US war game software for army

The Army is fielding software developed by an American firm to model a variety of combat scenarios and refine its war-waging capabilities in Jammu and Kashmir. Developed by California-based Environmental Systems Research Institute, the “war game software” that has just been installed at the Udhampur-based Northern Command will be used to perform tasks like intelligence preparation for the battlefield, terrain analysis and mission planning using geospatial data.

The ESRI architecture, customised for the army in partnership with NIIT GIS, is based on the geographic information system software that incorporates a suite of tools tailored to meet the army's needs and enhance the effectiveness of military commanders.

Lieutenant General Vijay Oberoi, director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, told HT: “War game software helps save effort, time and money. Commanders can test their skills in a simulated environment. Such technology can eliminate the requirement for blackboard exercises, sand-models and even TEWT (tactical exercise without troops).”

ESRI has implemented a similar project for Pune-based Southern Command. According to ESRI account manager, defence, Ashwini Kumar: “The software facilitates exploitation of battlespace knowledge and coordination of strike assets in time and space to achieve the commander's desired objectives.”

The software basically creates a framework for understanding relationships among all entities in an “area of interest” to enable commanders to take better decisions. Combat simulations support timely, better decisions using tools to analyse, assess and plan actions, said an officer. The software aims at giving decision-makers “a distributed, scalable and decision support environment”.