MilSim Market Growth – the Middle East Way

The Middle East defense simulation and training sector is on an upward trajectory. Group Editor Marty Kauchak examines trends and developments.

While the region’s military services receive new and increasingly complex, front-line weapons platforms, these defense forces are gaining more numerous and ever-more challenging mission sets throughout the battlespace.

Of greater interest, there are competing, not-subtle story lines behind the Middle East military S&T market’s strength, including offsets and the imperatives for partnerships and in-nation agents.

We’ll examine the Middle East market through four randomly selected business portfolios: Havelsan’s expanding range of products and services; Urbana, Illinois (US)-based Frasca International’s increasing defense customer base; the Rheinmetall Arabia Simulation and Training LLC (RAST) Joint Venture, created in 2015 by AVC-Defense and Rheinmetall Defense, Germany; and the CAE-led effort to design and develop the comprehensive United Arab Emirates Naval Doctrine, Combat and Training Center (NDCTC).

Agile, Adaptive Business Models

An eclectic mix of S&T companies provides services and content to military customers throughout the Middle East. These firms are obtaining new customers and strengthening their client base through an interesting blend of business strategies and models.

Özgür Çetin, International Marketing Specialist at Turkish firm Havelsan, noted the Middle East countries are among the nations that his company follows closely. With competencies beyond S&T, Havelsan is expanding its presence and market share in the region, in part, through investing in select nations and establishing partnerships in those countries’ technology sectors. Çetin explained, through collaboration with Qatar Havelsan, Havelsan Technology Oman and its office in Kuwait, “We closely follow the developments both locally and in the relevant geography. We evaluate possible projects and news depending on our fields of activity and opportunities.”

Beyond establishing and working through corporate “beachheads” in the region, Randy Gawenda, Frasca’s Business Development Manager, told MS&T, because of his company’s more than 30 years of activity in the region, the company has developed relationships with many key agents locally that help achieve its business goals.

“They are strategic resources that also provide in-country support for us in many instances. As we see more requests to provide training in advanced technology, we rely on our valued network to help support these offset requirements and work with us to deliver these capabilities for the customer’s indigenous personnel.” He added, “Frasca also has many commercial/civil customers in the Middle East. This allows us to be active in the region and maintain our reputation for quality, fidelity, and service regardless of the inevitable ebbs and flows of change.”

Offsets are a trend noted in other region’s defense markets, and one to which the RAST Joint Venture is focused like a laser to accomplish. Abdullah Al-Fawzan, CEO of RAST, initially noted the JV was funded to support the Saudi Armed Forces. The entity has been able to take advantage of the products and expertise of both parent companies to build a very good reputation, specifically within the Royal Saudi Air Force, as a reliable partner for both service and maintenance programs (existing simulators) and upgrades (delivery of comprehensive solutions).

The JV’s CEO noted the imperative to build a sustainable local supply chain. “We have espoused the values of the Saudi Vision 2030 and we have embedded them in our operations. Our business partners are either local companies or the local subsidiaries of a renowned OEM. We do that to ensure a smooth and continuous transfer of technology by execution of contracts. Whenever we feel that there is a gap in the local offering, and if Rheinmetall can’t support a specific opportunity with existing product portfolio, we reach out to potential suppliers and we make sure to bring that specific technology in the country. We don’t simply buy product – we take care of the customer’s learning process.”

In one attention-getting glimpse of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s evolving S&T industry, in terms of RAST’s workforce, more than 80% are Saudi-national engineers and technicians, including management – complementing yet another KSA policy effort, In-Kingdom Industrial Participation (IKIP) – designed to build the industrial base using Saudi nationals and domestic resources to the maximum extent possible. In another instance of “cross pollination,” or the migration of technologies among high-risk training enterprises, the JV “offers a broad range of training solutions for military and civil users in the domains of armed forces, public security, as well as industries and educational institutions in the transportation, merchant marine and energy and resources sectors.”

CAE Defence & Security (Tampa, Florida, US) is bringing several complementary trends to bear in fielding the UAE Navy’s NDCTC. While the D&S builds upon “big CAE’s” expanding competencies in its global network of military, civil aviation, business aviation, helicopter and even healthcare training centers, they are also taking advantage of maritime training expertise, which has quickly expanded in the past several years. The maritime competencies, are, in turn, being integrated into a higher-level CAE business thrust – providing multi-domain operations solutions to defense and security markets.

CAE is leading development of the comprehensive United Arab Emirates Naval Doctrine, Combat and Training Center (NDCTC). Image credit: CAE.

Underpinning Technologies

Another story line in this regional focus is cutting-edge technologies being integrated into training programs of record – tailored to customer requirements.

Havelsan’s Çetin noted the Firing & Test Range in Saudi Arabia, the AW139 Training Center for the Air Force in Qatar, and the Joint Warfare Training Center for the Armed Forces in Qatar. “With our resident team in Qatar, we provide both the sustainability of the project and the warranty service,” he told MS&T. Of added interest, he pointed out, “Apart from these activities, we provide training services. In this context, we host Saudi Arabian and Qatar Air Force pilots in Turkey and provide fully equipped training at our training centers.”

