The Insider

From now through the end of October, Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA, are checking out a U.S. Joint Forces Command interactive training simulation that closely simulates battlefield conditions, according to a JFCOM statement released this morning:

The Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE), one of USJFCOM's joint capability technology demonstrations (JCTD), is a virtual reality-based training system to improve team decision-making skills through realistic scenarios that challenge warfighters to read and react to situations and signals they may encounter on the battlefield.

Jay Reist, FITE's operational manager, said it provides warfighters and their trainers with an immersive training environment that emphasizes complex tactical and decision-making skills, while viewing their stress levels and gauging their reactions to different scenarios.

"FITE demonstrates the art of the possible. It creates a mixed reality capability for squad-level training, working with interactive technologies appropriately within a realistic scenario that has been developed by subject matter experts based on real events seen in an operating environment," Reist said. "The results will be delivered to the services, which will make a determination to include the capabilities into their programs of record."

He called the FITE effort a department-wide undertaking to make warfighters' first firefight no worse than their last simulation.

"From the USJFCOM perspective, we sought to ensure collaboration took place. We have had participation from all the services, the Joint Staff, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), U.S. Special Operations Command, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, the DoD, industry partners that have been eager to be a part of something like this, and academia that has been studying human performance under stressful conditions and wanted to be involved from the beginning," Reist said.

As Inside the Pentagon reported in April:

The Pentagon is making advances in virtual-reality training featuring avatar representations of troops and simulating the realistic sights and sounds of battle to bolster decision-making skills and the cohesion of units heading to Afghanistan, according to officials involved in the programs.

U.S. Joint Forces Command's Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE) program provides instructors and participants with an interactive realm emphasizing complex tactical and decision-making prowess. The technology manager is the Office of Naval Research.

FITE is a two-year joint capability technology demonstration program supporting the related virtual-reality work of all the services, according to Jay Reist, the program's operational manager. JFCOM has been working on the technology for about 19 months.

Under this initiative, JFCOM is developing a prototype incorporating hardware that consists of an "individually-worn body computer," a helmet-mounted display, a "realistic, replicated weapon system, and an instantaneous feedback vest," Reist told Inside the Pentagon. A software capability providing the "virtual world" allows all training participants to interact with one another, he said.

Once soldiers don the head-mounted display, they see a depiction of the operational environment -- in this case a village in Afghanistan -- that is similar to a high-end video game like Halo or Doom, he explained. It is accompanied by digital people, terrain and buildings.

JFCOM finished the first phase of the program two weeks ago with the help of Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC, and soldiers at Ft. Benning, GA, Reist said. The command is undertaking "detailed planning" this week to prepare for September's next spiral, which is a "facility-based, mixed-reality capability," Reist said.

This second stage will bring in animatronics or robotic characters like Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as sophisticated, 3D capabilities, he said. It will be coupled with a live environment featuring "real role players and live entities, all within a full stereo/audio capability . . . [and which have] all the sights and sounds and smells" of a real operation, Reist said. The role players will be projected onto screens as avatars. No live fire will be involved.

EL PASO, TX, -- Officials from the Army, the Pentagon and the Government Accountability Office converged at White Sands Missile Range, NM, today to conduct the limited user test of the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a suite of "spin-out" technologies left over from the canceled Future Combat System.

The test was scheduled to include the Network Integration Kit, the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, the Class 1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and two varieties of Unattended Ground Sensors.

Army spokesman Paul Mehney said the test would also involve pulling other elements of the service's network plan together, including the use of aerostats and the Joint Tactical Radio System Ground Mobile Radio.

E-IBCT has been criticized by some members of Congress and officials from the Pentagon after a poor performance during a 2009 LUT. The Army, however, has asserted that E-IBCT has improved dramatically over the span of one year, and service officials have predicted a far more successful test this time around.

Test results were not yet available this afternoon. “It's like an election; the results are still coming in,” said Col. Steve Duke of the Army's Operational Test Command.

Spc. Conrad Slater, a soldier testing the equipment here, said he finds Tactical Unattended Ground Sensors useful but would prefer that they transmit video as opposed to still images. “Right now, you're either catching the tail of something or the front of something,” he told a reporter.

In recent weeks, Army leaders have increasingly pointed to the development of the network as the service's top priority.

Check back to InsideDefense.com next week for more.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is proposing a $425 million funding reduction for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, according to the report released today that accompanies the committee's fiscal year 2011 defense spending bill.

