Battle Group Poland’s British Army contingent, Poacher Troop, practiced reconnaissance firing and maneuvering during a live-fire exercise at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, September 1, 2021.
Poacher Troop is Battle Group Poland’s primary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance asset.
BEMOWO PISKIE TRAINING AREA, POLAND
09.01.2021
Video by Sgt. 1st Class Adrian Patoka
Enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup Poland
By Robbin Laird and Pierre Tran
On September 22, 2021, we had a chance to meet Army General (retired) Didier Castres and discuss the evolution of military operations and strategy under president Macron.
Castres is a highly experienced staff officer who has been engaged in activities associated with crisis management and the French forces.
He is a graduate of Saint Cyr military college and spent most of his operational career in the Infanterie de marine. He became deputy to the chief of staff of the president of the Republic from 2005-2009 with presidents Chirac and Sarkozy, and then commanded for five years from 2009-2011 the Centre de Planification et de Conduite des Opérations (CPCO), the planning cell for operations attached to the Etat Major des Armées (EMA), or general staff. He then was appointed deputy chief of staff for operations from 2011 to 2016 with the general staff.
While at the EMA, Castres participated in a number of operations either led by France or with France working within EU, NATO or UN coalitions, in Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, the Central African Republic, Iraq, and Syria. He worked on the planning and command of the Serval and Barkhane operations. Then in 2016, he was appointed Inspecteur général des armées. He retired in 2020 from the French army and created a consulting firm focused on defense, notably with regard to African issues.
We had a wide-ranging discussion with Castres, looking at many aspects of the challenges facing crisis management for French forces and for those of French allies.
His deep knowledge of both national and coalition operations informed his discussion of the significant challenges which the Western states face in defending their interests in the context of strategic change.
Towards the end of our discussion, we focused on president Macron and how he has approached crises, after discussing the evolving strategic context for military operations. But we will start our article by starting with the Macron element of the discussion.
It has been often noted that when Macron became president, he was 39 years old and the youngest president in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. But Castres added some key points from a military officer’s point of view.
Macron is of the new generation which did not serve in national conscription, which also applies to the younger generation in parliament. This is in stark contrast to the then president Chirac who served in the Algerian war, and based on his own experience, warned then President George W. Bush of what would happen if the United States led an invasion of Iraq.
Macron is the first French president born in the age of globalization. Globalization of the economy was a given for Macron and his generation. His predecessors saw it arrive; he was born into it and it is a baseline assumption.Macron inherited crises and participated in coalition actions, but he engaged in modifying or reshaping engagements, rather than initiating ones of his own.
Macron has been engaged in crisis management from the beginning of his mandate and has taken an approach which the British and Americans call a “whole of government” approach. His national security council sessions, or conseil de défense et sécurité nationale, have not been limited to the military or foreign policy or intelligence apparatus. They have included ministers of justice, education, and others dependent on the particular crisis. From Macron’s perspective, crisis management was not primarily a military only or military led operation.
But that raises the broader question of how to engage in crisis management of the world as it is and not the world that we might wish.
Here Castres had many insights to share, as well as highlighting how he saw the specific French advantages in crisis management.
The strategic environment is significantly changing in which authoritarian competitors or adversaries are working to use information war, cyber conflict, gray zone operations, and other means to gain their tactical and strategic objectives. How will we respond? How will we use military and other means to counter such operations?
One way to look at the challenge is to focus on the adversary using lethal force up to the level necessary to achieve their objectives, but stopping short of generating significant conventional military conflict. How to counter lethal operations and successfully master escalation management?
A key challenge for Western states is there is a heavy reliance on coalitions to shape engagements. The problem was seen in Afghanistan, said Castres, where the Americans focused on the cohesion of a coalition of 30 or 40 nations. As he noted: “There may be cohesion but there is no longer a common objective for the operation.”
Coalitions are built around interoperability.
On the one hand, there is the question of military interoperability, for the forces of the various nations being able to work together.
On the other hand, there is the more difficult challenge of cultural interoperability.
With regard to cultural interoperability, Castres underscored the different nations have different traditions, different histories, different expectations with regard to the use of military force. What this means is that the nature of the coalition which is put together will define what military objectives can really be obtained.
