Army and marines to consolidate gunnery training devices.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps are developing common software in an effort to standardize a multitude of gunnery training systems.

Current gunnery training programs for the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle are supported by eight different virtual gunnery trainers built by three separate contractors, said Army Maj. Lee Dunlap, assistant program manager for ground combat tactical trainers at the program executive office for simulation, training, research and instrumentation.

The Army currently pays for redundant developmental and lifecycle support costs for three distinct baselines, said Dunlap.

A common-gunnery architecture could save the Army and Marine Corps more than $66 million, he added.

The eight trainers currently in service are the advanced gunnery training system, the combat vehicle training system, conduct-of-fire trainer, advanced gunnery training system, Abrams full-crew interactive skills trainer, the advanced Bradley full-crew interactive skills trainer, the conduct-of fire trainer, the Bradley advanced training system and the Bradley conduct-of-fire recap.

Adding to the mix is the Stryker mobile gun system advanced gunnery-training system, which would come with specific software.

Dunlap said that the Stryker gunnery training system is likely to become the baseline for a new common gunnery architecture.

"In the case of the common gunnery architecture, the Stryker MGS training system will be the first system produced," he said. "The CGA schedule meshes perfectly with the Stryker MGS AGTS schedule, allowing it to become the first product in the new family."

All existing devices train soldiers and crews "to standard," but will require concurrency upgrades to support new manuals that are scheduled to be released this month, said Dunlap.

The Abrams, Bradley and Stryker master gunner communities also have further defined their needs for urban training scenarios. Operators want models and simulations that are more in tune with the real operating environment, that can quickly adapt gunnery to changes in tactics, techniques and procedures, and that can easily be adapted to various scenarios.

The driving engine of the common architecture is the One Semi-Automated Forces Objective System--a computer-generated force modeling software that represents entities from the individual to the brigade level.

The One SAF Objective System has been chosen to be the embedded simulation engine for the Future Combat System and will replace...