THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608060410
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 91 lines
The brains behind America's future fights no longer need troops, weapons or battlefields to cut their teeth.
They have the Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center, a high-tech training ground where military leaders can simulate air strikes with a few computer keystrokes and simulate tactics without risking a life.
The state-of-the-art battle laboratory, tucked into a Suffolk office park, contains $35 million worth of equipment that can conjure any battle scenario and boasts a staff trained in the tactics an enemy would employ.
Hand-picked officers and enlisted personnel from the four services come together here to learn the doctrines behind joint warfare and to practice working together.
Conventional wisdom at the Suffolk training ground says it is far better to learn how to handle a situation in the classroom. Learning on the job puts lives on the line.
It is a concept the center's most recent graduate understands.
Casualties are blips on a computer screen during simulations, notes Air Force Lt. Gen. Phil J. Ford, senior commander of the more recent of two classes that have passed through the center since its October 1994 opening.
The center wants its students to understand why the blips disappear, so that real casualties can be prevented.
Commanders taking the course see their training culminate in a week of computer wargames.
The specifics of each wargame scenario are classified, but last month American forces were involved in a simulated conflict tailored for a smaller, joint-force military. The situation pitted American forces against one of several potential enemies deemed realistic in the post-Cold War world.
Before battle simulations began, Ford and his staff studied the scenario and developed a plan. Then they implemented the plan from start to finish.
Ford, who heads the Louisiana-based 8th Air Force and has almost three decades in uniform, has seen colleagues stuck in the era of grease pencils and display boards struggle with the computer age and joint-force operations.
The general is not among them. He likes to think of himself as someone unafraid to push the envelope, and he says that is what the center's training requires.
His command during the simulated conflict saw him endure a week of briefings, planning and giving orders, and speaking a language more complex than the most acronym-laden military jargon - diplomacy - when a ``U.S. Senator'' visited the scene mid-exercise.
In addition, Ford and his staff were schooled in the intricacies of leading a joint-service force, such as learning to speak Marine after a career of jawing in the Air Force's native tongue.
``We have a set of jargon that's not necessarily accepted in the Army,'' Ford said. ``So it allows us to understand each other.''
Chatter built as the exercise progressed in the facility's joint operation center, an auditorium-sized room packed with civilians and military personnel from all services and ranks. They moved from desk to desk, some with phones to their ears. They kept an eye on giant wall monitors.
Good guys were blue blips on the computer screens. Bad guys were red.
This was the nerve center.
Part of the room's configuration is an intelligence center where interesting tidbits are gathered, then passed along to the commander. The intelligence gleaned for Ford's team was realistic: FBI, CIA and other agency representatives played along.
The enemy was a room away.
``Bad guys'' were played by instructors and civilian contractors with their own control room, their own set of computers. Instructors monitored the event in another room and controlled the exercise's tempo.
``We can raise and lower the bar,'' said Eugene G. Newman, a civilian who has been the center's acting director for the past year. The object is for commanders to learn. Winning is a secondary goal.
Training will continue and expand. As the center continues to improve its technology, it may be used to work out real combat scenarios for impending conflicts.
The center's next exercise will involve NATO nations. A joint force for the U.S. military, as demonstrated by the international mission in Bosnia, can sometimes mean a multinational force. ILLUSTRATION: JIM WALKER photos, The Virginian-Pilot
Banks of computers at the Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation
Center in Suffolk give military commanders a chance to simulate
wartime scenarios without risking a single life.
Civilians and military personnel of all services and ranks pack the
joint operations center. They keep a close eye on giant wall
monitors: Good guys are blue blips on the computer screens; bad guys
are red.
Gen. John Sheehan, right, supreme commander of NATO's Atlantic
Command, briefs members of the press before a tour of the joint
training facility. At left is Eugene G. Newman, the center's acting
director. The next exercise will involve NATO nations - a joint
force in today's military is often an international one, as well. by CNB