By
WGCDR Neil Lacey
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Air
Power Development Centre
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If
you conduct a Google search of the Internet inquiring about “military
experimentation”, the search engine will return about 175,000
hits. Even if you refine that search by adding the word “Australian”,
you will still come up with more than 13,000 responses.
Furthermore, you will come across more than 40 different definitions
of what is meant by the term. From an Air Force perspective, a
good working definition of military experimentation might be
“to examine something in a controlled and systematic way to determine
its performance under representative operational conditions”.
The principles of experimental science have always underpinned
our test and evaluation processes, and experimentation has been
used to help define what we require out of new aircraft, such
as the AP-3C and the AEW&C Wedgetail.
However, it is a new for us to employ the same methodology to
explore ideas, or concepts, for how we might wish to conduct operations
in the future.
The increased emphasis on developing and experimenting with future
operational concepts stems from an ADF push to adopt a concept-led
force development process. This calls for us first to define
what we might be called upon to do, work out the best way of doing
it, and then build a force suited to the task.
Consequently, our future concepts are assuming much greater importance,
and it is vital that we make sure that those concepts are valid
before using them as the basis for some important decisions. That’s
where military experimentation comes in.
The Air Force Experimentation Office was formed in January 2003
and a year later was incorporated into the reorganised Air Power
Development Centre. Although the Air Force has acquired a lot
of experience in experimenting with equipment, the testing of
concepts requires a completely different approach.
For a start, when comparing the performance of “concept A” against
“concept B”, many of the assessments are subjective in nature.
Furthermore, during the experiment, the concepts have to be interpreted
and employed by human operators who, by their very nature, introduce
all sorts of unpredictable and uncontrollable variables into the
proceedings.
This is exactly what should not be allowed to happen in any scientific analysis. It is important to recognise these limitations of
the process so that the validity of any outcomes is not overstated.
One of the best tools available for experimenting with concepts
is wargaming. Wargames are relatively cheap to organise and are
essentially risk-free. The only thing that might get hurt is the
losing team’s pride – although I have also witnessed the odd nasty
paper cut in my time.
As such, we can afford to try out new ideas that might be considered
too hazardous or “off-the-wall” for use in live trials or operations.
Wargames also allow us to exercise with future technologies and
systems so that we can develop ideas on how best to employ them
well in advance of their entering service.
We are always on the look out for good ideas for improving our
warfighting capabilities. If you have an idea, we would love
to hear from you. Wargames also need players and finding people
with the right mix of experience, skills and attitude is not easy.
Wing Commander Neil Lacey is the Deputy Director Experimentation
at the Air Power Development Centre.
