exercises this year.

While the computer is vintage 1960s technology, O’Donnell said a faster, more sophisticated system is due in mid-1992.

The greater emphasis on computer simulation reflects another peacetime reality--with the Vietnam War over for 15 years, most Marine officers and senior sergeants with combat experience have left the corps.

O’Donnell and Robichaud believe the computer-aided exercises come closer than anything to real war, even though the stage for these exacting military mind games is fairly simple.

At a scruffy and remote part of Camp Pendleton is a tight group of trailers that contain the Marines who maneuver the troops, fire the artillery and mortars, wage air combat, handle intelligence, and manage logistics for the unit being tested.

About 100 feet away is the command post for the Marine battalion command staff, whose leader, a lieutenant colonel like Robichaud, decides what skills will be tested and sets up the tactical situation.

The “enemy” has its own command post in a trailer, and the commander is a member of O’Donnell’s staff, an intelligence officer who knows how foreign armies fight and gives the Marines a realistic challenge.

Two opposing commanders decide the moves, and the computer simulates the outcome. For example, the Marine leader may launch an attack with ground forces supported by aircraft. But the enemy might shoot down the aircraft and cut off the Marines from retreat.

The computer outlines the situation to the Marine commander, forcing him to then consider options such as how to resupply the trapped Marines, evacuate them or get a relief force through to them.

Through these weeklong exercises, Marine commanders improve their tactical decisions, staffs learn to work together, and the unit’s readiness is evaluated.

“We want people to come out here and feel they can make mistakes and innovate,” O’Donnell said. “We don’t give a unit commander a report card.”

The computer simulation hasn’t done away with full-scale maneuvers, during which a commander’s performance is put under a microscope, but the war game gives a command staff intense intellectual batting practice without using mass troops.

Last week , Robichaud, commander of the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, took about 65 actual Marines and a phantom force of 1,600 into a mock battle in Honduras, where the Marines have conducted operations.

Robichaud, a serious, courtly man with 20 years in the Marines, has put his staff through long days and some sleepless nights to realistically practice what he calls “the little things that make the difference.”

He’s not as interested in smashing the enemy commander as in having his staff master the critical basics of military operations. Those include staging an orderly advance, gathering and using accurate information, and making sound decisions.

“What’s important to me is procedure,” said Robichaud, who, like his staff, is dressed in battle gear to create the mood. The simulation is “the most effective and efficient way to train a staff.”

Soon, Robichaud and his battalion are in combat with guerrillas in the Honduran countryside and have the situation under control until he learns that a large enemy force is moving up from the south.

The Marines race south, hoping to confront the enemy before they advance far enough to take control of a city. But the bridge is blown, the Marines meet the foe in the wrong place, and the chaos of battle reigns.

The enemy commander, 1st Lt. John Lutkenhouse of O’Donnell’s team, watches the fight as depicted on a computer screen.

“If he can stop my advance he’s achieving his mission,” Lutkenhouse said. “If I can draw away from his main force (and reach the city), I’m achieving mine.”

In the trailer where Robichaud’s company commanders are transmitting battle reports, the action picks up, and suddenly it’s not at all like a game.

Company commanders have panic and frustration in their voices as they report that the enemy is trying a flanking maneuver around the Marines. Within moments, the room begins to smell of sweating bodies in camouflage.

(Enemy commander Lutkenhouse takes satisfaction in the Marines having detected and communicated to base that he is trying to flank them. “The fact they figured it shows they’re using their intelligence and anticipating my moves,” he said.)

There’s also tension back at Robichaud’s command post as the reports on enemy movements come in. Robichaud tells a visitor, almost good-naturedly, “go ahead, I’m shot. The executive officer is running things for awhile.”

Robichaud’s operation’s officer, Capt. E.C. Holt, is examining the battle maps and complaining about inaccurate field reports that caused delays. This may be a game, but, Holt observed, “it’s got all the friction you can handle.”

This was Robichaud’s third simulation, and he remarked, “the troops really get into it hot and heavy. They’re real competitive, but that’s not the purpose.”