Realistic training for maritime threats
Land forces around the world have long enjoyed the benefits of Saab’s highly realistic live-training solutions. Now, with navies and coast guards facing unprecedented threats, our new maritime live-training offering is helping ship and small-boat crews to train as they fight.
The world of maritime warfare is evolving at an astounding rate. An explosion in drone technology along with rapidly changing military tactics means that today’s maritime forces face threats that were hardly imagined a decade ago. Unmanned surface vessels (USVs) packed with explosives and piloted via satellite are being successfully used to disable and destroy large vessels. Weaponised small drones, sometimes flying in swarms, are devastating targets on land and at sea, with troops often confused about how to respond.
To survive and complete their missions, maritime forces need better ways of training for these UAV and USV threats. They also need to be able to train more effectively for a wide range of conventional and non-conventional combat scenarios, including shore-to-ship and ship-to-shore conflicts. Coast guards, meanwhile, need a realistic and affordable way to prepare for dealing with threats as diverse as smuggling, terrorism, piracy and illegal immigration.
Saab has long led the industry with its highly realistic live-training solutions for ground-based combat. Our advanced GAMER system enables true ballistic performance for every laser-round fired during exercises. Rather than hitting the target at the speed of light (like with some systems), rounds ‘fired’ during our exercises have the same characteristics and trajectory as the real thing, accurately reflecting the weapon from which they are fired. The result is better trained ground troops who can hit the ground running in real-life combat situations.
Now, we have adapted the same technologies to the maritime domain. Our maritime live-training solution lets navies, coast guards and maritime enforcement agencies train as they intend to fight, enabling them to gain highly realistic experience of a wide range of scenarios. So how does the new maritime system work? What types of threat scenarios can be simulated? And which sorts of armed forces stand to benefit?
Economical and realistic training
Like our land offering, the key components for a typical maritime live training package are laser simulators and reflectors and detectors , an exercise control centre, and a communications network connected to all participants and assets. Ballistic lasers are fitted to each weapon to be fired during the exercise and detectors are fitted to all targets, ranging from naval vesselsto small combat boats and individual soldiers.
Unlike live-fire exercises, which can only be conducted in strictly controlled water and air space and tend to be expensive and difficult to organise, our live training solutions allow troops to fire their weapons in the same maritime environment where they will potentially operate. That equates to greater confidence when theoretical scenarios become reality. Maritime live training is also extremely cost effective, meaning that it can be repeated again and again until crews achieve the desired response to threats.
Wide range of potential scenarios
Three of the key scenarios our maritime live training system allows crews to train for are: attack from other vessels; attack from unmanned aerial and surface vessels; and engagements between land-based troops and water-based forces. For vessel-to-vessel training, potential scenarios might involve the navy or coast guard intercepting and neutralising hostile waterborne opponents or repelling attack from enemy vessels. Such training can replicate scenarios relating to wartime combat and managing terrorists, pirates and smugglers during peacetime.
Depending on requirements, participant vessels can range all the way from naval vessels down to combat boats, patrol vessels and rigid-hulled inflatable boats. (Note that the system is not intended for training for ship-to-ship engagement, where missile systems are typically used.) USVs packed with explosives have been used with great effect against naval vessels in the Russia-Ukraine war and against civilian and naval ships in Yemen. Two-way satellite communication has allowed for human-in-the-loop control of USVs making them highly accurate in their targeting. Meanwhile, both conflicts have demonstrated the effectiveness of fixed wing and rotary wing drones in destroying assets on land and at sea. Defeating such weapons is now critical for effective operations in the maritime domain. Our maritime training solution is highly effective at realistically simulating drone attacks from both the air and water surface.
During exercises, a single rotary wing drone can be programmed to appear to sensors as a swarm. This reduces operational costs while enabling crews to gain experience firing on multi-UAV configurations. Because protocols for defending against drones are still evolving, multiple approaches to neutralising the threat can be trialled, identifying the most efficient.
Another important training configuration is land forces engaging enemy vessels in coastal waters. Our maritime solution allows for a range of scenarios to be played out in exercises, including training ground troops to repel hostile forces trying on land with amphibious craft and training boat crews to defend against attack from land. Because our maritime solution is based on proven Saab technologies, it easily integrates with any existing land training components customers may have.
After-action reviews and a choice of network
Whatever the scenario, our set-up enables force commanders to watch the exercise unfold from a central control centre. As well as providing live feeds of hits and misses, the training solution allows for extensive after-action reviews to determine which actions were effective and which were not . Crews learn what elements of their behaviour to improve, fix and sustain. Such reviews are a key component in the learning process, with feedback and in-depth analysis helping crews to learn from errors and expand their knowledge base.
While we provide a communications network on which the exercise can be run, existing 4G and 5G networks can also be used. A key benefit for Saab maritime training solutions is the potential return on investment. With a typical naval vessel costing hundreds of millions of dollars to build and commission, using training to develop strategies to neutralise threats is money well spent. All solutions within the maritime domain are also scalable, meaning they can be deployed on a large scale and used among allies during joint training sessions. This also opens the way for effective cross-service training in situations where Maritime Forces want to train together.