Military close-combat is an environment characterized by tactical small-unit (TSU) infantry engaging with extreme violence within line-of-sight of an enemy. Close-combat during the last-two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan often resulted in many casualties as a result of “fair fights” (Mattis, 2016) against a relatively inferior, ill-equipped but extremely fanatic opposing force. Such combat effectiveness “matching” should not happen with the investment in technology and training provided to our soldiers.
Historically 90% of all US forces combat casualties in wars over the last eight-decades occur during tactical small-unit (TSU) infantry close-combat (Roper, 2018). In future warfare, precision long-range enemy firepower will expand and dominate battlefields, supported by a proliferation of cheap high resolution battlefield sensors. This condition may essentially eliminate the element of traditional large force surprise and linear maneuver against “near-peer” enemies (Scales, 2019). As such, an Army’s general infantry TSU force may become the main thrust of decentralized maneuver. However, based on historic casualty trends with these forces, Army’s will be severely challenged to sustain themselves in a prolonged war without gaining overmatch with enemy forces. “Overmatch” is here-in characterized as TSU competency levels equal or near that of today’s Ranger unit or in some areas, Special Forces levels.
This paper will discuss capabilities and use-cases being designed for the future Synthetic Training Environment (STE) – Training Management Tools (TMT) to support achieving the above use-case, in conjunction with key policy changes required in Army training doctrine. The goal is to provide a vision how STE-TMT will support the US Army’s effort to build, sustain and replace the lethality and overmatch of its current and future TSU levels. This paper will also discuss using modern competency based experiential assessment, using a data-driven and experiential expertise based strategy for achieving combat readiness.