Looking to the Future: Representing Higher Level Planning in a Wargaming or Synthetic Environment

Planning by a higher level commander is, in most cases, regarded as such a difficult process to emulate, that it is performed by a real commander during wargaming or during an experimental session based on a Synthetic Environment. Such an approach gives a rich representation of a small number of data points. However, a more complete analysis should allow search in the vicinity of these data points, in order to allow a more complete analysis. In this paper we discuss an alternative approach to this problem, based on attempting to emulate the higher command process by a set of mathematical algorithms. This approach have been implemented, in an exploratory research initiative, in the UK Wargame Infrastructure and Simulation Environment (WISE). © Crown Copyright 2008. Published with the Permission of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on Behalf of the Controller HMSO. Introduction Since the Cold War period, the scenario context has widened considerably, reflecting the uncertainties of the future. Moreover, decision cycles for our customer community in the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) have significantly shortened. The focus of war has also shifted from the Industrial Age of grinding attrition to the Information Age, as encapsulated in the term Network Enabled Capability (NEC). NEC is a key goal for the MoD, with the emphasis on command, the sharing of awareness among commanders, and the creation of agile effects. These influences together have led to the need for simulation models which are focussed on command rather than