M&S Support to Assessment of Extended Air Defence C2 Interoperability (Soutien M&S de l'evaluation de l'interoperabilite entre le C2 et la defense aerienne elargie)

Abstract : Within NATO, some countries already have ATBM (Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile) capabilities, others are in the process of acquiring these. One of the issues will be interoperability between all NATO TBM defence elements,especially the Command and Control elements; tactical and procedural co-ordination between combined and joint EAD forces; and deployment and contribution of future systems. NATO and the nations can do something to improve C2 and turn individual weapon systems (point solutions) into an integrated defense system. This is especially important for those nations who do not possess their own TBM assets and must rely on an umbrella from other nations whilst contributing to counterforce or other aspects of a mission. The only way of knowing of how Nations can achieve this is through modelling and simulation (and progressively work to a situation where the simulated elements are replaced by real ones). This simulation environment could also provide a training framework. The NATO RTO Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG) recognized the role that interoperable simulations could play in the TBMD field and set up a Task Group to investigate this area. The report of the MSG006/TG006 exploratory group describes the issues relating to EAD and C2 interoperability within NATO, the current use of M&S to support the EAD field (e.g. training, research and analysis) and it identified opportunities for improved M&S support. The findings of the study include the fact that although the High Level Architecture (HLA) is the accepted standard for M&S interoperability, many existing models and simulations can not effectively interoperate due to lack of compliance either to HLA or to a standardised datamodel (e.g. covering tactical datalinks).The TG proposes to set up a follow-on programme to demonstrate the possibilities of M&S through a Reference Testbed for NATO TMD.