Virtual training to increase for the Navy and the Marines

| April 14, 2023

The Navy and Marines are looking at enhancing the use of virtual training. Virtual training feeds connecting units with a real time “feel” of a similar environment in an actual operation. Networked units, over a wide geographic area, would be able to coordinate and solve battle problems together that would be too risky to do in the real world.

From the Military Times:

The services already have LVC training systems that go beyond basic simulators for a single pilot or infantryman and connect sailors and Marines at different training centers and ships. This allows them to see a complex picture of U.S. and adversary forces, some of which are real and some of which are simulated.

Now they are trying to speed the integration of more systems into the LVC training environment. The Navy and the Marines say they have the basic backbone in place, with some platforms and systems fully integrated into this network. But they need further integration, so the entire naval force and all the tools at its disposal can train in this LVC environment.

“We have to be able to link the ships that are training off the East Coast with an exercise that’s going on in the South China Sea with something unmanned that’s happening in 5th Fleet in Bahrain with some Marine unit that’s flying F-35s in Twentynine Palms,” Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger said this month at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference in Maryland.

“We have to tie all that together so that the virtual, live, constructive, all aspects of that are all woven together,” he said. “That’s how we take [training] to another level — and we’re headed there, but we’ve got to keep the resources behind it or it will fall off, and we can’t let that happen.”

The Military Times has the article here.

Category: Marines, Navy

12 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Green Thumb

I wonder what you do if someone virtually punches you in the face?

Hate_me

From my experience with Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, you lose and throw the controller at the screen.

KoB

“…but we’ve got to keep the resources behind it or it will fall off, and we can’t let that happen.”

In other words, (to quote the Guv) “Gentlemen, we’ve got to justify our phony baloney jobs.” (ht2 MB)

Train like you’re gonna fight…in the real world. Yeah, it’s expensive AND dangerous, but at the end of the day you will save more lives doing it that way. Teach the Warriors how to break things and destroy their enemy…not which pronouns to use.

Yep, this type training has its place, but I personally believe that too much emphasis is placed on virtual training instead of getting dirty in the field.

YMMV

Hate_me

In my experience, virtual training platforms could carry a lot more value if they were better leveraged.

By that, I mean too many planners consider them a replacement for the range/field rather than an augment to it. Playing a video game can teach many things but they’re nowhere near sophisticated enough to simulate tactical maneuver (some advanced flight simulators may be the closest to an exception). On the ground, it would make sense to use a virtual platform to train operational art and simulate strategic circumstances that are too big to recreate physically – but you’d still need your joes out in the field to prepare to win (or gauge the potential outcomes of) the supporting battles and movements.

AT1 ret

Down Periscope
“nobody talks about brave man and their proud simulators”

I think that was the quote

Green Thumb

Phil Monkress and All-Points Logistics should get in on this contract.

He could virtually fuck the American taxpayers in the ass.

David

So they can virtually run into Asian freighters? (ducks)

KoB

OK, Davy Boy, I laffed waaaaaay yonder too hard over your comment. How about running into underwater mountains? Burning up ships that are tied to the dock?

Good to see that an Editor feels comfortable enough in his job security to fly into the danger zone and not thinks he has to put his thoughts on ice, man…and that he doesn’t mind checking in on the DA Form 6 and volunteer to be “that guy”.

AW1Ed

Somewhere a slit trench is going begging, Gun Bunny.

Tallywhagger

Cool! Maybe some Clint Eastwood movies and Dan Rather videos in his war bonnet khaki outfits.

NDHoosier

Can the Air Force use this technology to simulate losing track of nuclear weapons?

MCPO USN

We create all this so that the Air Force E-3 can leak all the documents?