Letter to the Editor—The Use of Abstract Manned Simulation to Aid Weapon Planners

Modern weapon systems are a complex amalgam of the end item hardware, the support ground operational and support equipment, spare parts, trained operational and logistical personnel, and a set of operational goals with a management system designed to help attain them. Given a choice of a hardware system to be developed into a weapon system, the weapon system's planners are left with an enormous number of choices between competing alternatives before that hardware system is developed into an operational weapon system. This decision-making process may involve several hundred “milestones,” many opinions, more than six years, and several billion dollars.