By Ann Roosevelt
A single training capability that can be distributed from shooters to the president is the goal of the “All things Missile” initiative from U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in support of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and in partnership with all Combatant Commands (COCOMs), the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and services.
“What we’re trying to do is develop one single training capability that will stimulate all the different warning screens across all of the multiple display systems,” Patrick McVay, director of Joint Exercises and Training Directorate, U.S. Strategic Command J7, said in a telephone conference April 27.
Essentially, JFCOM, the Defense Department’s joint force provider, trainer and capabilities developer identified a training gap and is working to close it, Gregory Knapp, executive director of the JFCOM Joint Warfighting Center and Joint Training Directorate, said.
Right now, four separate and different systems exist that were developed to support their own capabilities, such as the Navy training for sailors deployed aboard Aegis ballistic missile defense ships–a tactical engagement simulation, or the MDA Defense Multi-Echelon Training System (DMETS), and the Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment.
With those four systems there are separate technology upgrades, separate contractor support, and a lack of synergy, McVay said.
Among the issues are that the DMETS is “fairly manpower intense,” he said. A team of contractors at Colorado Springs, Colo., provides it. But it is not very dynamic. “If they’re supporting a STRATCOM training event they can’t support a NORTHCOM training event because it’s one capability, and you have to have that team of contractors and that system of computers in order to do it.”
“It’s also not very portable,” McVay said. “If I’m using it, others can’t.”
All Things Missile is envisioned as able to be distributed as part of the federated capability that JFCOM can bring.
“What we’re trying to provide…is that single training capability that will integrate all these capabilities together,” he said. Another goal is to save money.
During a conference this week at JFCOM, the missile community has gathered to hammer out some agreed requirements for such a system.
“We are in the requirements development stage…and [will] try not to jump to conclusions.”
Knapp said training transformation began around 2004 and worked through standard joint tasks and are now moving into different functional areas that include WMD, Cyber I/O, and All Things Missile.
“A lot of this has not been done before. It’s the joint integrated level of training, the operational level where you really stress end-to-end,” he said. “The fact that we now have a training environment where we can have a common problem set stimulate a very diverse and distributed set of training audiences allows us to really make sure they are end to end processes fully understood and that we’re ready for any task that comes up.”
The timeline for the program is aggressive, McVay said. Once requirements are agreed, the next step is to develop technical requirements done perhaps by the end of the summer. The bottom line is we’re hoping to have some type of fully operational capability–our timeline is looking at the summer of 2011.”
Knapp said the way JFCOM builds training environments allows them to bring in very complex, multi-dimensional scenarios that can include catastrophic issues and threats so exercises won’t always project an ideal state.
“This simulation environment will allow us to have a wide range of capabilities… to bring against the training audience,” Knapp said.