Design of the M&S acquisition support effort of the SANDF GBADS acquisition programme

Abstract

The Ground Based Air Defence System (GBADS) acquisition programme, of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), provided an opportunity to apply Modelling and Simulation (M&S), at a system of systems level, for acquisition risk reduction. At the same time it was used as a vehicle to establish a credible acquisition support capability. The purpose of this paper is to report on the design of the acquisition support effort and, to a certain extent, attempt to generalise some of the techniques employed. The paper firstly provides a brief background to the GBADS acquisition programme after which the SANDF acquisition process is briefly explained. The role of a Defence Evaluation and Research Institute is elaborated upon, focusing on the use of M&S to establish a shared Body of Knowledge and “concurrent” tactical doctrine development. It concludes by showing how the established capability needs to be expanded into other areas of the defence life cycle