AMR-June-July-2013

M I L I T A R Y
TRAINING & SIMULATION
Other products in VStep’s Nautis stable include
its premium trainer. This is a comparatively
larger system than the portable simulator and
can be permanently based at a fixed site © VStep
train a warship’s crew and, as well as having
an instructor station, it can replicate
many aspects of a warships’ specification
including its combat management system.
Additionally helicopter, submarine and
aircraft operations can be mimicked, along
with a vessel’s weapons systems. The company’s
official literature notes that
Proteus-ASTT is highly scalable and can
equip a laptop, or furnish dedicated workstations
which can be networked together
to perform a range of missions including
anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare,
air defence, electronic warfare and mine
countermeasures missions.
It is worth noting that while Kongsberg
provide the Proteus-ASTT for naval training,
the firm builds several other training
aids including the Battlefield Synthetic
Environment (BaSE) and Protector
Combat Vehicle Simulator. BaSE can be
used for air, land and maritime scenario
training, providing high fidelity terrain
and models plus realistic battlefield
obscurants such as smoke and explosive
effects. BaSE can run on either a desktop
PC or a laptop. Meanwhile, Kongsberg’s
Protector Combat Vehicle Simulator can
train a complete crew, and several simulators
can be networked together simultaneously
for manoeuvre training.
VStep
Much as Kongsberg’s products can run on
either a desktop PC or laptop, VStep’s
Nautis’ Naval Task Force Trainee Station
can be used with any Windows operating
system onboard a standard desktop PC.
Designed for seamanship and navigation
training the Naval Task Force Trainee
Station can be employed for navigation,
ship-handling and communications training.
Furthermore, it is possible to train
crew members in specific operations such
as replenishment-at-sea, amphibious
landings and helicopter operations using
the system. Editing tools allow the
instructor to carefully plan the scenario
which they wish to employ.
Kongsberg’s Proteus
Action Speed Tactical
Trainer (Proteus-ASTT)
can be used to train a
warship’s crew,
replicating many
aspects of a warships’
operations
A complementary product to the Nautis
Naval Task Force Trainee Station is the
company’s Naval Task Force Instructor
Station Suite. Features such as the Ocean
Editor allow the instructor to change the
behaviour of the sea during the exercise
while the ChartData Editor enables them to
modify the positions of buoys on a map.
The weather can be changed during an
exercise while aircraft can be added to the
scenario along with specific situations such
as a ship in distress. According to Pjotr van
Schothorst of VStep, the Nautis Naval Task
Force simulator was “launched in 2010,
and has been bought by various navies
such as the Royal Australian Army and
most recently the Indonesian Navy.” The
two bridge simulators delivered to
Indonesia replicate the bridges of the country’s
‘Sigma’ class corvette.
According to Mr. van Schothorst, one of
the discriminating factors of the Nautis
product line is its easy-to-use software
which “makes it possible to create and run
exercises in a matter of minutes, thereby
enabling a client to get much more value
out of his investment.” In addition,
“Nautis uses similar computer graphics
technology in modern computer games.
This high graphics quality leads to a high
level of realism and training value.” The
hardware footprint required to run Nautis
is small, with Mr. van Schothorst noting
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