MoD announces Army conducts its largest ever virtual simulation exercise

Thursday, Jan 31, 2013

Soldiers from the 2^nd Battalion the Royal Welsh (2 R WELSH) have today completed the British Army’s largest ever virtual simulation exercise.

Exercise URBAN WARRIOR 5 uses advanced science and technology as part of a cutting-edge experiment designed to help the Army better understand the battlefield of the future.

Using virtual simulation at the Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, the Royal Welsh are pioneering future force training. As many as 190 soldiers fought various scenarios, with their every action monitored by a sophisticated system of computers and advanced simulation software.  All information was collected for further analysis by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Niteworks Partnership who have developed the simulation programme.

Today’s exercise follows a previous real-life simulation exercise in December 2012 at the Urban Warfare Training Centre (CENZUB) in France. Soldiers worked with Warrior armoured vehicles and Challenger 2 tanks in one of the most realistic battlefield scenarios created.

Dstl will now use the data collected to feed a further simulation model, collating results from all of the simulations. The analytical results of this programme, designed by MOD scientists and Niteworks Partnership, will provide evidence-based advice to the Army on the critical capabilities required in order to operate in the future urban battlefield, and the most cost-effective approaches to developing the future force.

Source: MoD