Frasca will continue to have a strong presence in the Middle East military space well into the future, based on partnerships. Indeed, Gawenda said his company has been a valued supplier and subcontractor to large defense primes, as well as aircraft OEMs to support their fleet sales with quality, reliable simulators. “We’ve worked many direct sales from our Middle East customer base. Some of our partners have included Bell, CAE, Pilatus, Cessna, and Grob, amongst others.”

RAST’s Al-Fawzan noted his JV holds a significant portion of the RSAF’s current active contracts, being responsible for the PBL (performance-based logistics) maintenance of Bell 412, C130, A330M MRTT, and Typhoon training devices. “Typhoon is a very special case because it’s in strict cooperation with [subsidiary] Rheinmetall Electronics in Germany.” The executive added, “The plan for the future is to leverage the reputation built with the RSAF and the product portfolio of the parent companies to penetrate other branches of the armed forces, hopefully with the same rate of success.”

RAST JV member Rheinmetall Electronics is contributing its own S&T competencies gained with the military and adjacent high-risk industries. The company’s burgeoning, core defense portfolio includes land, naval and flight training domains. Andrea Catalano, Deputy CEO of RAST, remarked that Rheinmetall Electronics can also provide process simulators in the field of oil and gas, and nuclear power plants. Catalano said, “The company has delivered a digital twin of one the biggest oil fields in the world (in the Gulf of Mexico) and has built a state-of-the art training center for the company PEMEX.”

Rheinmetall is also operating “the biggest Live Training Center in the Middle East region, in Al Hamra (UAE),” and recently announced a partnership with Abu Dhabi-based EDGE Group, a defense and military company, to localize air defense solutions.

Yusuf Cruz, Executive Vice President at AVC Defense and Board Member of the RAST JV, further emphasized building partnerships beyond RAST. In one instance, the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based company “has assembled an experienced and the most advanced technology team in the market for the modernization of F-15C DMTs [distributed mission trainers],” consisting of Aechelon Technology, Norxe and Panel Products.

CAE is hitting another “sweet spot” by providing a modern and comprehensive training center that will provide the UAE Navy with a training system to help them achieve the highest level of mission and operational readiness. Thibaut Trancart, Managing Director, Middle East, CAE, pointed out that, because CAE is a platform-agnostic training and mission solutions provider, the company can support the training and exercise for the entire Emirati fleet. “The training center we are delivering to the UAE Navy will be networked and fully capable of supporting whole-ship configuration for team and multi-ship training. CAE will also provide airborne tactical mission trainers to represent both fixed-wing and rotary-wing maritime aircraft that can be included as part of joint and collective mission training exercises.”

Peering into the training center’s instructional and technology capabilities, Trancart noted the center includes multiple learning technologies to support service requirements. For starters, NDCTC is equipped with whole-ship simulation suites for the bridge, combat information center (CIC), and machinery control room (MCR).

“CAE is also providing naval tactical mission trainers (TMTs) that are reconfigurable for a variety of vessel types and used to deliver individual training across various ship classes within the UAE Navy fleet along with their respective systems and subsystems, including Combat Management Systems, sensor, and weapons systems,” Trancart explained. “The holistic training system at the NDCTC enables the full spectrum of training from individual training on a single console, to team and joint training. Whole ships are linked together, from different geographical locations in the UAE, to form a task force simulator.”

Further, correlation and scalability are achieved using the Open Geospatial Consortium Common Database (OGC CDB) standards and a single synthetic environment (natural and tactical) to support distributed training. Maritime aircraft simulators provide the required capability to conduct full-scope tactical scenarios for joint training. In addition to virtual training, academic training is available in the computer-based training classrooms using customized courseware.

CAE is also not going it alone in the region, having formed multiple partnerships or collaborations with local organizations, such as Tawazun and Remah International Group, “All of which contributes to enhancing local capabilities and building a knowledge-based economy,” Trancart concluded.

Attention-Getting Expectations

S&T companies in the Middle East defense market expect to integrate more forward-leaning technologies, and continue to diversify their content and services offerings into more regional programs of record.

AVC’s Cruz emphasized the increased complexity of battlefield scenarios will require growing use of other emerging technologies such as AI and VR. “We also expect our customer to be looking at more comprehensive S&T solutions (a unique training platform), where all new features (such as UAV simulators) could be integrated, to allow the end-users to replicate, with the right accuracy, the tasks that they would need to accomplish success on the battlefield. It’s important to stay ahead of the technology and try to look at the future with inquisitive eyes.”

Frasca’s Gawenda noted, “Our eyes are on a few major potential projects for which we are well-suited, and continue to foster ties with our agents as well as large primes and OEMs to support their efforts. It is an area that we think will see continued development. Shifts in long-standing beliefs are eroding and beginning to foster wider cooperation throughout the Middle East. Hopefully that continues so this region can continue to grow economically and strengthen its role in the global community as well. Our outlook is very positive and we’d welcome a shift from defense opportunities to more civil and commercial aviation ones. I think that would bode very well for everyone involved and accelerate the region’s potential for growth in all aviation markets.”