He noted that for the military it was important to have clarity and objectives for the use of force. The military understands that it is not engaged to simply eliminate an enemy, but “to create conditions for a political resolution of a crisis.”
“This means that there needs to be a blunt and honest discussion between politicians and military leaders about what is realistic in terms of what the military can achieve.
“We do not want military leaders to engage in vagueness and duplicity with regard to what the military can and cannot do.
:The objectives set in Afghanistan were completely unrealistic in terms of transforming the country; a realistic objective lies in reducing the capability of terrorists to operate outside Afghanistan, and there are military means to do so. But transforming a country is not a military operation per se.”
Castres argued that the battle space is being transformed with information war, cyber engagements, and other means about winning the war without fighting.
This means that the French engagement in Africa, for example, is as much about engaging and winning an information war as it is about controlling territory and eliminating terrorist strongholds.
He argued that with regard to France’s African operations, Macron’s goal has been to support African nations to create the conditions whereby their territories do not function as international safe havens for jihadism, and to do so without a strong permanent presence of Western forces.
This goal is difficult, but this has been pursued through three missions.
The first is along the lines of the U.S. SOCOM in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, namely, to hunt down terrorist leaders.
The second is to build and support operational partnerships with French and EU troops going into combat with African troops. This has been seen in both the French Barkhane and EU Takuba operations.
The third is to provide a French guarantee of support to African nations with quick reaction troops and support from drones, fighters and helicopters.
The French are able to conduct such intervention because of the DNA of expeditionary operations inherent within the French forces. Castres quoted a famous British statement that captures the expeditionary spirit: “move now, orders to follow.” The French forces are capable of doing so and this means that the French forces are able to move more rapidly than other European nations after a presidential decision to go to an area of interest.
He also noted the ability of the French forces to adapt to local populations and situations in Africa as an advantage which the French have.
In short, President Macron has been president as globalization has faltered, conflict with ISIS and other terrorist organizations has been persistent, and coalition dynamics have been defined by Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa.
The challenge lies with shaping a way ahead for France within its coalition-based alliances with the EU and NATO.
What is clear is that ensuring that military and coalition logic is crucial to shaping a way ahead for France to meet its national interests.
The featured photo is taken from the following source:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article190403.html
U.S. Marines with Company B., 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (Reinforced), Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, participate in a mechanized infantry assault with Australian Army soldiers during Exercise Koolendong at Bradshaw Field Training Area, NT, Australia, Aug. 28, 2021.
The mechanized infantry assault allowed Marines to work alongside Australian M113AS4 Armored Personnel Carriers and M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks to seize an objective point.
BRADSHAW FIELD TRAINING AREA, NT, AUSTRALIA
08.28.2021
Video by Cpl. Lydia Gordon
Marine Rotational Force – Darwin
By Robbin Laird
During my visit to Europe earlier this Fall, the surprise announcement of the Morrison Administration’s decision to shift from their French alliance to deliver a long-range diesel submarine to acquiring nuclear submarine capability through an alliance with the United States and Britain was made. I talked with both French and Australian analysts and provided my initial assessment in a series of articles which highlighted the decision and the dynamics of change associated with that decision.
But what was clear that the strategic environment has changed dramatically from when the Australian government made its decision to stay with a conventional submarine capability. The nature of the Chinese threat as well as the actions of the Xi Administration has clearly driven a shift in Australian thinking and perceived needs for longer range operational capability in the Indo-Pacific region.
At the same time, its closest allies in the region the United States and Japan clearly recognize the need to expand their capabilities to operate throughout the region to complicate Chinese operational considerations, and to deter via more capability to operate throughout the wider Pacific as well.
The announced decision highlighted an 18-month period with Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead in charge on the Australian side of negotiating within the new nuclear submarine alliance to deliver Australian solutions. I interviewed Mead when he was head of Navy Capability in 2016. He then went on to be Commander Australian Fleet and then Chief of Joint Capabilities and Command of Joint Capabilities Group. He has a strong ASW background as well as working closely with the other member of the Quad, namely India. He is now the Chief of the Nuclear -Powered Submarine Task Force.
There is much to be determined with regard to how Australia will proceed, but given the dynamic changes in the strategic environment and the working relationships with allies in the region, there are a much wider array of options than with the short-fin Barracuda program.
