Europe’s training pitch for enhanced interoperability

For the European Defence Agency (EDA), the main reason for organising training and exercises (T&E) among its Member States is to boost their interoperability for operations conducted under the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. That is easier said than done, however. Interoperability issues cut across just about every activity in a multi-nation military operation – training and doctrine, communications, logistics, strategic and tactical planning, medical evacuation and transport, not to mention the inherent friction arising from incompatible military equipment and systems.

“We cover all the military domains except space, with the biggest emphasis historically having been in the air domain, though other areas of training are growing,” says Tom Bennington at EDA’s Operations, Training and Exercise Unit. Pooling demand among EDA Member States for common services is another way to achieve that by nailing down guaranteed access to niche capabilities at competitive prices. (See box – page 31)

Counter-IED 

Two of the Agency’s longest-running T&E efforts, for example, have been counter-IED (improvised explosive device) training for national explosive ordnance experts and helicopter training. Both came in response to pressing operational shortages but have since expanded to meet other needs as well.

Launched in 2007, the Agency’s C-IED programme has trained some 800 students, including C-IED specialists and ordnance personnel, and has prompted a swathe of related national and multi-nation research projects. These focus on early warning, detection, exploitation and disposal capabilities, not only for conventional IED threats but also those emanating from chemical, biological and radiological vectors. Moreover, the skills developed for Europe’s militaries in these areas offer dual-use benefits to Europe by combatting IED threats in urban settings.One of the hardest challenges to Europe’s post-WWII militaries has been to make them work seamlessly when coming together for the first time in a conflict zone. By and large, they haven’t been able to do that without huge and expensive effort which, unless wilfully sustained over time, is usually lost as personnel turn over, national military priorities diverge, or equipment is replaced at uneven rates from one country to the next. The allies know this well, having struggled continuously with interoperability issues since NATO’s founding 70 years ago.

Helicopter: towards a multinational training centre

Building  on  a  prior  Franco-British  initiative,  EDA’s  training  courses  for  helicopter  aircrew  got  off  the  ground  in  2009.  Its  initial  goal  was  to  fill  its  Member  States’  gap  in  tactical  training  and  interoperability  for  operations  in  Afghanistan  by  promoting  a  common  approach  to  helicopter  activities  in  an  environment  that  was  new  and  challenging  for  many  of  them.  Currently,  EDA  is  running  three  activities  in  this  area:  a  helicopter  exercise  programme,  a  helicopter  tactics  course (HTC) and a helicopter tactics instructors’ course (HTIC).

Fifteen  European  countries  participate  in  one or more of these courses, which include the annual multinational helicopter “Blade” exercise, a tactics symposium and a several other  tactics-related  activities  such  as  electronic  warfare.  The  HTIC,  for  example,  ensures the permanent availability of a cadre of tactics instructors as mentors to ensure standardisation  of  all  helicopter  training.  At  the  end  of  each  year,  lessons  learnt  and  new  tactical  procedures  are  assessed,  refined  and  codified  within  the  course’s  reference of standard operating procedures. This  reference  has  become  the  de  facto  handbook of advanced helicopter tactics for all  pilots  and  crewmen,  whether  across  the  EU or NATO, said Bennington.

One  of  the  Agency’s  undisputed  success  stories  is  the  HTC,  which  has  grown  from  its  initial  Afghanistan-specific  training  scenarios  centred  on  hot,  high  and  dusty  conditions to include arctic, cold and special operations  training  for  night-time  and  urban  environments.  The  simulator-based  HTC  has  trained  almost  800  aircrew  since  its  inception in 2011 and is still going strong, with the participation of seven EU countries.

“Believe  it  or  not,  until  these  training  courses  came  along  there  was  no  common  reference  for  tactical  procedures  for  pilots  and  crew  operating  under  these  different  scenarios,”  observed  Bennington.  “Due  to  its  harmonisation  and  agreement  process,  Allied  doctrine  can  be  rather  generic  and  bureaucratic  in  its  development,  whereas  the  helicopter  SOPs  are  targeted  at  the  working level. These reflect identified best practice  and  are  updated  regularly.  Part  of  the  reason  why  this  course  is  so  popular  among  helicopter  crews  is  because  it  is  not  platform-based.  Everyone  can  share  in  the  lessons  learnt  and  apply  them  to  their  own  tactical manoeuvres.”

Meanwhile,  EDA’s  helicopter  exercise  programme  carried  out  its  13th  Blade  exercise  in  May  2019.  Around  30  platforms,  including  rotary  and  fixed  wing,  and  1200  people  from  11  EDA  Member  States  participated  in  last  year’s  “HOT  BLADE  2018”  exercise,  which  focused  on  joint  and  combined interoperability.

