The Department of Defense (DoD) has many individual and crew trainers that provide high-fidelity full- and part-task training for a specific element or subelement of its weapons system. With the exception of the Simulation Network (SIMNET) suite of tank trainers, most DoD trainers are not sufficiently interconnected to provide simulated battle environment tactical training. Recently, in workshops such as Standards for the Interoperability of Defense Simulations, the DoD emphasized the need for interoperable training systems across the Armed Services. To satisfy this demand, the DoD and industry are currently working together to develop a real-time network protocol standard that has major implications on the development of future training systems. Network simulation is an innovative and exciting solution to many training needs, which have a broad range of network requirements. The network requirements need to be specified for each training application to determine the implications of interoperable simulation.

This paper will define some network requirements for tactical training. We will first discuss the user's needs that we determined from our involvement with the Naval Training Systems Center, the Project Manager of Training Devices, the Naval Oceans System Center, the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Integrated Systems Test, and the current standards process. From the user's needs, we will specify network requirements that address the issues of mediums, interfaces, bandwidths, costs, latencies, protocols, and expansion. Finally, we will discuss our experience of integrating commercial technologies, government standards, and university research into a network prototype to study the effects of network simulation.