With the United States clearly seeking to expand its operating areas in the Pacific, and with Australia building capabilities to operate its own nuclear submarines, it would be no surprise if nuclear submarines began operating within the Australian first island chain. It would be no surprise if there might be mixed manning solutions onboard U.S. or UK nuclear submarines in anticipation of the future Australian submarine. It would be no surprise if Australia sought alternatives to full build of nuclear submarines on Australian soil, and find something more akin to F-35 solution sets.
To be clear, this is a work in progress but one that will not be a replay of how the Australians addressed the replacement of the Collins class with a full build Australian vessel on Australian soil.
The pressures to defend Australia, and to engage the Japanese and Americans in a more effective undersea warfare set of capabilities is a pressing not long-range challenge.
I had a chance to discuss these issues on October 14, 2021, in a phone interview with Vice-Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett, with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss maritime issues since 2015.
I look forward to pursuing these discussions and issues when I return to Australia in March 2021.
As the exact nature of what will happen in the program is a work in progress and not really open to public disclosure until that 18-month period is completed, we focused on the context and how one might assess that context.
Vice-Admiral (Retired) Barrett made three key points.
First, the nuclear submarine effort was a strategic one, which was about Australian defense and not primarily focused on a priority on ship building on Australian soil.
It is crucial to understand that this is about adding core defense capabilities earlier rather than later and would almost certainly encompass interaction between shaping the eco system for the operation of Australian nuclear submarines and the presence of allied nuclear submarines working with the Australian eco system.
The second key point was that the priority needed to be focused on adding nuclear submarine capability to the evolving USW or ASW capability which Australia was already building out.
The Australian government recently decided to add another squadron of Romeo helicopters to the fleet, and has procured P-8s and Tritons as part of an expanded ASW or USW warfighting capability.
The submarine is not a silver bullet for ASW or USW mission sets but part of the evolution of the kill web approach to ASW and USW missions going forward.
When I interviewed with Ed Timperlake the Second SubGroup Commander, he emphasized that for the evolving concepts of operations of ASW or USW which he referred to as a “team sport,” the submarine was not primarily focused on killing other submarines, but the U.S. Navy was expanding the submarine’s roles and missions and at the same time, they were expanding the tool kit for executing ASW an USW operations as well.
According to Barrett: “The submarine decision is part of a broader set of decisions with regard to how the ADF should respond to the challenges in the Indo-Pacific.
“This was a deliberate and considered position from the Navy’s perspective, but the political and geopolitical circumstances have changed.
“This is not the first time that Australia has sought or considered the acquisition of a nuclear submarine.”
The decision is based on the need to provide more capability to the coalition to conduct USW or ASW in the region.
In that way, it is analogues to the Growler decision taken a few years ago.
The third key point was that flexibility and innovations will be part of working out a way ahead and he noted that Mead had worked with him previously.
When Commander of the Australian Fleet, then Commodore Mead was instrumental in working an innovative plan to manage a temporary capability deficiency for fleet fuel tanking. To shore up a gap, the RAN ‘leased’ a Spanish Navy oiler for 8 months, and the RAN crews trained on the ship and operated the ship in support of the Australian Fleet.
Eventually, the RAN acquired two new Spanish oilers, but the kind of innovation demonstrated in this example, will almost certainly be part of the way ahead in meeting the challenges of accelerating the operational acquisition of nuclear submarine capacity in support of Australian defense.
According to Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: “The strategic environment has changed. We need to reconsider the balance between sovereign capability for a thirty-year build and the need for creation of capability in the near term. The earlier 30-year period build approach should not be the dominant approach; the capability and its presence to shape deterrent capabilities is crucial and work out over time how the build side of this effort is clarified and put in place.”
“The program needs to be driven by the need for creative capability options first.”
For my report on the recent Australian submarine decision, see the following:
By Robbin Laird
Recently, I had a chance to discuss with Air Vice-Marshal (Retired) John Blackburn the work he been engaged in since last I was in Australia in March 2020. The team has recently released a final report on the challenges facing Australia to become a more resilient society as well as their report on challenges facing Australia in the energy sector as well to build out resilient capabilities.
Prior to the pandemic, John was pursuing several issues affecting resilience, initially from a largely defense point of view, but then broadened his lens to a wider set of issues. Now with the nearly two-year pandemic impact, the issue is clearly not a niche issue.
