South African group scoring success with simulation systems

2nd October 2015

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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South African company Saab Grintek Defence is currently actively marketing its BattleTek military command and control (C2) simulation system to a number of African countries as well as to two in South-East Asia and two in South America. “The local capability we’ve developed is world class. We offer it worldwide,” reports company marketing executive: C2 Ockert van der Schyf. “There are no export restrictions on simulation systems.” Originally developed for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), with the first iteration being developed in 1995, and thereafter continuously upgraded, BattleTek was exported to Malaysia in 2011 and has served the Malaysian Army since then.

BattleTek is classified as constructive simulation – effectively, high technology war-gaming – and allows the execution of very realistic C2 exercises at middle and higher command levels. Constructive simulation is one of three major types of simulation, the other two being live simulation and virtual simulation. The Saab Group is involved in all three categories.

The SANDF and its arms of service (Army, Navy and Air Force) operate simulation systems, including BattleTek, in close cooperation with defence acquisition and research and development agency Armscor and industry. BattleTek can be integrated with the South African Army’s Shaka C2 system to create a war game. “BattleTek generates the opposing force, or enemy, which is controlled by a couple of operators. For the military staff, using Shaka, it all appears real.”

BattleTek can also be integrated with other simulation systems, even if they are based in different countries and indeed continents. This is done by means of High Level Architecture (HLA), which has become the international standard for integrating simulation systems. “We’ve developed our own HLA interface so that BattleTek can ‘talk’ to any other simulator that is also HLA enabled,” he explains. This has been demonstrated in an intercontinental link-up between BattleTek in South Africa and other simulation systems in Germany, Sweden and the US, in which they all ran the same scenario.

Saab Grintek Defence has also developed two derivatives of BattleTek, called PeaceTek and EventTek. All three are based on the same software platform. The former was developed to simulate peacekeeping and related operations. “EventTek is for military operations other than war,” he elucidates. “It has been used to support various major sporting competitions, including the 2010 World Cup. EventTek allows the incorporation of nonmilitary participants, including the police, firefighters, emergency medical services and so on and covers nonviolent contingencies as well. In consequence, in South Africa, nondefence departments – for example, police and disaster management – are beginning to show an interest in simulation. I think we will break through into the nonmilitary market in South Africa, particularly with EventTek, in the near future.”

The South African business is also significantly involved in a major Saab Group simulation contract, for the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk). This is a live simulation system. Live simulation involves the use of real people with real systems in a real environment. Today, top of the range live simulation, as at Batuk, uses laser-based systems, involving both laser designators and laser detectors. In these systems, laser designators are mounted on the soldiers’ rifles, machine guns and other weapons, on tank guns and the guns and missile launchers of other armoured vehicles and so on. Laser detectors are also mounted on the armoured vehicles and on harnesses worn by the soldiers. These designators and detectors can also be mounted on helicopters. The soldiers, tanks, and so on simultaneously fire blanks and laser pulses. If any hits are scored, the detectors register them. The great thing is that, not only it is indisputably clear that a hit has been achieved, but it is also clear where the hit has been made, so that it is possible to determine whether a soldier has been ‘killed” or “wounded” (and, if so, where) or whether an armoured vehicle has been destroyed or has been immobilised but can still fight. Saab is one of probably just three groups world-wide that can provide such “force-on-force” live simulation systems.

“Batuk is a major deployment for us, lasting several weeks at a time,” reports Van der Schyf. “Saab sends trailers with communications and analytical equipment from the UK and Sweden, as well as technical support from the UK, Sweden and South Africa. So far, the South African Army has invested in a relatively small [live simulation] system. We believe that the South African Army would like a similar system to Batuk, but Batuk can handle an entire brigade and South Africa is unlikely to go that big.”

Regarding virtual simulation, this involves real people operating simulated systems. Flight simulators, which vary enormously in sophistication, fall within this category. The Saab Group has supplied flight simulators for its Gripen fighters to the South African Air Force (SAAF). Saab Grintek Defence is also active in this sector, in its own right. It has supplied two full mission simulators for the Gripen to the SAAF.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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