Sharpshooter: Delivering Live and Synthetic Training to the Royal Navy
11 Dec 24
Collective Training and Services OBUMaritime Division
Last month, a joint QinetiQ-Inzpire team delivered Sharpshooter, a training exercise at sea designed to improve a warship team’s response and ensure they are as well prepared as possible for a wide range of evolving surface and aerial threats, like those they could face on operational deployment.
Sharpshooter was conducted 20 miles off the coast, within the Cardigan Bay Danger Area of the Ministry of Defence Aberporth Range. The QinetiQ team based at the Aberporth Range manages the overall range capability and provided the support to this training exercise under the Long-Term Partnering Agreement (LTPA).”
Using static sea targets and, for the first time at Sharpshooter, dynamic aerial targets - QinetiQ’s Banshee Whirlwind, operated under the Combined Aerial Target Service contract - the exercise also included an array of synthetic training scenarios.
Originally a weapons functionality exercise, Sharpshooter has evolved substantially since its inception in 2019, and is delivered for the Royal Navy, in collaboration with its Fleet Operational Standards & Training (FOST) team.
The successful delivery of the exercise this time round comprised multi-domain warfare training scenarios, continually tailored to meet the requirements of the crew on board HMS St. Albans, a Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate, across the three days.
Each day started with a briefing with the ship’s captain and crew that included updates from the Met Office and National Air Traffic Services (NATS) teams based at the Range. The team then went on to deliver over 100 threat profiles across the day and into the evening, allowing the ship’s crew to practise firing at threats using live ammunition, as if on frontline deployment.
The team used a variety of static surface targets pre-positioned in the bay, as well as QinetiQ’s Banshee Whirlwind aerial targets – these being highly representative of the threats that are seen in the operational theatre. The aerial targets were launched from Aberporth Range Head and integrated with synthetic threats designed by the Inzpire team to test the teams in the ship’s operations room. These immersive scenarios enable the crew to enhance its decision-making processes under complex conditions, and to defend against a variety of threats representative of a real-life, operational environment, using the ship’s medium and close-range weapon systems.
Commanding Officer of HMS St. Albans, Cdr Matthew Teare, said:
“The quality of training has been better than I have ever seen. It has been a career highlight thanks to the realism of the scenario. A fantastic experience and one which has been hugely beneficial to my ship’s company.”
Simon Galt, Managing Director, Air, QinetiQ, said:
“Our aim with Sharpshooter is to ensure as immersive, comprehensive and dynamic a training experience as possible, preparing the ship’s crew for the very current evolving threat landscape. Thanks to our trials planning and delivery expertise, from Range clearance through to advanced Range safety knowledge, our joint QinetiQ-Inzpire team delivered over 100 threat profiles across day and night, tailoring the complexity of each scenario as we delivered, according to the ship’s evolving requirements.
“We’re proud of the strong partnership we have with the Royal Navy and the invaluable experience delivered to its ship and crew, to ensure they remain as safe as possible in operational environments, and achieve wider maritime security for the UK and our allies.”
Nick Borbone, Director of Collective Training, Inzpire, said:
“Taking the training objectives for the exercise, we designed and implemented scenarios that allowed the ship’s team to train as they would fight. We are proud of our close integration with the FOST team and the QinetiQ Range staff, which enabled us to present an array of live and synthetic threats to test the ship’s warfighting capabilities, meet the training objectives and provide evidence for after action review.”
Contracted until 2028 to facilitate and deliver multiple Sharpshooter events a year, QinetiQ will continue to provide an enhanced combination of live and synthetic threat profiles at the next exercise in March 2025.
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