Will the simulation requirements for Land 400, and its
promise to introduce a mounted close combat capability as a major component of
the Combined Arms Fighting System (CAFS), meet Army’s aspirations for an
all-embracing synthetic environment?
As first pass looms somewhat uncertainly for Land 400,
industry must now be assessing opportunities not only for the provision of the
Land Combat Vehicle System (LCVS) platform requirements, including the locally
manufactured/assembled and supported vehicle options that are envisaged, but
also for opportunities to support the delivery of the required capability in
its various physical and other guises.
Here simulation has a major role. The ADF, in particular the
Army, has become a leader in the use of simulation systems for training,
operational planning, decision making, concept evaluation, and modelling for
options assessment. And due to the sheer cost-effectiveness of simulation in
many of its potentialities, Land 400 looks to become a leading example of this
take-up of simulation, paving the way to that single Gen 3 synthetic
environment espoused by Major General John Caligari.
According to the concept of operations (CONOPS) Land 400 is
to develop the simulation system for the LCVS, which will be the foundation of
future CAFS simulation requirements, operating within the
Defence Simulation Environment (DSE) being established by
JP3035.
The LCVS will be utilised within the context of a combat
force capable of amphibious, expeditionary operations, capable of being
projected for sustained operations against an adaptive enemy in complex
terrain. In this respect the initial focus of the DSE, which will be on the
provision of products to support operational planning for amphibious operations,
is directly relevant to Land 400. It will also apply to the type of vehicle
appropriate to amphibious transport and of course to ensure that the carriage
of combined arms teams (CATS), in joint or coalition operations, achieves the
over-match in an amphibious entry that RADM (Rtd) James Goldrick warns as
vital.
This, he says in a July post in ASPI’s The Strategist, will
demand mastery of high intensity and closely coordinated operational amphibious
techniques. It is this land-sea interface and the integration of the amphibious
ships with their embarked forces that will require the management of a steep
learning curve and which needs the ADF’s close and continuing attention.
Indeed, Land 400’s Ship to Manoeuvre (STOM) plan aims to
balance high impact with a smaller footprint to achieve surprise and maintain
tempo. STOM sees the insertion of two company groups by air in two waves and
the concurrent insertion of another two company groups by surface means in
multiple waves. Surely there is a ready-made role here for constructive
simulation by some of the locally resident big guns in the industry.
The Land 400 CONOPS itself will be further refined by
wargaming and experimentation, capability solution experimentation and rapid
prototype demonstrations. Here DSTO’s Land Operations Division has already
undertaken various experiments related to the combined arms fighting concept,
including close combat focused on combat teams at the platoon level through two
series of experiments, a light infantry series, and a mechanised series based
on survivability of various vehicle options. This work and other wargaming
provide important records for future capability analysis.
The Land 400 CONOPS states clearly that individual and
collective training is to maximise the use of simulation (including immersive
and virtual training areas) and decentralised training, with LCVS integration
and training, tested and enhanced through the use of simulation. LCVS platforms
should also be able to operate directly with the synthetic environment to allow
in-field, pre-deployment, planning and mission rehearsal training to occur.
Vehicle models will be required to build scenarios with
friendly force vehicles (including selected coalition vehicles) and enemy
vehicles. In addition there is the requirement for civilian vehicles to assist
in generating representation of the complex operating environment, asymmetric
threat, as well as creating a pattern of life (POL), as a backdrop for an
asymmetric exercise. This will enable soldiers to be exercised in making
decisions on the legitimacy of targets.
Models of people will be required to replicate own forces
and a conventional regular enemy force. In addition an asymmetric force and
civilians will be required.
The training system will also require the ability to insert
inanimate objects onto the terrain database in order to build an exercise.
These could include such ephemera as trenches, bunkers, obstacles, bridges,
minefields, IEDs and so on.
Land 400 will require a training system to support the force
generation and sustainment of the LCVS capability. This will focus upon the
requirements of individual and crew collective training to operate and support
the vehicle. And it appears that the training audience will be extensive,
ranging across vehicle commanders, gunners and drivers, LCVS troop commanders,
dismounted close combatants within the multi-role manoeuvre brigade, mounted
fire teams, combat engineers and so on. This training system will form a major
pillar of the overall support system for Land 400.
Constructive
simulation
While Australian use of constructive simulations has a long
history its use has been limited due to resource constraints and small
development teams. Nevertheless there has been considerable experience with
CombatSIM, Janus, JSAF and others. These have been overtaken by the simulation
software development tool OneSAF (One Semi-Automated Forces).
OneSAF supports constructive and virtual training,
computer-generated forces, and mission rehearsal designed for brigade-and-below,
combat, and non-combat operations. Early versions were initially evaluated for
their applicability to Australian requirements including its potential in
training, land combat analysis, and integration with C2 systems and other
software tools. It was also assessed for its ability to develop terrain
databases to cover training areas and deployment areas of operations.
OneSAF has been identified as the Army’s primary
constructive simulation for a range of activities including capability
development, training for command teams, support to operational decision
making, and as a Semi-Automated Force subsystem for future virtual simulators.
However its initial focus is on the capability development domain, in
particular Army’s experimentation program, which is testing Army’s employment
concepts for future systems, including Land 400.
