Four Services Must Network Simulators to Prepare for Future Fights

ORLANDO, Fla. — The exhibition floor at this year’s Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference is packed full of the high-fidelity simulators that help pilots learn to fly, soldiers and Marines become better marksmen and sailors prepare to fight on the seas.

But the world is changing, senior leaders have said. Great power competition with rivals such as China and Russia will require the armed forces to fight in multiple domains: cyberspace, space, the electromagnetic spectrum along with air, land and sea. They will have to fight jointly.

But today’s simulators are not set up that way. They are built with proprietary technology and normally for one weapon system.

“We have got to break through that paradigm of every weapon system having its own, unique training environment and its own unique stovepiped industry partner,” Maj. Gen. Michael Fantini, director of Air Force global power programs in the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said during a panel discussion.