07 Sep 23. Maritime experts from Inzpire Limited deliver modernised training scenarios to the Royal Navy’s Fleet Operational Standards and Training Ships organisation. Inzpire Limited’s (Inzpire) Maritime Division has successfully designed and delivered an updated training scenario and the supporting Operational Staff Work (OSW) documents to the Royal Navy’s (RN) Fleet Operational Standards and Training (FOST) Ships organisation.
The scenario has been designed to support varying levels of complexity for different training audiences in several locations: from patrol vessels through to aircraft carriers.
In order to modernise the scenario, Inzpire’s maritime training experts – many of whom have recent operational RN experience – conducted an extensive phase of face-to-face consultancy sessions to truly understand the operator perspective and to capture real-world feedback from unit to 2* organisation level.
This consultancy phase included a four-day intensive “sprint”, which set out to understand the FOST team’s experience and ambitions for the scenario development. In addition, Inzpire personnel engaged with almost twenty frontline defence stakeholders from across the RN and MOD. This approach resulted in over 300 data points and overwhelming evidence themes supporting the case to modernise the existing scenario.
Two detailed working groups were also conducted with the FOST team to incorporate feedback and refine the documents in line with customer demands.
The result is an immersive and realistic training scenario which will allow FOST to better train warships to conduct high-end, task-group-centred warfighting as a principal warfare commander, against a peer or near peer adversary.
The new, modernised scenario means FOST will be able to challenge its training audiences – including UK, NATO and multi-national warships – in a more diverse and demanding manner, across the full spectrum of constant competition, crisis and conflict.
However, the modernised scenario extends far beyond just maritime training: Inzpire’s Maritime Division was able to draw on wider subject matter expertise from the company’s cyber and space divisions, as well Inzpire teams embedded within 92 Sqn and the Air and Space Warfare Centre to produce realistic scenario hooks in non-maritime domains.
Head of Inzpire Maritime Division Nick Borbone said: “It is a genuine privilege to be chosen to support FOST in supplying modern, credible and realistic scenarios and OSW to help train RN, NATO and international warships today and into the future.
This work has been widely welcomed by all RN and defence stakeholders. I am proud of the Inzpire team, who delivered the work on time and on budget against a tight timeline”.
Captain Andrew Canale MVO RN, Captain FOST (Ships) said: “This change is long overdue. I am pleased with the way my team in FOST (Ships) combined with Inzpire to develop a new, modern and contemporary strategic exercise scenario that better reflects the world we live in today, and prepares our ships and those of our international partners for the operational challenges of tomorrow. This work has been a significant undertaking, conducted over several months and to an excellent standard.”
This scenario modernisation project is the latest in a long line of maritime projects which Inzpire has supported the RN and wider defence stakeholders with. In the last twelve months, Inzpire has worked on the Platform Enabled Training Concept (PETC) distributed synthetic concept demonstration for The Carrier Strike Group; and Exercise Sharpshooter, which involved the firing of live ammunition from medium and close-range weapons against remote controlled surface vessels.
Inzpire and the Engineering Delivery Partnership (EDP)
Inzpire is a wholly owned subsidiary of QinetiQ, meaning we are able to seamlessly support customers through the Engineering Delivery Partnership and through our close working relationship with QinetiQ, and our aligned working practices.
This means we are able to drive efficient and effective contracting of output-based contracts through EDP, supporting our customer’s mission.
Inzpire’s Maritime Division
Inzpire’s maritime experts work seamlessly alongside the company’s Collective Training Division and have designed and delivered over 300 live and synthetic exercises and provided operationally realistic training to over 10,000 frontline personnel.
Together, the QinetiQ and Inzpire teams have worked with the Royal Navy to support JTEPS Joint Warrior events, Fleet Operational Sea Training for Type 45 destroyer mission rehearsal and pre–deployment training for the UK Carrier Strike Group.
Inzpire Limited
Founded in 2005, Inzpire is a multi-award-winning supplier of advanced defence training, technical services and cutting-edge mission systems. The company is a trusted partner of the UK MOD and employs highly experienced former military personnel who work alongside defence engineers and business professionals to deliver operationally credible solutions to military, private and public sector customers. Find out more at www.inzpire.com.
