The VLSE Project is one of a number of projects initiated under the Live Fire Test and Training Program. The program is sponsored by the Live Fire Test & Evaluation Office, located within the OSD Directorate of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), and is being performed in partnership with the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWC TSD), the Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM), and the Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation (AFAMS). The common thread amongst the projects is to find ways to more closely integrate training and testing activities, including modeling, simulation, and shared use of data. The primary objective of VLSE is to develop and implement a methodology for more realistic (i.e., detailed) damage assessments in direct fire gunnery simulations through improved use of live fire test data and models. Specific objectives of this effort include:

• Use data and lessons learned from tank-on-tank degraded states initiatives in DSWARS and CASTFOREM to develop a conceptual degraded states approach to damage assessments in training simulations.

• Generate a degraded states demonstration model and integrate it with one or more virtual training systems used by the Army National Guard for tank gunnery training; and with a constructive simulation (i.e., SAF) to demonstrate and evaluate damage assessment representations via a degraded states approach.