Navy Training: Observations on the Navy's Use of Live and Simulated Training

The Department of Defense uses live training, simulators, and other virtual training devices to prepare its forces to conduct military operations. Virtual training can help the services mitigate obstacles to training, such as the high cost of conducting live training or range access issues, while allowing military personnel to replicate many of the interactions and procedures they may encounter on the battlefield. In an effort to achieve greater efficiency, maximize training opportunities, and potentially reduce training costs, each military service is in various stages of developing concepts and training programs that mix live and synthetic training which is how the Navy typically refers to training that relies significantly on simulators or virtual training devices. The Navy, in particular, believes that effective training requires an efficient balance of live and synthetic approaches. H.R. Rep. No. 112-78 2011, which accompanied a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, directed GAO to review the status of the military services training programs and report the results to the House and Senate Armed Services committees. It also stated that in reporting on each of the services, we may take a phased approach in undertaking our review and reporting to the committees. This Navy review is the first engagement in our phased approach, and an Air Force review is also underway. For this review, we assessed the following 1 the principles the Navy considers in determining whether to use live or synthetic training to meet its training requirements, 2 how the Navys mix of live and synthetic training has changed over time, and 3 how the Navy prioritizes its synthetic training investments. This report contains briefing charts.