FORT CAMPBELL, KY, Nov. 10, 2011--Soldiers from B Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, demonstrated blended training using the Homestation Instrumentation Training System for a rooftop full of officers, Nov. 2.
The demonstration, held at Range 65, showed off the latest capabilities available in Army training. The 2-502nd Inf. Reg. ran a scenario in which a convoy triggered a simulated IED, and the Soldiers then had to engage opposing forces and clear the area.
"What we're out here to do, they're out here to set up a blocking position, but really the background for that is they're coming out here to train and show what the system can do, so other units can take a look at what they're doing out here with the training," explained 2-502nd Inf. Reg. Sgt. 1st Class Stanford Pottruff.
Throughout the training scenario, the unit used HITS during the live demonstration, as well as Virtual Battlespace 2 as a mission rehearsal tool. VBS2 serves as a sort of "gaming" training experience.
HITS is a fairly new tool at Fort Campbell that was fielded in the spring, and is similar to other systems such as the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System that uses motion sensors attached to each Soldier's wearable harness.
"The HITS system [is] basically an engagement system where Soldiers and an opposing force can engage each other and actually get real time feedback on whether they hit each other or not," said Pottruff, an Operations NCO.
The system is comparable to a game of laser tag, in which participants can know exactly when they have been hit. Therefore, there's no guessing or pretending as to who engaged who or when. Soldiers can get immediate feedback, and commanders are assisted in creating better training opportunities.
"With that system, it's actually recorded so that you can then go back to the video and do an AAR and you can actually show Soldiers where they were on the battlefield, where they were shooting," Pottruff said. "It's just a great tool to get feedback, so that they'll retrain and go back out there and do it again."
HITS offers several other advantages over previous engagement systems, including GPS that locates where a Soldier is on the battlefield at all times. However, it's still the feedback and capability to talk through the mission in the After Action Review that's a key to training.
"What we do out here [in the field] is what we're going to do when we're in country," Pottruff said. "So you go through those moving pieces, and the ability to see that at the Soldier level really enhances their ability to go out there and do it."
The feedback also eliminates common questions, such as who did what on the battlefield, which makes training better and more enjoyable for Soldiers.
"You get that feedback that really helps that team leader [or] squad leader to find where they need to move," Pottruff explained.
Blended training is the way of the future, said the 101st Airborne Division's Live, Virtual, Constructive and Gaming Coordinator Brian Lucke. While better and more advanced for Soldiers, blended training is also a time and money saver all around.
"What is new is the way the Army intends to integrate the live domain of training, which is HITS, with the other domains, the virtual, the constructive and the gaming, to essentially develop a blended training strategy," Lucke said. "Whereas Soldiers and units will do individual and collective training in the other domains first, for instance in the virtual domain … where we can gain more economy and more repetition with less resources, prior to coming out to the live domain and executing it for real or as close to real as possible."
Completing blended training scenarios will continue to transform Army operations as HITs and other such systems spread out to the units.
"Blended training is only going to increase in relevance," Lucke said. "Ten years ago, training models were a lot more labor intensive. In order for a company to come out and train effectively, it would take almost another platoon or even another company to come out and support … But with the instrumentation that we have now, and the other feedback and mission rehearsal systems that we have, [it's] not as labor intensive."
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