OneSAF gives Army the ability to integrate with C2 systems
through controlled interfaces based on standard communications protocols.
Calytrix Technologies (Australia) has been selected to deliver ongoing OneSAF
technical development support, while the Swinburne R&D group has undertaken
entity behaviours and OneSAF testing regimes.
Calytrix CEO Shawn Parr anticipates simulation to play a key
enabling role in all facets of the Land 400 concept development, including
delivery, training and sustainment project life-cycles and suggests it would be
reasonable to expect OneSAF to a play a role in this early stage of Land 400
project definition.
“OneSAF can be used for a wide variety of capability
development analysis tasks,” Parr explained to ADM. “For example, by using
different vehicle characteristics and capabilities, all elements of force
capability can be assessed. OneSAF can assist in analysing the impact that
differing vehicle characteristics may have on force structure and doctrine.
“The key element in gaining accurate data from OneSAF
modelling and experimentation is ensuring the entities are built to the correct
specifications and truly reflect the attributes of the vehicle’s capability.
“While OneSAF provides a platform for large-scale force
structure experimentation there are many other types of simulation that will
support Land 400 development, for example DSTO has already conducted some human
factors experimentation using Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2). In this regard
OneSAF will simply be one simulation tool used in the broader experimentation
and training activities related to Land 400.
“We would anticipate that the Project Office will expect
simulation to be a key component of Land 400’s individual and collective
training design,” Parr said. “The use of part-time, multifunction, through to
high fidelity simulation systems will all be considered part of the project’s
delivery. The use of simulation to support collective training will also be
factored. Force-on-force training should be linked with virtual simulators and
constructive systems, like OneSAF.
“Only when there is a persistent capability of linking these
three elements within the joint environment will Land 400 maximise the training
benefit of using simulation in the Joint Live, Virtual and Constructive (JLVC)
domain,” Parr said to ADM.
It is anticipated that this project will acquire simulation
services, systems and supporting infrastructure from multiple sources, and presumably
acquisition strategies for individual elements of the Land 400 LCVS capability
will be determined during first and second pass. It is likely that the
capability will be realised through a series of COTS, MOTS, and developmental
acquisitions with Australian industry in a position to compete for the
provision of hardware, software and TLS.
Commercial entities
So who are the big guns whom we suspect will be interested
in bidding for a major role in the development of simulation systems for the
various potentialities of the Land 400 LCVS, and more importantly in the
creation of a high-level synthetic battlespace within the DSE to support
coalition, combined, joint and individual training for the CAFS, as well as the
testing and evaluation of new approaches to close combat and other missions?
Boeing Australia has strong claims to the experience and
expertise to provide the foundation upon which this country’s DSE can be built.
It has developed and operates its’ advanced simulation and operations analysis
facility—the Systems Analysis Laboratory (SAL)—and has close to 20 years of
experience designing and building large distributed simulation systems for
militaries worldwide.
Lockheed Martin Australia is also an acknowledged leader in
the delivery of world class simulation and training systems. Focusing on fixed
wing pilot and aircraft maintainer training through to automated ship control
systems, LMA recognises that one size does not fit all, and the company is
working to provide scalable and tailored solutions to meet Australia’s current
and future simulation and training needs.
BAE Systems Australia boasts a range of integrated
simulation and training solutions, including desktop training systems, virtual
operational and maintenance trainers, autonomous vehicle modelling, training
needs analysis and assessment, 2D/3D graphics, terrain generation, and
simulation systems integration. Key customers include the Australian Army, RAN,
DSTO and ADSO.
Exploiting its extensive experience of synthetic training
environments, Thales
Australia has developed comprehensive set of simulators and
training aids for land forces, covering every level of army training
requirements. These include individual and crew training for technical skills
acquisition, team training for tactical skills acquisition, collective training
for on-the-field skills acquisition and combined arms training. The company is
a major leader in the area of Synthetic Environment Based Acquisition (SEBA)
and Simulation Based Acquisition (SBA).
Newcomer Rheinmetall Simulation Australia, with facilities
including those of recently acquired simulation company Sydac, now established
in Adelaide, plans to develop strong local capabilities, but draw also on its
giant parent Rheinmetall AG, in its bid for platform requirements of Land 121
and Land 400, and the ADF’s broad simulation needs
In the field of ground-forces simulation, Rheinmetall
Defence supplies made-to-measure solutions ranging from computer-based training
to driving and gunnery simulators for individual and crew training, as well as
network-enabled training systems for conducting live and virtual exercises at echelons
from platoon to brigade, featuring every form of combat support. Its ELTAM
Combined Arms Tactical Trainer enables simulation-supported training of the
command and staff elements of an entire combat battalion or battle group in a
virtual environment including all supporting elements.
Adrian Smith, chairman of Simulation Australia and former
chief executive and co-founder of Sydac, says Rheinmetall is a very serious
player
“It’s the biggest supplier of land simulation in the whole
of Europe and technically, it probably has the best product,” Smith, who now
runs Rhienmetall’s Australian simulation business.
He said that if successful with their LCVS bid the company
would likely arrange local assembly and provision of driver and crew training
systems for it.
ADM suspects that BAE Systems Australia, GD Land Systems
Australia, Thales and others would have very similar thoughts regarding their
own LCVS proposals!