Research Area 20: Strategic Planning, Prototyping, and Experimentation (RWS)

The objective of this research area is to develop innovative approaches and products to
determine military worth and quantify value propositions for weapon concepts as part of the
Munitions Directorate’s strategic planning process. Specific mission areas of interest include
Air, Space, Cyber, Maritime, Nuclear Deterrence, Special Operations. Techniques for objective
quantification of future weapon technologies, attributes, and their tradespaces critical to
achieving operational objectives are sought. There is also interest in fast-running informative
tools for analysis, study, optimization, and revelation of opportunities to address operational
gaps and shortfalls. Inclusion of should-cost estimates for technologies and cost exchange ratios
for blue-red forces is an important factor to senior leader decision making processes.
Techniques to efficiently develop strategic planning roadmapping tools which quantify timephased performance advancements over baseline technologies and weapon systems are highly
desired. In addition, approaches to aggregate technologies into notional weapon constructs is of
interest as well as novel approaches to evaluate their performance attributes and capability
contributions.