DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
2000 NAVY PENTAGON
WASHINGTON DC 20350-2000
OPNAVINST 3960.15B
N94
27 Jul 2017
OPNAV INSTRUCTION 3960.15B
From: Chief of Naval Operations
Subj: VALIDATION OF NAVY THREAT SIMULATORS, TARGETS AND DIGITAL
THREAT MODELS AND SIMULATIONS
Ref: (a) DoD Instruction 5000.02 of 7 January 2015
(b) DoD Instruction 5000.61 of 9 December 2009
(c) SECNAVINST 5200.40
(d) OPNAVINST 3811.1F
(e) DoD Threat Systems Program Plan
(f) MIL-STD-3022
1. Purpose. To establish policies, procedures and assign responsibilities for validation of Navy
threat representations utilized in the test and evaluation (T&E) of Navy acquisition programs.
This revision updates references and clarifies integrated product team membership and
authorized sources of threat information. This instruction is a complete revision and should be
reviewed in its entirety.
2. Cancellation. OPNAVINST 3960.15A.
3. Background. An acquisition program's milestones and acquisition decisions are frequently
based on the results of testing developmental hardware against various forms of threat
representations since the actual threat may be unavailable for T&E. Reference (a) requires threat
representations used in operational test to undergo verification by the developer, validation by
the Department of Defense (DoD) component, and accreditation by the operational test agency.
References (b) and (c) establish policy and procedures and assign responsibilities for
verification, validation, and accreditation of modeling and simulation (M&S) within the DoD
and Navy respectively. Digital threat M&S policy, procedures, and responsibilities are specified
in reference (d).
4. Scope and Applicability. This instruction is applicable to all Navy facilities, acquisition
programs, and service providers associated with the procurement and use of threat
representations for T&E.
5. Actions
a. Per reference (a), all threat representations, developed for use in operational testing of
Navy acquisition programs should be validated using the procedures and format specified in
references (e) and (f). Digital threat M&S must be validated per references (c), (d) and (f).
