In a few years, Navy recruits at Great Lakes will march into a completely revamped Battle Stations, boot camp's final exam. With help from the theme park industry, a "script" of new scenarios is complete—the first step in a multi-million dollar project that promises to make the 12-hour evolution more meaningful than ever for all those who go through it.
What is most remarkable about the Navy's Battle Stations is that it manages to do so much with so little. Now in its fifth year, the 12-hour final boot camp training exercise is taking a giant technological leap that will give leaders at Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes a facility worthy of the psychological intensity that recruit division commanders already bring to the daunting evolution.
That leap is being propelled largely by leaders from the theme park industry, the business that knows more than any other about immersing people in fantastic environments and suspending their disbelief. Experts from divisions of industry pacesetters Disney and Universal Studios have participated in early stages of the Battle Stations project, and both, among others, are expected to be in the running for a contract to be awarded by late summer.
The Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division in Orlando, Florida, is administering the project. This division handles simulation technology for the Navy and shares space with the Army's Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command, with which it has a memorandum of agreement that dates back more than 50 years.
Project managers earlier this year took delivery of the first phase of the Battle Stations project, a scene-by-scene script of sorts prepared by i.d.e.a.s. at Disney-MGM Studios, a division of Integrity Arts, Inc., affiliated with the Walt Disney Company. Known as storyboarding, the process was pioneered in the 1930s by Walt Disney as a way to map out scenes in movies before committing to the expensive process of animating them. The method since has been applied to live-action movies and theme park attractions that, at their best, are movies that people can participate in for a few minutes.
"But this isn't going to be a theme park attraction," says Captain Art Gallo, director of the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division's special emphasis directorate. "This is going to be a very serious, challenging military simulation."
Although the storyline still is open to modification, the new Battle Stations, like the current version, will last about 12 hours—much longer than most theme park visits, let alone individual attractions.
Pulled together in 1997 with a forest of plywood and castoffs from around the Navy, the current Battle Stations consists of 12 scenarios from Navy history and takes place in eight locations around Recruit Training Command at Naval Training Center Great Lakes (see J. Flink, "Teamwork Under Fire," July 2001 Proceedings, pages 36-40). To call the evolution a "simulation" would be a stretch: the scenario based on rescuing survivors from ships damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor is carried out on an obstacle course, and recruits "abandon ship" by jumping into a swimming pool. Context is almost entirely psychological, supplied by recruit division commanders who give historical briefings and maintain the pressure during each scenario. It works amazingly well.
The new Battle Stations will add $60 million in hardware to the fine-tuned psychological part of the equation. The new facility will be the largest building at the new-and-improved Recruit Training Command, which began a stem-to-stern, $850-million recapitalization in 2000 that aims to replace virtually every building on the base by 2007. Battle Stations originally was scheduled to be the last phase of the project, but its refurbishment recently was moved up to 2005 with help from Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL), whose district includes Great Lakes. "People hear a lot about the Marine Corps and The Crucible being the ultimate training exercise for new military personnel," says Congressman Kirk, who also is a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve. "I think Battle Stations can be the best. Some day I want to see the Discovery Channel shooting a special on Battle Stations. This is how we make the best sailors in the world."
The new Battle Stations will unfold as a three-act play. Recruits will be ordered to report on board a ship preparing to deploy. They will pack seabags, march to a pier, and walk up a gangway, surrounded by the sights, sounds, and even smells of a waterfront environment.
"We're after training that's fully experiential," says Rear Admiral Ann Rondeau, commander of Naval Training Center Great Lakes. "This is really neat stuff, but it's not so far out there that it's not going to be possible for another 25 years. We can do it now and the value to the fleet will be enormous."
The second act will begin with orders to get under way immediately. Recruits will drop whatever they are doing, cast off lines, and "sail" into harm's way, simulated by carefully choreographed emergencies, including missile strikes, storms, and high-tempo exercises such as moving a large amount of ammunition from one compartment to another in a hurry. The new Battle Stations will unfold in a continuous storyline in which each event flows logically from the one before it.
"We came up with some great ways to bring realism to the event," says Steve Minning, deputy director of the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division's special emphasis directorate. "Sometimes recruits scuffle a bit, so why not have real masters-at-arms posted aboard the ship to keep the peace. Although we try to avoid them, there are injuries once in a while, so why not have real hospital corpsmen and a real sickbay incorporated into the scenarios. We might even give the recruits time to go to the galley for a cup of coffee because that's realistic, too."
The scenarios will lead to a culminating third act that Captain Gallo would describe only as "a great ending." The technology used in the new Battle Stations undoubtedly will have some complex elements, but much of the whizbangery will be supplied by established technologies. Digitally controlled firefighting trainers have been around for years, so have the water systems that simulate flooding in damage-control trainers. Arranging existing systems into a logical storyline will be a much larger part of the new Battle Stations than the creation of completely new systems, say Minning and Captain Gallo.
Modularity also will be important. The simulated ship, which now goes by the working name of USS Rock Torrey (after the character played by John Wayne in the 1965 movie In Harm's Way), will have to be easy to update so it can incorporate new scenarios and equipment. Historical briefings now delivered prior to scenarios probably will be moved to Navy heritage classes taken earlier in boot camp. The all-important psychological context that they bring to the experience will be retained through the showbiz philosophy of "create once, play everywhere." That is what happens when a creation such as a comic book character spawns other products such as movies and action figures. For Battle Stations, this philosophy could mean training aids such as CD-ROMs or Web-based video games that recruits will be encouraged to play during boot camp.
Raising expectations about Battle Stations in the minds of recruits before they go through it will prepare them for the experience and lend the exercise a mythological flavor that will make it daunting and appealing at the same time. Such a mythology is why, for example, riders are not given a lecture during the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. It is assumed they already are familiar with the character.
Every step in the process has been undertaken with input from commanders at Great Lakes. Perhaps surprisingly, recruit division commanders and entertainment experts have seen eye to eye from the beginning. When asked to name the things they thought were most important to a new Battle Stations, both sides came up with lists that were nearly identical, says Minning.
"I've seen what a few imaginative sailors can do with some plywood," says Captain O. W. Wright, Recruit Training Command's commanding officer. "Battle Stations is already outstanding and this partnership between sailors and industry can only make it better."
Mr. Flink covered Naval Training Center Great Lakes for the Chicago Tribune and Navy Times. He recently moved to San Diego with the active-duty “Navy wife” he met at Great Lakes in the line of duty.