The general purpose digital computer has proven to be of great benefit to a variety of Navy users (not to mention the rest of the world). Its impact on simulation for training purposes has been especially beneficial.
Numerous Navy training facilities exist throughout the world that use some form of simulation to accomplish a variety of training objectives. Why not, then, combine the simulation efforts in Command and Control System and related training into a singular approach within a minimum number of complexes; eliminating duplication, saving money—and ultimately bring the rest of the training world in line with an open-ended approach to simulated environment training?
Among the various systems and trainers now in existence in the Navy is that known as the Tactical Advanced Combat Direction and Electronic Warfare. (TACDEW is a computerized simulation system which is currently operational at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, San Diego, California. Installation has commenced on a TACDEW system at FAAWTraCen, Dam Neck, Virginia. TACDEW uses CP642 series (USQ 20) GP military computers to generate simulated environments for Command and Control System training. The Master Simulation Program (MSP) creates the environment, sensors, ships, aircraft, weapons, and other requirements which provide for the training of individuals, teams, and task forces in authentic mockups using actual shipboard equipment. Preprogrammed exercises are generated to provide the media for training, and these exercises can be modified “on-line” as desired. Types of training that are accomplished with TACDEW simulation now are:
- Anti-Air Warfare (conventional and tactical data system)
- Surface Tactics
- Naval Gunfire Support (shore bombardment)
- Mine Warfare
- Air Intercept Control
- Boat Control
- Anti-Shipping Cruise Missile
- Radar Assisted Piloting
- Electronic Warfare
- Air Traffic Control (carrier controlled approach)
- Search and Rescue
- Weapons (Tartar and Terrier team training)
- Surface Warfare
- Navy Tactical Data System
- Airborne Tactical Data System
- Anti-Submarine Warfare
Most of the aforementioned training is conducted under quite realistic conditions, and constantly evolving innovations continue to heighten the realism. Moreover, any combination of the types of simulated training can be conducted simultaneously in a true-to-life situation.
The future will provide such additional simulations as automated carrier landing systems, expanded radar and land mass simulation, and greatly expanded electronic warfare simulation, among others. Program improvements will provide such things as reporting from unmanned units and stations, computer-assisted performance evaluation, and the ability to have an air target maneuver as either a “hot,” “cold,” or “normal” pilot.
The Combat Information Center Tactics Trainer (Device 15F6) is the simulation device installed at the Naval Air Tactical Training Center, Glynco Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Georgia. This trainer uses a single CP 642 computer to generate up to 128 targets to a total of nine Combat Information Center (CIC) mockups. Training is accomplished in various areas of electronic warfare, anti-air warfare, antisubmarine warfare, air intercept control, radar-assisted piloting, and other areas of CIC tactics. This trainer has the best current radar simulation capability in that it can simulate identification systems (pending delivery of advanced radar video simulators to the TACDEW system in mid-1969).
All of the equipment associated with Device 15F6, excepting the computer, is hardware manufactured especially for the installation. This includes such items as consoles, simulators, buffers, and helm units. Mockups contain a mixture of shipboard and special purpose equipment which represents actual shipboard equipment. Consoles are used for generating the targets on-line. There is little, if any, preprogramming capability.
A Carrier Controlled Approach training capability, identical to the TACDEW capability, will be located at the Glynco training facility sometime in 1969. This requires a CCA simulator and a one-computer program. The intention is to use the existing CP642 computer, which means that either present CIC training can be accomplished or else CCA training can be accomplished, but not both at the same time.
The Navy Electronic Warfare Simulator continues to be NEWS at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. The purpose of NEWS is to provide the necessary facilities for the conduct of two-sided war games, and as such it is the Navy’s primary war gaming facility. A wide range of war games is conducted annually, from JCS level down to Anti-Submarine Warfare problems for Naval Destroyer School junior officer students. Fleet activities use the system to develop and validate their own plans and readiness doctrines. Although one command center mockup of the installation can represent a single ship, each one of these spaces ordinarily represents a much larger force. Motion models, weapons, and other simulations are provided by electro-mechanical means and are projected onto a large screen display. A separate damage assessment computer, also analog, can be used when needed.
An improved version of NEWS will include a CP642 computer. A digital approach will very likely include a programming effort similar to the TACDEW Master Simulation Program. This will also allow for more rapid access to evaluation information, as well as for more automatic collection of data. A modernized version of the large screen display, which will allow the viewing of digitally created information, will also be included in the updated war gaming simulator.
There are two training devices associated with ASW training: Devices 14A2 and 14A6. The former is the Surface Ship ASW Attack Trainer and the latter the ASW Co-ordinated Tactics Trainer, both of which are located at the Fleet ASW School, San Diego, California. An additional 14A2 has recently been installed at Fleet Training Center, Newport, Rhode Island, and several more ASW trainers slated to be installed in other locations.
