Although nothing can take the place of live-fire training, simulation
technology will play a big role in preparing U.S. troops for the
war against terrorism, according to Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Seay,
commanding general of the Army’s Simulation, Training and
Instrumentation Command.
“Soldiers still have to learn to deal with the extreme risks
of real-life combat, and live fire is needed for that,” Seay
said in a recent telephone interview. “But simulation lets
them experience something that’s very close to the real thing,
without any danger. In many cases, they don’t even get dirty.
“Then, when they do go into live fire, it won’t be
entirely unfamiliar to them,” Seay said. “Maybe they
won’t freeze, because if they freeze in a combat situation,
it could cost them their lives.”
Also, Seay said, “in simulation, when you’re finished
with a drill, you can go back and do it again in a matter of seconds.”
In live training, he said, you might have to wait hours or days,
while troops are fed, showered and rested, and equipment is serviced
and put back into place.
Seay’s command, known as STRICOM, develops and manages training
devices—many of which employ simulation technology—for
the Army. With a staff of more than 500 military and civilian employees
and an annual budget of $645 million, STRICOM is based in Orlando,
Fla., which is the headquarters for the simulation community of
the entire Defense Department, including units of the Air Force,
Navy and Marine Corps.
Those facilities are growing. The Navy’s principal simulation
unit—the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division—is
expanding its quarters in the city, as its commanding officer told
National Defense in an interview. Also, the Marines this year completed
the consolidation of their training-system acquisition functions
in Orlando.
The services were drawn to Orlando because of the presence of Disney
World, Universal Studios, the University of Central Florida, the
National Center for Simulation and 160 or so companies that specialize
in modeling and simulation.
The entertainment industry and the military services, for decades,
have shared an interest in simulation. During World War II, the
Army Air Corps used flight simulators to train hundreds of thousands
of aircrews. Since then, private industry has used simulation technology
to design increasingly sophisticated theme-park rides, video games
and computer software.
The services now are employing the same technology in almost every
form of military training. Simulators are being used, for example,
to teach:
Simulators also are being used to train commanders in joint operations.
Earlier this year, for instance, the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s
Joint Warfighting Center, in Suffolk, Va.,
conducted United Endeavor—a computer-simulated exercise designed
to sharpen the skills of joint and multinational staff officers.
The center was established in 1993 as the nation’s focal
point for joint and multinational doctrine development, computer
war gaming and theater commander training.
During the exercise, more than 500 personnel from the four services,
NATO and Partnership for Peace nations coordinated military responses
to a variety of simulated crisis situations resembling Kosovo, Haiti
and other small-scale contingencies and peacekeeping operations.
Training on the Cheap
United Endeavor exercises are held twice a year as a way to train
commanders with new, computer simulation technology “for less
than one tenth of the cost” of field maneuvers, according
to Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Coleman, the exercise project officer.
Simulators provide similar savings in virtually every field of
military training, according to the Arlington, Va.-based National
Training Systems Association (NTSA), which cites these examples:
Such savings have been powerful incentives for increased use of
simulation during the past decade of declining defense budgets and
an increasing number of deployments, military leaders said.
In the aftermath of September’s terrorist attacks, shrinking
military funds may be a thing of the past, at least initially. President
Bush immediately sought—and Congress approved—a $40
billion emergency supplement to the 2002 appropriations. Additional
increases are considered almost certain to pay for the developing
war on terrorism.
Most of this new funding, however, is likely to be allocated to
the war itself and the munitions, equipment and supplies needed
to fight it. Training is not usually very high on Pentagon priorities,
retired Gen. William W. Hartzog, former commanding general of the
Army Training and Doctrine Command, told National Defense.
At press time, officials within the military training and simulation
community were not sure what the new war would mean to their programs.
“To be honest with you, we have not heard—down at this
level—what impact this is going to have on what we do,”
said Col. Larry E. Skapin, director of the Air Force’s Training
Systems Product Group (TSPG), at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
“Right now, we are trying to focus on our force protection.”
One thing that the attacks do suggest is the need for improved
training, said Col. Michael P. Chapin, director of TSPG’s
Revolutionizing Training Division. “I believe that they underscore
the need for mission-rehearsal simulation capability, so that anybody
who goes into harm’s way would be trained before they go.
It’s desperately needed.”
