The Battle Management Language (BML) is defined as an unambiguous language for command and control of live, simulated, and robotic forces. BML has enjoyed a long history of analysis and prototype development since the mid-1990’s. From the Fall of 2004 through the Fall of 2005, the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) sponsored a Study Group to define the requirement for a Coalition BML (C-BML) to serve the needs of the US and international communities. In March 2006, the SISO Standards Advisory Council approved initiation of a Product Development Group (PDG) to generate a standard and guidance document for C-BML. The CBML PDG kicked off its activities at the Spring 2006 Simulation Interoperability Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. The PDG has laid out a 3-phase development effort: (1) specify a sufficient data model to unambiguously define a set of military orders using the Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model (C2IEDM) as a starting point; (2) develop a formal grammar (lexicon and production rules) to formalize the definition of orders, requests, and reports; (3) develop a formal battle management ontology to enable conceptual interoperability across software systems. While a Drafting Group begins work on the Phase I standard and guidance documents, research teams in the PDG are continuing to explore and develop approaches that will meet the Phase II and Phase III product development objectives. With respect to development of a formal ontology for C-BML, there has been considerable discussion and disagreement regarding the value of pursuing this line of research. While it is generally accepted that encoding higher levels of semantic description into data models holds promise for greater capability in software to understand and work with the data, no explicit plan for how to do this in C-BML or what its value is for C-BML development, implementation, and employment has been clearly articulated. This paper seeks to clarify the discussion by describing a research plan and progress made to date toward defining the Phase III C-BML products dealing with development of a formal ontology for C-BML.