One of Defence’s goals is to reduce reliance on large scale exercises through the increased adoption of simulation and each new project now has to consider how it can employ simulation to increase capability, drive down recurring cost and maximise collective training benefit.
However this philosophy is not new to the Royal Australian Navy, which has been using simulation in several forms, particularly in the aviation, engineering and warfare disciplines, for many years.
When the RAN Fleet Air Arm was first established in the late 1940s, pilot training was conducted on the basic link trainers that had been used during World War II. Today the training of pilots, Air Warfare Officers and Sensor Operators is underpinned by modern simulators, vastly more complex and capable than those available to their forebears.
Surface warfare simulation dates back to the 1930s with the establishment of the Anti-Submarine Warfare School in Rushcutters Bay. This was followed by radar and operations room simulators in what is now HMAS Watson, and then by the collocation of all warfare training and the establishment of aircraft control and Electronic Warfare training systems in at that location.
HMAS Watson also boasts a recently upgraded series of bridge simulators to provide realistic training required for Junior Seaman Officers to qualify as the Officers-of-the-Watch in all classes of RAN surface ships.
Navy established itself at the forefront of distributed warfare training in 2001 when it joined with the US Navy to conduct simulation-based exercises and in 2006 the operations room simulators at HMAS Watson were permanently connected to the US Navy system. This has allowed RAN crews to participate as a virtual ship in the large US Navy Fleet Synthetic Exercises, held several times each year.
More recently this has been taken a step further with the FFG Upgrade project, incorporating a powerful onboard simulation capability. With the establishment of the necessary infrastructure at Fleet Base East, which is also being rolled out to Fleet Base West in the near future, FFG crews can participate in training exercises with multiple real and virtual units whilst alongside.
This capability was demonstrated last October during Exercise Triton Sim 2014 which included a ships’ company in a shore trainer in Western Australia, a ship’s company in HMAS Sydney alongside in Fleet Base East, and another ashore in HMAS Watson.
“The runs are very much on the board now that other projects are delivering the necessary connectivity and services,” Captain Richard McMillan, Director of the Navy Simulation Office, explained. “This same capability will provide for an expanded RAN participation in a US Navy Fleet Synthetic Exercise later this year.”
These capabilities have the obvious benefit of reducing steaming time for the surface fleet and thereby reducing recurring cost, but they also provide significant training benefit in the ability to work up and qualify multiple crews simultaneously.
Engineering and Marine Technician training
To train the first two crews for the RAN’s two Amphibious Assault ship which are now entering service, BAE Systems has developed an LHD training facility in Mascot, as part of the acquisition contract.
The state of the art facility is capable of training LHD crews on all aspects of the ships’ operation in a number of separate spaces, including weapons and navigation systems and engineering and damage control.
But across Navy not all simulation is computer-based and a process of blending the appropriate use of simulation with other forms of training is important in achieving the most effective outcome.
One example of this is the Marine Engineering Demonstration Building at HMAS Cerberus, where sailors undertaking their basic Marine Technician course are trained to deal with flooding and stability problems by using a training rig constructed from materials available at any large hardware store.
CAPT McMillan also highlighted work undertaken last year to deliver a range of simulated training tools for the Marine Systems Technician course, including a desk top engineering simulator, which has subsequently been upgraded to cater for up to 60 students.
“The average size of one class is 15 or 16 students, but there are always two or three classes going through, so we have increased capacity and we now have the opportunity to run them through the simulator at different times on this course, and the capacity for the three courses running at any one time to all be involved in different tasks,” CAPT McMillan described.
“What we’ve been moving into is the delivery of operator qualifications ashore, understanding the difference between being qualified to operate equipment or control engineering systems at sea, as opposed to being a competent maintainer for that particular piece of equipment.”
This reduces the time required for a Marine Technician to obtain a platform endorsement at sea and, because they have been trained as a competent operator ashore, they are better prepared to demonstrate their competency once they join the ship.
“We’re well down the road there for Marine Technicians and we’re planning on further extending that system into other specific ship types, from the general to the particular,” CAPT McMillan said to ADM.
