Episodes
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We didn’t get enough out of him the first time round, so Karl is back to dive a bit deeper into the challenges and opportunities around the FPV capability. And not least how FPV racing can support a lot of the lines of development required by militaries to successfully adopt this emerging technology.
In a wide ranging conversation, we get down into the weeds of how defence needs to develop skills and competencies, whilst exploring the real world capabilities of FPV drones. We also discuss recruitment, and explore how this technology might affect future orbats for fighting forces.
Naturally, some push back can be expected to any new technology. Karl discusses some of the objections commonly shared in this field, as well as the arguments to combat them.
What is clear is that the technology can’t be ignored, but there is a lot of work to be done to understand how best to employ this capability. What is fascinating is the sport of FPV drone racing has a lot of synergies to what defence is trying to do in this space, not least as a mechanism to drive understanding, showcase operational capability and foster the skills and experience that will be vital for successful deployment.
Hosts:Tom Constable: www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guest:Karl Eze: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-eze/
Links:MIDRT: https://www.midrt.com/Website: www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: MiDRT 24 (Military International Drone Racing Tournament)The Military International Drone Racing Tournament (MIDRT) 2024 is a major event in London from September 16-20, bringing together military personnel skilled in first-person view (FPV) drone racing. The event includes a tournament, conference, exhibition, and hackathon, attracting top experts in UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) technology. It serves as a platform for allied military forces, industry leaders, and innovators to exchange ideas on the future of battlefield drone applications. MIDRT aims to advance military drone racing and small-UxS technology.
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The Warfighter Podcast is back for very special mini-season looking at FPV (First Person View) drones and their impact in the modern battlefield.
Even the most casual observer of recent conflicts will be aware of the impact that low-cost, consumer drones and home-built FPVs have been making across conflict zones. It’s likely that their impact is here to stay and militaries are mobilising for the use of these drones, as well as working out how to counter them.
Karl Eze formally served with the British Army and is now the founder of a company that specialises in the development and deployment of unmanned systems.
Karl provides a background to the evolution of FPV drones and discusses how the skills and capabilities are being developed through drone racing, and events such as MIDRT - Military International Drone Racing Tournament, which is being held in London this month.
We cover as much as we can is a short period, as the evolution of FPV drones is clearly a fascinating area, which we hope to uncover over the next couple of episodes.
Hosts:Tom Constable: www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Karl Eze: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-eze/
Links:MIDRT: https://www.midrt.com/Website: www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: MiDRT 24 (Military International Drone Racing Tournament)The Military International Drone Racing Tournament (MIDRT) 2024 is a major event in London from September 16-20, bringing together military personnel, skilled in first-person view (FPV) drone racing. The event includes a tournament, mini-conference and exhibition, attracting top experts in UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) technology. It serves as a platform for allied military forces, industry leaders, and innovators to exchange ideas on the future of battlefield drone applications. MIDRT aims to advance military drone racing as a vehicle to train remote pilots and enhance STEM knowledge.
Email: [email protected]
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Missing episodes?
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We are pleased to invite two heavyweight guests for our final episode of the season.
Coming out of the shadows, we speak to Matt Chuter - our sponsor at Babcock. We were keen to learn more about how the latest evolutions in the battlefield are shaping the Crucible Teams thinking about the future design for Army collective training.
Matt also reflected on some of his personal highlights from this season, including Jenny McArdle on the future of Land Training, Andy Gales discussing TES, and Ethan Wilson on the Grey Zone. (Links to the episodes below)
And who better to invite back than Col Arnel David. Now in a new post, and overachieve as per usual, we were keen to hear about his latest challenge and works.
