European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 3, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Military training electronics on the Battlefield stories by Charles Mohr new York times in Oil bul i dont know who killed said a Dusty sergeant commanding a soviet infantrymen in a mock Battle at fort when a Rifleman asked what he should do the sergeant flopped to the in dead 1 cant fight the next the same troops were defending a Rocky Outcrop several Miles to the North against a numerically Superior battalion of the 2nd army the at tackers had destroyed most of the defenders which had been modified to resemble soviet and three american my tanks rumbled out of the dust and smoke around the Eastern shoulder of the no a military Umpire they should have dismounted some infantry and cleaned this area out the accuracy of this prediction was almost instantly As concealed defenders with shoulder held antitank weapons aimed and one by Bright yellow Strobe Lighton the my tanks began to signifying that the Tahka Riad been such incidents take place throughout the year As the army trains its soldiers and officers under highly realistic Battle conditions in which mistakes Are instantly penalized and military performance is an Al Zed daily in painstaking this is accomplished on an electronically monitored Battlefield about the size of Rhode Island in the South Ern California the instrumentation at the army National training Center permits computers to track the location and movement of about 500 armoured personnel carriers and other and records their Maneu vers in vivid computer displays that show the folds and Wattles of the rugged the use of Low Power laser beams instead of real ammunition also Makei it possible to score the firing of a wide Range of from 105mm tank cannons to ml6 perhaps most the mock engagements fought Between visiting regular army units and a Spe Cial soviet motorized Rifle regiment that serves As a sparring partner duplicates the fog of War with remarkable this tends to teach commanders the difficulties of retaining control Over fast moving vehicles and of maintaining communications despite enemy efforts to Jam radio so troops have gone through the 20day training courses at the the Center itself reflects a growing emphasis in All the armed services on better involving electronic scoring under conditions that closely resemble an actual the training Center provides a historical record of an said Frank Mill the centers chief of and we can replicate the ferocity and doctrine of soviet Many of the men who have trained there seem to endorse that even Vietnam veterans often describe As awesome the sight of 144 soviet a Mored vehicles thundering at there Are several elements that contrib Ute to the one is the multiple integrated laser engagement called which permits weapons to fire computer coded laser individual soldiers carry receiving sensors on their webbed equipment harnesses and their and vehicles carry sensors on their Armor the coding of the beams takes into account the distance Between the muzzle and the and can Register near misses As Well As the probability of a the computer can too it rejects a hit from a Rifle on a for As impossible of achieving a but it permits some heavy machine guns to destroy a thin skinned armoured personnel car if an infantryman is hit by a his equipment emits a annoying to turn it he must take a key from his own Rifle and insert it into a lock an action that renders the Rifle a personnel carriers special Strobe Light emits two fast blinks for a near miss and persistent blinks when it has been the army and the Marine corps can use Miles but fort greatly adds to its usefulness through the Remote radio relay stations and video Cam eras on the this allows monitors at the base to follow and record the movements of but not men on and to record which vehicle has registered a since when the Center the instrumentation has been expanded from an ability to handle a few score vehicles to several another advantage of the training Center is the pres ence of about 200 full time or Man Euver at least one controller follows every training unit Down to the level of a four tank usually with a running commentary on a special radio still another advantage is the presence of a Well trained opposing Force made up of two battalions of troops in the mock soviet they Wear Black berets with red stars and spend from 200 to 250 Days a year in the sometimes under extreme weather the use of electronic ammunition is supplemented by live fire exercises in which defensive and offensive 1 tactics Are using an elaborate array of Popup targets at which the training units can fire real Ammu the targets pop up in emitting Flash and in a Way that simulates an advancing in addition to video elaborate computer Gener ated displays provide a graphic depiction of any part of the in a recent this record clearly showed that a commander who began an attack with 30 tanks in a Diamond formation of four groups quickly found his rear element in the Lead and his engineers lost to the he was unable to Cross antitank ditches and a mock mine Field the engineers could have cleared in each a scenario is created setting the location of Battle and the size of opposing but neither commander knows where the other is or what he May night reconnaissance or the careless use of May Settle the next Days the computer and video records Are played Back each Day for the officers involved in the training the reviews arc polite but the mock Battles Are not As instruments to Grade officer but As a training tool that can be worked into training programs at their Home George Patton trained Armor units on the same terrain just before world War but without such realistic training one watching a tank commander on a screen run up to the barbed wire and die when he could have crushed the this is the Best training we have Ever new York times photo an infantryman fires