The U.S. Army has purchased two of Boeing's Virtual Mission Boards to be used at Fort Sill, Okla. (The Boeing Co.)
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Both The Boeing Co. and Cubic Corp. have developed devices to replace cumbersome sand tables with snazzy electronic systems that look like a video gamer's dream.
Boeing recently sold its Virtual Mission Board under a $160,000 contract to deliver two devices to Fort Sill, Okla. Boeing has also been in discussions with the aviation school at Fort Rucker, Ala., and the U.S. Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., said John Chicoli, a retired artillery lieutenant colonel who is now a program manager with Boeing's Ground Forces Training division.
Cubic is offering its Mission Rehearsal Planning System, which has yet to be purchased. A prototype was released about a year ago, and the production model recently became available, according to Cubic spokeswoman Jan Stevens.
Boeing’s Virtual Mission Board looks like, and is about the size of, a big-screen TV mounted horizontally on a pedestal. It weighs 310 pounds, and measures 51.5-inches long and 30.5-inches wide. The high-definition screen is 1920 x 1080 pixels.
The touch screen allows users to trace movement routes, artillery trajectories or flight paths. The visuals allow both 3-D terrain models and 2-D planning maps. Users can virtually navigate the terrain from several perspectives, including on-foot and flight modes. Other features include a line-of-sight tool that allows users to see when their line-of-sight is clear or blocked, and split-screen views. Boeing estimated the price of one device to be around $80,000, including support.
Cubic's base Mission Rehearsal Planning System uses a 55-inch LED touch screen as the primary planning station, two additional 55-inch LED TV screens for displays, and several laptops for constructive simulations, scenario generation and database management. The Mission Rehearsal Planning System Lite version, which is more similar to Boeing's Virtual Mission Board, uses a touch screen on a mobile pedestal, along with four monitors and two desktop computers. Cubic would not disclose the price of its system.
Although there is no formal Army requirement for virtual mission planning, Chicoli predicts these devices will replace traditional sand tables and mission boards that are time consuming to set up and difficult to modify.
"It's hard to refine your plan on a sand table or mission board,” Chicoli said. “Here, I just grab an icon and move it. Or, a young commander moves his battery to a new location. Now, I can look and tell him whether he's using the terrain well, or did he put his unit in an open field when there's a terrain feature a kilometer to the left that he could have used to mask his unit."
Boeing’s Virtual Mission Board can also transport data to laptops that junior officers can take with them into the field. The Virtual Mission Board itself can also be scaled down and installed on laptop or desktop computers.
Lt. Col. Michael Adams, Fort Sill's simulations chief, said, "This tool allows us to get guys around a table and do a terrain walk of the ground that they're planning on." He added that the mission board is especially helpful for fires training, allowing students to "go in and put in the trajectory of an artillery shell to see if there is an intervening crest, or how it affects the Air Force and how you have to clear fires."