The discussion is wide ranging, and we couldn’t do the subject of his PhD justice in a short time, but we do cover the following:
Exploration of ‘Prototyping Warfare’ and its benefits over traditional strategies.The impact of clinging to comfortable but outdated assumptions on military effectiveness.How militaries cling to comfortable assumptions.How do we make a case for change in the absence of a significant credible threat?What role government procurement plays in facilitating the rapid conversion of new ideas into capabilities.Key recommendations for military leaders and policymakers to ensure their strategies are adaptable and effective in a fast-changing strategic landscape.We suggest listening to this on ¾ or ½ speed, as Col Arnel likes to talk at the speed of his thinking!
Hosts:Tom Constable: www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Col Arnel David: www.linkedin.com/in/arnel-david/Matt Chuter: www.linkedin.com/in/matt-chuter-7bb1878/
Links:Episode with Jenny McArdle: www.warfighterpodcast.com/s2-e1-the-future-of-land-training/Episode with Andy Gales: www.warfighterpodcast.com/s2-e8-tesmiles-definitely-not-laser-tag/Episode with Ethan Wilson: www.warfighterpodcast.com/s2-e9-grey-zone-conflict/Website: www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever,...
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Strap in. For our penultimate episode of the season we tackle what might seem like a simple question, but proves to be expansive - What does it mean to deliver realism in Training?
We are joined by Anthony Pittman who, as well having a lengthy service in the British Army where he lived and breathed training, is currently the Director for Development & Optimisation at Babcock.
Always a contentious subject, (which we’re sure is the start of some mess brawls), we don’t hold back from the difficult questions. Anthony deals with each point elegantly, tackling diverse subjects such as:
What is Realism anyway?Is there an optimum level for Realism?Could we cope with greater Realism?Doesn’t adding Realism always cost more money?Do we have enough scientific rigour to understand training effectiveness vs Realism?We knew 40 minutes wouldn’t be enough for this subject, so no doubt we will return to it in the future. Anthony wraps up the discussion with his vision for what improved realism means for the future of collective training.
Excellent food for thought and very topical with all the work going on in this area at the moment.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guest:Anthony Pittman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajpittman/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock International GroupBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better engineering decisions to reduce risk and improve service delivery.
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We’re coming back to our favourite topic - how do we get innovative ideas off the ground and into the market for exploitation by the frontline. In past episodes we’ve discussed the ‘Valley of Death’ and the challenge described in the book ‘Crossing the Chasm’.
This episode we speak to Owen Thompson, who deals with this every day in his role as CEO at Cambridge Future Tech - a Venture Builder that works with deep-tech startups across diverse markets. Owen has had two successful careers to date: Firstly as a Typhoon pilot for the Royal Air Force and then appointed to senior positions in a leading defence prime when he left the forces.. So he brings a unique perspective for defence centric technologies.
The capital markets for startups have historically been slightly allergic to funding defence startups, but with the realisation that sustainability is closely related to security, attitudes are changing. We see this with investments in companies like Palantir and Anduril which have the potential to create huge change in the Defence industry.
In what becomes a wide ranging discussion, Owen talks about his experience with new technology startups trying to make a difference in Defence, how they met these challenges and potential routes for funding and getting innovation to the users through the commercial maze that government procurement often is.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Owen Thompson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/o-thompson/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better...
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This week the Warfighter Podcast takes a small tangent - it’s not all running around with a dagger between our teeth. We are pleased to welcome Sae Schatz, who has an extremely diverse career so far, formerly serving as the Director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, a published author and expert in learning sciences.
Before joining the civil service in 2015, Sae worked as an applied human–systems scientist, with an emphasis on human cognition and learning, instructional technologies, adaptive systems, human performance assessment, and modelling and simulation.
Whilst we’ve discussed platforms previously, this episode it’s all about the learning ecosystem - how we can start to develop it and foster improved collaboration across learning communities.
Sae offers a challenging vision for what might be possible, demonstrating a number of areas which are yet to be fully exploited across the learning community. Not just a theorist, she leaves us with some practical examples of how we start to develop this vision, with a discussion around the common challenges for organisations and how we need to think differently about how individuals learn most effectively.
