It is about *US versus THEM*.

The most important part of realistic training is (1)Setting up realistic scenarios to train too and (2) The ego destroying and realistic feedback on what mistakes were made by whom afterwards.

(Not that the various American military services don’t have scenario issues. The USN and USMC have sea mines edited out of their amphibious scenarios with the USN added caveat “you can’t sink my big CV’s” besides. The US Army used to have an anti-land mine prejudice, until the IEDs showed up in a big way in Iraq. And the USAF will not credit the enemy, in any scenario I am familiar with, with big anti-radar homing surface to air or air to air missiles capable of wacking its AWACS, JSTARS, or imprudent F-15 pilots.)

It is the culture of honest critique & feed back that makes realistic training worth while.

It takes a special institutional culture to make realistic, potentially career destroying, feedback work.

Please see Egyptian Army performance in the 1973 War. Once the Egyptians passed the end of their scripted training in taking and defending the Suez Canal against Israeli counter attacks, they could not function well against a real Israeli enemy who adapted rapidly to Egyptian tactics and did things outside the parameters of their training.

Fighting to the plan is not “fighting the enemy” if the enemy are not following the assumptions of your plan.

Watts has a built in assumption about the culture of honest feedback that goes with successful realitic training you just cannot project world wide on every military.

This is because that kind of reality based feedback culture in those non-American militaries represents a threat to the political stability of the nations those militaries are a part of.

http://www.peostri.army.mil/PM-CATT/CCTT/CITT/io/ie/io_1exp.htm

In addition, consider that training in realistic simulators first, mitigates risk in live training and combat. At some point, leaders also must consider that some live dogfight training results in greater casualties than ever would result in actual close air combat in the 21st century. If we get to the point that simulated dogfighting training is so real and equips the pilot with so much OODA experience…when the real thing does occur, he/she will be that much better equipped to deal with the threat.

http://www.peostri.army.mil/PM-CATT/CCTT/CITT/io/ie/io_1exp.htm

As for risk in training, consider the multiple 2007–2008 dogfight training fatalities. I would humbly submit that we lose more great American aviators in such training than we ever would lose in actual air combat close-in dogfighting in the 21st century. Can we afford to lose so many great Americans and great American F-22s/F-35s in close-in dogfight training constituting no more than probably 10% of their real world mission?

In addition, if you can simulate dogfighting realistically in a simulator FIRST, when its time for the real thing in live training and combat, some of the risk is mitigated.

http://www.peostri.army.mil/PM-CATT/CCTT/CITT/io/ie/io_1exp.htm

As for risk in training, consider the multiple recent 2007–2008 fighter fatalities. I would humbly submit that we lose more great American aviators in such dogfight training than we ever would lose in actual air combat dogfighting in the 21st century. Can we afford to lose so many great Americans and great American F-22s/F-35s in close-in dogfight training constituting no more than probably 10% of their real world mission?

In addition, if you can simulate dogfighting realistically in a simulator FIRST, when its time for the real thing in live training and combat the risk is mitigated.

As for women and special ops, I really don’t understand what that has to do with the issue at hand.

there guys are gonna fell on the same hole again…it is pure stupidity

I guess the question is how do we define realistic training? Granted that is relative.

I was Special Operations in the Navy during the Reagan Administration and I got called back in 2003 (briefly). That summer I attended a Navy Intel Training Course at Great Lakes.

All do respect to the Instructors that developed the course for the Navy, it would not have saved many lives in a “real life” environment.

In defense of the Navy in all actuality those individuals who attended would not have seen action anyway.

Maybe a balance between the Military and Private Contractor training could work.

I have observed the Private Training to be much more realistic.

There is NO EXCUSE for our Country not to provide the BEST TRAINING in the World to our Men and Women in uniform.

Targeting from 25,000′ feet even with a Sniper XR system or great UAS optics coupled with aided target recognition, will never replace the need for trained interface with ground troops, a UAS operator, and/or a JTAC with a closer perspective.

There have been too many fratricide and collateral damage incidents over the years, even with man-in-the-loop verification of targets. How would you explain to the world that a completely automated system targeted innocent civilians? And intelligence leading to use of automated targeting can be just as problematic if corrupt officials feed faulty intel to our well-intended forces.

Even BVR AMRAAM shots from an F-22 will require continuous training of target handover between stealthy and non-stealth aircraft, emitter vs non-emitter aircraft, and between AWACS, JSTARS, UAS operators, and JTACs feeding target situational awareness to fighters, electronic warfare aircraft, and HARM operators. Much of that can be simulated in networked virtual systems.

The balance between actual and simulated flight hours, and actual live training vs. simulated ground combat is a must. But with sufficient simulation fidelity, you can introduce solutions such as having two crews per F-22, for instance, so that you don’t need more aircraft…you need more pilots who retain a mix of monthly live and simulated flight hours. On the ground, you can integrate live and virtual scenarios in ways difficult to simulate even with MILES.

Training will be a key enabler of future warfare success just as it has always been. The tools available to the training commander will just be all the more enhanced.

Bet that TU-22 Instructor Pilot thought those Georgian air defenses could never shoot him down.

The AMRAAM is a far-cry from the radar missiles of the Vietnam war as are the radars the F-22 uses and the stealth it possesses. While we can’t forget lessons of history, we must never use them as an excuse to avoid embracing change in doctrine and tactics facilitated by technology.

Agree Daskro that most of the article involved air-to-air combat, but the last 3 paragraphs seemed to imply that training is dead and unnecessary due to precision weapons. It also makes the leap that because a country can afford Playstation 3 that it can substiture that for specialized simulation training devices. Use the commercial market lessons-learned, but don’t expect the $200 solution to give you a broad range of training capability that the U.S. and allies can afford and should embrace to save fuel and maintenance costs of real-flying while still providing realistic training. Suspect you can superimpose threat aircraft into specialized helmet visors used in USAF motion simulators and apply pressure to the side of the pilots head and body with the same training helmet and g-suit.

Your blind faith in high-tech futureweapons is misplaced and in itself ignorant. Tipover and I are just being realistic. The paper-pushers calculated that air combat training was no longer necessary because pilots could just lock on and engage and the missiles would find their targets and that’s it. And aircraft made during the 60’s were made to be fast flying, fast climbing interceptors, because they thought we would only be engaging Soviet bombers. But the trouble is, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN THAT WAY IN THE FIELD. The missiles were unreliable and useless when the North Vietnamese fighters got in close. The problem with new technology is they never work the way they’re supposed to in actual combat. Flight simulators only prepare you so much.

High tech is great, but don’t put too much faith in it and become overly reliant on it. It is never a substitute for skill.

I agree with Jeff194 as well. There are times that bean counters should not be trusted with the lives of out troops.