a missile launcher As his colleague moves in realistic combat in the air ii f new York times commanders Are critiqued after Field exercises with the Aid of computer two f4 fighter bombers from Nellis streaking Low above the Nevada desert were invisible from above until they flew Over a Snow covered dry their Gray exhaust smoke showing clearly against the vivid Richard Guild rolled in from above and be and got a simulated electronic kill on the f4s with Airt air when he asked the pilots later Why they had flown Over the Only Snow for Miles one i didst think about this episode from mock combat illustrates More than the axiom that most fighter pilots never see the plane that kills air Force officials say it also Demon Strates the value of realistic combat Lynn who commands two aggressor squadrons that help provide such practice for fighter pilots said after listening to guilds when a Pilot can actually see his learning training is regarded As the heart of preparation for War and perhaps the single most important Factor in combat Good training is regarded As probably the key element in the British Victory Over larger Argen Tine forces in the Falkland islands and the israeli air forces remarkable 82too Aerial scorecard against Syri an pilots in Lebanon in eve improving military technology is also very but military thinkers increasingly be Lieve that Only Well trained men can effectively employ such All four branches of the armed serv ices now place High emphasis on training meant to replicate As closely As possible the Battlefield and the threats of modern the air convinced that flying around the flagpole in straight and level practice is of almost no has strongly embraced realistic training for fighter the aim is not Only to give pilots frequent chances to bomb and but also to give them a Chance to exercise the countermeasures vital on a mod Ern electronic Battlefield to Blind or to baffle an increasingly far seeing pure flying called Basic fighter Maneu vers of the is a but the 3millionacre Range at Nellis builds on that foundation by providing an Arena for much More advanced and realistic training in larger formations and against not Only adversary aircraft but also against the Strong ground threat of antiaircraft weapons and electronic hammers possessed by the soviet Union and its Warsaw pact it also permits practice against dissimilar aircraft that closely approximate the performance of soviet planes and which Are flown using soviet Battle tactics and Joseph commander of the 57th fighter weapons we always taught them How to Block and but now we can let them suit up and scrimmage under game much of what the services Are doing today transcends compute assisted in which is basically like the old link Pilot Trainer of world War ii but much More a Pilot is Able More or less to imitate an action in a for a Tow antitank rocket costs so much and can Only be fired there is value in having a Soldier train on a what is happening at Nellis and at the army National training Center in California depends on an equally Complex technology of scoring the use of an aircraft or a tank in Battlefield pilots really Fly against each other or ground but electromagnetic pulses and cameras determine the outcome with High said in the old the pilots with the loud est voices and strongest personalities usually won at the officers club bar after a training now there is no argument about who probably the greatest scoring realism is achieved with something called air combat mane vering or am the system links instrument pods on the aircraft with ground receivers in a 35mile Circle North of the ground receivers reconstruct the dogfight and record it on after the pilots gather in a Small auditorium and watch the fight on a Large stopping and reversing the tape for reruns As often As they like and critiquing the action much like a football team goes Over game the advanced display technology of Ami permits Quick changes in the amount of airspace horizontal and vertical representation a representation of the Heads up display of the cockpit of any plane involved in the and a cartoon like picture of the wildly mane vering opposing in modern fighters Heads up displays enable the pilots to see the radar gathered Range and Angle of other aircraft As Well As their own movable gun sight pips for automatic cannons and Airt air without hav ing to look Down at the regular instrument in a Sample demonstration two flown by regular air Force line pilots from Active operational fought against two f5e aggressor planes flown by members of the Nellis aggressor the tape illustrated the High Speed and brutally Short time spans of Aerial something that requires a fighter Pilot to time share his cockpit the first engagement began with the planes 23 Miles apart and ended two minutes and 20 seconds later when an f16 shot Down an f5 at a Range of feet with a burst of 20mm Cannon the f16 had tried to use his sidewinder heat seeking missile at longer Range bul had been unable to find a gunnery solution As the aggressor Pilot gyrated the second lasting two 37 ended in the destruction of both when the computers determine an overwhelmingly High probability of taking into account the ballistic performance of weapons and the Speed and deflection of the the picture of the losing plane spins out of control with a coffin superimposed on the Ami can now handle Only six aircraft at a time in simulated but will be expanded to handle 36 next in the video cameras and other instrument pods facilitate scoring in Large scale ground stations on the huge Nellis Range imitate the radar and other methods used by soviet surface air guns and this permits a Pilot and his superiors to see whether he got in and out alive on a bombing scoring of bomb accuracy is by marking the Impact of either live bombs or san filled its the most realistic training in the Guild Page 14 the stars and stripes june the stars and stripes Page 15