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Guard Soldiers develop, test advanced Bradley simulator

By Spc. Eliamar Castanon
August 23, 2004

FORT BENNING, Ga. (Army News Service, Aug. 23, 2004) -- The Army National Guard has taken the initiative and developed the Advanced Bradley Full-Crew Interactive Skills Trainer, the highest fidelity training system of a family of simulators that are being developed, said 1st Sgt. Doug Gilliam, lead subject matter expert.

ABFIST is an appended trainer for the M-2A2, or the Operation Desert Storm Bradley Fighting Vehicle, that provides crew training, including individual skills, crew proficiency, full-crew precision gunnery, and networked section and platoon gunnery training.

ABFIST is a flexible system that can be hooked up to a Bradley. Whether a unit is deployed or at its home station, this allows training for the entire crew.

"The ABFIST offers much better targeting and engaging techniques and is portable," said Sgt. 1st Class Butch Cady, senior master gunner for the Fort Benning ARNG liaison. The ABFIST is built with modern technology, which is more reliable than previous systems.

"We needed a system that didn't go down as often and was easily portable," Cady said.

All Bradley units have the same training objective: to train and sustain lethal and efficient Bradley crews, sections and platoons.

The development of the system has been a "for the Soldier, by the Soldier project," said Don Ariel, president of Raydon, the contracted company designing the system. Soldiers have been involved in every aspect of the development of the system.

"Who better to build a new training system for a Bradley than the Soldiers who use them?" he said.

One of the advantages ABFIST provides is that it is made up from commercial off-the-shelf equipment, Cady said.

"If part of the system breaks or needs to be replaced, all one would have to do is go to Best Buy or any electronics store and purchase a new part," Cady said. "The Army is veering toward commercial off-the-shelf purchasing of equipment because parts are easier to replace and are more affordable."

Ariel said the ABFIST production cost is $220,000, a much lower cost when compared to the original acquisition cost of the Conduct-of-Fire Trainer, which ran at about $1.3 million.

COFT was the only other simulation training system master gunners had. The system was developed in the1970s and fielded in the '80s, and was designed to enhance basic turret-crew gunnery skills. This system, however, only focused training on the gunner and the Bradley commander.

COFT became outdated, the parts cost too much to replace because they had to be special-ordered - they are no longer made -- and it was too large of a system to move as often as needed to provide ARNG units the same amount of training required of all Bradley crews.

Another advantage of the ABFIST system is that it takes less time to start up. Although it takes about two hours and 40 minutes to hook up to a vehicle and about the same time to disassemble, once assembled, the start-up time -- a few minutes -- is no comparison to the half hour to 45 minutes of the COFT.

The ABFIST instructor interface is Windows-based and runs on software developed by Raydon specifically for ABFIST. The instructor has various options that enable him to select training to target areas that need improvement or prepare for live-fire crew qualification, said Brad Baker, ABFIST program manager.

With this training system, Soldiers may select from a list of exercises and exercise content to design their own scenario in whatever area the Soldier needs training, Baker said.

The development of the ABFIST does not cancel out the use of the COFT. The Mobile COFT-XXI is an advanced version of the old COFT, which has been updated with modern software, including urban operations training with a geospecific Baghdad training exercise.

Although the MCOFT-XXI still does not have a driver position, it has the basic Microsoft-based instructor interface and Raydon software with the same advantages of ABFIST.

"We've had Soldiers who have been to Iraq use ABFIST, and they say the streets are the same they drove by in Iraq," Cady said.

ABFIST is undergoing government acceptance testing, which will end the last week in August. The basis of issue is one trainer per mechanized infantry company or cavalry troop; 39 trainers are funded and under production.

(Editor's note: Spc. Eliamar Castanon writes for the Bayonet newspaper.)