Device 14A6 is designed for training in coordinated ASW, evaluation of present and future tactics, and employment of ASW sensor systems. There are representative spaces for the CIC and motion control equipment for 16 aircraft, 13 destroyers and/or submarines, one ASW aircraft carrier (CVS), and one flag plot. A complete suite of contemporary ASW sensors and weapons is available. A large scale critique screen allows instructors to view the action and can be used to critique students. Various devices within the mockups represent radar repeaters, helm units, sonars, and other equipment necessary for training. The reason actual shipboard equipment is not normally used is that the objective is not to train equipment operators, but rather to train decision makers. A total of 48 different vehicles, or tracks, can be generated at any given time. Simulations are accomplished by electro-mechanical means.
Device 14A2 is a single ship trainer, which provides considerably more realism than does the 14A6, especially in the area of sonar simulation. Two support surface vessels and three support aircraft can be controlled from instructor consoles, and two target submarines are available. The purpose of this trainer is to train the ship’s entire ASW team, which includes radar operators, plotters, talkers, sonar operators, weapons personnel, and control and evaluator personnel, in areas of ASW ranging from equipment operation to coordinated tactics in prosecuting a subsurface contact.
Simulation is accomplished with a Scientific Data Systems SDS 930 general purpose digital computer. The one-computer program stimulates operator equipment and displays, providing the necessary parameters and motion. The stored program is loaded into the computer by magnetic tape.
The Emergency Shiphandling Trainer, Device 20A62, was recently installed at the Fleet Training Center, San Diego, California, for the purpose of training naval officers in the techniques of shiphandling. Actual shipboard bridge control equipment is located in each of four mockups of ships’ bridges. A digital computer provides the motion and displays used for training, and the program is capable of being loaded into the computer by tape. A TV monitor system provides a status display for monitoring the training situation.
From the foregoing discussion of some of the command and control system simulation capabilities, four points emerge. One is that, for the most part, these trainers, despite some similarity, are applied to specific functions. Another factor is that a general purpose digital computer introduces a great deal more flexibility into the picture. A third factor is that these installations cost a great deal of money, primarily because special purpose machines comprise the bulk of the hardware involved, and the computers are not always standard military computers. The fourth factor is that there is a good deal of duplication of effort, despite the fact that different training center’s have different goals. For instance, all the installations discussed require motion models for target movement, plus various sensors and weapons, and all involve some sort of mockups.
It would seem, then, that the only true system approach to simulation for training purposes is the TACDEW installation. If new requirements come along, one of three things is done; either one module of the program of TACDEW is changed; a piece of hardware is modified or else a new piece is installed; or some software-hardware combination is effected. The rest of the system functions unchanged and unhindered. A good example of this is in the area of land mass simulation. Pending development of an optimal land mass simulation subsystem, an airborne land mass simulator was adapted and interfaced with the TACDEW program. This device has
made a very realistic environment for such areas as radar assisted piloting training and shore bombardment training. The present installation consists of two of these devices, which means that two mockups can receive land mass simulation simultaneously. The ultimate system will allow several mockups to receive land masses as the same time. The program includes eight different “harbors:” San Diego, Yokosuka, Long Beach, San Francisco, San Clemente Island, Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, and Sasebo, with the ability to specify ebb or flood tide, as well as programmed depths which can be determined with a simulated Fathometer.
Another example of the flexibility of a total system approach is in the area of shiphandling. Although certainly not the most ideal and final solution, the TACDEW system can provide an emergency shiphandling capability. Sophisticated motion parameters of several different ship types, with appropriate sensors, exist in the software package. These mockups are maneuvered by staff personnel who communicate with students by sound-powered telephones and enter the students’ orders in the computer. Instructors, with complete control of the problem, can monitor the “big picture” from consoles in the problem control room.
A reasonable assumption, then, is that if the basis for shiphandling training capability already existed within an operational system, adding hardware necessary for the remainder of the trainer (helm units, etc.) would be only a fraction of the cost of a new, entirely separate device to do the same thing.
The TACDEW system now incorporates an Anti-Submarine Warfare module into its Master Simulation Program. A few of the capabilities this adds are sonars (ship and helo), other sensors, and weapons (ASROC, torpedoes, etc.). The necessary track types, aircraft, surface, and subsurface vessels, are already in the program. This ASW capability will be more than adequate for FAAX TraCen training purposes. The only areas of ASW training not now planned for TACDEW are sonar operator training and ASW weapons equipment operator training. (This information will be output to teletypes and control display consoles). The only thing needed to make the TACDEW ASW simulation complete is to add this equipment to the complex. A Weapons simulator already exists, and a sonar version of TACDEW video simulators has been specified.
Prior to each Pacific area fleet exercise, most of the anti-air warfare participants attend a one week workup team training course at FAAWTraCen. The objectives of this course are to get the teams organized properly and to subject the task force to an environment similar to the one in which they will be at sea. The major operations areas included within the four days of mockup training exercises are co-ordinated Airborne Tactical Data System/Navy Tactical Data System/ conventional AAW; shore bombardment; limited ASW during an AAW engagement; surface missile attacks; deception; electronic warfare; and surface to air missile firing exercise rehearsals. What this means is that small scale fleet exercises are now conducted “inhouse.” By the fall of 1969, with the installation of additional simulation capability, each of the command and control teams of the ships, aircraft, and staff units involved will bring not only the CIC team, but the weapons and electronics teams as well—and carriers will bring their carrier controlled approach teams, too. The inclusion of more extensive ASW and electronic warfare capabilities will further increase the training effort, and there will be enough video simulators to give all mockups multiple radars. The fallout from this is that the inhouse fleet exercise will have become quite a large-scale evolution, commencing with an opposed sortie from port and ending with the landing on D-Day. In short, a total naval warfare environment will be used for training purposes.
