French Army gets MASA SWORD license

The French Army has acquired a global license for MASA’s flagship SWORD warfare simulation software, the company announced on 1 September. 

SWORD provides an immediate solution to SOULT (the simulation programme for combined forces and ground logistics units’ operations), for the operational preparation of combined forces at division, brigade, and battle group command posts.

The deployment of SOULT and its assimilation by the army will be managed by the Centre of Expertise for Information validation and Simulation (CEISIM). The army will be able to use SOULT to lead distributed, autonomous, centralised, multi-site and mobile training exercises.

The programme will first be rolled out at the Training Centre for Command Posts to ensure that the centre’s current SCIPIO system remains in service. SCIPIO already operates with older versions of SWORD. The programme will be gradually extended to training centres, brigades and regiments from 2016. 

SOULT will also progressively replace JANUS software, which is nearing the end of its lifecycle and is currently in use across several training centres for French and foreign command units.  

SWORD’s capacity has already been tested by CEISIM for its use in the ‘General Bertrand’ exercise, which is traditionally undertaken by JANUS at the Armed Forces Engineering School in the city of Angers, France.

Col Claude Chary, commander, CEISIM, said: ‘With SWORD at the heart of SOULT, CEISIM will further streamline its simulations, focusing on developing a bridge between SWORD and other information systems. The testing of SWORD, led in conjunction with the military engineering school, allowed us to consider the move from JANUS to SOULT.

‘The acquisition and deployment of SWORD’s global license is the first stage in the SOULT programme, which will eventually equip both JANUS centres and a selection of collective training centres. This conforms perfectly with our policy of deploying simulation solutions whose purpose is to support the decentralised operational preparation of land forces. Compatible with the interoperability framework of the French land forces, SOULT connects seamlessly with current and future operational information and communication systems.’

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SWORD