Integration of military command and control system with simulator: Accelerating military decision-making process for observe, orient, decide, and act loop advantage

This paper presents a proof-of-concept integration of a national military command and control system with the Simulated Wargaming for Operational Readiness and Doctrine (SWORD) simulation platform to support faster evaluation of tactical courses of action during the military decision-making process. Rather than treating simulation as a separate specialist activity, the proposed solution embeds simulation-based analysis directly into the commander’s existing command and control workflow. This allows users to initiate scenario evaluation from a familiar operational interface, compare alternative courses of action, and receive timely feedback on unit status, logistics, and likely operational outcomes without switching to a separate simulation environment. The main contribution of the work is, therefore, not only the technical interoperability itself but also the operationalization of simulation as an accessible decision support capability for end users in time-constrained military planning. The paper describes the integration architecture, the supporting API and data exchange mechanisms, and the user-facing workflow enabled by the solution. The results show that the approach is feasible at the brigade level and has the potential to shorten decision support cycles, increase the number of alternatives that can be examined within a limited planning window, and strengthen human decision-making through simulation-based feedback.