SimR: Automating Combat Simulation Database Generation

Abstract

Land simulation, experimentation and wargaming (LSEW) has long-used land combat simulation as a central tool to support its analysis of army modernisation studies. Combat simulations provide great utility through their ability to analyse the impact of equipment, structure and tactics within a force-on-force context. However, their extensive input data requirements create significant challenges in terms of data generation, verification and validation. Since 2012, LSEW has been developing the simulation repository (SimR), a database designed for the express purpose of managing and storing combat simulation input data. SimR was designed with a number of critical features in mind: a minimalist storage methodology, the concept of data provenance and the use of deterministic data generation algorithms to produce input data on demand. More recently, LSEW has introduced the feature of automated database generation. Focusing on the COMBATXXI {[}1] combat simulation as a target, SimR can now produce a working COMBATXXI land component performance database on demand with minimal human intervention. This is a significant advance over previous methods, which relied heavily on analysts to manually piece together databases from disparate sources, a time-consuming and error-prone approach. As a result, the latest COMBATXXI study uses a SimR-generated database.