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The Instruction Centre for Operations on Law and Order Assurance (CIOpGLO) is a Brazilian Army facility created in March 2005 in Campinas, Brazil. The mission of this centre involves the offering of training in different perspectives, which includes the preparation of soldiers to enter in slums areas in Rio de Janeiro and other cities to arrest criminals, whenever a federal intervention is required. This centre is involved in training to guarantee law and order and, at the same time, prepare officers and soldiers for interventions even in urban areas. To allow such training, this facility counts with physical built sites to allow soldiers to train how to get inside houses, how to shoot at short ranges (from 0 to 30 meters), how to move and shelter while going up in a hill with many houses and corridors on the way, and so on. The Brazilian Army, in the last few years, started operating in slums like the ones of the "Alemão" and the "Penha" complex in Rio de Janeiro. The Army is also participating in operations out of Brazil in countries like Haiti. In situations like this, the armed forces take over the coordination of public security temporarily to recover the control of certain areas. Since the armed forces were not originally created to act in situations like this, there is a need to train all military stakeholders involved so that the operations are successful. Additionally, major events like the Confederations Cup, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, generate additional demands for the armed forces, which are likely to be called to act at specific times. Moreover, it is noteworthy that there is a growing trend in which conflicts around the world occur, more than ever, inside the cities, where civilians take great risk and suffer many casualties, something called as “collateral damage” of the urban warfare. Recent examples include Afghanistan and Iraq. In this work, the preparation of soldiers at CIOpGLO is discussed while the possibility of using new approaches based on augmented reality and mixed reality technologies are considered. As a way to enhance training and mission preparation with simulations, this research focus on augmented reality (AR) supported by head-mounted displays (HMDs). HDMs may have many shapes, which include pairs of glasses with lenses that present AR with superposed images, enabling its wearer a total immersion in the simulation. The method used in this work involves a literature review on AR and HMDs, assessment of training needs at the Brazilian Army and an evaluation of emerging technologies from the ICT sector. The technologies to be considered are the HDMs, in this specific case the available programming languages, software and hardware from suppliers of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and military off-the-shelf (MOTS). The main contribution of this work is the comparative study of the main solutions for HDM. This study represents an essential step for concept development and for the experimentation to exploit and evaluate the use of simulations. The research presented suggests that the approach is effective and that future work should be on both development of new applications and its evaluation in real training sets in Brazil.

Since no plan survives contact with reality, during the execution of a military operation it might be necessary to re-plan the operation. In order to decide whether, and when, re-planning should be initiated a feedback process is needed that provides the commander with information about the progress of the operation, and an assessment of whether the operation is leading towards the overarching goals or not. The operations assessment process is part of such a feedback process.

The current method (in e.g. NATO) operations assessment is focused on the accomplishment of planned actions and on the effects in the operational environment system. A data collection plan is established during development of the operational plan which specifies which and how data should be collected. Thus the “questions” the operations assessment process poses towards the environment are tightly connected to critical elements of the operational plan.

If the plan, however, starts to become obsolete due to unforeseen changes in the operational environment, there might be a risk that the assessment process, grounded in the plan, neglects information that is critical for decisions about re-planning. This paper suggests an alternative approach to operations assessment that is based on an idea of separating the operations assessment plan from the operational plan. Such a separation would focus the assessment process on the evolving operational environment, thus reducing the risk that unanticipated threats, or opportunities, will be overlooked and re-planning is overdue.

Som komplement till Gemensamma grunder för samverkan och ledning vid samhällsstörningar har MSB tagit fram ett beslutsstöd, Operativt beslutsstöd, som är tänkt att hjälpa beslutsfattare att besluta hur resurser ska prioriteras vid samhällsstörningar. Beslutsstödet ska kunna användas av alla aktörer som bidrar till att hantera samhällsstörningar, både aktörsgemensamt och aktörsinternt, och är tänkt att kunna användas med eller utan kvalificerad operativ vana. Beslutsstödet är av typen checklista och består av fem huvudsteg, med tillhörande delfrågor. Rapporten redovisar en utvärdering av ett utkast till beslutsstödet (Operativt beslutsstöd, UTKAST version 0.7) med avseende på beslutsstödets lättillgänglighet och användbarhet, samt med avseende på beslutsstödets kompatibilitet med Försvarsmaktens motsvarighet. Rapporten riktar sig främst till de som deltar i utvecklingen av beslutsstödet.

