Sailors move from classrooms to shipboard simulators.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Transforming Training

The U.S. Navy will be plowing millions of dollars into new simulators that will be used aboard ships, rather than ashore, to help sailors acquire specialized skills before they depart on a mission.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vernon Clark instructed his staff a year ago to "fundamentally change the way the Navy thinks about modeling and simulation."

Clark argued that the Navy is not taking full advantage of the technologies now available, and he insisted that the service should expand the use of simulations into areas such as weapons testing, research and development.

"He told us to actively go and seek ways for modeling and simulation to supplant or add to the old way of doing things," said Eric Seeland, a senior civilian on the Navy staff.

Seeland is now the deputy director of the so-called Task Force Simulation, which was created specifically to carry out Clark's directive. The organization is based in Norfolk, Va., and reports to the U.S. Navy Fleet Forces Command.

The intent of the task force is to "energize modeling and simulation to take more of a daily role in Navy affairs," Seeland said in an interview.

The conventional wisdom about simulations being low-cost replacements for live training or live-fire tests holds true in many cases, but that is not the main motivation behind Clark's decision to create this task force, he insisted. Simulations can save money, but their more important contribution is "a better trained fleet, with more proficiency and expertise."

Simply by simulating missile firings instead of shooting real weapons, the Navy's surface fleet will save $33 million a year, said Seeland. "That's just the first cut."

In an attempt to improve the quality of sailor training while also boosting morale, the Navy will install training devices aboard ships so crews can prepare for their missions while the ship is in port. That allows them to train during the day and go home at night, rather than spend several weeks at sea.

Onboard mission rehearsals also allow crews to "train the way they fight," a strategy that the Navy advocates when preparing sailors to perform in complex combat environments.

By keeping training activities next to the pier, Seeland said, the Navy can save 4,000 barrels of fuel in a single two- to three-week exercise.

Turning ships in port into training platforms is part of a broad initiative, called total ship training systems (TSTS), that is intended to bring training devices onto actual Navy platforms...