Pentagon cancels program with 'checkered' past: Joint Simulation System plagued by delays, technological challenges, conflicting demands.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

Seven years after the Defense Department embarked on an ambitious program to develop a computer-based multi-service combat simulation, the project is on its last legs, having failed to meet expectations and exhausted the patience of Pentagon acquisition officials.

The Joint Simulation System (JSIMS) is a federation of computerized combat simulations designed to train commanders and war planners. After years of delays and cost overruns, the program appeared to be getting back on track in late 2002. But, in December, the department pulled the plug on JSIMS and directed the program manager to close the office by September 30, 2003.

Ironically, at the same time the Defense Department was issuing its directive to cancel JSIMS, the program was delivering the first version of the software, called block 1.

The program manager, Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Seay, said he will carry out the orders from the Pentagon, but he also conjectured that JSIMS might be brought back to life if software rests this summer are successful and a senior review panel decides that no alternative technologies exist today to replace JSIMS.

Meanwhile, Seay already has been working on a "JSIMS exit strategy" that may still undergo revisions between now and the end of September.

When the program got under way in 1996, the plan was to make JSIMS the premier training tool for joint-force commanders. It was to integrate real-world and simulated military assets on a virtual battlefield.

By the mid-1990s, each service already had begun to develop its own tactical simulations. The Army was the farthest along, with a program called WARSIM. But the Pentagon didn't want the services to have separate, non-inreroperable systems, so JSIMS was conceived as a joint architecture.

Upon hearing about the cancellation of JSIMS, one program source said, in hindsight, the program probably was doomed from the get-go. "When a program begins with 'joint,' you already start our with three strikes against you."

JSIMS Version 1 software was delivered in December 2002 to the Joint Forces Command Joint Warfighting Center, where it will undergo testing this summer.

"We have installed the software in our simulations facility to begin validation testing," said a JFCOM spokesman. "The validation process will take the remainder of the calendar year as we install the software, train personnel to use JSIMS, and then conduct a three part validation process, which will culminate with a full systems verification and validation test.

The Joint Warfighting Center, as the primary user, will work closely with the JSIMS program manager to fix problems encountered."

Seay took over the troubled program in October 2001. Since then, he said in an interview, "we restructured the program [after] it had missed several milestones." He described JSIMS as...