Battle experiments: live and virtual troops mix in amphibious exercise.

• Author: Peck, Michael
• Position: Combined Joint Task Force Exercise

Mixing live and virtual troops in a multinational force was one of the biggest challenges facing organizers of a Joint Forces Command exercise last summer.

Combined Joint Task Force Exercise (CJTFEX 04-2) was the most complex joint war game of the last decade, according to planners and participants. It involved 30,000 live troops, two carrier battle groups, a plethora of simulated (or constructive) aircraft and ground troops fighting in a Desert Storm-like scenario.

"We still have a long way to go on integrating live, virtual and constructive training," said Bill Johnson, event planner for the Joint National Training Capability (JNTC). For example, there's the question of determining battle damage. "If you have a live aircraft drop ordnance on a constructive target, how do you determine damage to the constructive target? How can a constructive target engage a live aircraft?"

JFCOM exercise planners stuck to one hard rule: do not mix live and simulated aircraft in the same airspace. "The concern is that if a live pilot is being engaged by a constructive aircraft, he obviously can't see it," said Johnson. "There is a flight safety concern that he may maneuver too hard to try to engage."

Life for the exercise controllers got even tougher when virtual weapons engaged each other. In theory, different computer models should be able to talk to one another and agree on the outcome of a mission. But exercise controllers discovered that humans still are needed to adjudicate computer bickering. "If a constructive aircraft in AWSIM [an Air Force model] engages a constructive land target in JCATS [an Army simulation], the models should figure out what the damage actually was," Johnson said. "But sometimes the models don't talk to each other very well."

Another challenge was the communication between live coalition troops. The scenario was an invasion of the hypothetical nation of Kartuna, whose coastline resembled the state of North Carolina's, by the equally fictitious nation of Korona. Coalition forces were tasked with an opposed amphibious landing into Korona to enforce a UN Security Council resolution.

The colorful array of the invading coalition included strike groups centered on the John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman carriers, the British 3rd Commando Brigade, U.S. special operations forces and the Minnesota National Guard's 34th Infantry Division. There were also a Peruvian diesel submarine, French and Dutch marines, and force reconnaissance and...