Convoy Training Enablers
CONVOY TRAINING ENABLERS
There is a sense of urgency on the part of the military-industry team
to field technology enhancements and new systems that will better allow
the services’ convoy operators to train as they will operate.
By Marty Kauchak
In December 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus, commander, Multinational Force Iraq, provided a cautiously upbeat assessment of recent U.S. and coalition military developments in Iraq. The two leaders reported progress in bringing down the U.S. troop numbers in Iraq, and reducing the number of Iraqi deaths and acts of violence against that population by about 60 percent during the last six months.
These gains aside, Iraq and a second theater of operations, Afghanistan, remain dangerous places for U.S. forces. While the requirement to operate in convoys continues for the services’ ground personnel, the service men and women assigned to convoy duty must also detect and defeat new asymmetric threats that continue to be introduced by a very adaptive and agile enemy.
There is a sense of urgency on the part of the military-industry team to field technology that will better allow the services’ convoy operators to train as they will operate. Convoy training systems’ hardware and software are being upgraded to increase the fidelity of the virtual training experience—with the promise of more enhancements and new systems in the near future.
The Requirement
The Army’s expanding fleet of convoy trainers supports a mission that has not waned with troop redeployments and reported improvements in in-theater security conditions. “The requirement for convoy training has not slackened. Its emphasis remains as important and as a high priority as it was 6 or even 12 months ago,” pointed out Lieutenant Colonel Scott Pulford, product manager, Ground Combat Tactical Trainers (GCTT), U.S. Army PEO STRI.
The Marines will also complete convoy training well into the foreseeable future. “Convoy training requirements will not change. Marines must be prepared to respond as directed by higher authority,” remarked 1st Lieutenant Geraldine Carey, PAO, Marine Corps Systems Command.
Against this broad requirement, industry is providing hardware and software upgrades for the services’ convoy trainer fleets to better prepare warfighters for a dynamic battlefield.
One Army Product - Line Evolves
While the Army’s growing fleet of convoy trainers allows its training audiences to complete virtually individual and unit training, and tactics and procedures, before they utilize them in a live-training event or combat, the scenarios’ instructional design remains focused on higher-level skills. “They really focus on challenging the leaders and building their decision-making skills that they go through related to any kind of incident,” observed Pulford.
Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training & Support (STS)-delivered Virtual Combat Convoy Trainer (VCCT) and Close Combat Tactical Trainer-Reconfigurable Vehicle Simulator (CCTT-RVS) have been used to train Army and other services’ warfighters to achieve higher-level skills and other competencies needed for these missions since 2004 in the case of VCCT, and 2006 for CCTT-RVS. Lockheed Martin has delivered 23 VCCT and 28 CCTT-RVS systems, which have provided training to over 108,000 servicemembers through October 2007, according to Andre Elias, director, virtual training solutions, Lockheed Martin.
The VCCT consists of a 53-foot, self-contained, deployable commercial trailer, capable of integration with other company training devices, including the CCTT-RVS and other CCTT family trainers. The trainer uses a full-scale HMMWV and simulation system that replicates scenarios troops might encounter, and it enables combat crews to communicate, maintain situational awareness and acquire targets, while moving at highway speeds operating in a convoy environment.
The Army’s plan for upgrading its VCCT and CCTT-RVS trainers to keep them relevant includes both technology enhancements for both trainers, and capability improvements such as integrating route clearance units and the mission into its VCCTs.
The highest priority upgrade would increase the VCCT’s current 270-degree (horizontal) field-of-view (FOV) visual system to 360 degrees. “This is a spin-off of the CCTT-RVS that feeds into Lockheed Martin STS’s Marine Corps’ combat convoy simulator that just [went] underway. We have seen the importance of giving the crew a more immersive feel for their training experience,” reflected Pulford.
The second PEO STRI priority will further integrate the VCCTs into the legacy CCTT family of systems.
The CTT-RVS supports up to five crewmembers—vehicle commander, driver, two crew, plus a gunner for vehicle variants with a separate gunner position. The initial five vehicle variants of this Army-specific project include two cargo and armored versions of HMMWV, the Stryker fire support vehicle, and two cargo and fuel tanker versions of the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck.
The RVS trainer interfaces directly with existing CCTT mobile and fixed-training sites and is also compatible with VCCT.
The CCTT-RVS is housed in a mobile trailer designed and produced for Lockheed Martin STS by Mobilized Systems Inc. FATS (Meggitt Training Systems) is the second source subcontractor.
Response to Convoy Mission Changes
The Army has recently established route clearance companies and supplied them with a wide array of technologies for mine clearance and improvised explosive device (IED) detection and neutralization, and equipment that includes unmanned ground vehicles, the Buffalo, Cougar and other mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, and other systems. This community has moved quickly to establish virtual convoy training for its force.