Consider a duel of “Fleets” a continent apart—the Pacific Fleet task force in a building on the West Coast; the Atlantic Fleet task force in a building on the East Coast. The whole fantastic operation would be commanded from a JCS level, through the medium of a war game at the Naval War College. In a relatively short time, such an exercise will become possible, even to the point of data-linking the entire effort by satellite communications relay.
It should be apparent that the answer to the question posed at the opening of this article is a resounding “yes!” Yes, there should be a single master training system. And TACDEW comes closer than any now in being. TACDEW is an open-ended approach, and is the only system that provides for total naval warfare training under a realistic environment, using primarily off-the-shelf hardware. If this type of approach is taken in the future, one system could simulate mockups for such operations areas as AAW, ASW, shore bombardment, boat control, shiphandling (all of which are areas having separate simulators in the same general locality), and many others, as well as to provide such other capabilities as war gaming and data gathering.
A major objection to the single total system concept is that all these separate trainers already exist, and relocation would be costly. Such a concept, however, would be primarily concerned with the future. Follow-on simulators now under development should lend themselves to integration into a single system to give the total capability within a single complex (regardless of location). At that, if readiness could be increased and ships better prepared for operations, some relocation might be well worth the effort and cost.
Another likely objection to centralization is that the responsibility for training in various areas of naval warfare would be removed from its proper position. Not so!
Certainly, separate centers and schools are necessary for basic training, and some special purpose simulators are needed for operator training. Command and control system training, however, is a different matter. In the real operating world, things happen in an unpredictable manner, and many different things are apt to happen at the same time. Thus the need for training for all of these things at the same time is established. There is no reason, for example, why ASW instructors from an ASW center cannot provide the instruction for this single training facility. And there is no stigma attached to saving money by combining command and control system efforts rather than spending more money in the future for duplication.
Simulation certainly is no cure-all. Simulation, using digital computers in a completely flexible concept, however, is becoming more and more sophisticated; Fleet operating time for training is decreasing and costs continue to rise at a rapid pace. The question of Fleet readiness tends to become more and more acute under these circumstances. The picture is further complicated by the introduction of a tremendous amount of technology in the hardware and systems on board ships and aircraft. With this in mind, perhaps a realistic simulation capability, providing a total world environment, would come very near to being the best approach to solution of this aspect of our problems.
The time is at hand for a large, diverse group of people to stop trying to build bigger and better machines to train in different, but related, areas. Why not one master system? Why not one supermarket to replace a dozen corner stores? Different users could take from the system what they need, and could provide their expertise in future additions to the system. A lot of money would be saved simply by eliminating duplication; but, more important, Fleet readiness would be immeasurably increased. This is what really matters.
A graduate of the University of Texas in 1959, Lieutenant Goad was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve upon completion of Officer Candidate School, Newport, R. I., in 1960. He served, successively, in the USS Cavalier (APA-37), the USS Algol (AKA-54), and the USS Floyd Country (LST-762) between 1960 and 1964. He was Operations Officer of the USS Maddox (DD-731) from 1964 to 1966 when he assumed his present duties as TACDEW (Simulation System) Operations Officer, Fleet AAW Training Center, San Diego, California.
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The Proper Way to Spell
“Truxtun” is one of those names with an unusual spelling that is exceedingly difficult for people to remember. We constantly receive mail and merchandise addressed to “ Truxton.”
Our medical officer had been on board just long enough to submit his first contribution to the growing pile of ship’s manuals and instructions. Sure enough, throughout he had written Truxton. Tiring of making corrections, I called him to my office.
“Doc, about the spelling of the ship’s name ...”
“Oh yes, sir, I’m glad you noticed. I thought before I got here that it was ‘un,’ but since I’ve seen all the messages and mail, I copied everything over last night and corrected it to ‘on’ !”
We have one correspondent whom we wouldn’t dare correct. To him, we are the “USS Trustum.”
—Contributed by Captain David D. Work, U. S. Navy
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His Own Private Power Plant
Back in the late 1930s while I was Secretary of the Marine Corps Equipment Board, it was part of my duties to check on new equipment which had been farmed out to various operating troop units. One such item was a small gasoline-driven, portable motor generator. The Board figured that a good place for this was with one of the field medical units for try-outs during maneuvers, thinking that it might come in handy for emergency lighting purposes.
Checking on this in the field, I failed to find the motor generator anywhere where it should have been.
It was finally located in the tent of one of the junior medicos who was using it exclusively to run his electric razor.
—Contributed by Colonel John Kaluf, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired)
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)