Question: Your work on resilience preceded the pandemic, but obviously has now been informed as well by the impact of the pandemic on supply chains, medical manufacturing and fuel and energy issues as well. How would you describe your journey?
Blackburn: “In 2019, I was asked to present at the Australian Navy Institute in 2019 on maritime trade and the risks to that trade. I had previously worked on resilience issues in the energy, economy, and environment arenas. However, in preparing for the Navy Institute seminar I came to realise that we were in a similar situation with respect to maritime trade, i.e. little resilience to deal with potential trade interruptions.
“When we looked at the total system, the lack of resilience was clearly obvious. When SLD brought attention to the work of Rosemary Gibson on the dependence of the West on the supply of medicine by China, we started to focus on a medicine supply chains in Australia as well.”
Question: To be clear: prior to the pandemic you were focusing on the resilience issue. The impact of the pandemic was to bring in highlight the strategic significance of the issue. But there seems to be a desire to get “back to normal” without realizing that the pre-pandemic world is not coming back, notably with regard to how globalization with China at the epicenter was playing out prior to 2020. How do you see this shift?
Blackburn: “Politicians try to boost to the voter’s confidence in a crisis “Hey, we’ll get back to normal soon.” Unfortunately, that pre COVID “normal” is gone. That was business as was. We’re not going back there. You can’t. We’ve really got to say, “We’re uncertain of where we’re headed, but we know it’s not where we were before,” and here’s an opportunity. Do a reset, taking account of our resilience issues and vulnerabilities. We have to design the future that we’re heading towards very rapidly, because we can’t just go back.”
Question: But certainly, in the United States, the capacity to grasp reality through the vortex of current political rhetoric and debate is probably at an all-time low. How do we get back on track?
Blackburn: “You are right. I think the United Kingdom, at present, is probably one of the best examples of what you are pointing out. Because of the concerns that were raised about Brexit and where they have ending up, they seem to be in a state of denial and distraction. In Australia, it is an unusual situation because we essentially drew up the drawbridge and said, “Well, fine. We’re just going to isolate ourselves,” and then we pumped up debt at an incredible rate.
“But why did we do that? Because we didn’t have the hospital capacities, the medicine supply capabilities, the production capabilities to deal with widespread spread COVID-19. We had no choice, but to draw up the drawbridge and isolate ourselves. But we’re still not facing the reality because, faced with the risk of voter’s losing hope, the politicians are still not facing the full reality of the situation we are in and are not preparing adequately for the risks we are likely to face in the next few years. Specifically, COVID variants and supply chain failures.
“There’s a lot of positive spin about the end of the pandemic coming up shortly. ‘We’ll all be back to normal. Things will be great.’ So, we’re not able to have a very honest, apolitical conversation, which is the first point that we highlighted in our national resilience project. If you can’t have an honest conversation about where we are, what the assumptions are, what the risks are without blaming somebody else for being in that situation that we’re in together, then there’s no way you can work out where we need to go in terms of a more resilient and secure society.”
Question: Australia has been engaged in serious conflict with the epicenter for generating the pandemic, namely China. There has clearly been enhanced realization that China is not Australia’s friend in term of the survive of a liberal democratic society. How do you see the Chinese threat feeding into a resilience perspective within Australia itself?
Blackburn: “It clearly does but we have a compounding challenge to face, namely, the short-term perspective of politics here, driven by the three-year election cycle. The Chinese Government has implemented trade sanctions against us as they attempt to bully us into being subservient. That will not happen. However, the Chinese actions have been anticipated but we have lacked a long-term strategy to address this threat and so we are constrained to just reacting and pleading for help from the USA.
“We don’t have a coherent view of where we need to be in 10, 15 or 20 years. It’s all about the next election. It is very hard to develop a resiliency strategy and a strategy for dealing with China if your political focus is short term.
Question: How might we get to a place whereby we can take a longer view?
Blackburn: “As we conclude in our report, we don’t prepare for crises. That’s just not in our culture. We react. Unfortunately, a lot of our reactions, particularly at the political level, are too little too late and too shortsighted. We get caught in this reaction loop and you don’t get people with the brain space to step outside of that process.