The next step will be to set up a multinational helicopter  training  centre.  With  an  initial  planned  budget  of  around  €6  million,  the  centre  should  open  its  doors  in  late  2021  with offices, a simulator facility featuring two co-located augmented helicopter fuselages, and accommodations for its students. “This will  be  the  final  location  for  rotary  wing  tactical  training,  planning  and  coordination  under  Member  State  direction,”  said  Emilio  Fajardo, EDA’s Industry Synergies & Enablers (ISE) Director. 

Airlift training

Fixed-wing  airlift  has  also  been  a  T&E  focus,  where  the  first  major  development  came  in  2011 with the launch of the Agency’s European Air  Transport  Fleet  Programme  (EATF)  for  tactical airlift training. Again, the overall goal: improve  the  interoperability  and  operational  availability  of  crews  and  aircraft  regarding  airlift and air drops via agreed SOPs.

By  2016  this  effort  had  evolved  to  see  11  of  the  participating  nations  create  their  European  Tactical  Airlift  Centre  near  the  Spanish city of Zaragoza, with full operating capability  planned  for  September  2019.    There  is  also  a  new  idea  in  the  works  for  five  EDA  member  states  that  use  the  smaller  Spartan  C-27  fixed-wing  aircraft  to  integrate their tactical training activities via a  collaborative  exercise  programme  that  would be run on similar lines.

RPAS, cyber, energy management 

EDA’s air domain training will even branch out to remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). It is currently developing a training technology demonstrator project to use a virtual private network  to  link  the  generic,  platform-neutral  RPAS simulator centres of 10 Member States together for collaborative training.

“This would not be mission rehearsal training but  more  a  conversion  to  type  and  basic  collaboration. It would offer a development tool  that  allows  users  to  concoct  their  own  scenarios for common use within the group,” explained  Bennington.  “We’re  trying  to  prove  that  you  can  link  all  the  technical  sites  to  a  common  training  network  of  hardware  and  software  in  order  to  run  an  ongoing  exercise  programme – all for less than €1 million euros.”

With the demonstrator’s final simulator distributed  to  Germany  in  February  2019,  all  the sites will work together as RPAS squads. “Eventually  this  could  link  into  a  PESCO  project,”  said  Fajardo,  referring  to  the  EU’s  legal  framework  for  Permanent  Structured  Cooperation  in  defence.  “Italy,  for  example,  has  proposed  a  European  drone  centre  of  excellence as a PESCO project and there are several  other  related  PESCO  workstreams  that could benefit from the project too.” 

The  Agency  has  a  similar  initiative  in  the  cyber-defence  sector  where  it  sponsored  the  linking  together  of  national  training  sites to create a federated network of cyber-ranges.  Other  efforts  have  focused  on  cyber  situational  awareness,  forensics  and training for political leaders during major cyber-attacks.

One of EDA’s more unconventional T&E ideas, but  one  with  potentially  big  implications  for  military operational efficiency, is its “Defence Energy Managers’ Course” (DEMC). Energy-and-resource management has long been the neglected step-child of militaries around the  world,  and  it  is  only  in  recent  years  that  environmental  and  climate-change  concerns, along with increased operational sustainability  requirements,  have  compelled  them  to  start  taking  notice  of  new  ways  to  conserve energy.

Having  ended  in  April  2018,  the  year-long  DEMC  course’s  trial  run  instructed  20  participants  from  eight  Member  States  on  how  to  develop  and  apply  effective  energy  management  systems  in  accordance  with  the  ISO  50001  standard.  This  was  done  at  10  military  installations,  ranging  from  naval  stations  and  armoured  vehicle  camps  to  military academies.

The  trial  run’s  concrete  results  speak  for  themselves:  annual  energy  savings  of  2,916  MWh  –  equal  to  the  fuel  required  to  drive  a  Leopard  II  main  battle  tank  around  the  Earth  twice  –  plus  more  than  19,000  cubic  metres  of  water  saved.  That  opened  eyes.  The  defence  energy  managers’  course  is  now  oversubscribed,  with  two  more  currently  under  delivery  and  another  three  planned  until mid-2021.

In  sum,  EDA’s  approach  to  T&E  –  whether  collective  training  or  as  a  niche  focus  in  areas  that  a  single  Member  State  cannot  cost  effectively  do  on  its  own  –  always  links  to  the  priorities  of  the  EU’s  Capability  Development  Plan.  Yet  at  the  same  time,  the  Agency  is  not  a  permanent  training  institute.  It  functions  more  as  a  training  consultancy  by  identifying  where  Europe’s  military  training  gaps  are  and  nurturing  the  structures  and  activities  to  fill  them  –  but  only up to a certain point.

“We do the initial assessment, build the activity to  a  certain  level  and  then  hand  it  over  to  a  group of Member States as the effort reaches maturity,”  said  EDA  Chief  Executive  Jorge  Domecq. ”And that’s the way it should be.”