“PM Assured Mobility has responsibility for these systems, and they used PM GCTT to develop a VCCT-like service that we established at Fort Hood, Texas, the week of November 25, 2007,” revealed Pulford. While noting that the device has many of the
attributes of a VCCT, he added, “We are driving in a mix of Cougars, Buffaloes and other vehicles to complete mine clearing, route clearing, and IED detection and defeat-type training tasks. This is all layered on top of the all the command and control, land navigation, reporting tasks that have to happen with a route clearance convoy that must get from points A-to-B.”
Raydon supplied its route clearance training system (RCTS) to meet the Army’s route clearance training requirement. “Ninety days after contract award we went from conceptualization to product delivery,” recalled Don Ariel, chairman and chief strategy officer, Raydon. “With the new physics we infused in the next generation of gaming technology, you have the ability to use the interrogator arms from the Buffalo—to actually physically move things around—that’s the kind of technology we are putting into our product pushes,” he added.
Second Army Solution
Raydon has supplied a Virtual Combat Operations Trainer (VCOT) and its variant of the VCCT to the Army’s active and National Guard components. Both systems are trailer-based and immerse HMMWV crews in an integrated learning, geospecific and cultural-typical environment that is fed to the student via a 360 degree (horizontal) FOV visual display maximizing situational awareness.
Upgrades to Raydon’s two trainer models allow them to keep pace with its customers’ dynamic tactics, techniques and procedures. For one application, “we are adding a dismounted capability to allow the crew in back the ability to conduct searches outside the vehicle as their evolving doctrine requires,” said Ariel.
Two other VCOT and VCCT upgrades are increasing the fidelity of asymmetric training and the scenarios’ content library.
While the early trainers supported Baghdad missions, the cultural-typical venues have evolved to include corridors between Baghdad-Tikrit and other Iraqi cities, routes in Kabul and other Afghan cities, and in Bosnia. “As we build up that content library, we can also build titles on top of it—ambush, IEDs and those type of things,” he remarked.
Raydon has delivered 34 VCOTs to the Army National Guard and nine VCCT units to its Army customer, totaling more than 550 convoy seats. “The Army National Guard has the largest convoy training fleet of all the components,” pointed out Ariel.
The company is exploring how to integrate military convoy training missions into other organizations’ requirements. “The Defense Language Institute has asked us to configure a unique convoy training application that matches their objectives. And several of the states are now acquiring capabilities themselves as they set up their regional training areas. So we are seeing an aggressive demand with a lot of pull in different directions—beyond getting the technology to the warfighter,” he concluded.
New Entry
The U.S. Marine Corps awarded a $52.5 million contract to Lockheed Martin STS in October 2007 to develop a new generation of immersive convoy simulators. The company is using its technology foundation on which to build the next-generation combat convoy simulator (CCS). The system is being produced by Lockheed Martin STS at its Orlando facility. Initial CSS unit delivery is expected in summer 2008.
The proposed locations for the 10 CSS systems are “Camp Pendleton, Calif.; Camp Lejeune, N.C.; Marine Corps Base Hawaii; Camp Hansen, Okinawa; and various reserve training sites that have yet to be announced,” said Carey.
Each simulator will have six, five-man crew simulator student stations, representing four HMMWVs and two Medium Tactical Vehicle replacements. The stations will be located in adjoining rooms in one building and linked together to allow deploying units to virtually train as they will operate. The student stations will be networked to an instructor-operator workstation.
The current generation of simulation weapons in a convoy trainer is commonly tethered to a workstation. As a weapon is fired, machines send pulses of pressurized air through a cable to simulate the recoil. One of the CSS’s technology improvements will be the inclusion of wireless weapons. FATS (Meggitt Training Systems) is the CSS sub-contractor for supplying the weapons simulations.
“The customer wanted the small-arm weapons to be wireless to make it much easier for trainee to maneuver in and out of the vehicle, and complete other tasks,” remarked Lockheed Martin’s Elias.
The STS team will also use technology enhancements that were developed through in-house research and development efforts. “We’ve invested in better visual fidelity. When you see the imagery you will see a more visually-rich environment over the full 360 degree (horizontal) field-of-view,” said Elias. The CSS’s imagery will be projected on eight screens and on a vehicle’s rearview mirror.
The fidelity of the CSS scenarios has also been bolstered over existing systems. “The animation of the characters has improved. There are a larger number of moving vehicles and people, and there are enhanced crowd and vehicle behaviors. These are things the trainees will notice and appreciate, as they add to the realism of the mission,” noted Elias.
The Army is also watching with interest the progress of the Marine-specific program. “From my program office and PM CATT as a whole, we are going to watch how that develops and evolves. As the technologies mature, the training tasks and technologies that support them will certainly be eligible to migrate to the Army VCCT and CCTT- RVS programs of record or to future service contracts,” added PEO STRI’s Pulford.
Industry Help Needed for the Future
As the route clearance mission matures, there is a tremendous opportunity to integrate the burgeoning fleet of unmanned ground and air vehicles that conduct IED and mine detection and clearance tasks into convoy route clearance training scenarios.
“Integrating and weaving those systems into the virtual training systems that support convoy operations, and now route clearance missions, is an area that I am going to be asking industry for more involvement and support in the future,” promised Pulford. ♦