Advanced simulation, battle managers, and visualization

Advanced modeling, visualization, and simulation is of growing utility for the military, e.g., the Navy and Marine Corps. Potential uses are for situational awareness displays, analysis, assessment, doctrine, mission support, rehearsal and replay, tactics, and training. Advanced technology platforms can be assessed using simulation. New sensors and systems can be evaluated. A battle or simulation manager (BM or SM) is a flexible piece of software that commands, controls, and displays the simulation of a group of objects. It is an environment or toolkit for analysis, assessment, training, and wargaming. Current doctrine and tactics can be tested and missions planned with this type of software. The objects (military platforms) propagate and interact in space over the course of time through well-defined object-oriented processes. Features of a good BM include graphical two and three dimensional displays, database access, sensor and weapon models, and networking (via DIS or Distributed Interactive Simulation). A BM should be easy to use, fast, useful to the user, readily available, and widely used. It should be portable cross computer platforms. Today, there is a wide assortment of BMs, none of which satisfies these criteria