The sight of ACVs in live exercises is likely to become less common as the USMC shifts to greater use of simulators. (Photo: USMC)
How to deliver driver training when the real vehicle is too valuable to use
As combat vehicles grow in sophistication, so does their cost of operation, making their use for crew training uneconomic and putting them at risk of loss in accidents. Are current simulators up to the task, and how must training provision evolve to reflect this new reality?
Lieutenant General Benjamin Watson, Commanding General, United States Marine Corps Training and Education Command, acknowledged a growing need for expanded use of ground vehicle simulators during December’s Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) event... Continues below
This analysis article originally appeared in January's Decisive Edge Military Training Newsletter.
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Appearing in a “fireside chat” session, he began his argument by summarising marine corps training capabilities from entry level through to integrated warfare exercises. “Our equivalent of the [US] Navy's surface fleet is the ground vehicle enterprise within the marine corps that supports our ground and logistics portions of the MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Task Force].
“We have traditionally not been very good there in terms of particularly leveraging technology to support training to maximise the capability of the force and preserve resources. But it is becoming an imperative.”
Simulation can now be used to train for a wide range of scenarios, including vehicle rollovers, without putting people and expensive vehicles at risk. (Photo: US Army)
He continued: “That used to be kind of a ‘nice to have’ thing, and we were often penny wise and pound foolish, in that we would buy a thing and cut costs by [downplaying] the simulator. And you could get away with that when you were talking about old jeeps and five-ton trucks and things like that. You come in, you get a driver's licence, you learn a little bit of 'knobology' on the vehicle and you're going to be fine.”
Watson emphasised that the situation is very different with vehicle systems being fielded by the marines today: “Look at things like the Amphibious Combat Vehicle [ACV], where we've got a lot of hard-learned lessons over the last few years about investment up front in a new vehicle.”
Turning to future equipment, he added: “I look at the couple of prototypes we're still evaluating as we move into the Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle [ARV] space as a replacement for our Light Armored Vehicle (LAV). And that ARV is like an F-35 with wheels on the ground. I mean, it’s a sensor platform, highly sophisticated and absolutely requiring an integrated crew to operate. And if you just train the driver and then train the individual systems operators, you will never be able to maximise the opportunity of that platform.”
In Watson’s opinion, “those platforms are sophisticated enough and expensive enough that we cannot just go out and do live force training to build proficiency. So we have got to get smarter and bake in the training requirements within the acquisitions and fielding process right up front when we do this, not kind of sprinkle the training portion on afterwards. We might have been able to get away with that at some risk to the force a long time ago, but we cannot afford that on any level right now.”
Watson also referenced a previous question from an audience member over whether the expanded use of simulator training could reduce rollover accidents and increase overall vehicle and crew safety.
He pointed to the criticality of the “human costs” behind such accidents and the need for adequate training to avoid these unacceptable losses. “Human cost has always been the same,” he said. “It's always been something that we cannot afford.”
Turning to the current personnel environment focused on recruiting, retention and potentially growing the size of the force, Watson added: “We have even less ability to absorb those [human] costs. So I think ground vehicle safety is absolutely relevant. But as the vehicles have become much more exquisite and expensive, we can much less afford to lose the vehicles than we could in the past, because we can't replace them, either fiscally or from a technical production standpoint, nearly as fast. So I think that's a really valid point.”
Lastly, Watson highlighted a further challenge impacting the ground vehicle operator environment, stating: “I don't know about all of you, but the day I turned 16 I was standing in line at the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] before they opened, to get my driver's licence. But now an awful lot of young men and women come into our armed forces without any driver experience. So things like that also play into the importance of investment here.”
These problems are not unique to the USMC and Watson’s candour in addressing the matter is refreshing. While networked whole-crew simulators are becoming increasingly sophisticated, most would agree that there is no substitute for driving and the real thing to prepare for combat operations.
As Watson argues, a fundamental change of approach is truly needed. Simulators also have a cost and changing the basic philosophy will take time. Balancing these factors will be a key focus for those in charge of crew training at the USMC and other armed forces around the world.
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