It was discovered during the Gulf war that the current time required to plan a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) mission was too long and that the current mission planning system design was limited in its capabilities.

The possibility of incorporating object-oriented technology into the TLAM Planning System (TPS) was invest i gated ; n order to reduce the time required to plan a particular mission and to increase the capabilities of mission planning.

The current time to plan a Tomahawk mission is approximately over three hours. Utilizing Object-Oriented Technology (DOT) within the TPS will reduce this time significantly. DOT also allows for the use of complex data transactions and data types such as voice, video, graphics, image and text. Utilizing complex data types in mission planning will increase mission capabilities and performance.