Developing a Database Management System and Air Simulation Software for the Theater War Exercise.

The Theater War Exercise (TWX) is a computer assisted, theater level, airpower employment exercise conducted by the Air Force Wargaming Center at Maxwell AFB, AL. Player decisions required for this exercise are typical that an air component commander and staff would make during an actual war. These decisions are fed into the TWX air and land battle simulation programs which model the employment of the airpower strategy, doctrine, and warfighting principles inherent in those decisions. Once the simulation is run, the players receive their battle results, logistic status, weather forecast, and new air/land orders of battle in a computer run format. The goal of this thesis effort was to to bring the TWX system up to modern standards in both hardware and software capabilities while providing better exercise portability. This was accomplished by incorporating a relational database management system (Ingres) to provide increased data flexibility and a fourth generation language (4GL) to develop a new user interface. Also, in order to provide better portability, the exercise was re-hosted to an IBM PC compatible microcomputer / DEC MicroVAX II configuration. By using the Ingres network software, the PC microcomputer can run the user interface software while the MicroVAX serves as a fast database fileserver and simulation host.