Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] Warfighters’ Simulation (WARSIM) program delivered realistic division warfighter results during its debut in a recent command post exercise conducted by the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division (2ID) and the Republic of Korea army.
Designed to integrate simulations into the Army’s full-spectrum training plans, WARSIM enabled a training scenario for battle commanders, battle staffs, and other units in South Korea, simultaneously with the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and its Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee, Va. , the company said.
The 2ID was the first Army division to use WARSIM to successfully achieve their training objectives.
More than 200 U.S. and Korean role-players participated in the exercise, using WARSIM to execute orders of commanders at the brigade and division level.
The full version of WARSIM is used to train warfighters when it is used in exercises, Markee White, Lockheed Martin WARSIM program manager, told Defense Daily. “WARSIM has a multi-level security solution which allows U.S. Secret, U.S. Top Secret, and U.S. Secret Releasable to Foreign National participation in exercises.”
White said WARSIM, “simulates the lethal and complex interactions of the battlefield and integrates ground, air, ballistic missile and intelligence models. WARSIM’s ease of use was demonstrated by how quickly the Republic of Korea Army participants were able to use the simulation in a coalition, multi-lingual environment.”
Additionally, WARSIM provides remote distribution capabilities where units around the world can participate in the training exercise over a secure network connection, he said.
During the U.S.-Korean Warpath Exercises WARSIM models were located in Ft. Leavenworth and distributed to Ft. Lee and two locations in South Korea.
During the Warpath Exercises the South Korean army actually commanded South Korean Brigades modeled by WARSIM, White said. “The role players driving the simulation were actually manned by South Korean army soldiers who used the same type of work station interface as the U.S. soldiers. WARSIM is capable of connecting to other simulation models via a common architecture known as High Level Architecture (HLA).”
WARSIM, initiated under a 1996 contract, is designed to simulate all levels of conflict–from major theater-level operations to stability and support operations at the brigade, joint and coalition level. WARSIM supports these exercises for U.S. Army, joint and coalition training. Lockheed Martin developed laptop, transportable and battle simulation center configurations of WARSIM that can be tailored for specific training needs. The first system delivery to PEO STRI took place in January 2005. Development work, post deployment software support, additional fieldings and Army Exercise support will continue through September 2011. The program value was $419 million through 2009.