thedrifter
12-02-03, 10:59 AM
Real, Virtual To Combine In War Game
The Virginian-Pilot
December 2, 2003
An upcoming war game in southern California will feature an unprecedented combination of live troops and virtual reality.
When a battalion of infantry soldiers gets "pinned down" in the Mojave Desert, Apache helicopters will provide gunfire support - without ever leaving their base in Fort Rucker, Ala.
Three Navy ships will fire Tomahawk missiles - while still at their piers in San Diego.
Carrier-based F/A-18 fighter jets will join the fray - from an air base in Nevada.
And it will all be coordinated through a command center in Suffolk.
The January exercise will use real ground troops - 3,800 soldiers from Fort Stewart, Ga., and 1,900 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. The F/A-18s overhead also will be real, although their ground-base launches will be simulated as if they took off from aircraft carriers.
But the gunfire from the helicopter and the Tomahawks fired from the ships will show up only on computers. Ground reinforcements also will be simulated.
"This is how you prepare a Tommy Franks to operate in Iraq," said R. Bowen Loftin, executive director of Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, referring to the now-retired Army general who led U.S. forces in the war with Iraq earlier this year.
The new training maneuvers were designed by the U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center, along with the ODU center - both located in rural northwest Suffolk.
Modeling and simulation, in conjunction with live forces, can help cut the cost of major training exercises and increase "jointness" in the military - the use of all the service branches. The Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, also known as JFCom, specializes in advancing the military's use of technology and improving joint operations.
"This is JFCom's centerpiece for training transformation over the next couple of years," said Tony Billings, a contract employee with Northrop Grumman and analyst for the command.
Jointness is becoming more important in the U.S. military as the war on terrorism escalates.
"As we have learned in our recent combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, the way to win decisively and to win quickly is through joint," said Cmdr. Jeff Wolsteinholme, the support division chief for the Joint National Training Capability, a division of JFCom.
This war game includes civilian and military personnel from JFCom, plus ODU undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in modeling and simulation programs. In all, about 700 people from around the country will be involved in running the computer side of the exercise.
"We see ourselves as the front end for JFCom," said VMASC's Loftin. "Our faculty and students can worry with some of the immature technologies, those not quite ready for prime time, help get the bugs out of them, and pass them on to JFCom to use.
"It is a good partnership. Our students learn a lot."
The debut exercise in January, a monthlong exercise, is called the "Western Range Complex '04 Event". The borders of California and Nevada will be modified on computer screens to create the fictional countries of Tulare (the bad guys) and Colusa (the good guys).
The two main bases in the exercise will be the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., the Army's foremost training site located in the High Mojave Desert, and the Marine Corps' Air Ground Task Force Training Command at Twentynine Palms, Calif., an oasis in the shadows of the Bullion Mountains. Troops will come from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart and the 6th Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune.
The Pacific Fleet-based F/A-18s will come from Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas. The Apache attack helicopter pilots at Fort Rucker will be manning simulators, providing gunfire support without ever leaving their Alabama hangar.
Ground troops, vehicles and planes will be fitted with tracking devices so umpires can know exactly how each performed. In the end, analysts at the various ranges will collect data and feedback from the exercise.
"We are learning a lot of lessons out of Afghanistan and a lot of lessons out of Iraq about how to use close air support," Wolsteinholme said, "how to prevent shooting our own guys down, or shooting our coalition friends down, and how do we work better to get the close air support that we need for our ground forces when they call it in.
"We are trying to get at the gaps and seams that exist between the services."
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
The Virginian-Pilot
December 2, 2003
An upcoming war game in southern California will feature an unprecedented combination of live troops and virtual reality.
When a battalion of infantry soldiers gets "pinned down" in the Mojave Desert, Apache helicopters will provide gunfire support - without ever leaving their base in Fort Rucker, Ala.
Three Navy ships will fire Tomahawk missiles - while still at their piers in San Diego.
Carrier-based F/A-18 fighter jets will join the fray - from an air base in Nevada.
And it will all be coordinated through a command center in Suffolk.
The January exercise will use real ground troops - 3,800 soldiers from Fort Stewart, Ga., and 1,900 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. The F/A-18s overhead also will be real, although their ground-base launches will be simulated as if they took off from aircraft carriers.
But the gunfire from the helicopter and the Tomahawks fired from the ships will show up only on computers. Ground reinforcements also will be simulated.
"This is how you prepare a Tommy Franks to operate in Iraq," said R. Bowen Loftin, executive director of Old Dominion University's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, referring to the now-retired Army general who led U.S. forces in the war with Iraq earlier this year.
The new training maneuvers were designed by the U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Training Analysis and Simulation Center, along with the ODU center - both located in rural northwest Suffolk.
Modeling and simulation, in conjunction with live forces, can help cut the cost of major training exercises and increase "jointness" in the military - the use of all the service branches. The Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, also known as JFCom, specializes in advancing the military's use of technology and improving joint operations.
"This is JFCom's centerpiece for training transformation over the next couple of years," said Tony Billings, a contract employee with Northrop Grumman and analyst for the command.
Jointness is becoming more important in the U.S. military as the war on terrorism escalates.
"As we have learned in our recent combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, the way to win decisively and to win quickly is through joint," said Cmdr. Jeff Wolsteinholme, the support division chief for the Joint National Training Capability, a division of JFCom.
This war game includes civilian and military personnel from JFCom, plus ODU undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in modeling and simulation programs. In all, about 700 people from around the country will be involved in running the computer side of the exercise.
"We see ourselves as the front end for JFCom," said VMASC's Loftin. "Our faculty and students can worry with some of the immature technologies, those not quite ready for prime time, help get the bugs out of them, and pass them on to JFCom to use.
"It is a good partnership. Our students learn a lot."
The debut exercise in January, a monthlong exercise, is called the "Western Range Complex '04 Event". The borders of California and Nevada will be modified on computer screens to create the fictional countries of Tulare (the bad guys) and Colusa (the good guys).
The two main bases in the exercise will be the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., the Army's foremost training site located in the High Mojave Desert, and the Marine Corps' Air Ground Task Force Training Command at Twentynine Palms, Calif., an oasis in the shadows of the Bullion Mountains. Troops will come from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart and the 6th Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune.
The Pacific Fleet-based F/A-18s will come from Nellis Air Force Base just outside Las Vegas. The Apache attack helicopter pilots at Fort Rucker will be manning simulators, providing gunfire support without ever leaving their Alabama hangar.
Ground troops, vehicles and planes will be fitted with tracking devices so umpires can know exactly how each performed. In the end, analysts at the various ranges will collect data and feedback from the exercise.
"We are learning a lot of lessons out of Afghanistan and a lot of lessons out of Iraq about how to use close air support," Wolsteinholme said, "how to prevent shooting our own guys down, or shooting our coalition friends down, and how do we work better to get the close air support that we need for our ground forces when they call it in.
"We are trying to get at the gaps and seams that exist between the services."
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: