With additional funding, the Office of Naval Research and the Surface Combat Systems Training Command (SCSTC) have resumed development of Creative Technologies Inc.’s (CTI’s) virtual training environment for the Mk 45 MOD 4 five-inch gun. Deployed on DDG51 Class destroyers and installations in South Korea, Japan and Denmark fleets, the gun mount has a range of over 20 nautical miles (36 km), delivering ten rounds per minute in its dual-shuttle configuration. The funding will support feature updates and transition to the SCSTC San Diego gun school.
The application, dubbed the Next Generation of Maintenance Trainer, grew from a Small Business Innovation Research contract. The immersive, character-centric 3D virtual environment features a coach/mentor who guides the user through knowledge acquisition relating to system components and procedures critical to Gunners’ Mates course certification. It was designed to mitigate training bottlenecks arising from the single physical training aid employed at the school.