“The military concept of preparedness doesn’t really exist in civil society in Australia. In our resilience project we highlighted that we could learn from the military. In my work on Plan Jericho, there were two things we focused on . First, was the need for vastly improved, shared situation awareness, and second, the ability to operate as an integrated team, because Plan Jericho wasn’t really about air force, it was about how do we trigger a joint force.
“So, what we did in the project was to take those two themes and add preparedness and mobilization. In the project report we suggest that there are three characteristics or attributes critical for a society to be resilient. One is shared awareness, by having an honest conversation about what the issues are, as well as the threats, the assumptions, and problems.
“The second characteristic is the need to work as a team. In our country, particularly with our federation structure, that has been a bit of a challenge. Thirdly, if you’ve got the first two, is the ability to prepare for a range of risks /scenarios.”
“In the military, we trained, simulated, and exercised; it’s not that you assume you’re going to exactly see what you have trained for but rather that you are building the skill sets and experience to be able to deal with a wide range of crises.
“For each of the nine areas we looked at in the project, the same challenges or blockages came up. We have individuals with incredibly deep expertise, but we don’t have shared knowledge in the society because it’s blocked either for political reasons, by bureaucracy or by IP issues in industry.
Blackburn then described an example of a strategic opportunity for Australia, given its robust ability to generate electric power from solar sources, or if the country faces reality, nuclear power. “If we’re going to be able to have control over our transport, our logistics, our basic systems that support our way of life, then we’re going to have to get off imported fuels as fast as we can, in terms of transport and logistics. Everything from trucks to vehicles, to trains, to ships, so that we can have control over the energy necessary to run the logistics of our society. We need to electrify our transport and logistics systems as much as possible.”
“From a wider perspective, electric cars are more about our security as a nation than just about emissions; BEVs , Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles and renewable ammonia powered ships can result in a significant reduction of our imported fuel dependency. We can have control over these parts of our national systems by having control over the energy used to power them. But the current electricity grid system in this country is very fragile. We’re going to need to grow it to two to three times its current size as we transform our energy systems through electrification.
“Most everything is connected. What I find is that the domain experts largely stay in their lane way. There are not enough whole of systems experts in this country. The result is that we don’t get that broader shared awareness we need to think strategically.”
For the recently released final report on Australia and resilience, see the following:
For the recently released final report on Australian energy resilience, see the following:
Meeting the Challenge: Australia’s Poor Energy Systems Resilience
Ukraine Marine Corps service members visit 2nd Marine Logistics Group on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 2, 2021.
U.S. Marines and Sailors provided Ukrainian service members with a demonstration of Marine Corps logistical capabilities in order to further their understanding of combat support in a tactical environment.
09.02.2021
Video by Cpl. Seaira Moore
2nd Marine Logistics Group
U.S. Marines with 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) take part in a tactical air control party exercise with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 232 at Farallon De Medinilla, Northern Mariana Islands, Aug. 18-19, 2021.
Marines with VMFA-232 and 5th ANGLICO worked together to increase proficiency and confidence in close air support operations within the Indo-Pacific region.
Marines with 5th ANGLICO conduct control of fires in support of joint, allied, and coalition forces by communicating to aircraft from forward operating positions.
FARALLON DE MEDINILLA, NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
08.20.2021
Video by Lance Cpl. Tyler Harmon
1st Marine Aircraft Wing
By Robbin Laird
Training is becoming an advanced weapon system.
So much so that the classic formulation of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures upon which training has been built is expanding to now be informed by advanced training that reshapes tactics, techniques, and procedures for the future fight.
Multi-domain training encompassing the synthetic environment with a full role for the digital warriors is becoming a key requirement in shaping a 21st century high-end fighting force able to operate in rapidly changing combat conditions.
In my recent visits to forces stationed in the East Coast of the United States and in the Pacific, finding ways to understand the evolving capabilities of the adversary and weaving those into blue side multi-domain warfighting techniques and approaches is increasingly challenging but also indispensable. Whether a Marine operating from an expeditionary base employing advanced sensors and needing to understand how the adversary operates and thinks, to pilots operating against highly integrated multi-domain systems, the challenge is the same: how to spoof, how to deflect, and how to defeat an evolving adversarial force fielded by a peer competitor.
