The role of training to meet the future needs of modern warfare

CAE Australia sat down with the former Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown AO , to discuss how next-generation technologies will shape the military training experience.

In this Q&A article, he shares his unique perspectives on the emerging capabilities of the ADF that are required to address the evolving nature of modern warfare.  

The answers below reflect the responses of Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown AO.

What do you see as the most significant emerging challenges that the ADF will need to address in the next 5 years?  

To be a formidable adversary, the ADF will need to consider more resources and an increased level of operations to deter emerging threats in our region. The war in Ukraine has provided us with insight into how quickly supplies, crews, and maintainers are extruded in modern warfare. My concern is that the ADF is still not receiving sufficient funding to meet this demand.  

With these considerations, I believe the most significant challenge for the ADF would be to transition towards a 24-hour 7-day-a-week operational model.

Currently, our equipment is not crewed to the level that it needs to be to operate continuously. This presents a requirement to generate sufficient numbers of trained maintainers, crew, and staff to operate in these conditions.  

How could industry support the ADF to address these challenges? 

To increase the tempo of operations, particularly in the Air Force, you would need to increase crew numbers across each Squadron which ultimately places a significant load on Initial Pilot Training, Lead-In Fighter Training, and Operational Conversion Units.  

While each unit must have the ability to generate more pilots and availability to train them, each Squadron requires enough hours to sustain and absorb the number of new crew and maintainers that they receive. Training is essential and it doesn’t conclude when people are qualified — many skills are perishable and require continuous training and practice on every platform.  

If we look at the post-1990s landscape, defence industry has been heavily involved in generating combat capability for the ADF across training, maintenance, and manufacturing. Nowadays, the industry owns a fair part of that continuum, for example, CAE delivering training across platforms such as the KC-30A, Hawk 127, CH-47, and C-130J.  

The industry needs to be ready to surge with the ADF in ways it hasn’t before. It plays a huge role in providing maintenance, repair and overhaul and sufficient numbers of contracted crew to support training and operations running 24/7.  

How do you see the role of training evolving to meet the future needs of warfare? 

Training should be migrated to the live-virtual-constructive environment. With the right kind of virtual environment, you can achieve an incredible increase in the collective skills of everyone operating in multi-domain operations.

If you look at the complexity of environments that modern aircrew face, it’s very difficult to replicate that level of complexity in a live environment in large-scale exercises. You often don’t get the ability to debrief with one another to discuss what went right or wrong, and you can’t replicate cyber effects and the ISR that you need.  

I believe that virtual training can produce more effective outcomes to support the ADF than the live environment can if you have the right constructs to do it. My vision would be to have multiple simulators operating for F-35s and F/A-18 Growlers, and for ops rooms on ships, so that they can practice integrating long-range fires and tactical elements of a real mission.

This is certainly being achieved globally in places like the United States, and I hope that Australia can work with industry to help achieve this vision. 

Additionally, one of the problems we’ve faced is using a cookie-cutter approach to training. Some approaches have stuck, and others haven’t. With modern technology, we can now get more precise with our training with physiological monitoring of humans — allowing students to focus more on the repetitions and sets that they need to improve.  

Today, we are still utilising a course-based approach where all students are training the same way. I think the evolution and introduction of technologies such as CAE Rise have the potential to keep students at the peak of a performance-arousal curve which will make a significant difference in training moving forward.  

In your experience, how have the best training approaches & technologies improved the training experience for both students and operators?  

One of the best experiences has been the Red Flag type exercises, which are developed to simulate a person’s first combat missions. Statistically, if personnel can survive their first 5-10 combat missions, they have a much better chance of surviving the real operational scenario. Today, if you have the right construct for a virtual environment, you can replicate any level of intensity or threat to achieve much better results in live flying exercises.  

Back in the 2000s, I had a pivotal experience with Exercise Red Flag. We lost the fleet of F-111s due to a fatigue failure in a Wing test article. As a result, we had the large task of replacing and refurbishing wings which subsequently grounded both Squadrons for 8-9 weeks.  

I said to 1SQN if we managed to start getting aircraft back online two weeks before they were due to depart for Red Flag, that I intended to proceed with the exercise despite not conducting live flying for quite some time. We had a simulator available to prepare us and navigated this roadblock successfully by creating a Red Flag range for personnel to fly missions in the simulator. As a result, with very little recent live flying, the Squadron flew better in the exercise than ever before and they found the experience relatively easy. 

