The use of constructive computer simulations of air-to-air combat has long been a tool used to evaluate the effectiveness of hardware improvements, to investigate new or improved tactics, to provide threats for man-in-the-loop simulators, and to provide environment generators for hardware-in-the-loop systems. Value-driven based decision models, used in air-to-air combat models such as BRAWLER (aircraft) and TRACES (helicopters), are based upon a relatively straightforward paradigm much like the one used implicitly by many chess players. Using this approach, the selection of a course of action consists of: (1) the selection of a set alternative courses of actions which span the decision space, (2) projection of each alternative into the future, (3) evaluation (scoring) of the future for each alternative using a value function, and (4) selection of the highest scoring alternative. Since the value function is constructed to be sensitive to the many goals of a given decision, it intrinsically performs tradeoffs among conflicting objectives. In addition, the effects of orders from higher level entities in the decision hierarchy are easily implemented by passing weights to the decision-maker which affect the importance of various components of his value scoring function.
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