"The committee is aware that due to several issues, in particular the Laser Initiated Ordnance System (LIOS) and microcracks in the Heat Shield, THAAD production is about one year behind schedule," the report states, commending the Missile Defense Agency and Office of the Secretary of Defense "for delaying the production decision until the missile has been thoroughly evaluated.

"Due to the production delay, the committee recommends a reduction of $425 million in fiscal year 2011 and directs MDA to keep the congressional defense committees informed on the progress of THAAD production and any schedule changes for outfitting the Army's THAAD batteries as a result of the production delay," the report continues.

The Senate Appropriations Committee just finished marking up the $669.9 billion fiscal year 2011 defense spending bill and approved it by a party-line 18-12 vote. The total is $8.3 billion less than what the Obama administration is asking for.

The defense subcommittee approved the bill on Sept. 14. The $669.9 billion in the Senate bill includes $157.7 billion for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and counterterrorism efforts worldwide.

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee approved a $670.9 billion bill on July 22, $7.2 less than what the administration wanted, but the full committee has not yet approved the legislation.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) today announced plans to introduce legislation to “freeze action” on Defense Secretary Robert Gates' bid to eliminate the Virginia-based U.S. Joint Forces Command. Webb, who earlier this month announced plans for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on JFCOM and other DOD efficiencies, issued a press release today, stating:

Today I have again called on the White House to refrain from making a final decision on the future of the U.S. Joint Forces Command until Congress has satisfactorily obtained a firm understanding of the process by which Secretary of Defense Gates arrived at his recommendation.

A decision of this magnitude poses significant implications for joint training and the development of joint war-fighting capabilities that are essential for successful 21st-century combat operations.  Any proposal to close or realign the command should be guided by a clear process and analytical basis that everyone can understand.  This is particularly important in light of Secretary Gates’s stated intention to consider consolidating or closing other military bases and facilities across the country.

In addition to the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing now promised to address the full range of the proposed defense efficiency initiatives, I will be introducing legislation to require the Secretary of Defense to provide full justification to Congress before any action is taken to close the Joint Forces Command.  This is fully consistent with Congress’s constitutional oversight responsibility as we work to improve our military’s joint warfare capabilities and operations.

Last month, Webb and other members of the Virginia delegation challenged the legal basis of Gates' recommendation to close JFCOM, urging the defense secretary to reconsider and “conduct a more complete review of JFCOM’s mission and activities without a predisposed intent to close the command.”

Pentagon acquisition executive Ashton Carter said the Defense Department plans to wrap up source selection of the Air Force's next-generation aerial refueling tanker this fall, but had not set a specific date.

As acquisition officials review KC-X proposals from Boeing and EADS, they have not set a specific date for selecting a winner, Carter said during a speech at an Air Force Association-sponsored conference in National Harbor, MD.

"It'll be done when it's done," Carter said. "Anyone that gives you a specific date doesn't know what they're talking about."

The Pentagon inspector general's office this week released a more-detailed response to a Senate report that called the Defense Department's accounting system "broken."

In its preliminary response released last week, the IG wrote that he was "refocusing" his office's audit priorities, InsideDefense.com reported on Monday:

Last week, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) released a report that "identified one all-important, central element that is adversely affecting every facet of the OIG audit program -- the DOD's broken accounting system."

"This dysfunctional system is driving the audit freight train," the report states. "The success or failure of an audit turns on the quality of financial data available for audit by competent examiners. Unfortunately, the quality of the financial data presented to OIG auditors by DOD during the period reviewed by the staff should probably be rated as poor to non-existent."

In a Sept. 10 letter to Grassley, DOD Inspector General Gordon Heddell promises to "carefully review" the report's recommendations.

"As you know, early last year as Acting Inspector General, I reached out to your office to share my vision for the future of the DOD Inspector General and welcomed an independent look at the focus and processes within Audit," Heddell's letter states. "The observations and recommendations in your report will be a valuable supplement to the efforts I have already initiated to reach my goal of providing timely, accurate, and relevant information to both the Congress and the Department."

In his more-detailed Sept. 13 letter to Grassley, Heddell writes that he has "directed the deputy inspector general for auditing and her staff to make concrete and specific proposals on how your report can be used to improve the time lines, focus and relevance of audit reports. Furthermore, I have directed that these proposals, to be completed no later than Oct. 15, 2010, are supplemented by a detailed plan listing specific initiatives to be implemented at the earliest possible date. The recommendations in your report will be an important tool in the transformation I have initiated since being confirmed as inspector general."