Beslutsstödets lättillgänglighet och användbarhet undersöktes genom att användare utan operativ vana eller utbildning i att använda stödet nyttjade stödet för att fatta beslut om prioriteringar i ett fiktivt scenario. Elva grupper om två eller tre studenter deltog i undersökningen. Deltagarna fick ange om de använde alla steg i stödet för att lösa uppgiften eller om de avvek från stödet i något fall och då om orsaken till detta. De skattade även olika aspekter av beslutsprocessen. Resultaten tyder på att beslutsstödet var såväl användbart som lättillgängligt.

Beslutsstödets kompatibilitet med Försvarsmaktens motsvarighet på operativ nivå, Svensk planerings- och ledningsmetod (SPL) undersöktes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra officerare med omfattande kunskap om SPL. Resultaten tyder på att beslutsstödet är kompatibelt med SPL.

Förutom dessa huvudresultat framkom ett antal synpunkter och förbättringsförlag rörande beslutsstödet i dess nuvarande form. 

A crisis can involve multiple organizations during high pressure events, and it is up to the Command & Control (C2) unit to provide direction and coordination for the response (Brehmer, 2006). Hard as this problem is, there is still no ‘one-solution’. Dissimilar organizations with very different methods seem to be able to master the problem. This paper presents the initial development of a new evaluation method for C2 in the context of multi-organizational crisis response. The data is collected at an emergency water exercise series conducted in several cities in Sweden. Each exercise involves multiple agencies and organizations, with up to 76 participants from 15 unique organizations/units. The analysis is brief, but presents the possibility of observing Sensemaking as it unfolds, and that generic behavioral patterns can be found. The existence of generic and observable behavior patterns suggests the possibility of assessing, and maybe even quantifying, Sensemaking performance in C2.

Objective, easy to use, and easy to comprehend assessment methods for measuring shared understanding in teams are hard to find. This paper describes an experiment where a measure called Shared Priorities, which is based on ranking of self-generated strategic items, is assessed. Trained teams were compared to non-trained teams in a dynamic problem-solving task. The maturity of the participating teams was also assessed using a content analysis measure. The Shared Priorities measure was used alongside other well-documented measures of team awareness based on self-rating. Results show that the Shared Priorities measure correlates with task performance and could also distinguish between trained and non-trained teams. However, the Shared Priorities measure did not correlate with the other team measures (cf. CARS – Crew Awareness Rating Scale – and DATMA – Distributed Assessment of Team Mutual Awareness), suggesting that it captures a different quality of teamwork than the self-rating measures. Further, the Shared Priorities measure was found to be easily administered.

Objective, easy to use, easy to comprehend, high face-validity assessment methods for measuring shared awareness in teams are hard to find. This paper describes an experiment where a new measure called Shared Priorities, which is based on ranking of self-generated strategic items, is tested. Trained teams were compared to non-trained teams in a dynamic problem-solving task in terms of performance and shared awareness. The shared priorities measure was used alongside other, well-documented measures of team awareness based on self-rating. The results show that the Shared Priorities measure correlate with performance and could also distinguish between trained and non-trained teams. However, the Shared Priorities measure did not correlate with the other team measures, suggesting that it captures a different quality of team work than the self-rating measures. Further, the shared priorities measure was found to be easily administered and gained a high user acceptance.

The purpose of this work in progress paper is to report on the method development of the Shared Prioritiesmeasure to include content analysis, as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of team work incrisis/emergency response. An experiment is reported where the performance of six trained teams is comparedwith the performance of six non-trained teams. The experiment was performed using an emergency responsemicroworld simulation with a forest fire scenario. Dependent measures were simulation performance, the CrewAwareness Rating Scale (CARS), and content analysis. Trained teams performed better and scored higher onmeasures of team behaviors.

A command and control environment is a dynamic and complex setting with complicated technical systems where teams of operators interact to reach shared goals. This study presents an experiment in which we, by means of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), explain the relations between basic concepts of command and control environments: mental workload, frustration, situational awareness, and performance. This paper reports a LISREL analysis of the Baroutsi, Berggren, Nählinder, & Johansson (2013) data. From that data, a new latent variable “Frustration” emerges, which now can be included in the model.

Detecting and defending against Multi-Stage Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) Attacks is a challenge for mechanisms that are static in its nature and are based on blacklisting and malware signature techniques. Blacklists and malware signatures are designed to detect known attacks. But multi-stage attacks are dynamic, conducted in parallel and use several attack paths and can be conducted in multi-year campaigns, in order to reach the desired effect. In this paper the design principles of a framework are presented that model Multi-Stage Attacks in a way that both describes the attack methods as well as the anticipated effects of attacks. The foundation to model behaviors is by the combination of the Intrusion Kill-Chain attack model and defense patterns (i.e. a hypothesis based approach of known patterns). The implementation of the framework is made by using Apache Hadoop with a logic layer that supports the evaluation of a hypothesis.

This paper discusses concepts of command for complex endeavors. The traditional concepts of Unity of Command and Unity of Effort are found wanting, the former because there is no single individual in command of a complex endeavor, the latter because there is often no time to develop the comprehensive plan required, and if there is time, it is nevertheless difficult because different organizations have different planning methods and different planning cultures. A new command concept, based on our experience from studies of peace support operations is proposed. It is called Harmony of Efforts and it is a C2 concept for complex endeavors that involve a number of organizations, each of which does what it usually does, and for which there is no one commander with authority to enforce unity of command or unity of effort. Under these circumstances, Harmony of Efforts is all that one can hope for. The command concept of Harmony of Efforts specifies the spirit in which C2 issues should be approached, which is cooperation, the method to be used, which is negotiation, and the substance of C2, i.e., what C2 can usefully be concerned with in complex endeavors, which is the management of interfaces between organizations.

Ämnet ledningsvetenskap har utvecklats för att bidra till utvecklingen av nya och bättre ledningssystem för militära och civila insatser. En viktig orsak till att ämnet kom till var de nya möjligheter inom ledningsområdet som blev följden av utvecklingen inom informationsteknologin. Ledningsvetenskap är en designvetenkap och begreppet designvenskap och vad som utmärker en sådan vetenskap till skillnad från en natur-, samhälls- eller beteendevetenskap diskuteras i boken. Boken är en lägesrapport. Den beskriver hur långt utvecklingen inom ämnet har hunnit under dess första femton år vid Försvarshögskolan. Syftet med boken är främst att ge en teoretisk grund för ämnet. Den beskriver grundläggande problem inom ledning av insatser, de lösningar dessa problem har fått och de kostnader som är förknippade med lösningarna. Diskussionen sker utifrån det som är ledningsvetenskapens speciella perspektiv, nämligen informationsperspektivet: vilken information som finns eller som kan (eller inte kan) göras tillgänglig och hur tillgänglig information används för att åstadkomma den inriktning och samordning som är ledningsfunktionens produkt i insatsen Boken ger också olika begrepp som skall göra det möjligt att diskutera ledning på ett ordnat sätt. Boken är skriven inte bara för att introducera ämnet utan också för att kunna tjäna som en första lärobok i ledningsvetenskap som ämnet utvecklats vid Försvarshögskolan.

This is the second paper in a series where we try to understand what Clausewitz called the commander’s “coup d’oeil”, i.e., the ability to understand the situation on the battle field at a glance. We employ a standard paradigm from research on expertise where participants study a scenario and then reproduce it from memory. Last year we reported results consistent with other results from studies of expertise, viz., that experts recall meaningful scenarios better than meaningless scenarios whereas novices recall both types of scenarios equally badly. This year, we report four follow-up experiments. The first two study ex-perts’ and novices’ recall of scenarios after having seen how the scenario de-veloped over time and we do so under two conditions, one where the scenario develops violating constraints on how military units should move and one where they do not in an attempt to distinguish between two possible explana-tions for last year’s results: The constraints hypothesis and the pattern match-ing hypothesis. The results show that both experts perform better than novices but that both groups recall scenarios where the development did not violate constraints better than scenarios where the development violated constraints. We interpret these results as support for the constraints hypothesis. In Experi-ments 2 and 3 we vary the time allowed for inspecting static scenarios on the interpretation of these scenarios with both expert and novice participants. The results show that a short time for inspection affects the interpretation by novic-es to a greater extent than it affects the interpretation by experts, as was pre-dicted by Clausewitz. We interpret this to mean that novices and experts achieve their understanding of a military scenario in different ways.

Present--‐day warfare often involves planning and execution of operations in complex environments. In order to support military decision making in such environments I argue that the military situation must be represented by six categories of representations. In current practice only two categories are employed. The six categories should be linked to representations of the operational plan and the planning process. By combining the different categories of representations, military decision makers will gain a better understanding of operational areas that hold complex system behaviour.

