After the field exercise is completed, training can continue if the data collected are accessible and useful. The Navy is following the lead of the corporate world in developing efficient ways to transmit and use training data—such as converting the data into three-dimensional displays viewable from any angle.
So you have completed the exercise and the days of preparation now seem worthwhile. Your command has finished another readiness event, and it is time to look ahead to the next evolution on the schedule. Such is the frenetic life of the fleet sailor.
But ... what did your fighting team just learn in sinking the target or splashing that track? How are you going to keep them from losing the knowledge just gained? How are future crews going to take advantage of your success in their preparations to train and fight? Does the rest of the fleet get access to what you accomplished so they can take advantage of the lessons of the exercise? What is going to happen to the valuable data gathered during your exercise—will the data remain mainly accessible to analysts or will the data be available to those who need such resources in the fleet?
Though today the answers to these questions are not positive, there is significant change under way in our fleet training approach as we look to apply the best practices from the corporate world.
Civilian industries are on their "battlefields" every day, and their leaders understand how training and the achievement of corporate objectives go hand in hand. Because it affects the bottom line, corporations seek to align training to their business objectives. This reality dictates that learning methods and smart use of technology are applied to ensure a continuous learning experience even when the student is on the job. It is time to apply some of these best practices to heighten the effectiveness of training for our fighting men and women.
A Troublesome Training Paradigm
In military training, there is a strong focus on acquiring and fielding leading-edge training systems to enhance the training experience. Blended learning in the form of classrooms, CD-based training, and web-based training is becoming a norm. But put aside "content" and look at the "labs"—i.e., our field exercises.
Operational training events help transfer knowledge and skills, but the management of the resulting output from field events is not tailored for the warfare communities. Simulators, graphic feedback systems, debriefs, and post-exercise reports are in place to scrub an event and maximize knowledge transfer to the participant. But what about the rest of troops who could use the analysis of someone else's event to enhance their ability to fight? What about other watch teams or future crews in that same command?
Except for select exercises and high visibility test and evaluation events, it is rare to see anything more than success/failure reports on most events if you did not participate. Even if you did participate, your opportunity to revisit the exercise for internal training or new watch stander induction is limited. This means the impact of the exercise is across a narrow band of the existing crew and the outcome of the exercise often is short-term knowledge transfer and an administrative check for completion of a required training milestone.
We can do better, and fleet-training organizations are championing many efforts that will use our training data more effectively.
Beginning to Break the Paradigm
With training budgets always stressed, we must manage exercise data efficiently. Field training events can have much greater impact if we look at a few simple things: Where are exercise data going? That depends on what the exercise was and where it occurred—there is not consistency in how this is done. Personal computers, tapes, and sometimes more advanced forms of storage are used both at the range and at activities that provide analysis of the data. The challenge lies in accessing that data with as little labor as possible. Further, once the data are found, are they really that useful outside the analyst world? We must understand how well technology can deal with data access and the importance of consistent archiving. The good news is that the know-how and technology are here now.
- How are we presenting exercise data? Are we turning data into information? Again, the answer depends on where the exercise was conducted and who was analyzing the event data. There are examples of taking training event data and transforming them into high-impact information that will enhance the fighting unit's understanding of the exercise and give it higher readiness to fight-but this transformation information is not consistent.
- Are we evolving from providing training products to training services? Fortunately, significant focus on improving training services to the fleet is being addressed by Naval Training and Education (OpNav N79), Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (CinCPacFlt), and Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet (CinCLantFlt). In 2001, the Pacific and Atlantic fleets produced the Pacific Fleet and Atlantic Fleet Training Strategy. In addition to providing fleet staffs and subordinate commanders guiding principles for use during the interdeployment training cycle, this strategy also provides a framework for ensuring the fleet has the resources to support fleet training requirements. This strategy is important to aligning training to mission requirements and is a major step in evolving what was becoming a learning environment focused on "checking-in-the-box" at the unit level. According to the training strategy, the focus now is "to provide forces to Supported (Combatant) Commanders trained as they would fight in that specific theater, proficient in all required mission areas to appropriate standards."
Further, a well-integrated three-phased interdeployment training cycle has been developed that includes:
- Basic (unit level) training to ensure proficiency needed for more complex integrated training
- Intermediate training involving underway exercises to support the goal of integrating surface, submarine, and air units in a challenging operational environment
- Advanced training to complete all underway training requirements culminating in an integrated carrier battle group/amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit joint fleet exercise
The training strategy also promotes an important program that seeks to gain greater benefit from battle group, warfare commander, and unit training. OpNav N79 sponsors qualitative fleet feedback (QFF), and CinCPacFlt's and CinCLantFlt's training directives provide joint oversight and guidance. The Naval Warfare Assessment Station conducts QFF program management. So what does QFF really mean to the fleet? There is now responsibility for training efficiency gains through elimination of redundancies and best allocation of manpower, material, and development resources for training from a Navy-wide pool. In the areas of instrumentation/data gathering, range software integration, decision support system development, and exercise reconstruction/analysis, we now have unified fleet focus and accountability. If executed correctly, this can lead us quickly out of the "check-in-the-box" bias we have in our current training.
