thedrifter
09-30-07, 05:10 PM
Marines define simulation objectives through 2017
By Jack Weible - jweible@militarytimes.com
Posted : October 08, 2007
The Marine Corps has put together a 10-year master plan that plots how to take advantage of major modeling and simulation changes. The Training Modeling and Simulation Master Plan, finished earlier this year, lays out objectives for the Corps through 2017, with specific goals for 2009, 2014, and beyond and breaks down the strategy for reaching them into near-term years, 2007-2009; midterm, 2010-2014; and far term, 2015-2017.
“The objective is a robust, agile, and scalable M&S [modeling and simulation] infrastructure and family of systems that increases efficiency by providing increased opportunities to make decisions from the procedural level to the [Marine Air Ground Task Force] level that satisfies conditions and standards associated with training and readiness standards,” the document says.
Maj. James McDonough develops M&S requirements at the service’s Training and Education Command in Quantico, Va., which is spearheading the master plan. He said the Corps had last developed a training master plan in 1994.
“Obviously, a lot has happened in the past 13 years,” McDonough said.
Rather than write a hundreds-of-pages-long document that nobody would read, he said, TECom drew up a 15-page plan with appendices that lays out major milestones.
“It’s not prescriptive; it provides flexibility for changes in the future,” he said.
The plan says that while today’s training tools and simulators technologies are available to Marines at all levels of command, their use is “ad hoc and problematic as the operating forces and training commands struggle with operational commitments and other training commitments.
“At all levels within the Marine Expeditionary Forces, and within the formal training centers and schools, insufficient M&S system capacity and resources exist to adequately support the increasing demand for basic procedural training needs,” the plan adds bluntly.
The plan cites a number of M&S capabilities that are anticipated to aid in live, virtual and constructive training within two years, including the Combined Arms C2 Training Upgrade System, acquisition of Virtual Battlespace 2 software, fielding of the Deployable Virtual Training Environment to the regimental level and persistent access to the Joint Training and Experimentation Network simulation centers. It says a validation of those systems is necessary to ensure they are supported properly and fielded at the appropriate time to meet near- and midterm requirements.
And while the near-term M&S focus should be on establishing management processes and oversight, validating requirements and “establishing a baseline,” the document recommends that the fielding of systems be done as quickly as possible to aid Marines fighting in the war and anti-terrorism efforts.
If the Corps accomplishes its myriad objectives through 2017, the master plan sees the “end state” of Marine Corps ground training featuring these M&S attributes:
• Training policy, organization and processes reinforce existing Marine and joint capabilities development and integration activities.
• Institutionalized M&S throughout the force, with sufficient availability of training simulation technology, resources, infrastructure and technical support. “Capability will be sufficient in both the operating forces and at formal training centers and schools to satisfy individual and collective training requirements while in-garrison, afloat or ashore; and will be available through embedded, simulated or stimulated capability in new equipment and systems that support operator and maintainer system training,” it says.
• Inter- and intra-component training down to the company level and enabled by virtual and constructive simulations with editable scenarios, access to terrain libraries, real-world imagery and video, and interoperable with or embedded within operational C2, weapons systems and sensors. Systems will be capable of interoperating via a fully networked training environment that is Joint National Training Capability compliant.
• “Simulation systems will utilize tailorable artificial intelligence and intelligent agents that exercise levels of decision-making through application of tactics, techniques and procedures; rules of engagement; and the Law of Armed Conflict. Systems will also have a robust capability to model and simulate kinetic and non-kinetic military operations, to include nation-building, force protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief that incorporate political, economic, cultural and informational lines of operation.”
McDonough said the master plan has been approved by TECom and that officials are awaiting a Corps-wide order on the M&S management structure that will be tied to an ongoing Defense Department initiative to reorder the look of modeling and simulation.
Funds will also be reallocated to reflect the heightened focus on M&S, he said. Ë
Ellie
By Jack Weible - jweible@militarytimes.com
Posted : October 08, 2007
The Marine Corps has put together a 10-year master plan that plots how to take advantage of major modeling and simulation changes. The Training Modeling and Simulation Master Plan, finished earlier this year, lays out objectives for the Corps through 2017, with specific goals for 2009, 2014, and beyond and breaks down the strategy for reaching them into near-term years, 2007-2009; midterm, 2010-2014; and far term, 2015-2017.
“The objective is a robust, agile, and scalable M&S [modeling and simulation] infrastructure and family of systems that increases efficiency by providing increased opportunities to make decisions from the procedural level to the [Marine Air Ground Task Force] level that satisfies conditions and standards associated with training and readiness standards,” the document says.
Maj. James McDonough develops M&S requirements at the service’s Training and Education Command in Quantico, Va., which is spearheading the master plan. He said the Corps had last developed a training master plan in 1994.
“Obviously, a lot has happened in the past 13 years,” McDonough said.
Rather than write a hundreds-of-pages-long document that nobody would read, he said, TECom drew up a 15-page plan with appendices that lays out major milestones.
“It’s not prescriptive; it provides flexibility for changes in the future,” he said.
The plan says that while today’s training tools and simulators technologies are available to Marines at all levels of command, their use is “ad hoc and problematic as the operating forces and training commands struggle with operational commitments and other training commitments.
“At all levels within the Marine Expeditionary Forces, and within the formal training centers and schools, insufficient M&S system capacity and resources exist to adequately support the increasing demand for basic procedural training needs,” the plan adds bluntly.
The plan cites a number of M&S capabilities that are anticipated to aid in live, virtual and constructive training within two years, including the Combined Arms C2 Training Upgrade System, acquisition of Virtual Battlespace 2 software, fielding of the Deployable Virtual Training Environment to the regimental level and persistent access to the Joint Training and Experimentation Network simulation centers. It says a validation of those systems is necessary to ensure they are supported properly and fielded at the appropriate time to meet near- and midterm requirements.
And while the near-term M&S focus should be on establishing management processes and oversight, validating requirements and “establishing a baseline,” the document recommends that the fielding of systems be done as quickly as possible to aid Marines fighting in the war and anti-terrorism efforts.
If the Corps accomplishes its myriad objectives through 2017, the master plan sees the “end state” of Marine Corps ground training featuring these M&S attributes:
• Training policy, organization and processes reinforce existing Marine and joint capabilities development and integration activities.
• Institutionalized M&S throughout the force, with sufficient availability of training simulation technology, resources, infrastructure and technical support. “Capability will be sufficient in both the operating forces and at formal training centers and schools to satisfy individual and collective training requirements while in-garrison, afloat or ashore; and will be available through embedded, simulated or stimulated capability in new equipment and systems that support operator and maintainer system training,” it says.
• Inter- and intra-component training down to the company level and enabled by virtual and constructive simulations with editable scenarios, access to terrain libraries, real-world imagery and video, and interoperable with or embedded within operational C2, weapons systems and sensors. Systems will be capable of interoperating via a fully networked training environment that is Joint National Training Capability compliant.
• “Simulation systems will utilize tailorable artificial intelligence and intelligent agents that exercise levels of decision-making through application of tactics, techniques and procedures; rules of engagement; and the Law of Armed Conflict. Systems will also have a robust capability to model and simulate kinetic and non-kinetic military operations, to include nation-building, force protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief that incorporate political, economic, cultural and informational lines of operation.”
McDonough said the master plan has been approved by TECom and that officials are awaiting a Corps-wide order on the M&S management structure that will be tied to an ongoing Defense Department initiative to reorder the look of modeling and simulation.
Funds will also be reallocated to reflect the heightened focus on M&S, he said. Ë
Ellie