Recent studies of the European Union crisis management capability argue for establishing a permanent Operations Headquarters (OHQ) instead of the temporary alternatives currently available. These studies picture temporary OHQs as slow starters hampered by multiple interests and a lack of common grounds. This paper corroborates these studies by reporting on the empirical findings of a year-long case study of the EUFORTchad/RCA OHQ. The combined results of observations, interviews, and surveys indicate that national perspectives not only existed in the OHQ, but were also asymmetric in the sense that staff members from France and Ireland nations displayed stronger national perspectives than staff members from other nations. However, the general trust between staff members seems to have been largely unaffected by this. The findings also indicate a process of familiarization spanning over several months. This paper argues that temporary multinational headquarters are likely to work around frictions and mature into well-functioning organization, but that this is a time-consuming process in which national parallel chains of command may remain. Prior training should prepare staff members for this. In addition, leading nations need to understand their strong visibility and to be careful not to dominate the day-to-day staff work.

A key motive in using gaming for educational purposes is to enhance user motivation and involvement to the subject matter. Within military education, games have always been utilized as a means to think clearly about military operations. However, some research results have shown that gaming, regardless of what the game is supposed to portray, is a meaningful activity in itself, and this can distract the learner away from the educational objective. Playing the game, then, becomes similar to competition, such as in sports where the objective is to only win the game. The player directs actions to achieving game goals even though some actions are inappropriate from a learning perspective. To shed light on the discrepancy between playing a game to win and playing a game to learn, we conducted an experiment on cadets playing an educational wargame. By varying the conditions of the game, playing with or without points, while still in line with the learning objective, we were interested to see what impact it had on the tactics employed by cadets. The results showed that adding reward structures, such as points, changed the outcome of the game, that is, groups playing with points played the game more aggressively and utilized the military units more extensively. These findings suggest that changes in the game design, although educationally relevant, may distract learners to be more oriented towards a lusory attitude, in which achieving the game goals becomes players' biggest concern.

Games are rule-governed systems at the same time as they are fiction, simulating or representing a real or an abstract world. This defining characteristic may create for different forms of tensions, that is, at different times players may focus on the rules, the fiction or on both during game play. In military education with games, this poses a problem when the learner becomes too focused on the rules, trying to win at any price rather than taking the representation and what it implies in terms of permissible behaviour seriously. In here we attempt to understand how participants in a wargaming situation act out this tension by studying the interaction between the player and the game in military tactical training.

The results first of all confirm that there is a tension – there are occasions where players are mainly concerned with winning the wargame, disregarding what the theme is meant to represent. I propose the term gamer mode to refer to this player orientation: players in gamer mode have an extreme rule-focused interaction, meaning they behave rationally with respect to game rules but irrationally with respect to the portrayed real-life situation they are training for. Gamer mode can probably occur for many reasons. This thesis documents two contributing factors. The first concerns whenever the game does not match players’ expectation on mimicking warfare. In these situations players may find that the game breaks the fragile contract of upholding an accurate representation of warfare. The other factor that may lead to gamer mode are game design features such as explicit reward structures or victory conditions.

To remedy the situation, the instructor can, in real-time, actively support players’ orientation towards the game and explain in-game events, keeping them on track. When gamer mode occur I argue that the conditions for learning are compromised as the gaming activity becomes its own learning subject, blurring and overshadowing the learning objective. Although the results suggest that gamer mode is mainly detrimental to learning I conclude that gamer mode is a natural way students will approach games and as such, needs to be dealt with by the instructor.

A risk associated with the use of games in training and education is that players "game the game," instead of focusing on their learning goals. The term gamer mode is proposed to describe this attitude. A player with a gamer-mode attitude strives to achieve goals that are optimal for winning the game, but suboptimal with respect to educational objectives. In this study of cadets playing an educational wargame to learn ground warfare tactics, the author examined occurrences of gamer mode. The results show that gamer mode on and off emerged in all analyzed sessions. Cadets understanding of the wargame was different from what the instructors expected. This study discusses why it is important to avoid situations where the gamer mode emerges and also speculates on the sources that generate this attitude-the game itself, the educational setting, and the participants' previous experiences.