To understand how to shape such a way ahead, I continued my discussions with Paul Averna of Cubic Corporation on the evolution of advanced training. According to Averna, we need to start with the ability to present a realistic threat environment to our Blue team. To do so requires a significant shift from how we have done training in the past two decades.
Averna: “Previously, we’ve been able to approximate red capabilities with fairly inexpensive or lower cost solutions. In other words, we haven’t had to fly our current blue aircraft against one another to get quality training. We could get by using earlier generation platforms because what we were focused on was training fundamentals of blocking and tackling in the air problem, or the air to surface problem on the physical ranges with the infrastructure that we’ve had.
“After executing a rollback phase, we were able to operate from a relatively static sanctuary to deliver effects in the battle space. We’re facing a paradigm shift. We have peer competitors that make it very difficult to establish a secure combat sanctuary and to hold that sanctuary for an uncontested period of time to dominate the battlespace.
“When you overlay the geographic challenges in the Pacific, it becomes a much more challenging problem. We can solve some of that by prepositioning. And we’re talking about the doctrinal concepts that the Marine Corps is espousing to get forward and to be able to deliver ISR and kinetic effects from a dynamic sanctuary. That’s the direction that we’re going.
“How do you bring a relevant threat emulation to the training environment so that we can be confident that the tactics, techniques, and procedures we are training to can deliver the right solution in a timely manner?”
I pointed out that with the kinds of mission data we are collecting with systems like the F-35, it is important to be able to translate that information into training usable simulated capabilities as well.
Averna underscored how important such an effort is to shape a more effective force. “We’re collecting some interesting information. But how does that translate into the emulation of the dynamic threat environment that we are facing?”
There is also the question of the evolution of software within both the Blue and Red systems and the challenge of then translating those changes into a simulated training environment as well.
Averna added: “The systems that we’re able to put into place have traditionally been singular emulators of a specific system without the ability to rapidly update those system’s capabilities. When software changes are made to the threat system, we don’t have that corresponding ability to rapidly update and emulate the new techniques which can leverage those software changes.”
The question of evolving technologies is one part of the equation.
But the other is understanding of how various peer adversaries use their equipment or how their TTPs are evolving as well.
Averna underscored how significant this challenge was and how the training environment needs to change to deal with this challenge.
“The way that we have built our emulation of the peer threat to date is not something that translates forward because of the rapid nature of the Red side’s ability to change their capabilities combined with the quantities of specific advanced systems that can be fielded.
“For example, if you have a software defined radio, I can operate a wide variety of waveforms within particular brands, and they will look different. Does our system recognize that it’s a different waveform? Those are the kinds of things that we are going to ultimately have to decide. That’s new. That requires a different response. We have to have a faster way of doing this for both the blue and red sides.
“Part of the benefit of an effects-based LVC training environment is that you can actually update the models that are used to emulate the threat very quickly. You don’t have to have that particular update feature tied to the longer development cycle of an OEM operational flight program that has traditionally had an embedded training capability built into it, which is tied to a longer OFP build cycle.
“We need to look at how do we update the red side threat presentation better, faster, cheaper than we have traditionally done.”
In my view, this is why there is a strategic shift in training required to shape dynamic advanced warfighting.
The third T needs to lead the traditional TTPs or perhaps it is AT or Advanced Training driven by integration of the simulated with the live environment with an expanded role for digital warriors within the training enterprise.
Averna: “I just want to revisit that last point that you’re making before we talk about how we do the emulation of the red threat. And that is in the TTP definition, the classic acronym, is tactics, techniques, and procedures. But to your point, there should be a training front end highlighted because this actually changes the way that we fight.”
We then discussed how LVC can provide new ways to get to the AT led dynamic to shape a way ahead for warfighting.
According to Averna: “When you have an LVC training capability where Live, Virtual, and Constructive entities interact in a common synthetic environment, you can actually exercise capabilities, not constrained by the physical ranges, to open up the aperture, and have actual operators evaluating or assessing the impacts of what they’re doing in real time, and then debrief what they have learned.
“I can get fidelity on my systems for the beyond visual range fight in an LVC environment. I can have virtual or other live players who are guising as the red threat show up on my systems as they would in combat. And that’s the real point where we need operate. We need to provide pro realism with regard to the red side threat to the operators so that they can actually assess in real time how well they’re executing their game plan.
