UDT 2011: Simulation vital for ASW operations

World navies conducting anti-submarine warfare (ASW) must concentrate their efforts on simulation in order to ‘maximise the undersea advantage’, according a senior industry official.

Addressing delegates at the Underwater Defence Technology (UDT) Europe exhibition in London, Bill Lambert, international key account manager for naval and maritime simulation and training at Rheinmetall Defence Electronics, said simulation enhanced force combat readiness and described synthetic training as ideal for both ASW and other naval operations.

'ASW remains a core mission discipline for the navies in the 21st Century,’ he urged.

Following the mantra ‘all but war is simulation’, Lambert emphasised the need for a networked synthetic environment in the ‘extremely complicated operating environment’ that is ASW warfare. 

Referring to asymmetric threats above and below surface, he stressed how simulated training was considered the most cost-effective way to prepare for these threats. Lambert also predicted a move from ‘platform intensive’ to networked ‘sensor rich’ ASW operations, citing Rheinmetall’s cooperation with both the Federal German and Royal Thai Navies.

‘What we’ve looked at with both of the navies is post-Cold War [scenarios]; where have things gone? From blue water to littoral water ASW,’ he commented. ‘We have moved with technology, and what we’ve basically arrived at now is a flexible and modular solution to produce a reconfigurable trainer.’

Acknowledging that although simulation is the cheaper option it is still expensive, Lambert said that adaptability of the training platform was paramount.

‘Certainly it is possible to provide a stand-alone stimulation on original equipment in a closed environment, but what we’re seeing now is the ability to reconfigure a trainer for different roles as most important.

‘This has been technologically capable, to do network synthetic training, for quite a long time, but it’s only in the last five years and up to now that it has been starting to happen,' he concluded.