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A significant trend in US Army training over the next year will involve
the introduction of Blended Training, a “train as you fight” initiative that
will give commanders the ability to build training scenarios that seam-
lessly integrate live, virtual, constructive and game-based training.
The US Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and
Instrumentation (PEO STRI) is responsible for providing commanders
with a “toolkit” of those training capabilities as well as the means to
integrate those four facets of training.
“Previously when we have trained staffs outside of the CTCs
[Combat Training Centers], it was done separatly from the maneuver
units,” explained Sergeant Major Pat Ogden, Senior Enlisted Adviser to
PEO STRI. “With the Blended Training environment, we are going to be
able to exercise the staff through constructive simulation and at the
same time have units operating in the live, virtual and gaming realms
that will interact with the Mission Command Center and force the staff
to not only work through the issues they are facing in the constructive
environment but simultaneously monitor what’s going on in the live, vir-
tual, and gaming environments, thereby adding more realistic stress
to the staff, as you would have in a combat environment.”
“The value of blended training is that it allows the Army to train
more efficiently in a less expensive manner,” he said. “Live training is
extremely expensive. As you can imagine, when you start putting fuel
and ammunition in the systems that we use it gets to be expensive.
So a commander will now be able to choose how best to utilize
his units.”
“In addition, not all installations have enough maneuver space to
allow their units to get out and do free play maneuver on a battalion
level or higher,” he added. “With the virtual link we can have multiple
units training at the same time on less terrain.”
“The advantage to the commander is flexibility,” Ogden said. “He
doesn’t have to be tied to: ‘When can he get an entire installation or
an entire maneuver area to put his units on the ground?’ Maybe he
can only get a piece of what he needs to maneuver one unit. So he
could put one unit in a live environment; another unit in a virtual envi-
ronment; another unit in a gaming environment; and use the time-
frame that he has to exercise the staff simultaneously.”
Ogden, whose own belief in the value of virtual training was estab-
lished as a young sergeant/master gunner in the mid-1980s when
his unit’s unit gunnery was clearly improved through the use of a Unit
Conduct-of-Fire Trainer (UCOFT), points to a number of Blended
Training advantages for young warfighters.
“It’s a very, very difficult environment that they face,” he observed.
“But through gaming and virtual training we can get these young men
and women to exercise their minds to gain that agility they need to
operate in that environment. In other words, the more often I
rehearse something in the virtual or the gaming environment, it
becomes a natural reaction – So when I’m able to apply it in a live
environment or must apply it in a combat situation it’s second
nature.”
Army Trends Towards Blended Training
(
Blended Training, p3
)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2011
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THE OFFICIAL DAILY NEWS DIGEST OF I/ITSEC 2011
