Warfare Simulation and Technology Forecasting in Support of Military Decision Making

Technology forecasting serves two purposes in the military context: planning investments of future weapon systems and anticipation of an adversary’s future capabilities. In the former, different weapon systems that will be available in the future are modelled and their contribution to one’s own performance is analyzed. This analysis supports the decision making regarding what kind of investments should be made to optimize our future performance. In the latter, the adversary’s possible future weapon systems are modelled and analyzed. This gives suggestions about preventative actions for meeting the future challenges. To simulate the course of a battle on operational level, autonomous simulation software is usually insufficient. Instead, one needs to employ wargaming in which tactical decisions are made by a human operator and weapon system effects are simulated by the software, so called man-inthe-loop simulation. In this paper we focus on one such software which enables wargaming: combat modelling tool Sandis [1], which is developed at the Finnish Defence Forces Technical Research Centre. Sandis is based on probability calculus and fault logic analysis and can be used for comparative scenario-based analysis from platoon to brigade level.