A validation assessment for the THUNDER 6.5's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance module

THUNDER is a campaign-level model and is considered the Air Force's premier campaign-level model. THUNDER was designed as an analytical tool used to evaluate strategy, tactics, force structure, and operational effectiveness in a joint warfighting context. It is an important tool in evaluating the impact of proposed weapon systems, technology, tactics, and doctrine on combat outcomes. Intelligence is critical to the success of military operations and is an aspect of war that must be incorporated into combat models to ensure the model is an effective tool and that combat is correctly represented. Timely, accurate intelligence can be the defining element between victory and defeat. THUNDER has integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) representation into its combat processes. The ISR module of THUNDER affects many aspects of war, including prioritization of targets, aircraft/munition selection, target acquisition, and ground unit attrition. Since the complex and compounding effects of ISR significantly impact campaign outcomes in the real world, one must ensure that the impact of ISR is accurately represented in THUNDER. Ensuring a model accurately reflects a real-world process is model validation. The purpose of this article is to assess the validity of the ISR module of THUNDER 6.5. We use two approaches to assess the validity of THUNDER's ISR module. The first approach examines the real world ISR process and compares it with the ISR process within THUNDER, and the second performs an experiment to verify the sensitivity of the ISR processes on combat outcomes.