Plenty of food for thought and some very relevant points for many of our listeners. Thanks for coming on the podcast Sae!
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Sae Schatz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeschatz
IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC): https://sagroups.ieee.org/ltscIEEE ICICLE (Learning Engineering): https://www.ieeeicicle.orgModernizing Learning book: https://adlnet.gov/publications/2019/04/modernizing-learningEngines of Engagement book: https://bit.ly/EnginesOfEngagement
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our...
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Yet another guest that we’ve been dying to get on since last season. We are pleased to welcome Ethan to the podcast to talk about the work he’s been involved in to understand and model the ‘grey zone’ in modern warfare. Ethan previously served as an Intel Analyst with the US Navy, and now works for Plexsys Interface Products, supporting the simulation and modelling of complex environments.
Defined as ‘activities by a state that are harmful to another state and are sometimes considered to be acts of war, but are not legally acts of war’, this subject proves to be both fascinating and broad ranging.
We start by discussing the challenge of conducting multi-domain training, especially the space components and the exponential nature of the problem, which in turn presents computational and processing challenges.
The discussion turns to the rapidly evolving nature of warfare, with most recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, especially the prevalence of low cost drones and persistent surveillance.
While we don’t come to any firm conclusions, the discussion proves how much we have yet to do, and how quickly we might need to develop training systems in the near future to prepare for these emerging threats.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Ethan Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanwwilson/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better engineering decisions to reduce risk and improve service delivery.
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On a subject we’ve wanted to cover for a while, we are pleased to welcome Andy Gales, who kindly agreed to come and give us all the details about the British Army’s Tactical Engagement System. Which isn’t a single system at all, but several systems integrated together to deliver critical Instrumented Live training for the British Army.
Andy has lengthy experience with the various flavours of TES, from his time in the British Army, as well with his current company Cubic Defence, which supports key elements of the in-service capability today.
A huge subject, that’s much more complex than it might first appear. But Andy does a great job taking us through the early evolution of the technology, the benefits and limitations of laser based systems, the impact of synthetic wrap and new ideas such as Roundless TES.
In all a fascinating look into an area that seems simple, but is actually wonderfully complex with many opportunities for future innovation in Land Training.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Andy Gales: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-gales-1896b32a/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better engineering decisions to reduce risk and improve service delivery.
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Virtual simulation has been around for a while now, and there has been some great leaps and bounds in its fidelity - mainly through the adoption of commercially available technologies that run on standard (albeit high-end) computer hardware.
One person who was there during the early emergence of these technologies was Pete Morrison - previously CEO and now Chief Commercial Officer at Bohemia Interactive Simulations. During his tenure, BISim was one of the few companies to successfully repurpose an off-the-shelf gaming engine for military applications. Today Virtual Battlespace is deployed with most of the NATO and partner nations for training militaries, as well as numerous military and government organisations globally.
Pete provides a short potted history of the development of COTS gaming (making us all feel old) and how the applications have grown up in the defence industry to deliver some critical training applications.
But where from here? Pete goes on to speak about the development of virtual technologies for test & evaluation, as well as the future in a world of AI driven warfare - where AI presents us with dilemmas, how can simulation help us to de-risk this?
Building an experimental future framework using simulation will require the convergence of a number of existing technologies, to support the development of future combat systems.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Pete Morrison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morpj97/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better...
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In the run up to I/ITSEC 2023 we are very grateful for Hadean agreeing to sponsor a special episode in two parts.
Firstly, we are very pleased to introduce Royal O’Brien, Global CTO for Hadean. Royal has a considerable track record with the likes of Amazon, The Linux Foundation and a host of games related companies, including foundational work on the O3DE platform and Open Metaverse Foundation.
