FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — High on a simulated hilltop in Afghanistan, a team of four Taliban fighters wait to spring an ambush using a roadside bomb. Their objective is to kill as many U.S. soldiers as possible.
As the wind blows, and a sheep herder passes by in the valley below, the sound of two armored humvee engines can be heard winding their way up the mountain pass.
In this interactive game, four U.S. soldiers play the part of a typical improvised explosive device emplacement team. There is a leader, a triggerman, a security man who wields a rocket propelled grenade launcher, and a cameraman to record the attack for propaganda purposes.
As the humvee comes into view, the triggerman hits a red button and the humvee is destroyed.
This all happens in the mobile counter-IED interactive trainer, a four-trailer system of lessons that are designed to give soldiers a first look at the world of roadside bombs. It’s one of two new simulators that expose ground forces to the hazards they may face before they arrive in Afghanistan or Iraq.
When the soldiers playing the parts of insurgents managed to destroy the humvee, they earned points on their final score. Unfortunately, there were four soldiers in another part of the trailer who were in mock humvees driving up the mountain pass. They lost points when they failed to spot the warning signs of a roadside bomb. If the second humvee had been following too close and had been caught in the bomb blast, that driver may have had more points knocked off. If they had panicked and shot the goat herder, they would have lost more points.
“It teaches them muzzle awareness and trigger control. Because there are goat herders in this scenario all over the place,” said Lance Pylant, a trainer for the system. The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization and the University of Southern California’s Center for Creative Technologies developed the trainer. There are currently three versions of it at different training facilities with another seven being built.
Although funding comes from JIEDDO, it was not an idea pushed from the top down, said Dave Saffold, deputy director of JIEDDO’s joint center of excellence. It was noncommissioned officers from the 1st Army who came up with the concept. They wanted a training environment that could be quickly adaptive. New lessons can be downloaded via satellite on a secure military network.
“If you are going to a certain sector in Afghanistan, we will tailor a package that will represent that training environment,” Saffold said.
Having soldiers play the part of the red team gives them insight on how an IED cell works. They can choose their own hiding places and plant the various types of IEDs wherever they want. That includes placing themselves among the goat herders.
Since all of the choices are made by the red and blue teams, “there is no scripting in this whatsoever,” Pylant said.
The victims will have a shot of revenge, though. The two teams switch sides so all participants can have the same experiences. There are urban and small town scenarios as well.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, JIEDDO director, said having soldiers play the enemy in a competitive environment is a “powerful learning tool.”
“If you know anything about soldiers, they will compete over anything,” he told reporters. “Even who can spit the farthest … They are thinking about where they hide the explosives. ‘How do I gain the most advantage? How do I attack the friendly forces?’”
Prior to this final exercise, soldiers go through three other trailers that give them an overview of the IED problem. For example, what they look like, spots where they might be hidden and the different triggering devices. There is also a section on counter remote-controlled IED electronic warfare devices that are used to jam radio signals that set off the bombs. Videos of actual IED attacks taken from the inside of vehicles bring home the reality and seriousness of the problem.
One trailer is a reproduction of an IED workshop where insurgents put the devices together. It comes complete with real tools employed to make the bombs, and has the smell of common chemicals used to make the explosives.
At the end of each trailer, there is a quiz. Those results, along with the final simulation, are put together for a final score. Trainers or senior officers can see where a soldier may be lacking in knowledge and go over what they are missing, Pylant said.
Another four-trailer system helps route clearance specialists train on their complicated trucks before they reach war zones. The virtual route clearance trainer, developed by Raydon Corp. of Daytona Beach, Fla., simulates missions in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Currently, the three trucks used in these special missions are in high demand and are shipped overseas as soon as they come off assembly lines, said Cory McAndrew, simulations systems specialist at Raydon. The Army wanted something to train soldiers on the vehicles that they will be using before deploying.
Up to eight operators at a time can train on the Buffalo mine protected clearance vehicle, which has a manipulator that is used to probe for suspected roadside bombs. There are also simulators for two Husky vehicle mounted mine detection systems, four RG-31 medium mine protected vehicles, which provide security for the teams, one joint EOD rapid response vehicle and a Talon robot.
While soldiers watch a simulation in a virtual world on a screen, they are sitting in replicas of the vehicles’ cabs. The dashboards, seats, steering wheel and all the other controllers are the real thing, McAndrew said. The RG-31 gunner sits in a turret that rotates 360 degrees
“These are all from the actual vehicles, so they are getting their hands on the actual equipment they would be training on in real life,” he said.
One of the four trailers is devoted to classroom lessons and after-action reviews. Trainees first practice their skills separately, but at the end of the 40-hour course, they come together and go through different scenarios as a team. Up to 16 participate in the final simulation, which starts with a mission briefing. The drivers, operators and explosive ordnance disposal teams then work together to clear roads. The various scenarios can include bombs exploding, and medical evacuations. Scenes are based on real roads in Iraqi cities such as Tikrit. For Afghanistan, the data is based on Kandahar.
Raydon is working on adding artificial intelligence to the simulations “so if you beep a horn, a car will most likely get out of your way,” McAndrew added. The Army is asking for more realism, so the company is looking into adding force feedback to make the steering wheel respond the way it would if it were hitting rough patches on the road, and vibration under the seats to give drivers and passengers the same sensation.
“The military would like motion platforms but that is very expensive to do,” he said. Adding these features is meeting the goal halfway, he
said.