Before sending pilots on a combat mission, Chapin said, “we
should build a data base containing the conditions that the pilots
would face, and develop a simulation of the mission that they could
use for training.
“This capability already exists in small systems,”
Chapin explained. The Air Force’s Distributed Mission Training
(DMT) simulation system allows up to four aircraft simulators to
fly together in a mission training center (MTC), and they can link
up electronically to another four-ship at some other base, Chapin
said.
Multitudes of Pilots
Eventually, he said, DMT will allow multitudes of pilots to fly
simulated missions together. “The full vision for my program
is for hundreds of pilots to train together,” he noted. “You
should train like you’re going to go in.”
Two MTCs for F-15C fighter pilots became operational last year
at Langley Air Force Base, Va., and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.,
Chapin said. “We’re in the process right now of standing
up an AWACS (airborne warning and control system aircraft) capability,
and in less than a year, we’ll bring in the F-16s.”
The F-16 MTCs will provide the Air Force’s first air-to-ground
DMT technology, Chapin said.
Eventually, the Air Force plans to establish DMT programs for the
Predator unmanned air vehicle, B-1 bomber, F-22 and Joint Strike
Fighter, he noted.
“We’re starting to get the word out through the Air
Force, and everybody wants DMT,” he told an NTSA-sponsored
industry briefing in Orlando earlier this year. “We know that
the system will sell itself, and it has to because we’re in
a tough funding environment.”
It’s time for the Air Force to raise the bar on simulation,
said Col. Jerry Straw, chief of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s
Warfighter Training Research Division, in Mesa, Ariz.
“The simulators are here,” he told the Orlando briefing.
“What’s really lacking today is the command and control
segment. I need to be able to put decision makers’ eyes anywhere
in the world, and have them ready and able to make decisions.”
Simulation systems have to be developed to replicate the strategies
of the likely enemies of the United States, said Straw. “I’m
not going to be able to get the Chinese, or the Iraqis, or the Iranians—all
of our competitors out there—to come and play in our war games,”
he said. “I need simulations to act like the real thing.”
The Army is eager to increase the use of simulation as part of
its ongoing transformation process, said Seay, who also spoke at
the briefing. “Let’s get that technology to our soldiers
while its still state of the art,” he said. “The skills
are in this room to make transformation succeed.”
Michael R. Macedonia, STRICOM’s chief scientist, asked industry
representatives at the briefing to come up with innovative systems.
“I’d love to have a simulated city for urban warfare,”
he said. “Think about that. I’d love to have your proposals.”
Training facilities have to be adaptable to wherever U.S. forces
deploy, Seay noted. “If you have to go to the Caspian Sea,
how do you train if your facility looks like a town in Germany?
Our people have to be prepared to go to Africa, the Middle East,
Korea. We need training facilities that look—and smell—like
the real thing.”
That’s not always possible, he acknowledged, and in those
cases, simulation programs often are the best alternatives. It is
particularly important, he said, to develop the Joint Simulation
System (JSIMS) and WARSIM 2000, the Army’s war-fighting simulation
“We absolutely, positively need to do that,” Seay said.
JSIMS—a computerized warfare simulator on a distributed system—is
intended to provide combined, joint and service training across
all command and staff levels. The prime contractor, TRW Inc., of
Carson, Calif., is scheduled to complete the first version of the
system by next March.
The program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, but appears
to be on track now, officials said.
WARSIM 2000 is being designed to provide the land component of
JSIMS. Lockheed Martin Information Systems, based in Orlando, also
has a March deadline.
The Army plans a major exercise in 2003 to show what these two
systems can do, Seay said.
For the future, STRICOM is trying to develop what it calls a “common
training-instrumentation architecture”—a single system
that soldiers can use at their home bases, the three Army training
centers and on deployment. The problem now, Seay said, is that many
Army facilities have training systems that are incompatible, and
when units go on deployment, they often have none at all.
“We can no longer afford to have a brigade shut down its
training programs for four to six months while it goes into Kosovo,
Seay said. Future training systems are going to be deployable, he
said.
One training system that is already deployable is the Army’s
Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System. MILES is a training
device—developed two decades ago—that uses laser pulses
to simulate the effects of firing actual weapons systems, from rifles
to tanks. In May. STRICOM authorized Lockheed Martin Information
Systems, of Orlando, to begin low-rate initial production of MILES
XXI, featuring improvements such as longer-life batteries, reduced
power consumption and more rugged components.