Cloud-based decision support system for planning military operations

When planning a military operation, it is important to explore possibilities and understand consequences of the plan. To this end, wargaming can be used for assessing possible courses of action (COA) for own and enemy forces. Traditionally, this is done by humans alone, drawing tactical graphics and moving pieces representing military units on a large map. We propose that computerassisted wargaming holds a potential to help military commanders visualize, evaluate and share different possibilities and consequences, beyond what is supported by the traditional and current methods. “Simulation-supportedWargaming for Analysis of Plans” (SWAP) is a research prototype of a decision support system (DSS) for military, tactical planning. The system consists of a simulation system that runs in the cloud, and an intuitive web-based, graphical user interface that does not require a lot of training. The user interface has basic functionality for terrain analysis, such as route planning and identification of favorable vantage points around a target area. A user can assign basic tasks to units and create phase lines to coordinate task executions, thus specifying a COA. The user can then choose to simulate the COA to reveal possible consequences such as engagements, losses, time expenditure and resource consumption. In February 2019, we conducted an experiment with 52 final-year cadets from the the Norwegian Military Academy. The purpose was to test using a simulation based DSS and compare it to the traditional way of wargaming for COA development and analysis. The cadets were divided into groups and asked to make simplified decision briefings for two different battalion operations, one when using SWAP and one while using the traditional method. In this report we describe SWAP, and based on the results of the study, including feedback from the cadets, we discuss the potential and requiremets of such a system for operations planning. The objective of this report is to convey to Norwegian Armed Forces stakeholders the potential we see in using computers and simulation to assist military planning and decision making.