“We will build game plans based on our best knowledge of the threat and our best knowledge of how to employ our systems. But being able to train to that game plan and understand when the game plan is working poorly or proceeding as we intended, that’s the essence of high-quality training.
“In terms of training, we need to be able to recognize multi-domain impacts. I don’t typically control multi-domain effects on a single 4th Gen tactical platform, although I might be able to, dependent on the classification and capability of a bespoke system. The fifth-gen systems are much more in that multi-domain capability space. But traditionally, in fourth gen you are typically delivering in a singular lane of effect.
“How you recognize those other participants that are delivering multi-domain effects in concert with what you’re trying to do traditionally, has been about timing coordination / synchronization. At this point in time, this thing should be turned off, whether kinetically or non-kinetically. And therefore, I will have sanctuary to go in and do what I want to do.
“After a certain period of time, if I can expect them to bring that system back up, and then I’m back into a less than optimum sanctuary consideration, and I have to maneuver or do something different. Those are the type of events where we’ve driven predominantly onto a time-hack model.
“But when we talk about a dynamic sanctuary, it’s about maintaining operational advantage across a window of time. And being able to then assess and apply different techniques to achieve or sustain the desired effect. That’s what we want to be able train to.”
Another key aspect which LVC brings to advanced training is the ability to use guising as part of working the red side.
As Averna explained it: “In the virtual world, there are different protocols of how we exchange data about the participants. We call them entities. An entity can be a platform. It can be a weapon. It can be a sensor. It can be an effect. And each entity has a whole slew of characteristics, or attributes, such as electromagnetic properties.
“And that drives the interaction between someone in a man in a loop simulator, and constructive participant. And we already do this in that we can generate a constructive participant to look like anything we need them to look like. And because of the way that they are built, they will appear across our systems in the virtual world as an intended threat.
“Let’s say hypothetically I am an F-15E aircrew in a Tactical Operational Flight Trainer (TOFT) working in a Beyond Visual Range (BVR) training event against a constructive F-16. As I am flying around in the virtual world, I see an F-16 out at range on my systems. Well, that F-16 doesn’t exist. It’s an entity. And that entity has a whole slew of attributes. And then correspondingly, on my systems I’m going to detect him at a certain range, and I’m going to be able to see him with a variety of sensors at a given range, target aspect, whether he’s in full afterburner, or at idle, whether his radar is emitting, etc.
“In my virtual representation of my actual platform, models of sensors, effects, and weapons approximate the real-world capabilities of my aircraft. The radar cross section, as an example, of that F-16 in the real world against a real-world radar. I will see him in a certain range, assuming the atmospherics are nominal and that is when I expect to detect him in the TOFT during the training event.
“What I really want him to look like though is a SU-27. The radar cross section of a SU-27 is different from an F-16. And as a result, I would see him at a different range than I would the actual threat that I’m targeting. Why is that important? From a timeline perspective, the distance and the closing rate matters because it gives me a range of options that I have when I’m going to shoot and how many I’m going to shoot at him at that given range.
“If I can show on my Live blue platform’ systems an SU-27 coming at me, a couple things happen. First, I’m getting the realistic engagement, ranges, and profile with him. And that drives how I am going to be able to do tactics well. I have real-world physics being applied on me and my platform that impact my physiological and cognitive performance. There’s also that psychological element to it, which is I’m going up against a real bad guy as opposed to somebody that I see as a friendly F-16. That is a very important element of realism.
“The science behind how you change the physical characteristics, the IR properties, the other electro-magnetic emissions of all of the participants, whether they’re live, virtual, or constructive, and how you show those altered properties in your system displays for training is what the advanced guising capability is that we’ve figured out during the SLATE ATD and are improving upon during flight validation event here at Pax River at the end of September as we’re having this interview. In essence, we now have the ability to overcome the physical limitations of our current training ranges and deliver the threat environment our operators need for realistic training.
In short, TTPs need to become TTTPs to get to where we need to go with regard to advanced warfighting.
In that shift, the training piece expands the role of the digital space and of the role of digital warriors in evolving the warfighting capabilities of a multi-domain blue force facing an evolving red multi-domain force, changing both in terms of technology and in terms of concepts of operations.
Training for the High End Fight: The Strategic Shift of the 2020s