THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 18, 1994 TAG: 9410180330
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Whether it's another Haiti operation, or conflict in Iraq, the nation's military battles in the future most likely will be tested and rehearsed from a rural country site where peanuts once were processed.
Adm. Paul David Miller, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Command, called Monday's dedication of his command's new Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center the debut of a ``world class technology center'' for the nation's military.
A decade from now, after its fundamentals have been mastered and its technology fully developed, it will be a training aid for armed forces from all over the world, Miller said.
Joint task forces, along with their staffs, will come to the center and develop their operations, rehearse, study the lessons they learned and then try them out.
With sophisticated computers and simulators, a Navy mine sweeper moored to a pier in Texas can be placed at the mouth of a strategic port in the war game. Likewise, ships, troop divisions, air wings and naval battle groups can participate, regardless of their actual location.
Miller dedicated the facility, insisting that one of its architects, Navy Capt. James C. Sherlock, cut the ceremonial ribbon because of his hard work on the project.
Sherlock, deputy director for joint training with the U.S. Atlantic Command and project director for the new training and simulation center, takes charge of a $27 million complex that is being vacated by another command. The building was built in 1991 for the Undersea Warfare Center, which was ordered moved to Rhode Island as a cost-cutting measure.
The Navy turned to its advantage what could have been a costly albatross: it is stuck with a 20-year, $3.3million annual lease on the 220,000-square foot facility. Miller's command was seeking a site for its center and stumbled upon the building.
It is perfect for what his command wants, Sherlock said.
The building will be occupied by about 300 people - 200 of them civilian contractors - and will be operational next October.
The Navy will spend about $30million to buy initial technology and install communications equipment, Sherlock said. A contract is expected to be let by mid-November. Around the same time, the Navy will start spending another $10 million on operations and maintenance.
In fiscal 1996, the Navy will spend $40 million to $45 million on operations and training, he said. Of that, about $7 million will be to keep technology upgraded.
Beginning in summer 1996, the command will perform about three large-scale exercises a year plus a half-dozen smaller simulations.
Then, in 1997, with even more advanced technology coming from a Pentagon agency, the center will install what it calls the latest in computers, simulators, laboratories and communications equipment.
``The Advance Research Project Agency is a government agency which does the leading edge, high-tech development for the Department of Defense,'' Sherlock said. ``They did the original stealth projects.''
The Navy plans to recoup much of its investment by canceling its large military exercises, once held at sea with dozens of ships.
For example, Solid Shield and Ocean Venture - major maritime exercises in the Atlantic and Caribbean - will be deleted this year, Sherlock said.
Ocean Venture, involving dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft and troops, cost $33 million to stage last year, he said. The money saved can be used to help pay for the new center.
One advantage of having the center in Hampton Roads, Miller said, is that so many major commands are located here - the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, the Air Force's Air Combat Command, the Navy's Atlantic Fleet, and the Marine Corps' Development Center at Quantico.
``I call it the Tidewater Advantage,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Guests chat after the dedication Monday of the Joint Training,
Analysis and Simulation Center, a high-tech facility that will be a
training aid for armed forces from all over the world.
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by CNB