The need for common BML was identified by the U.S. Army's Simulation to C4I Interoperability Overarching Integrated Product Team (SIMCI OIPT) and was originally defined in a paper titled Standardizing Battle Management Language - A Vital Move Towards the Army Transformation published by the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization in 2001 [1].
The same issues that have driven the Army to embark on this program also confront the other Services C4ISR and simulation systems, and future military operations.
Following a meeting of subject matter experts at the Spring 2004 SIW, the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization determined that a detailed evaluation of BML efforts at a coalition level was necessary and formally established a Coalition BML (C-BML) Study Group with Terms of Reference (TOR) identifying the following tasks: • The Study Group shall conduct a Survey comprising as many international contributions applicable to the Coalition BML effort as possible.
• The Study Group shall develop a plan for how these various efforts can contribute to a common Coalition BML specification within a methodological framework.
The Study Group meetings involved a membership of over 100 persons from 11 different countries and their recommendations were presented at the 2006 Spring SIW conference Spring SIW 2006 where the decision was made to establish a formal C-BML Product Development Group C-BML Product Development Group to develop an international simulation interoperability standard applicable to simulation systems, operational command and control systems, and also robotic systems.