Air Force Wants Simulated Wargames to Plan For Lasers, Electro-Magnetic Weapons
Air Force Wants Simulated Wargames to Plan For Lasers,
Electro-Magnetic Weapons
By Aaron BoydJULY 22, 2019
The wargames are meant to teach airmen about
these new weapons and help the Air Force develop new tactics and procedures.
Directed energy
weapons—i.e., lasers and high-powered electro-magnetic weapons—are fast
becoming a reality for troops and the Air Force wants its airmen to be
prepared.
The Air Force Research Lab issued a request for
information Friday seeking a vendor that can provide wargame modeling and
simulations that include how energy weapons are being used today and how they
will be used in the near future.
“The purpose of these [military utility]
studies is to determine if and how well AFRL/RD and industry technologies can
help address warfighter needs and gaps including complementing current fielded
technologies and those under development by others,” the notice states.
The Air Force has been working on laser weapons
systems, or LaWS, and high powered electro-magnetics, HPEM, for some time, with
plans to deploy the
technologies on planes by 2020.
Earlier this year, AFRL officials said they
successfully shot down
“several” missiles using a ground-based laser system. Researchers
are working on a smaller, lighter version of the tech—part of a program called
the Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator, or SHiELD—will be mounted on
planes for aerial protection as soon as next year.
Through the simulations and wargames, the Air
Force hopes to educate airmen on what to expect, as well as learn more from
them about how the military should be adjusting to fight with and against these
weapons.
“Distributed wargames provide a method of
working with warfighters to develop tactics, techniques and procedures—TTPs—and
concept of employment—CONEMP—to utilize these AFRL/RD and industry technologies
to meet the warfighter needs and gaps,” according to the RFI.
The training program will focus on five areas:·
Modeling: Develop models
that run at accelerated speeds while maintaining real-world conditions and
results. The models should use artificial intelligence and machine learning to
improve over time.
·
Simulation: Using those
models, the vendor will develop simulations for airmen to train on, including
scenarios that enable users to mix and match tools, techniques and resources to
different effects.
·
Analysis: Analytic tools
should collect data and return results on trainee performance, as well as the
fidelity of the models and simulations to real-world situations and physics.
·
Studies: Participate in
studies to further research into directed energy weapons. Those studies will
look to “identify what questions need to be answered, what modules are
required, what simulations need to be run for specific missions and what
analyses need to be performed to answer study questions.”
·
Wargames: All this
culminates in “distributed wargames” that will be used to determine whether emerging
technologies are ready to be transitioned to the battlefield. The contractor
will be expected to “facilitate and participate in” these events, as well as
manage the upkeeping and development of the platform.
Vendors able to meet these requirements should
submit capability statements to AFRL by mail by Aug. 19. All responses should
be unclassified and any proprietary information should be marked as such.
The solicitation notes that the final deliverables on the
contract “may contain Military Critical Technology List information whose
export is restricted. … Therefore, only offerors who are certified by the
Defense Logistics Information Services may submit statements of capability.”
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