The instructor has a vital role in leading the debriefing discussion in game-based learning. The role during the gaming part is however not as clear. Some results suggest that the instructor should take an active and authoritative role, but results provide few clues on how to apply this to military wargaming. Wargaming is a two-sided game activity where both sides are assumed to learn from their play experience. Wargaming against a live opponent can however produce unwanted effects. One such effect is ‘gamer mode’ that is a result of an exaggerated willingness to win, which can be observed when the players, for instance, exploit the game rules in unrealistic manner. This paper investigates the main responsibilities or duties of the instructor to prevent gamer mode to occur and instead support the desired player-orientation toward the game. By reasoning on the main characteristic features of wargaming, to play the game and to learn from the experience, I conclude that the main duties of the instructor are to frame the game activity and to steer the learning process. This supports earlier results that the instructor should take an active part in the gaming process, yet needs to have the skills, knowledge, and authority to intervene in students’ game play. The findings are illustrated with excerpts from videotaped wargaming sessions at the Swedish National Defence College.

This paper describes situations where learning games are not perceived by the player as being realistic. In educational wargaming this is seen when the game calculates battle-outcomes. Defined as unexpected game calculations, these incidents can cause players to adopt a Gamer Mode attitude, in which players reject the idea that the game accurately portrays warfare. In a study involving cadets playing a commercial strategic wargame as part of their course in war science, unexpected game calculations emerged and resulted in different user responses. Although user responses risked damaging the worth of learning from gaming, this paper argues that these incidents could enhance learning, as the cadets became interested and keen on finding rationales to why and how unexpected calculations occur.

Military training involves activities that range from combat operations to strategic decisions on how to locate and transport personal and supplies, such as food, ammunition, fuel and medical equipment. Despite of the fact that most military training is difficult to acquire from real situations, the skills required for learning from combat training technology are different from those required for training on military logistics. This research work aims to analyse learning priorities and the role of Computer-Based Training and Simulation (CBTS) on Military Supply Chain Logistics. Military logistics is a complex task that requires expertise for decisions on such factors as: (i) the mission to accomplish; (ii) the place to locate troops and all military facilities at the Area of Operations (AOO); the (iii) combat readiness level that will be expected to equip all the military operations; and the (iv) use of transportation resources and paths to follow in the AOO. In this work, each one of these factors is represented by a number of variables that must be considered as whole to outline the best decisions on supply chain logistics for each military operation. To identify training priorities for considering the implications of all variables that respond for these four factors, this work carried out a qualitative research with in depth interviews with military personal with expertise on making decisions about military logistics. Results from this research shows the skills that are most important to follow for developing expertise on military supply chain logistics and the technology that should best be applied to enhance the training experience. Conclusions from this work shows that training on military logistics involve decisions that are mostly unique, though the current computer-based technology has an important role for training and simulating field situations, thus enhancing the required expertise for making decisions on real military supply chain operations.

This is a position paper discussing the authors’ views on the role of automated information fusion in the interaction between different command levels. The purpose of the paper is to initiate a discussion on the relationship between automated fusion and the flexibility in a mission. The sharing of data/information/knowledge between commanders at different levels is a difficult task in many respects. We focus on the role of automated information fusion techniques in this frame. The paper asks two major questions: (1) Does automated fusion generate the unwanted side-effect of less flexibility? (2) How should a situational picture be represented at different command levels to promote cooperation? We also discuss some disadvantages of using traditional information fusion methods developed to handle either high or low level information. The conclusion is that information fusion techniques have to be chosen with care when making information systems that should be jointly used by commanders at different levels.

We present some lessons identified from FOI experiments on combining sensor data fusion and information fusion. Some ideas for future work are also presented.

Alberts has offered a definition of agility and its constituent components. This paper describes where in the C2 system, or the force, the different agility requirements will have to be met, and how to measure if they are. The purpose of a C2 system is to achieve focus and convergence of some entities (the force) somewhere (the context) to accomplish something (the task or mission), together (maybe with other organizations), within a certain amount of time. These factors determine the demands on a C2 system. Rasmussen’s abstraction hierarchy is used as the analytical framework, with the functions performed by C2 as defined by Brehmer. The paper discusses how to define the demands, i.e. the requisite agility, and how to assess if these demands can be met (potential agility), or have been met (manifest agility). The information requirements of a C2 system are determined by what is required of the commanded force for it to be agile in the present circumstances. The model traces the paths from the demands on the system to the parts of the system that are supposed to meet them, and makes possible the assessment of the manifest, and potential, agility of a C2 system.