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HEADQUARTERS MARINE CORPS, Washington - Simulation
training is taking some of the “field” out of training.
Though hands-on-been-there-done-that real
field experience will always be a vital part of the training cycle,
simulated training will play a much larger role in the future, said
Capt. Erik Jilson, a modeling and simulation analyst at the Technology
Division, Training and Education Command at MCB Quantico, Va. Scenario-driven
computer exercises, virtual reality video games and hi-tech equipment
simulators are meant to augment live training, saving money, time and
lives.
“The training that takes place before live
training has the goal of better preparing Marines. When live training
(occurs), less time is spent getting up to speed and the ‘in the field’
training time is more effective,” Jilson said.
Simulators usually take less time and fewer personnel to set up. Scenarios
can be played repeatedly through simulations, and many simulators also
include an after action reporting process for evaluation.
Flight simulators, like the one shown here
for the MV-22 Osprey, save time, fuel and aircraft use. Photo courtesy
of Flight Safety International
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“The best training is live, but it is costly
in training dollars,” said Truman C. Preston, assistant chief of staff,
G7, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Repetition is part of training; “the more
times you do (something) the better you get,” he said. “Simulations
are more cost effective ways to build in the repetitions needed to gain
experience.”
Simulation training also puts no wear and tear on vehicles or aircraft,
and it expends no ammunition, fuel or other expendable materials. A
2nd Marine Division commanding general in the mid-80s credited a one-week
division-level computer-assisted exercise with saving more than $70,000
in radio batteries alone, Preston said.
“Needless to say, savings in 2005 dollars would be considerably more,”
said Preston, who retired from the Corps as a lieutenant colonel after
more than 28 years.
Simulations allow Marines to make and learn from mistakes in an environment
that does not result in deaths. “Using simulations, trainers can inflict
casualties on trainees for improper tactics, bad decisions, poor team
coordination, etc., and make them bleed, so to speak,” he said.
Marines who “bleed” in the simulations, “hopefully won’t bleed in actual
combat,” he said.
Computer-based programs are the name of the
game.
Increasingly, today’ battles are fought in
a joint or combined arena. Marines in operations Enduring and Iraqi
Freedom are fighting side by side with Army, Navy and Air Force personnel
as well as forces from foreign nations.
Marines clearing a room in this screen shot
from Close Combat: First to Fight use the same weapons and tactics
as Marines currently engaged in the Global War on Terrorism.
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Marine units must train to operate seamlessly
in joint and combined environments, but live joint or combined training
exercises are not always feasible. Deployments, operational tempo, time
and logistics constraints, or a variety of other reasons are barriers
to live training, Jilson said.
Computer-based gaming systems, conducted at modeling and simulation
sites throughout the Corps, fill this training void.
Computer simulation training has been in use as far back as 1979 with
the Tactical Warfare Simulation Evaluation and Analysis System at Las
Flores on Camp Pendleton, Calif., according to Tom Buscemi, director
of I MEF’s Battle Simulation Center there. TWSEAS was based on a 35
mm slide presentation that illustrated training scenarios.
From this evolved the MAGTF Tactical Warfare Simulation, which was fielded
to the Marine Corps again at Camp Flores in 1995, Buscemi said.
MTWS is the Marine Corps’ main staff-planning model, said Preston.
With MTWS, small unit leaders, commanders
and their staffs practice command and control procedures, standard operating
procedures and techniques, tactics and procedures, said Buscemi.
MTWS produces information forces must react.
It replicates fire and maneuver, intelligence, logistics, command and
control, and force protection – all the war fighting functions. By responding
to the scenarios, the various elements within a unit or joint command
learn to operate with each other “before the trucks hit the roads, the
planes get in the air or the troops go into battle,” Buscemi said.
The ability to tailor scenarios to a unit’s
training needs, allowed 1st Marine Division and I MEF to fight MTWS
battles in preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom four times before
they ever went overseas, Buscemi said.
“A senior watch officer who was in Iraq told
me that with the exception of the causalities being real, what they
experienced in Iraq was very similar to what the simulation produced,
which emphasizes the effectiveness of the computer-driven combat simulations,”
Buscemi said.
Let the games begin.
The Marine Corps’ virtual training arsenal
has expanded to take advantage of the proliferation of video game technology.
Training and Education Command is poised to
unveil the Corps’ version of the commercial game Close Combat: First
to Fight in late spring of this year. The game is a tactical decision
simulation, first-person personal computer program designed to train
infantry Marines on fire teams.
The Marine Corps worked closely with Destineer
Studios during the development of Close Combat: First to Fight.
The Marine Corps provided thousands of pages
of doctrine and more than 40 Marines to work with a Destineer development
team to incorporate Marine Corps combat tactics into the game, said
Peter Tamte, president, Destineer Studios.
The Corps' contribution of subject matter
experts and about $900,000 resulted in a realistic fire team trainer
to which the Corps has unlimited distribution rights for Marine Corps
use, Jilson said.
