New Technology Creates Interoperability For Multinational Exercises

Brussels, Belgium: First multinational exercise in the army's combat exercise centre supported by the Saab integration tool WISE. Despite different system configurations from Austria and Germany, troop units from both nations exercised together in the ORF formation in the ALTMARK.

Due mainly to the composition of NATO and EU intervention forces, multinational exercises are part and parcel of everyday life at the combat exercise centre in the ALTMARK.

Previously, however, those from the guest nation participating in the exercise had to rely on hand weapons with laser simulators from the host nation which often only reproduced inadequately the actual capabilities of weapon systems - as was also the case with laser simulators for combat vehicles adapted provisionally.

The Austrian Federal Armed Forces, which continually provides one unit of the German-led ORF formation, commissioned Saab to configure the interoperability of the Austrian DUSIM system technology and the German GUZ system technology such that their own simulators can be used and their exercise data read and evaluated in the control and analysis headquarters at the combat training centre in the ALTMARK.

For the ORF exercise starting at the end of May 2008, Saab installed for the first time a parallel radio network for DUSIM in just a few hours, covering the entire training area.

In the operational control headquarters of the combat exercise centre interface, an interface to Saab TS "WISE-PC" merged the incoming and outgoing data of all exercise participants and transferred it to the other system.

After completion of the ORF exercise, both nations expressed satisfaction with the components installed by Saab. They stressed that all expectations were unreservedly met and expressed hope that in the future other nations use this opportunity to make different combat exercise systems interoperable - with the objective "Train as you fight!".