Navy's New Battle Stations 21: The Ultimate Final Exam

By MARGARET ROTH
Special Correspondent

In the 1998 Best Picture Oscar winner "Saving Private Ryan," two things are inescapable: blood and death. Director Steven Spielberg depicts scene after gruesome scene from World War II as he explores a platoon's perilous mission and its motivations to succeed.

But the movie itself is escapable. It is, after all, just a movie.

The Navy wants to go one step further with Battle Stations 21, a series of simulated exercises designed to present new recruits with the ultimate12-hour final exam.

Comparing Battle Stations with "Saving Private Ryan," Rear Adm. Ann E. Rondeau, commander of Naval Service Training Command (formerly Naval Training Center Great Lakes) and Navy Region Midwest, said, "Our attempt is to make you feel as though you're right in the middle of that, and [ask yourself] what are you going to do? You cannot get out. You cannot walk away."

A design-build contract is scheduled to be awarded in February, with a goal of switching to the new training system in early 2007. The goal is to incorporate the latest in simulation technology--video, moving screens, smells, vibrations, sound effects, "things that change on you," as Rondeau put it--to create an unforgettable, inescapable set of 12 scenarios capping off seven and a half weeks of classroom training.

The scenarios include a ship's crew getting underway, operating at sea, entering a foreign port with increased threat conditions, repelling a small boat attack, firefighting, controlling damage, executing a "man overboard" drill, and returning to port. As with the current Battle Stations, the new version will draw on actual naval events, such as the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in July 1945 in the Pacific Ocean, in which three-quarters of those aboard died.

When the Navy began looking at a new Battle Stations last year to replace the current one deployed in 1997, the "main objective was to achieve a higher order of ability to make the decisions in a highly stressed environment and to think about the effect on the unit and team," Rondeau said.

The current Battle Stations operation, built with such low-tech ingredients as plywood, PVC pipe, hoses, bathtubs, "some lighting here and there, and a little bit of noise," is no longer suited to recruits' experiences, according to Rondeau. It is too much of a stretch, for example, to expect people who have grown up with sophisticated video and three-dimensional games to feel themselves reliving the Indianapolis disaster when they are in a lighted swimming pool.

"Our real objective would be to, within safety standards, eventually make it so that it is darker in the pool than normal, and it is colder than normal, and [recruits] get a sense that they, too, can survive this," Rondeau said.

The simulation probably will not go so far as to include sharks, said Carl Ross Jr., dean of training at the Naval Service Training Command. "What we're going to do is focus on the decision-making aspect first, and the special effects will come in time, depending on what we're able to afford."

Ross was quick to note that the Battle Stations upgrade is not being done "because it's cool," but because "that's what it takes to cement [recruits'] knowledge. The level of sophistication that these young people bring to the table makes this a more and more challenging task."

Two brand-new graduates of Battle Stations said parts of it are plenty challenging, whereas other parts could be jazzed up. For instance, the "burning building" from which recruits must escape in one scenario could be scarier, said Seaman Recruit Steven E. Salesske, 19. "A holographic fire would make it more realistic."

"Some parts of [Battle Stations] felt more like a game," said Seaman Recruit Jonathan D. Santana, 20. But the mass casualty exercise, in which recruits must navigate a maze to simulate an evacuation, "felt very real," Santana said, with "all sorts of blinking lights and awful noises" such as screams, gunshots and explosions. "Your senses are reeling."

The overall concept of Battle Stations has proven its utility, Rondeau added. Following the Oct. 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole, a senior enlisted sailor commented that the scenarios Battle Stations put recruits through helped the crew "react efficiently and effectively."

So, with input from a board of advisors made up of fleet, force, and training-level command master chiefs, the Navy decided to spend $75 million to $80 million on a new trainer, a Recruit Training Command headquarters, a Recruit Division Commander School, and a photography lab.

The first step was to develop a conceptual design for the 12-hour final exercise, a task that fell to Integrity Arts and Technology Inc. (i.d.e.a.s.), of Orlando, Fla., under a $1.4 million contract awarded in August 2002.

The Battle Stations 21 trainer, to be turned over to the Navy's North Chicago recruit school in December 2006, will effectively be a replica of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer inside a building, measuring 200 to 250 feet by 200 feet and 50 to 60 feet high, said Navy Chief Warrant Officer David Becraft, Battle Stations project manager.

The Arleigh Burke was chosen because it is a fairly modern ship, first commissioned in 1991 and will remain with the Navy for the foreseeable future, Becraft said. It also offers recruits the realism of close quarters.

Battle Stations 21 "is a compelling story," Becraft said. "It immerses them, and it's a learning environment for them because they can interact with it, and they can recall information they've learned and make the right decisions."