Not dodging the hard questions, this interview gave us the chance to ask a burning question - Is the Military Metaverse dead? You might think we’d regret asking this of Royal, but he then took us on a whirlwind tour of all the novel technologies and challenges facing military simulation and training. Including subjects as diverse as managing huge datasets, leveraging generative AI, true interoperability beyond the current standards, and integrating the human in the loop.
This discussion reminds us of the huge challenges the military users and industry have to harness these recent developments, which only seem to be accelerating.
We are also joined by Andy Fawkes and Marty Kauchek from Military Simulation & Training magazine, who provide a look ahead to I/ITSEC and point out the things to watch out for if you’re heading out that way.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Royal O’Brien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/obwando/Andy Fawes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfawkes/Marty Kauchak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-kauchak-nola/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: HadeanHadean is a UK-based spatial computing company that is modernising the military simulation ecosystem with a new way to understand the operating environment for training, strategy and readiness. Their technology provides the AI-powered spatial compute infrastructure that integrates allies, domains, systems, and technologies to deliver a common operating picture, bridging physical and virtual worlds.
Trusted by the British Army and wider UK Ministry of Defence, the Hadean Platform draws on distributed data and leverages novel AI and Large Language Model (LLM) integrations to synthesise coherent, singular, large-scale and complex simulations that are capable of managing millions of entities and dynamically replicating real-world scenarios.
They enable out-of-the-box simulation and orchestration capabilities that are easy to develop, deploy and integrate with any system; from legacy simulators through to bleeding-edge AI and LLM solutions. The platform is primed with a core distributed pattern of life simulation
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As a former Special Forces operator, Gareth Collier has had an impressive career to date, including responsibility for the development of the training and capability development of over 2,300 in the Australian Special Forces Command.
While a successful military career does not automatically translate to being successful in business, Gareth provides a text-book example of how it can be done. Combining skills and experience from his time serving with the commercial realities of doing business with the Australian Defence Force.
Gareth joined SimCentric in late 2015, as their VP of Strategy has been working closely with militaries around the world to take SAF Foresight (a tool for planning and preventing accidents in live firing exercises) from concept to a fully fledged product, ready to be put into service.
For anyone trying to do something similar, his story provides a step-by-step guide of how it can be done. This is not mere business school, case study theory, but the true reality of how ideas and technology should be developed for military and government users.
Gareth breaks down his product development strategy, covering:
Market research phaseUnderstanding the problemEngaging with real usersDeveloping mock-ups of conceptsBuilding networks in DefenceHumility in understanding the problem.A fascinating insight into the inspiration, hard graft and challenges that goes into the development of this product over the past 6 years.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Gareth Collier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-collier-a08b7971/
Links:DASA (Innovation) Episode: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/ep-008-avoiding-the-innovation-valley-of-death/Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor:Babcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying...
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Following on from the trend of finally getting some of the guests we had shortlisted for Season 1, we are very pleased to introduce Ruari Henderson-Begg. Ruari was previously SO1 Synthetics in Air Capability, and was also the Programme Manager for Gladiator - a distributed synthetic training system for Air Combat Training for the Royal Air Force.
Ruari has lived the experience of bringing a challenging programme from its early inception through to full Initial Operating Capability, something not many can say. He therefore offers a number of important insights about the challenges, opportunities and lessons learnt from one the first of type for this scale of synthetic training system.
We cover a lot of ground in a relatively short time with Ruari, discussion Agile vs Waterfall development, how to grow as an Intelligent Customer, the impact of COTS on defence policy and our approach to simulation coherence.
His thesis is that all domains can learn from this experience, through shared lessons learnt, even if the architecture and end use case is different. Experience that Ruari hopes to bring to bear in his future role as Chief Modelling & Simulation Officer for the RAF.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Ruari Henderson-Begg: https://des.mod.uk/world-class-synthetic-training-system-opened-at-raf-waddington/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better engineering decisions to reduce risk and improve service delivery.
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While Tom has been battling an annual occurrence of “Flymageddon” on his farm, the team have been busily lining up exciting guests for Season 2. We plan to pick up on many of the themes from Season 1 and start pulling those threads!