During that time, we hadn’t ever seen a virtual environment that was good enough to leverage due to timing, budgets, and how programs were formed. Now reflecting on these lessons, I believe we can take full advantage of this technology and capability to develop personnel who are much more confident, better trained, and better prepared.  

Do you believe that Australia is getting the full use of the technology that it currently has? 

From an Air Force perspective, Jericho gave us the empowerment to look at different ways to use technology. Now, we can look to adopting better environments and tools for enhanced operations and improvement.  

I believe that we are not fully exploiting the potential of Artificial Intelligence. It offers many potential areas to enhance human performance. I was discussing this aspect with an F-35 pilot the other day and he agreed that an “R2-D2” type assistant would help in interpreting complex EW jamming and cyber environments during operations.  

It has a lot of applications across all domains and just needs to be fully embraced by the ADF. In my view, the technology is available, we just haven’t stepped across the line to take full advantage of it yet.  

How would you define operational readiness, and what part does training play in achieving this?

To be operationally ready, you need serviceable platforms. There is no more useless weapon than a ship that can’t sail or an aircraft that can’t fly. You need the crews to operate and maintain them to generate the desired rate of effort from this equipment.  

Operational readiness also is defined by how the crew can operate in complex environments — which takes a lot of training to achieve. Your maintainers are just as important as they must re-load weapons, refuel aircraft, and turn the whole mission around in the quickest possible time. There is a building block of approaches that brings you towards a multi-domain arena operating and coordinating with multiple nations and aircraft.  

From a deterrence perspective, the higher level that you achieve in training, the more complex environments you train in, the more operationally ready you are. Training at the operational level is continuous. You must have the training currency and recency to excel in these environments, and there is work to be done to create a truly operationally ready 24/7 ADF.  

How will ongoing developments from the DSR impact the training and capability of each unit?  

We need to consider how much threat we are under at this point. We are under more of a potential threat than we have been for a long time. So, it’s time to put our foot on the accelerator, which is what the DSR attempts to achieve.  

Fundamentally, I like many of the requirements and visions that were outlined in the recent Defence Strategic Review. The issue that remains is that the budget associated with this DSR does not truly fund it – it’s still a 2016 budget with new capabilities and requirements.  

When we look at the kinetics of modern warfare – it’s still about breaking other people’s belongings. Defensive and offensive capabilities like cyber and space can certainly be utilised more effectively, though are not the complete game-changers in how to truly reign supreme.  

If all capabilities and requirements in the DSR were adequately funded, you would move towards creating greater crewing ratios and achieving the operational vision of a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week ADF. Now, this is quite different from the current ADF that we have which is very capable, though it has a limited ability to project power for a certain amount of time.  

What technologies do you see are critical to achieving force scalability, resilience, and agility?  

A much more robust virtual environment will enhance force scalability – I do not doubt that. If you have an operational virtual environment, you will achieve a far more agile force, as you can train and debrief together in ways that you cannot approach within large-scale live environments, like Exercise Talisman Sabre.  

If you can increase the number of trained crews and maintainers, you will be a much more resilient force and less dependent on single points of failure. The industry already plays a huge part in this – supplementing the workforce from the industry, where senior contractors are seamlessly integrated into each Squadron or team onsite.  

The challenge of adopting new capabilities, like cyber, and injecting them in meaningful ways is only achieved with training in the virtual environment. Adopting these in the live settings doesn’t provide the same level of control or safety as you would achieve in a fully integrated live-virtual-constructive environment.  

About Air Marshal (Ret’d) Geoff Brown, AO.  

Air Marshal Geoff Brown retired from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in July 2015, following his most senior appointment as Chief of Air Force. Across his 35-year-long career, Geoff commanded at all levels with experience flying CH-47s, F-111s and F/A-18s, as well as being a flying instructor and member of The Roulettes – the RAAF’s aerobatic team. His operational service included Operation Iraqi Freedom where he was the operational commander for all RAAF assets. 

Among his qualifications, Geoff holds a BEng (Mech) and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies. Geoff is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. 

Since leaving the Air Force he has been appointed as the Chairman of the Advisory Board for CAE Australia, a Strategic Advisor for Lockheed Martin Australia, a Director of Electro Optic Systems, a Chairman of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation, and a Director of GCB Stratos Consulting. Geoff also mentors in Leadership and Strategic Studies at the Australian Defence College. 

His honours and awards include his appointment as an Officer in the Order of Australia, the United States Legion of Merit, and the Meritorious Service Medal from Singapore.