Naval Warfare training
One of the major advantages of simulation in naval warfare training is the capability of immediate repetition in order to reinforce skills development or learning points while decreasing risks.
One of the modern warfare scenarios for example is the defence of a ship or task group against multiple and simultaneous supersonic anti-ship missile attack. Obviously it is both extremely dangerous and prohibitively expensive to launch large numbers of real missiles (or aircraft imitating missiles) at a ship and simulation is the only practical means of doing it routinely.
“When you think about the effort required to co-ordinate any sort of representative strike, and everything you are flying is much bigger than the missile itself, the only way to test these systems and the human reaction to them, and build up the expertise to deal with them consistently is through stimulation of the sensors and simulation of the threat,” CAPT McMillan noted.
“The capability exists in the FFGs now, it’s coming in the Air Warfare Destroyers on delivery and we are working to fit the capability into the Anzac-class Frigates. Navy has a project separate to the Anti-Ship Missile Defence (ASMD) upgrade, which is introducing the onboard training system capability to connect ashore,” CAPT McMillan detailed.
“The Anzacs will be upgraded from a system that produces basic team training and can’t be linked with other ships, to a system that, like the FFG, will produce very detailed scenarios and very detailed high end training capability, which can also be joined to exercises involving other ships.”
The ultimate connection of all Navy’s major surface combatants is dependent upon infrastructure upgrades at Fleet Base West as well as the refit cycle of the ships themselves, but is expected to be completed over the coming three or four years.
There is already a post-ASMD Operation Room training facility at HMAS Stirling and the pre-upgrade facility at HMAS Watson will be brought up to ASMD standard by the end of next year.
“We’re moving ahead very strongly in the warfare training and collective training activities, enhancing the sharp end skills as much as we can. However, there’s still the need to fully involve everybody in the ship’s company. The new LHDs have sophisticated engineering simulation capabilities, but even in these ships we cannot provide quality training to everyone while the ship is alongside. My expectation is that the next major areas of focus will be how to more closely integrate what we can produce for the warfare community and how we can most effectively develop a similar level of training and exercise involvement for all personnel and specialisations,” CAPT McMillan explained.
Submarines
A wide variety of simulation systems at HMAS Stirling support the training of the Navy’s submariners, including torpedo loading rigs, engineering platform trainers, and a combat system test and integration suite and associated combat systems operations trainers.
In addition there is a Collins Class virtual walkthrough, colloquially known as ‘Boat 7’, which was delivered in 2013 as part of an initiative by Navy’s Training Authority Submarines to revamp the submariner initial training stream.
Boat 7 is in essence a high-fidelity 3D computer-based training package which allows trainees to navigate their way around a virtual Collins submarine to locate and identify components and systems spread throughout the boat. Previously this training had occupied a significant portion of the final weeks of a trainee submariner’s basic training course while the boat was at sea.
“It is used not only to train people to navigate around the boat, but also in their initial submariner qualification. They are required to show their ability to locate and identify these systems and it is increasingly being adapted to teach basic routines so, as people get to the submarine, they can quite quickly translate from simulation to the real world,” CAPT McMillan continued.
“Their ability to get round and their general whole of boat knowledge has greatly increased by Boat 7 which, along with a range of other changes to the submariner qualification process, has significantly reduced the length of the initial training pipeline in the submarines.”
The future of maritime simulation can be simulated, the physiological and psychological aspects of working and living at sea over a prolonged period cannot. The final proof of both people and systems is their performance at sea; simulation is employed to reduce the time and costs of essential training, so that higher standards of performance and increased benefits are achieved in the essential at-sea training.
Technology is also a factor, changing so rapidly it is hard to predict future capabilities, but Captain McMillan sees the majority of today’s exemplar systems in those delivered with the LHDs.
“So what it’s going to look like in 10 years time? I honestly can’t tell you,” he concluded. “Navy is developing training systems for the specifics of each ship, building on the general training systems we have, and we need to make the maximum use of simulation and stimulation to pre-qualify people, reduce the length of their training and then, once they’re in the ship, enable the creation of a collective force through simulation and distributed networks far more quickly.”