This episode is no different, and we are pleased to be joined by Winston Chang from Snowflake who is their CTO for Global Public Sector and so has a special interest in dealing with large data problems across government and defence. Winston is himself a West Point graduate, so brings a perspective from both civil and military angles.
We start by asking Winston how we got here, providing a potted history of the movement from Data Warehouses to deal with ‘Big Data’, Data Lakes and Platforms. Of particular note is the move from fixed infrastructure to cloud deployment of data, which fosters improved collaboration and data sharing.
Of course no episode is complete without mention of AI, and Winston goes on to explain how these developments have helped to enable deployment of machine learning and LLMs, which require large amounts of storage and compute resource. Without which the current crop of generative AI applications would not be possible.
While covering many topics in a short session, Winston makes an interesting point about how we should view data like a water ecosystem. We need to learn how to cultivate and curate this resource, and it doesn’t need to always be in a perfect state to gain benefits from it. Like a natural ecosystem, it supports a wide range of sources, users and consumers.
Last but not least, we speak of the challenge to build a common understanding of how we should manage data, as well as build a workforce with the necessary skills and experience to properly exploit it.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Winston Chang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonwchang/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are...
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Well, we said we’d come back to the topic of AI and do a deeper dive into the subject. Since Generative AI sprung into our collective consciousness earlier this year, the hype hasn’t really died down. So we are pleased to explore the impact of the technology with someone who has direct experience of implementing AI into defence projects - Rob Albritton from OctoLab, which was recently acquired by IBM.
Rob provides an explanation of what generative AI means, and how it differs from other machine learning technologies, and why it matters to defence. He then talks us through his experience in deploying generative AI on defence projects, sharing his views on where it can add value as well as some of the pitfalls.
We wrap up the discussion with some real insights into some of the challenges and risks of deploying this technology - such as the problem of model ‘drift’ and the challenge of applying it to safety critical applications.
This episode is a must if you're still confused by a lot of the buzzwords and terms surrounding generative AI.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guest:Rob Albritton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robalbritton/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset. Alongside our deep engineering experience, digital and data technologies will allow us to better understand, predict and enhance the performance of the assets we manage, make better engineering decisions to reduce risk and improve service delivery.
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Today’s the day the Warfighter Podcast get to announce its new Sponsor - Babcock International, who have very kindly agreed to back our exciting schedule for the Season 2.
To kick things off we are joined by Matthew Chuter who’s the Campaign Director for CTTP at Babcock. We start the discussion around the CTTP Programme recently launched in the UK and what it means for transforming Army Training. Matt also reveals the members of Team Crucible and describes what they each add to the training delivery proposition. We look forward to digging into some of these interesting areas during this season.
For the second half we are joined by Jennifer McArdle PhD who is the Senior Director of Defense Programmes at CAE. Jennifer’s reputation precedes her, and she kindly shares with us her quick take on the main challenges for the future of Land Training, particularly in the light of the recent war in Ukraine. We discuss the impact of the Urban Battle and how that’s still a huge challenge, as well as how current training systems need to evolve from their Cold War origins.
A great primer for the new season as we plan to dig into some of these topics in future episodes.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Matthew Chuter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-chuter-7bb1878/Jennifer McArdle PhD: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-mcardle-ph-d-a7404a36/
Links:Team Crucible: https://www.team-crucible.co.uk/Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: Babcock InternationalBabcock has always operated hand in hand with our customers because their mission is our mission. Our people support the British Army by contributing to front-line support, delivering the capability they need, available to them wherever, whenever and however they need it. We ensure the British Army can focus on their missions safely by supporting their vehicles, both armoured and white fleet with skilled engineers and capability backed by long-term through-life engineering expertise.
