When the lines between appearance and reality are blurred

Flashpoint Afghanistan: A unit of the Federal Armed Forces with almost 60 soldiers arrives with their vehicles in a village. The misson: The German peacekeeping force has been tasked with preventing terrorists from organizing further attacks. The roads in the village are thronged with people wearing traditional clothing. It's impossible to tell friend from foe. Suddenly, an unidentified man opens fire with a machine gun. One of the German soldiers is hit. But instead of an injury, only an audio signal indicates that the soldier's life is in danger. The soldier was lucky this time: He is safe on a German military training area. This realistic scenario is designed to prepare him for his deployment in Afghanistan.

The exercise is staged at the Altmark military range in the Colblitz-Letzlinger heath in Saxony-Anhalt. On Germany’s largest undeveloped tract of land measuring 30 by 15 kilometers, Rheinmetall played the leading role in creating the German Army's Combat Training Centre (CTC) several years ago. Up to 1,500 soldiers can participate in exercises at any one time. Real tanks, vehicles and aircraft are used and are integrated with each other using an IT solution specially developed by Rheinmetall Defence.

"The only thing missing from this live simulation is live fire," explains Ulrich Sasse, head of Rheinmetall Defence Electronics. "Instead, weapons fire blanks, laser and radio beams. The signals and the impact of the shots are measured and analyzed by thousands of detectors on the vehicles and all over the soldiers' bodies."

Exercises are conducted very differently at the virtual military training facility in Switzerland created by the Bremen Rheinmetall Defence Electronics in 2010. The Mechanized Training Centre (MTC) operated by the Swiss Army in Thun had taken delivery of one of the world's largest and most modern gunnery, combat and tactical simulators.

From individual tank gunnery through to tank crews all the way to full-scale tactical exercises at battalion staff level, the Swiss army can now use virtual simulation to cover all training stages. The advantages are that the population and the environment are not subjected to exhaust gases, traffic interruptions and the noise of gunfire and that even the most extreme situations can be practiced with a low level of material wear.

Even if the training scenarios exist exclusively in the realm of the hard disk, the vehicles, landscapes, combat representations and sounds are very realistic. A training area featuring 460 built-up areas and some 9,000 kilometers was programmed. Projectors in the 35 highly realistic replica combat vehicles provide realistic 360° external views. Everything is networked.

"For us, the principal challenge in implementing this project was the enormous complexity of the simulator network," explains Ulrich Sasse. "Controlling a network, consisting of over 900 computers, 348 projectors and 616 visualization system channels constitutes a tremendous technological and logistical feat and served yet again to underline the leading position of Rheinmetall Defence in this area," says Sasse, not without pride.

Back in Saxony-Anhalt, the CTC has developed into a staging point for overseas missions of the Federal Armed Forces. All German soldiers to be deployed to a crisis region such as Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa spend around two weeks at the CTC preparing for their mission.

And it's not just the sophisticated technology that ensures realistic training scenarios. Among the permanent staff at the CTC are around 1,150 people who pose as enemies or civilians during training exercises. The attention to detail extends down to typical clothing worn by insurgents or demonstrators. The Rheinmetall Simulation division with around 200 of their own staff on location is also responsible for ensuring seamless organization and operational assistance. CTC has since developed into the showcase model of a functioning public/private partnership and of cooperation between the state and private enterprise.

CTC is also recognized internationally: Along with German soldiers, military units from Austria, France, Belgium or Luxemburg, for example, also come to CTC to prepare for their assignments in crisis areas of the world. Another area offering high growth potential for Rheinmetall Defence is orders for full-scale combat training centers abroad. In the area of live simulation, for example, the 2010 financial year was dominated by the implementation of a significant order in the Gulf Region. A large number of other states are looking with interest at the Rheinmetall expertise in setting up and operating training centers–expertise that sets standards internationally.