Though there are complex issues with improving the overall effectiveness of fleet training, training data management and access are fairly easy to deal with using existing information technology (IT) architecture models and client-side tools to enhance the war fighter's understanding of exercise events. A process and technology framework could be used to provide both structure in the way we archive and access data, and, more important, the method by which this now accessible training data become high-value training information.
Some sample client-side tools in use today illustrate the existing capability to migrate from training products to high-value training services. The Naval Research Lab's Simulation Display (SimDis) three-dimensional (31) visualization tool is an off-the-shelf tool available free to government agencies. It is seeing a rapidly expanding user base at weapon ranges, test and evaluation centers, and other government agencies. SimDis provides a powerful capability for interactively viewing simulation and field test data from any viewpoint (i.e., from different platforms/sites, or at different azimuth and/or elevation orientation angles). It provides a 3D display of the normally "seen" data such as platform position and weapon release as well as the "unseen" data such as the interactions of sensor systems with targets, countermeasures, and the environment. SimDis is capable of providing vehicle orientation—yaw, pitch, and roll—while tracking.
Use of the tool can be as simple as double-clicking a file and playing the training event and can easily include synchronized audio. With a few days of training, commands can use the tool to change the viewing perspective of an exercise and key in on whatever events they believe are most meaningful for them. For example, an antisubmarine warfare exercise might be viewed with an underwater "fish eye" view for the sub's benefit, or the exercise could be played back from the air for the benefit of the P-3 that dropped the torpedo.
The Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Kauai is pushing the envelope to maximize the value of training feedback it provides to the fleet. PMRF has worked extensively with the Naval Research Lab, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and other partners to use leading-edge visualization technology to provide long-lasting, high-impact training products. Applications of the display tools vary from visual information projection displays during the events, to scripted playback sessions for training purposes, to improved management of range safety. In the case of SimDis, full 3D visualization is a core capability.
SimDis has multi-warfare area visualization capability both in real-time and near-real-time scripted playback. The software has been used for antiair, antisurface, antisubmarine, and electronic warfare events, providing live displays, interactive playbacks, and scripted multimedia playbacks. It also has the ability to integrate live video with 3D visualization to add richness to the display and increase the impact of training feedback.
Open architecture for a wide range of client devices is critical to usability, and all client-side tools must be designed to maximize flexibility. In the case of SimDis, the tool can run on a personal computer (Windows 98 and up) with inexpensive graphics cards. It also runs on Unix standalone workstations and multiple networked platforms. It is important to remember that SimDis is simply a client tool, and it functions by accessing exercise data files that could exist anywhere.
This brings us to bandwidth. High-speed wireless and all-optical networks are revolutionizing the IT industry, and the military is on that same bandwagon. In 1999, network bandwidth potential exceeded central processing unit (CPU) processing speed, and today the network has the ability to carry more packets of data per second than even the fastest CPUs can process. Not all of that bandwidth capability is yet available to the ship at sea, but it is clear that bandwidth should be the least of our concerns. In fact, the Defense Information Systems Agency continues to execute movement of both the graphics-heavy Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET) and the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) to the most advanced switching and wireless technologies to save money and continue the ramp-up of available bandwidth to the war fighter.
We also should look hard at what industry is doing to deal with legacy data-historic data that are of use to the corporation, its partners, and its customers. The trouble is that historic data might be on a variety of systems that might not be compatible with enterprise-wide and external access. Training data certainly can be classified as legacy data, so it is wise to apply similar industry IT architecture principles to ease access and usability of these important gems of learning.
First, the training community must develop a mind-set of providing a service when looking at the storage and accessibility of training data. This means establishing quality of service as a fundamental requirement of system design. Paramount in the design of the infrastructure must be scalability, manageability, and availability, so that users get a "dial tone" level of reliability. Fortunately, the use of the Internet and corporate intranets has grown tremendously and reliable design principles are in place to handle growth, increased service requirements, and increasing workloads. Creating a scalable, available, reliable IT architecture to provide training data access and viewing is not a huge hurdle. The challenge is more one of ownership and process than technology.
There is good news on this front in that the qualitative fleet feedback program charter provides a wonderful opportunity for consistency in data archiving and future accessibility and high-value use of that data. QFF has taken the responsibility for looking at emerging technologies to streamline data collection, enhance analysis, and distribute resultant analysis across the Navy training community. This is a breakthrough for structure and efficiency and offers tremendous potential for better use of training exercise data.
Summary
A wealth of important data and lessons for our war fighters is gathered each day in exercises throughout the world and sits in hard drives and tapes. Leading edge visualization products, a surge in bandwidth, and robust remote services architectures have paved the way for the fleet to access and use this valuable information to improve the way we train. Couple the technological advances with recent Navy efforts to ensure ownership of training effectiveness improvements, and it is apparent that we are on the verge of a new paradigm for continuous learning for the fleet.
Commander Ricketts is a naval reservist in Science and Technology Program 38. He works for Sun Microsystems, where he manages education consulting services for the Americas.