Page 96 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

96 SEAPOWER SIMULATION & TRAINING
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
THESE days, when most people think of synthetic training devices it conjures images of high-end simulators such as those used to train pilots or aircrew, or perhaps the sophis- ticated bridge simulators already in use by Navy at HMAS Watson and elsewhere.
While high fidelity training aids are certainly a major part of training ships’ crews, they are not a means to an end and need to be underpinned by robust yet flexible curricula and courseware. Effective training also requires an efficient feedback loop, with experience and learnings from the fleet flowing back into the classroom on a continual basis. These factors are now all the more important with the introduc- tion of complex combat, engineering and weapons systems.
“We don’t think about sailors without a ship and you don’t think of training without simulators, but it’s about
how you use them,” Captain Heath Robertson, Director Maritime Warfare Training says. “I take for granted that if I get a simulator it’s going to be high fidelity; I take for granted that a simulator looks and feels like the real thing in many ways. What I need however is that I can combine that with a rich fabric of people-centric training that hap- pens to use a simulator to make it as real as we can and to make the training as rich as it possibly can be.”
But simulators also provide opportunities for immersive training that was just not possible before, or was too costly and time-consuming to assemble large groups of real ships at sea on an exercise. It also facilitates mission rehearsal exercises and tactics development with allies on partners with their ability to join with other simulators – and live assets – in a federation.
UNDERPINNING MARITIME COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
Long thought of as the holy grail of future combat training, simulators and high-fidelity synthetic training devices are only part of the solution to training in the maritime domain.
DEFENCE