ACQUISITION


TRAINING BOOM


Suite of trainers for towed artillery systems blends realism, modularity


by MAJ Daniel Cowling and Mr. Joshua Zawislak E 8


ngineers from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) and the Army’s project manager for towed artillery systems (PM TAS) have been collaborating on an innovative


training package that will take an avatar-based gaming approach to training for the M777A2 and M119A3 towed howitzers.


Te current overseas conflict has required Soldiers and Marines to deploy for extended periods in nonstandard missions, with- out their howitzers and performing jobs outside their normal military occupational specialties (MOSs). While this flexibil- ity has been essential to managing a complex conflict, often it has eroded the warfighters’ core technical skills. Tis has been especially significant for the towed field howitzer community, for whom operation and maintenance of complex systems with both optical and digital fire control requires a high degree of technical proficiency.


Tis fact has not been lost on the U.S. Army Training and Doc- trine Command capability manager for brigade combat team


fires (TCM BCT Fires), who received correspondence from mul- tiple parties in the field concerning lost proficiencies for field artillery. Te correspondence highlighted the need for a portable training product to help MOS 13B Soldiers and 0811 Marines maintain their core artillery proficiencies in any environment. PM TAS, which manages the M777A2 and M119A3 howitzers within the Program Executive Office for Ammunition (PEO Ammunition) and received responsibility for managing the effort, worked with the field artillery community and the ARDEC labs to develop the project’s requirements and technical approach.


SYSTEM COMPONENTS Te result is that the Army is putting together a suite of train- ers to address individual, collective and institutional training needs. Te new trainers will provide Soldiers and Marines an interactive review of the proper procedures for safely and accu- rately performing critical crew tasks. Te trainers derive from a common base set of government-owned software, whose archi- tecture allows for the use of additional modules to customize the training focus.


Army AL&T Magazine


July–September 2014


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