The collaboration gives Destineer a game they
bill as “the real life experiences of the proud few.” They hope it better
illustrates to the gaming community the honor, courage and commitment
it takes to be a Marine, said Tamte.
The production of an average video game costs
between $5 million and $20 million, said Tamte.
Marine Corps input is pervasive throughout
the game.
In First to Fight, a player selects three
men from a roster of 20 characters to fill his four-man fire team. About
15 of the characters are based on active duty Marines. “We hope that
surrounding players with real-life Marines will help create a taste
of what it might be like to actually be a Marine in urban combat,” said
Tamte.
Staff Sgt. Hector “Casanova” Arellano, with
3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion, 1st Marine Division, had just returned
from Operation Iraqi Freedom I when he was approached to help with the
game.
He provided input on fire team tactics like clearing stairs and rooms
and moving under fire, said Arellano, a Los Angeles native who is also
featured as one of the characters in the game.
The commercial version, which will be available
for X-Box, Macintosh and Windows, is scheduled for release in March
for about $40.
"While (tactical decision simulations) are
games, when used with a training plan and facilitation they are valuable
tools for improving war fighting skills," said Jilson.
Although the Corps has been involved with
other TDSs like Operation Flashpoint, which was later renamed Virtual
Battlefield Systems One, “usually it is a small-scale program or involves
modifications after development is completed,” said Jilson.
The MEF simulation centers and infantry military
occupational specialty schoolhouses already using TDSs will be the first
to get Close Combat: First to Fight. Units interested in the TDS should
contact their MEF simulation center or the Technology Division of the
Training and Education Command.
Training in the Air …
The next step to more realistic simulation
training takes Marines out of the computer room and puts them into equipment
simulators.
Pilots at Marine Medium Tilt Rotor Training
Squadron 204 based at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., spend
considerably more time in simulators training to fly the MV-22 Osprey
than in the actual aircraft, said Col. Joel “Coach” Kane, the commanding
officer of the squadron.
During the four-month initial instruction
phase of the curriculum, pilots are in the MV-22 Full Flight Simulator
60 hours and in the aircraft 36, Kane said. “Flight simulators do an
outstanding job of introducing pilots and aircrew to a specific type,
model or series of aircraft.”
The Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that takes
off like a helicopter. Thanks to the two rotors mounted to its wings
that tilt forward, it can convert to fly as a plane. This transition
“creates some unique aerodynamic challenges that pilots must work through,”
Kane said.
In the simulators, a student pilot “gets a
feel” for what is required to maintain control of the aircraft “long
before ever getting into the seat of an actual MV-22,” he said.
A mistake in the aircraft could result in
the loss of life and a more than $80 million dollar aircraft. A mistake
in the simulator means a reboot by the instructor and students try again.
On Land …
Marines attending the M-1A1 Main Battle Tank
crewman course at the Army’s Armor Center at Fort Knox, Ky., know of
the demand for M-1A1 Tank Drivers Simulators.
The simulators are mock-ups of tank compartments.
The boxed compartments are mounted to mechanical systems so that when
students move the controls the compartments move, said Master Sgt. Bernard
Prevost, the operations chief at the Marine Corps Detachment there.
Due to the high demand for simulator time,
students average only about four hours in the simulators, but those
four hours are valuable, Prevost said.
“Tanks are kind of hard to stop and it’s better
to make your mistakes in the simulators; it greatly reduces your mistakes
out in the training field,” he said.
Not only do the simulators get first-timer
mistakes out of the way, they increase the variety of a student’s training
experience. The basic tank course is only 53 training days long, but
with the simulators a student attending during summer can still learn
how to operate the tank in winter conditions, he said.
“The simulators change not just the weather
but the terrain; whatever the simulator operators dictate,” he said.
… And Sea
Another up and coming vehicle that will rely
on equipment simulators during training is the Expeditionary Fighting
Vehicle. The EFV, currently in development, is the next generation of
AAV.
Seven different types of trainers are planned
for specific areas or tasks in the EFV, according to Daniel Dykstra,
the division head for Manpower, Personnel, and Training of the Logistics
Directorate under the Direct Reporting Program Manager Advanced Amphibious
Assault. Planned simulators include a driver simulator, a turret simulator
and a weapons station maintenance trainer.
The trainers are still in development and
have yet to be tested. They will support a curriculum that is being
developed. Based on a study by Program Manager for Training Systems,
Marine Corps Systems Command, based in Orlando, Fla., students can expect
to spend 20 to 50 hours in the more complex simulators, like the driver
and turret simulators, Dykstra said.
Initial operational fielding, the first fielding
of limited quantities of EFVs, is scheduled for fiscal year 2010, according
to the currently proposed budget. The EFV training systems should arrive
at the Amphibian Assault School Battalion at Camp Pendleton in fiscal
year 2006.
The value of simulation training to augment
live training is apparent. Wherever it is determined that virtual training
– simulation – is the correct technology for training, it will be applied,
said Jilson.
© 2005 Headquarters Marine Corps.
All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
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