Navy Debuts Virtual Training Ship

 

Orlando Sentinal  |  June 27, 2007

When the entire ship shudders violently after a missile strikes it, rookie sailors in the Navy's latest war-game simulator find out what it was like when the USS Cole was hit nearly seven years ago.

And though the sailors navigate what amounts to an armored theme-park ride, the last thing on their minds is Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando.

Sirens blare, lights go out, walls collapse and smoke billows in after the deafening explosion. Naval recruits scramble through the ruins, helping injured sailors while responding to the mock terrorist attack.

It's all part of "boot camp" on the USS Trayer, the Navy's new virtual-fighting ship, christened last week at the Great Lakes Naval Station in suburban Chicago. Since then, nearly 1,000 recruits have run the floating obstacle course -- dubbed Battle Stations 21 -- to hone their maritime skills.

Orlando's high-tech community played a key role in creating what is being called "the world's largest training simulator," an $83 million project involving a full-size replica of a modern guided-missile destroyer -- like the USS Cole -- housed in a complex at Great Lakes.

Local Navy engineers and theme-park design firms developed the Trayer as part of the largest collaboration ever between two key sectors of the high-tech industry in Central Florida.

With nearly 20,000 workers, the region has the largest military-training industry in the country, including more than 100 private companies and major contracting agencies for the Army and Navy.

As a tourism mecca, Orlando has attracted some major players in theme-park design, who have helped craft popular simulation rides at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.

The two sectors have worked on dozens of smaller projects through the years, but nothing on the scale of the USS Trayer, according to the Naval Air Warfare Center's training systems division in Orlando.

The Navy says training on the Trayer is definitely no walk in the theme park. Special-effects are so authentic, the action so real, many recruits have been visibly scared during the 12-hour exercise, officials said. Some have been brought to tears.

"Battle Stations 21 is no ride; it is a practical exam," said Lt. Andrew Bond, the Trayer's top training officer at Great Lakes. "And it is frightening. When it goes dark, that smoke pours in and steam hits the backs of their necks when they're trying to get out; it can be very scary."

The giant simulator's authenticity has impressed even Bond, a veteran sailor who said he had experienced some life-threatening accidents at sea.

"It's so real it stopped me in my tracks," he said. "It does that to just about everyone who runs through it. Some call it menacing; I say it's ominous."

That's just the way the Navy wants it to give sailors the best training possible, military officials said.

Naval trainers say there would have been far fewer casualties in the USS Cole attack if the sailors had trained on Battle Stations 21. Seventeen were killed and dozens were injured in the October 2000 attack.

In addition to disaster response, recruits learn other basic training skills on the Trayer, from loading cargo and handling mooring lines to conducting security watches and dealing with possible breaches.

The simulator is housed in a 157,000-square-foot building and floats in a man-made harbor of 100,000 gallons of water next to a pier surrounded by the smells of sea water and diesel fuel. The complex was built by McHugh Construction Co. of Chicago.

The Naval Air Warfare Center's training division in Orlando teamed with theme-park special-effects firms to develop the Trayer's Battle Stations 21 programs.

One of the theme-park design firms involved was Bob Weis Island Design Associates Inc., based in Orlando and Los Angeles. Weis is a former Disney executive who was responsible for many familiar rides at Walt Disney World.

Naval officials said the Trayer project has set the stage for more such collaborations.

"Battle Stations 21 is a groundbreaking simulator on multiple fronts," said Capt. Kent Gritton, the program manager for the Navy's training-systems agency in Orlando. "It showed that multiple distinct cultures could come together as a team to produce this unique and highly complex simulator, on time and on cost, while meeting or exceeding every performance metric."

The Army's training contract agency in Orlando is also working with theme-park designers to develop greater realism in war-game simulators, according to Randall Shumaker, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Simulation & Training.

The UCF research unit collaborated with the Army and theme-park designers last year to develop urban-warfare-training scenarios for a mockup Iraqi village, he said. Like the Trayer, the village simulator has multisensory special-effects including sound, light, temperature and smell to "immerse" soldiers in realism, he said.

"This kind of approach is sort of in its infancy in military training, but you'll see more and more of it in the future," Shumaker said.