Saab’s Training and Simulation division have signed an initial three-year contract with the UK Ministry of Defence, for the provision of support to live simulation systems valued at £60 million (A$116.4 million) and options to extend until 2030. The contract was announced at the International Training Technology Exhibition & Conference (ITEC) in London last week.
Called Instrumented Live Training or ILT-D, the package includes the upgrade and provision of Saab’s latest soldier and vehicle training systems to simulate direct and indirect fire effects, and the software used for exercise control, dubbed EXCON.
The new contract replaces the previous contractor logistic support, repair, and post design services contract for the British Army’s laser-based tactical engagement simulation known as the Direct Fire Weapon Effect Simulator (DFWES) provided by Saab.
DFWES simulates vehicles, armoured platforms, heavy weapon systems and anti-tank weapons in force on-force exercises at collective training locations in the UK and Germany, as well as at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, Infantry Battle School in Brecon and the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines in Devon. The British Army can deploy the system to any exercise and Saab provides a support crew.
“A soldier wears a harness fitted with a personal detection device comprising a computer, a battery, and a speaker, a GPS sensor, and a small arms transmitter fitted on their rifle or support weapon. Various black boxes are fitted to all types of vehicles, from a Land Rover to a main battle tank, which enable realistic detection of hits and misses, as well as enabling soldiers and vehicles to shoot very accurately with the laser-based system,” Tomas Quennerstedt, Director of Saab’s training and simulation division told ADM.
“A main battle tank can fire different kinds of ammunition across various ranges. The system does not use a speed-of-light laser with a straight trajectory but a scanning laser that simulates the flight path of the ammunition in real time ballistics. The tank commander must lay their aim and use the tank’s fire control system in the same way as if there was a live round in the breach. Every player whether a soldier or a vehicle has a GPS sensor.
“This is detected by the scanning laser. Information about the player’s position, movement, and engagement of targets is sent in real time to the exercise control over a communication system that covers the entire training area. Information about any engagement by an opposing force weapon system is also detected and fed to EXCON.”
During the exercise all participants receive immediate feedback of hits, misses and damages/weapons effects. All data is stored and can be retrieved for in-depth after action review and analysis. The system provides feedback information appropriate to the troops, and to their commanders in an intuitive format so that lessons can be learned.
“It’s primarily a live system but virtual inputs can be used. For example, you can simulate an air strike using a flight simulator to display the picture of the terrain to the pilot who can see where the players and potential targets are located.,” Quennerstedt said, “The strike action is fed to all players and EXCON over the same simulator communication system.”