Real-time military planning and decision:making involve several differ
ent modeling techniques, including rule-based, operator-based and dyna
mic-model based approaches. While rule-based approaches are generally
fast and are more appropriate for simple scenarios, simulation methods
and dynamic models, indigenous to the simulation literature, are nece
ssary to plan within environments involving large-scale uncertainty, m
ultiple interacting elements and complex dynamics. Planning techniques
must inter-operate to yield the best decisions, and we have. found th
at simulation-based planning serves as an architecture for detailed mo
del levels for both real-time and off-line decision making. We introdu
ce simulation-based planning as a methodology for addressing the compl
exity involved in Air Force missions while employing an example of air
interdiction.