We enable our defence and emergency services customers to do their job with our technical training programmes. We combine deep understanding and long-term commitment with constructive challenge. An embedded partner, focussed on outcomes. Globally, new defence and resilience equipment programmes and asset modernisation programmes are seeing a resurgence. Training personnel is a critical component to support these programmes.
Whether it’s applying engineering excellence or the latest technology, we combine our expertise with a practical mindset....
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The Cultural Challenges for International Training & Collaboration
You thought you’d heard the last of The Warfighter Podcast? We’ve been taking a short break - Tom’s been working hard on the farm and Colin has been off sailing (OK, not much sailing but the fish weren’t going to snorkel themselves).
We are now pleased to be able to say that Season 2 is GO, and we have a shiny new sponsor and exciting lineup of guests. We might even try another Live event or two. All will be revealed in the next episode.
Last season we had a couple of guests that we couldn’t fit into the schedule. So we are very pleased to be able to release this interview as a bonus episode. We are joined by Fahad ‘Sunny’ Masood who provides us with his perspectives on international collaboration by the Armed Forces during his time flying for the Pakistani Air Force. This is the type of work carried out by our Armed Forces, quietly in the background that delivers huge returns in terms of strengthening partner nations and building important links.
Sunny describes some of the cultural challenges of working with these training teams and reflects on the impact they had on his career and how it shaped his thinking as an aviator.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Fahad ibne Masood: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahadibnemasood/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPodTom's Podcast interview with Lt Gen Richard Nugee: https://www.grangeproject.co.uk/wilder-podcast/ep-003-the-rising-tide-of-climate-insecurity-with-lt-gen-richard-nugee
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In another first, the Warfighter Podcast are very pleased to be able to work with NATO Modelling and Simulation Working Group to cover their latest initiative - the MSaaS Jam, hosted at the Tech Grove, Orlando, Florida. For those that don’t know this is the spiritual home for Modelling & Simulation across the US DoD.
Over a weekend in June, teams were invited to a ‘hackathon’ style event, fed pizzas and Mountain Dew, and asked to develop a novel simulation service that is scalable, agile, and suitable for training or experimentation.
Teams could take part in person, or remotely as either a participant, SME or observer with the chance for teams to win $5,000. The top three teams were invited to present their solutions to the NATO MSaaS Working Group, as well as be featured at I/ITSEC 2023.
This interview was recorded in two parts, featuring Robert Seigfried (Co-Chair NATO Distributed Simulation Training), Chris J McGroarty from US Army DEVCOM and the winning team (AKA The Topography Troopers) from SimBlocks.io and ARA. Jordan Dauble from SimBlocks joins us in the second half to talk about the experience, and what it took to make the winning solution.
A fascinating initiative from NATO NMSG that sought to break down some of the innovation barriers and introduce new approaches and thinking to distributed simulation. We look forward to covering this event in the future!
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Robert Seigfried: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-siegfried-aditerna/Chris J McGroarty: US Army DEVCOMJordan Dauble: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-dauble/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
Episode Sponsor: NATO NMSGNATO and nations use simulation environments for various purposes, such as training, capability development, mission rehearsal, and decision support in acquisition processes or in operations.. Consequently, Modelling and Simulation (M&S) has become a critical capability for the Alliance. M&S products are highly valuable resources and it is essential that M&S products, data, and processes are conveniently accessible to a large number of users as often as possible. However, achieving interoperability between simulation systems and ensuring the credibility of results currently requires large efforts with regard to time, personnel, and budget.
Recent developments in cloud computing technology and service-oriented architectures offer opportunities to better utilise M&S capabilities in order to satisfy NATO's critical needs.
M&S as a Service (MSaaS) is a concept that includes service orientation and the provision of M&S applications via the as-a-service model of cloud computing to enable more composable...
