From virtual reality to victory
How wargaming and simulation are shaping the future Royal Navy
Si vis pacem, para bellum – if you wish for peace, prepare for war – has long been the motto of the Royal Navy, symbolising the power of force and deterrence in maintaining peace. This motto also implies that the members of the service should be trained and equipped for the struggles and dangers of conflict, with such ideas having been championed by the likes of Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general and military theorist.
With the changing pace of warfare and the growing operational requirements of the Royal Navy, the need for fast and reliable training delivery has become increasingly necessary to prepare its future warfighters. The push to utilise synthetic environments for training is becoming more and more prevalent among navies across the world, and a step which the Royal Navy should pursue more aggressively. Synthetic environments created through simulation or wargames, whether presented digitally or on paper, can help to ensure that Royal Navy personnel are, as stated by Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, ‘fully equipped to meet the work they are asked to do.’
Training and wargaming
For many years, the Royal Navy has prided itself for its training at sea, especially from its Fleet Operational Sea Training (FOST) organisation, which prepares ships and their crews for the operational environment. This training helps to provide the micro-foundations for reacting to the stresses and problems of operational life, in turn helping to improve readiness and lethality in a real warfighting environment.
Although this training is world class, there is still a call for expanding training capabilities into the synthetic and digital environment, as noted by Cdre. Andrew Ingham, Commander of FOST. The ever-increasing complexity of warfare makes it harder to recreate in the real world, and has increased the demand for resources to do this. Many of these have been implemented by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and its member states, while the Royal Navy has fallen behind in this area.
Such synthetic training environments will create ‘safe-to-fail’ environments, allowing for the easy rehearsal and refinement of skills and responses during times of crisis. Given the Royal Navy’s lack of operational platforms, the opportunity for training at sea is also becoming less frequent. Thus, a shoreside equivalent beyond the Royal Navy’s existing simulators is required to keep its entire force suitably trained for warfighting.
These issues are being dealt with by the Royal Navy through several projects currently in development, such as the introduction of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to platforms for simulating and enhancing bridge training and preventing skills fading. A large, more cohesive plan is also in the works to link these VR platforms, sea-based units and shoreside ship and air simulators in a joint training environment under Project SPARTAN (Synthetic Platform-enabled And Realistic Training for the Adaptive Navy).
Project SPARTAN seeks to integrate synthetic elements into real-life training with the blending of virtual elements into real exercises through VR. Such a development would allow the conduct of many training serials, which depend on specific platforms that are not always available – such as anti-submarine and carrier operations – while also allowing for in-depth training for future operations. However, Project SPARTAN is far from implementing this reality, with its first tranche of development seeking first to adopt shoreside Command and Control (C2), and collective training for Battle Staff Commands becoming operational by 2027.
Interim solutions
There are many other means through which the Royal Navy can improve its operability and readiness, with many commercial, off-the-shelf capabilities being available – some of which are already possessed but underutilised by the Royal Navy. In terms of damage control, for example, there are several VR firefighting simulators, which help to enhance and supplement fire training onboard platforms. This improves reaction times and cohesion as well as preventing skill fade.
Such programmes could not only improve the skill of battle staff and bridge teams, but also that of wider ships’ crews. In the realm of warfighting and battlespace management, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) already possesses a key tool, having attained a user licence for the commercial virtual combat simulator Command: Professional Edition (PE) – able to simulate maritime and air operations – in 2024. The platform is utilised widely by the United States (US) Armed Forces, especially the US Navy and Marine Corps, who view it as a near-term tool for force design, combat experimentation and training.
Technological answers may not be the only solution. Several issues have arisen from the possibility of bringing in outside systems such as Command PE – for example, the security problems of implementing them on ships and the complexity of learning and utilising the system.
There are, however, many physical, non-digital products which can benefit training. Navies across the world have invested in Littoral Commander, a wargame developed by Sebastian Bae, a former US marine, In its two editions to date, Littoral Commander has helped to simulate littoral combat operations and their surrounding domains. As well as being low-cost compared to its digital counterparts, the game is easily modifiable to a variety of situations, and is easy to transport – meaning it can be played anywhere from shoreside to onboard a warship.
The adoption of wargaming within the Royal Navy is becoming increasingly popular, as seen with the First Sea Lord’s recent strategic wargame to help develop warfighting plans. Such strategic, high-level wargames allow the Royal Navy to determine courses of action for future events. However, the utility of wargaming goes beyond this, as it also has great potential in terms of training and education.
Creating a culture of wargaming
Wargaming has proved itself to be an effective training tool for the development of leadership and warfighting skills of naval personnel around the world. It has always had a place at the staff officer training level, but many naval training establishments are now beginning to adopt it in their junior officer and even pre-commissioning training. It has also been shown to help improve the quality of training in many respects, especially around creating neural pathways and muscle memory towards the practical application of course content – which tends to be heavily lecture and word-focused. Additionally, it fosters creative decision-making and understanding of key concepts and building morale.
Such results have been seen most recently in the Royal Canadian Navy, whose introduction of wargaming to its junior warfare officer courses saw an improvement in student performance, both in terms of completing assessments as well as establishing the building blocks to prepare them for the complexities of naval operations. Students also gained a greater understanding of the strategic aspects and utility of a variety of land, sea and air assets.
Introducing wargaming at such an early level has helped to build a cohesive wargaming culture throughout the Royal Canadian Navy. The US Navy has called for a similar robust culture across all levels of command, viewing wargaming as a perfect medium to test and develop problem-solving skills and deal with ‘black swan’ scenarios. The US Navy has also called for increased modularity in wargaming across the fleet to accommodate an adaptable game, which can be played on a variety of platforms and allow for uniform training.
This follows the idea that for wargaming to be most effective, it should consist of ‘small, regular events, flexible in their scope and focused in their outputs’. The Royal Navy and the MOD are beginning to recognise the importance of wargaming across all levels, yet still are not performing wargames on a small or regular basis.
Beyond the First Sea Lord’s grand strategic wargame, the implementation of smaller, regular games across all levels of the Royal Navy with junior officer training allows for introduction and adaptation to the wargaming process. There are small cells of wargamers within the MOD, as well as a growing wargaming culture expanding beyond the hobbyist fringes, as seen with the introduction of the Defence Wargaming Foundation and Practitioner courses at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham. These provide the necessary skills and knowledge to demonstrate the utility of wargaming and how to facilitate it within localised units.
The Royal Navy can harness this culture to create and utilise synthetic training environments without the need for a simulator, while also introducing a training environment which is cheap, mobile and adaptable, and where it can ‘think creatively under stress and flex [its] intellectual muscles in a risk-free, limited-cost environment’.
SLt Isaac Robinson is an officer in the Royal Navy and a Richmond Fellow of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. He holds a BA in History with Economic Studies from the University of Sussex and an MA in War Studies from King’s College London.
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