SEE THE UNOBVIOUS
With uncertainty resolving over time, we enter the engineering and manufacturing development phase, where M&S invest- ments are still required as we learn more about our more mature “engineering design models.” Computer-assisted design and manufacturing are invaluable as we refine requirements and design while using developmental testing to validate matur- ing models. Tese operational models also help us better realize the logistical support plans that previously had been conceptual.
At this point there is likely a divergence of models: the real-world mission kind (test articles) that can fly, roll or swim through- out the multidomain battlefield, and the hardware (and software)-in-the-loop
models. Te latter are typically being run within computers to predict perfor- mance in a huge variety of conditions and scenarios via Monte Carlo simulations (multivariate probability distributions).
Both serve to inform project stakehold- ers, especially you, the PM. Often, we have to cut a deal with the operational testers to let us use something less than a full-up system for destructive testing. No sense firing a .50-caliber machine gun at a nuclear submarine—just use a panel (skin) from the side of one. (Sound crazy? Just read the account in “Te Pentagon Wars” of the time some folks wanted to fire a tank main gun round at a combat-loaded Bradley Fighting Vehicle, just to see what
would happen.) PMs must negotiate the use of models instead, to reduce the costs of test articles.
SAVE THE BACON Another bacon-saving episode—in this case, in the evolution of the Javelin missile project—was an engineering and manu- facturing development field simulation that we felt would probably be more to satisfy bureaucrats’ demands than to learn anything new about our system. How wrong we were! With immature models and prototypical hardware and software, we found out unequivocally that our FLIR (forward-looking infrared) sensor sensitiv- ity specification was validated—and there would thus be zero room for design trades on that aspect of the system.
With the production and deployment phase drawing near, and as stereolithog- raphy technology is advancing now to 3D printing, output models will still be used to prove out production planning and manufacturing processes using factory simulations. Low-rate initial produc- tion test articles will no longer be models, but production-representative—the real thing. And, as with the example above of the Army Tactical Missile System initial operational test and evaluation, M&S can still save the day by revising the test score as successful that was initially thought to be a failure. In that same three-month major operational test event on the very eve of system deployment to the Persian Gulf War, we were able to use over 1,000 simulated fire missions, done solely by computer model, to convince testers and other stakeholders to support the full-rate production decision.
TRAIN HERE FIRST
Soldiers practice convoy operations on virtual battlespace simulators. Training simulators go hand in hand with rigorous modeling as tools supporting the optimal design and use of warfighting systems, especially if the number of actual systems available to train is limited. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Anaidy G. Claudio, 368th Public Affairs Detachment)
Of course, during the operations and support phase we will be getting user feed- back to help us elaborate evolving ideas for more capability through modifica- tions, tech insertion and so on. Here again,
108 Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2018
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