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Our first foray into the real world, Warfighter Live hosted its first panel discussion at DSET in Bristol and kindly sponsored by VRAI - more about them below. We were joined by a highly experienced guests that brought a diverse range of views to the discussion:
Lucy Walton - Head of Training at BAE SystemsNeil Curren - R&D Lead at VRAIAdam Easton - CEO of SimCentricWim Huiskamp - Scientific Advisor at NATO Modelling & Simulation GroupThere is currently lots of discussion in the Simulation & Training community about the role of Platforms. But what does this word even mean?
We posed a few questions to our panellists to gain some better perspectives and understanding of this complex topic:
What does the word ‘Platform’ mean to you?How can a platform approach improve interoperability for training?Can platforms drive the adoption of standards?Are ecosystems important for a platform? Who is best placed to run a platform - industry or government?What are the dangers of a platform approach?How do we avoid ‘Platform’ just becoming just a marketing term?If you had to replace the world platform with any other word or phrase for defence simulation, what would it be?An animated discussion ensued, with lots of good points made by all…plus questions from our live event audience!
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/ Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guests:Lucy Walton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-walton-9b0332239/Neil Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-curran1/Wim Huiskamp: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wimhuiskamp/Adam Easton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-easton-b5a3542b/
Links:Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: -
In advance of the very first Warfighter Live event at DSET Bristol, we speak to Tess Butler (CEO of Ruddy Nice Ltd), who has been delivering DSET with her team since 2016 - so now in its 8th year.
For those that haven’t heard of DSET it is one of the fastest growing Defence Training & Simulation events in Europe, with attendees from over 41 countries and well over 1,000 attendees registered so far. It is held at the Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol, and features exhibitors from virtually all the leading organisations across defence.
The conference programme hosts a wide range of workshops, talks and panel discussions debating all of the current issues across Training & Simulation. This year for the first time the Wargaming sessions will be streamed live. Also watch out for the first European Serious Games Showcase with some innovative training applications from military, industry and academia.
It’s not too late to register to attend on the link below, remember that military, government and academia get in free. If you can’t attend in person there are virtual tickets available for free, kindly sponsored by LuxCarta.
Tickets: https://hopin.com/events/dset-2023
DSET Website: https://dset.co.uk/
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In our final education episode for this season, we are very pleased to welcome Len Granowetter, CTO for MAK Technologies. For those that don’t know Len, he has been at the forefront of some of the most demanding simulation challenges and applications on large scale projects. Most notably MAK’s software is integral to the UK Gladiator and Australian Army’s Land Sim Core projects (to name but two).
There is a lot of discussion about common or ‘single’ synthetic environments these days. To understand this better, Len takes us through a short tour of the component parts of a simulation platform, talking about how interoperability is a different challenge from deployment (the infrastructure side). Semantic interoperability is the real challenge now - how to seamlessly integrate terrain for example.
Finally, Len talks about some of the different approaches taken by real world projects, and the trade off taken between technology innovators and technology integrators. Not often are these the same sorts of organisations.
Episode Sponsor: ConductrrVIDEO of Colin being put through his paces on Conductrr's crisis training platform can be found here: https://youtu.be/wrNEthnofm4Conducttr is a hybrid warfare/crisis simulation platform that supports a wide range of realistic command post and field exercises. Its synthetic Internet delivers a realistic virtual information environment ideal for exercising in information operations, media operations, social media, OSINT, cyber, CIMIC, and foreign affairs as well homeland security, counter-terrorism and humanitarian disaster relief.
Conducttr can be used solo or with operational systems (as a “digital wrap”) during live exercises that can last from an hour to several weeks. Available on cloud, on premises with VMware and deployable on laptop as needed.
Hosts:Tom Constable: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-constable/Colin Hillier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinhillier/
Guest:Len Granowetter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/len-granowetter-615358/
Links:Conductrr's Video: https://youtu.be/wrNEthnofm4Website: https://www.warfighterpodcast.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/warfighter-digital/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkgiH-cwmyc2I2Iyc8MLYtgTwitter: https://twitter.com/WarfighterPod
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