Abstract: Combat Systems Effectiveness Simulation (CESS) is an important supportive means to combat systems analysis and conceptual design. When confronted with issues like model reusability, simulation composability, and system evolvability, traditional approaches to develop CESS systems find their limitations. Based on years experiences in CESS field and best practices found in overseas CESS simulation systems, a model architecture based CESS modeling methodology was proposed. Around a sophisticated CESS model architecture, a generic CESS system, named WESS, was realized. The functional features, software architecture, application processes, and key aspects of WESS were introduced. A typical case study demonstrates the functionalities of WESS. Practical applications tell WESS is able to help modelers to achieve those aims important to CESS including reusability, composability, and evolvability.

Key words: combat systems effectiveness simulation, model architecture, cognitive behavior modeling, WESS, air-combating simulation example