05 Sep 23. QinetiQ, Inzpire and BAE Systems Deliver Next Synthetic Training Concept Demonstration to the Royal Navy. A team from QinetiQ, Inzpire and BAE Systems has delivered a further demonstration under Phase 2 of the Platform Enabled Training Capability (PETC) to the Royal Navy. Delivered in late June, the complex synthetic collective training demonstration was operated from Portsdown Technology Park delivering training to three platforms docked at HM Naval Base in Portsmouth: HMS KENT, HMS DIAMOND and HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, operating together.
Connecting into the three platforms simultaneously via satellite communications, the QinetiQ, Inzpire and BAE Systems team enabled the delivery of the complex synthetic collective training environment, through scenarios adapted and delivered by a dynamic White Force. This allowed the crews of the three ships to conduct realistic training against a peer adversary.
Lieutenant Commander Stephen Gowling, SPARTAN Programme Officer and PETC lead for the Royal Navy said, “The PETC concept poses a significant increase to the synthetic training capability for the Royal Navy, transitioning our ability to train and prepare our warfighting teams for the current threats faced in today’s rapidly evolving maritime battlespace. Whilst the use of simulation to train our Ship’s crews is far from new, the ability to train them collectively across multiple geographically dispersed units, from their own organic operations room, will be a step change. Through the development of PETC, we aim to provide our Maritime Task Groups (MTGs) an ability to train against realistic and representative threats in an immersive environment, whenever and wherever. The utility of PETC as a training enabler will be relevant across all tiers of training, in time, supporting the ability of the RN to effectively train as they fight.”
James Anderson, Senior Campaign Manager for QinetiQ said, “Building on the first PETC demonstration held in February 2022, which validated the use of the capability on a single platform, this next trial aimed to prove the ability of the approach to deliver a high-end collective training exercise across multiple platforms. The combined strengths of QinetiQ’s management of the synthetic environment and communications, BAE Systems’ integration of the digital shadow of the combat management system into the ships, and Inzpire’s design of the scenario and delivery of the White Force and After Action Review, resulted in a strong outcome. I was proud to see how the organisations worked together, along with RN staff as a single team, to deliver the demonstration.”
Alongside teams from QinetiQ, Inzpire and BAE Systems, the demonstration was attended by a team from Fleet Operational Standards and Training (FOST) and a number of high ranking Royal Navy personnel.
As an alternative to fully live or shore-based synthetic training, PETC is allowing the Royal Navy to demonstrate how synthetics can be used to create a fully immersive training environment within a ship’s own operations room. The use of this synthetic training environment aims to allow for the delivery of training whilst on deployment, across a number of vessels that may not be geographically close by, presenting opportunities for ships from multiple international forces to practice training together. PETC therefore aims to provide more opportunities for training alongside international partners within a wartime environment, whilst offering significant time and cost savings to the customer, as well as environmental benefits due to the ships and crews not having to travel to the same extent for the synthetic collective training, compared with live training. (Source: ASD Network)
05 Sep 23. Inzpire’s Collective Training Division (CTD) has secured a two-year contract to deliver subject matter expertise support to 20 Squadron’s (Sqn) Qualified Weapons Instructor (Command & Control) Course (QWI (C2)) at RAF Boulmer. Synthetic and live training experts from across CTD will be providing specific command and control and battlespace management support and assisting with all phases of the QWI (C2) course including planning, creating courseware, building exercise scenarios and supporting the execution of live and synthetic training. In addition to QWI (C2) support, Inzpire’s experts on 20 Sqn will assist with the Combat Ready Operators Course (CROC), which teaches qualified operators from 19 and 20 Sqns how to provide advanced tactical air command and control and battle management, including tactical control of fighter aircraft in complex, heavily contested joint air operations scenarios. The CROC includes 20 Sqn’s capstone synthetic training event Exercise CERBERUS REVENGE, which prepares students to plan and control during major live flying exercises and global contingent operations.
The QWI (C2) works closely with the QWI (Combat Air) (QWI (CA)), which has stood up to deliver a combined QWI course for Typhoon and Lightning pilots based at RAF Coningsby and RAF Marham respectively; Inzpire already has staff embedded at both locations carrying out a similar role to those at Boulmer. The two courses come together to train on Exercise STORM WARRIOR over the summer prior to students completing Exercise COBRA WARRIOR – the RAF’s capstone training event – which is designed and delivered by Inzpire on 92 Sqn at the Air and Space Warfare Centre.
20 Sqn will therefore benefit from Inzpire’s extensive experience delivering QWICs for the UK’s Typhoon, Reaper and F-35 fleets, creating training coherence across multiple RAF Combat Force Elements.