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en-USwww.sname.org/sname/mt en-USJuly 2012 en-US program, virtual prototypes were used to develop simulations of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier that addressed shipboard processes feeding air operations on the ship. e navy had adopted many compo -nents of the STOW program and used the STOW-based synthetic battlespace to sup -port their eet battle experiments. NNS used the first version of the vir -tual carrier during eet battle experiments India and Juliet, the navy?s component of Millennium Challenge 02. ese experi -mentation exercises enabled NNS to better understand the warghter?s future use of the carrier and its assets, and also to under -stand some of the systems? limitations and bottlenecks that would limit the navy?s ability to execute its missions. Besides gaining operational insight, WARCON also provided a mechanism to understand the M&S technology needed to support experi -mentation. Around 2003, ONR transferred the technology of WARCON to program executive ocer (PEO) carriers. With new insight and lessons learned, NNS and the navy formalized their government-indus -try team and set out to develop the next generation virtual carrier in support of the Ford class program. M&S domains of a ships lifecycle M&S technology has been rapidly devel -oping over the last decade; however, its application has been inecient. Most M&S tools are designed for single purpose use to solve specic problems. However, for M&S to be cost eective, its use must be well thought out and architected for reuse and interoperability at the inception of a ship concept. A virtual environment provides oper -ators in the loop with M&S tools and technologies that enable investigation and evaluation of concepts and requirements of ship platforms. As system concepts emerge, a variety of engineering tools enable modeling of physical systems, their characteristics, and the phenomena associated with their performance. To truly achieve cost eciencies in design, manufacturing, and construction, M&S technologies must be addressed at the earliest stages of concept development/ design. Simulation of build strategy/mod -ular construction concepts, and supply chain management need to be integrated into the overall system design. Operations analysis also may be performed during early phases of the lifecycle to address broad, typically system-of-systems, per -formance measures. M&S architecture To achieve reuse and interoperability of M&S, NNS has focused on building M&S environments from existing models and simulations where possible. In order to do this, systems must be developed using modular open systems architectures and support system interoperability. To support interoperability from the onset, NNS developed a virtual warship refer -ence architecture from lessons learned in prior M&S eorts. is reference architec -ture must support all M&S environment types, and M&S problem domains, and be extensible to any ship platform. The reference architecture sup -ports understanding standalone M&S components, and how they may need to interoperate when abstracted into a system-of-systems environment. It is a high-level representation that does not capture every detail, but helps develop an understanding of the inter-relationship of An implementation of the virtual warship reference architecture. Virtual carrier sortie generation rate model. To truly achieve cost eciencies in design, manufacturing, and construction, M&S technologies must be addressed at the earliest stages of concept development/design.