Modeling and Simulation Requirements for Unit Level Training at the Operational Level of War

ABSTRACT: To economically produce expert Command and Control crew members, personnel must participate more frequently in meaningful training experiences. Current Air and Space Operations Center (AOC) training requires active duty personnel to attend only one major and three minor exercises every year. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve personnel are required to attend one major and three minor exercises every three years to meet continuous training requirements. Currently there are significant gaps in our ability to provide training for many AOC positions due to the change in focus from tactical operations to the operational level of war. At the operational level of war, the stimulus for training is the information provided, not the movement of entities in a synthetic battlespace. Large scale exercise planners spend months developing background information to support an exercise spanning operational and tactical requirements. We do not have the resources or capabilities at the unit level to develop this background information. This gap is especially apparent in the Strategy Division of the AOC, which operates at the operational level of war and relies on a magnitude of information inputs to determine Courses of Action and guidance to be implemented days or even weeks in the future. This paper examines the problem and identifies requirements for modeling and simulation tools to fill th