I/ITSEC 2024 — One of the key advantages the US believes it has over its peer competitors is the sophistication and depth of the training that its members must pass through before they depart for their given missions. That belief has only been reinforced after more than two and a half years of the war in Ukraine, where reports emerged of Russian recruits having as few as two weeks of training before being sent to the front and suffering horrendously high casualty rates.
Speaking with the different firms and organizations present at this year’s Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), it is clear the training and simulation community is trying to take lessons from real-world conflicts in order to keep training as relevant as possible for the modern warfighter.
New and rapidly-evolving elements on the battlefield of today are not so much turning training and simulation requirements upside down as they are adding new modules to the training syllabus, according to speakers at this year’s conference.
During the opening ceremonies here today, Vice CNO Adm. James W. Kirby and Lt. Gen. Benjamin T. Watson, the head of the USMC Training and Education Command, highlighted how critical the training function has become in a time when weapon systems are becoming increasingly complex and expensive.
Describing one ground vehicle as “an F-35 on wheels,” Watson pointed out that this kind of hardware is too expensive to procure and operate to be putting endless op-tempo “hours on these platforms just to build proficiency.” That means a “steeply increasing need for simulation” in order to keep costs down and vehicle lifespans up.
The two officers noted that everyone’s favorite buzzword, “artificial intelligence,” also has an important function in the training and simulation space, where it could enhance the effectiveness of the warfighter through “predictive analysis.”
In a panel following the industry keynote address, Watson elaborated on this point by sketching the terrain likely to be confronted by many US military commanders in any coming conflict, noting “You cannot train units and personnel once the fighting begins without leaving gaps in then-operational forces.”
“If you believe you are going to have insufficient time to be prepared, insufficient force capacity when the conflict begins and that we are going to be tested,” then having the most realistic, high-end training possible is vital, Watson said. “If you do not have your assets in a position to be relevant when the conflict arises then you will not get to a point where you will be prepared within a relevant timeline.”
He also emphasized that any future combat scenario will involve being under near-constant surveillance, something the US military needs to be adapting to and training on now.
The comments from the two officers were largely in line with what exhibitors were discussing, or showing off, on the conference floor.
I/ITSEC, which originally began as largely a US Navy and other military services event, has since evolved into a conference that pulls in all the service branches, US federal agencies, major defense contractors, healthcare firms, transportation specialists and cyber warriors.
“It is one of those few defense industry events where you see snake-eaters, wrench-turners and computer nerds in the same room — and talking with one another in a common language about common problems,” said one of the participants on the floor.
Although not a major focus of the officer’s opening comments, a tour of the show floor reveals a clear acknowledgement of the overwhelming presence of drones of all shapes, sizes and mission profiles on the modern battlefield. But training and simulation for drone warfare is expanding well beyond the need to create capable and competent drone pilots.
More than one contractor was displaying a product line that enables the warfighter to now hit back against the wave of these low-altitude battlefield drones. At one end of the scale are simple training systems that teach an infantryman the easiest and most effective ways to shoot down a UAV, while the other end of the scale features a new electronic warfare simulation of how to take out large numbers of Russian drones.
In one of the more recent large-scale Russian drone attacks, Ukrainian EW systems managed to take out more than 50 suicide, one-way drones and “disoriented” several others that returned to base when their guidance packages were scrambled, meaning that kind of large-scale EW effort is going to be important for the US and its allies to keep concurrent on.