In Search of Plausibility: Simulating a Future Contested Urban Environment
(Room S320B)
28 Nov 18
9:00 AM
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9:30 AM
Urban warfare presents substantial challenges for our warfighters. Currently Australia and its allies are working together to explore the potential of promising technologies and associated concepts of use that could enhance the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities of tactical forces in future contested urban environments (CUE). This paper highlights the learnings and innovations from a novel multinational technology trial, involving approximately 80 researchers from the 'Five Eyes' Nations and some 100 uniformed Australian Army and Airforce personnel, conducted in late 2017 using a combination of live and virtual simulation. One of the key challenges in exploring concepts of employment through simulation is ensuring that the concepts have enough 'plausibility' to reflect potential future use. The authors were cognizant that unless they worked with the diverse stakeholders to generate sufficient plausibility, the trial would run the risk of failing to adequately engage the participants or generate shared understanding. The methodological response to developing sufficient plausibility drew on a variety of disciplines and hinged on two key elements: firstly the need to identify and create urban contexts in live and virtual settings that presented a range of indicative urban stressors of relevance to exploring and exploiting ISR technologies; secondly, recognition of the potential of narrative methods to support deeper consideration of the proposed concepts of use, as well as strengthening the quasi-naturalistic research approach identified as most suited to the exploratory nature of the trial. The authors use key findings from the trial to illustrate the extent to which sufficient plausibility was achieved. They suggest that the methods used in the trial have implications for enhancing live and virtual simulation and supporting effective exploration of technologies in future CUE.