The Use of Simulators and “Synthetic” Environments for Advanced Tactical Training

Jon's note: so my one-week August hiatus turned into a month-long break. Family and work obligations will always take precedence. I managed to write a few weeks worth of new pieces over the last few days, though, and I hope to maintain that pace for the remainder of the summer and early fall.

In late July, USNI News reported that the Navy will build a training center at NAS Fallon that will include simulators for three Aegis cruiser Combat Information Centers (CIC), two E-2D Hawkeyes, and eight F/A-18s. These simulators will be linked such that aircrews and CIC watchstanders will be able to “fight” training scenarios as an integrated force. Additional ship and aircraft simulators will be added over time. Eventually, a datalink will be introduced that enables actual aircraft flying on Fallon’s training ranges to inject themselves into the scenarios being run on the simulators.

A facility like this can never fully replicate the complexities of operating at sea. Simulators are getting better and better at representing the intricacies and variability of real-world radiofrequency and acoustic conditions, but there’s nothing quite like the real thing. Moreover, land-based synthetic training can only partially capture the operational constraints—and crew performance effects—caused by varying weather conditions.

Land-based (and pierside) synthetic training, however, will fill at least two critically important niches in developing our naval forces’ advanced tactical proficiency. First, a crew that isn’t at sea can focus its training attention entirely on the fight. The tactical foundation it gains inside or linked with the simulators is thus already strong when its battleforce begins its underway workups. As less underway time will likely need to be spent on basic skills refreshment, more underway time will be available for advanced scenarios and experimentation. Considering the fact that funding for underway periods will likely continue to be highly constrained in the coming years, and considering the high overseas demand for our inadequately-sized fleet’s ships and aircraft, land-based advanced tactical training will allow the Navy to extract maximum value from each underway opportunity it receives.

Second, this synthetic training will allow crews to operate under tactical conditions and employ tactics that they simply could not do (or for security reasons would not want to do) at sea in peacetime. As I’ve noted previously:

“Some doctrinal elements or tactics that are considered war-critical, as well as tactical situations too complex to generate in forward theaters, can be practiced in home operating areas. In-port synthetic training can also be used for these purposes; it has the added benefits of enabling more frequent and intensive training than may be possible at sea…” (Pg. 106)

The Navy’s Director of Air Warfare, RADM Mike Manazir, alluded to this in the USNI News article on the Fallon facility:

“I can’t train to that highest level in clear air. I’m not allowed to use those modes in clear air. We typically have called those war-reserve modes, and if you go out on a range and you use a war-reserve mode there is a chance that anybody watching could collect information on that war-reserve mode…In this way, in a [virtual-constructive] environment, we can use all of those capabilities…I can give them the worst day of their life that we hope they would never see during deployment…The operation of their missiles and their weapons systems will adequately show what kind of jamming they’re going to see.”

Unit and group-level synthetic training, whether at facilities like Fallon or via pierside training environments in homeport, will allow the Navy to condition its crews for operating under intense and protracted cyber-electromagnetic opposition without safety risks to actual fleet assets. Moreover, it allows those crews to practice, experiment with, and innovate electromagnetic maneuver warfare doctrine and tactics using tools that—if smartly architected—will do much to reduce the risk of disclosure to potential adversaries. That’s a big deal.

Aggressive use of synthetic land-based or pierside tactical training can never completely replace at-sea tactical training. But if synthetic training is designed and executed in ways such that it tightly complements at-sea training, the benefits to fleetwide tactical proficiency and combat conditioning could be immense.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.