Ready or not? Why US Air Force training needs to change to achieve full readiness
A recent report from the RAND Corporation has highlighted shortfalls in how the US Air Force (USAF) assesses the readiness of its forces, and makes recommendations for improvements in the service’s training infrastructure.
Aside from the problem of actually defining readiness, the report (Air Force Readiness Assessment) identifies three major gaps in its assessment: measurement of factors that come into play only when forces are integrated; readiness report aggregation that does not match force presentation; and the requirement for unit commanders to report readiness on threat environments and scenarios that they cannot or rarely train against... Continues below
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Above: Distributed mission operations training can be improved by expanding simulated activity, all based on common standards. (Photo: USAF)
The report is adamant that ‘these gaps cannot be addressed using the current training infrastructure’.
What to do? The authors identify two pathways through which ‘new synthetic training environments can address existing gaps in readiness assessment and better inform strategic decisions’.
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In the first, new training environments can improve ability and opportunity to rehearse operational scenarios and ‘provide more observations to inform readiness assessments, although the assessments may remain subjective’.
In the second, new synthetic training environments ‘can also provide opportunities to collect and, potentially, to automate the collection of readiness-relevant data that objectively capture individual and team proficiency’.
After discussion with senior USAF leaders, five main live, virtual, constructive (LVC) investment areas were identified which in their view would help address the identified gaps. These are:
- distributed mission operations (DMO) training;
- more simulators
- simulated threat environments;
- measurement of aggregated readiness; and
- adaptive, individual proficiency-driven training.
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According to the report, DMO training could be enabled by expanding activity in the simulator environment, which should be standardised and the infrastructure for connectivity modernised. DMO training for joint operations should be included.
Live training currently ‘does not accurately reflect the threat level that the operators are likely to encounter in a combat situation [while]… a simulator environment is more likely to deliver a threat emulation level closer to real combat conditions’.
The report notes that because simulators are supplied by different contractors, there are different levels of fidelity across such devices emulating different platforms, and security classification levels of synthetic training environments vary as well. This is a particular issue between fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft.
A better understanding
It is suggested that ‘standardising synthetic training environments could translate into a unified set of readiness metrics that are comparable across [those] environments and that would enable decision-makers to better understand the aggregated readiness of a combined force package’.
The report also notes the importance of being able to ‘rehearse complex missions in a common environment that has the right threat and security classification levels’, a situation that is achievable live but not in simulators.
Modernising the connectivity infrastructure is a challenge, particularly because of the budgetary issues achieving an optimal solution in an acceptable time scale would throw up.
Instead, the report suggests that the USAF begin investing in a ‘suboptimal’ way if it is to remain competitive, rather than waiting for the perfect solution. It quotes a senior ir force officer as stating that ‘this is a minimum viable product model’.
The authors note that: ‘Additional simulators will be needed to support more training being completed in simulators and the expansion of simulator training to include more participants across all services [as] not enough simulators are available for training, especially devices with high fidelity and concurrency’.
Interestingly, more readiness data is available from simulators than from real aircraft, with a senior officer saying that ‘the outcomes that we want to predict are not available in live-fly’.
Above: Additional simulators are needed to improve readiness, the RAND report argues, even if this is at the expense of more aircraft. (Photo: USAF)
A view was also expressed to the authors that in some ways additional simulators were more valuable than extra aircraft, because ‘investments in simulators and simulator training are fundamental’ and not making this training available for operators will result in mission failure.
Despite this, simulators are a lower priority than aircraft, so getting funding for them is more difficult.
Investment in synthetic threat environments is necessary because of the limited availability of ranges and range time. Here, Air Combat Command has priority at the expense, for example, of Air Mobility Command which can currently only conduct DMO training synthetically.
Additionally, Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) has a ‘high requirement for simulator training [because its operators need to fight] in a wide range of threat environments’.
The conclusion is that ‘investments are needed to support an increase in synthetic threat emitters and threat environments to satisfy training requirements for operators across several [major commands]’ to provide ‘decision-makers with insights on how well participants are performing in certain areas that have implications for readiness’.
Above: Range availability limits the amount of live training that can be carried out, with some commands currently enjoying higher levels of prioritisation than others. (Photo: USAF)
Metrics could be improved, the report suggests, with a senior officer averring that investment should be made ‘in LVC assets that promote and support a training environment that is focused on and adapts to each individual trainee’.
Such investment ‘in adaptive LVC assets that advance an individual-focused training environment would not only contribute to improving training in general but would also have the potential to facilitate a move toward a proficiency-based assessment of readiness for teams and teams of teams’.
Ultimately, this could shorten the time and resources required for individuals to achieve the required standard, and lead to more efficient use of training infrastructure overall. In turn this could free up resources for more integrated and team training, with better assessment of mission readiness.
Addressing the gaps
There are also several identified training technology developments in the offing related to addressing gaps in readiness assessment. Principal among these is the Common Synthetic Training Environment (CSTE).
This is ‘intended to provide a platform-agnostic design that centralises the computing capabilities required for incorporating synthetic models in the training environment and better enables distributed training capabilities and readiness for joint and multidomain operations.
This approach ‘intentionally shifts the focus of training capabilities away from system-specific simulators to a modular, open architecture that directly supports integrated training across air platforms’.
Implementation of the CSTE should contribute advanced training capabilities to the USAF’s operational test and training infrastructure (OTTI), will address critical technological gaps ‘presently limiting the value of training environments’ and ‘augment the Air Force’s capacity to expand training beyond what is currently possible within existing environments’.
In its conclusions the report notes, inter alia, that ‘training technologies have significant implications for readiness assessment’ and emphasises that such assessment and its existing gaps be taken into account when setting priorities for OTTI development, otherwise the full benefits of that development may not be realised.
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