Applied Military Science Field Study Trip to Montreal

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2015-03-23

The students and staff from the Army Technical Staff Officer Program (ATSOP) and Army Technical Warrant Officer Program (ATWOP) from the AMS department at RMC attended an FST to Montreal during the days of 20 and 21 January 2014. The visit itinerary covered the learning objectives of many AMS courses and included visits to CAE, 202 Workshop Depot and Rheinmettal.

The FST started with a short bus ride towards Montreal and our first destination was Rheinmetall in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Here we were introduced to many new and in-service capabilities. These included but were not limited to persistent observation balloons, towers and proposed vests for the future soldiers in the Army of Tomorrow. It was interesting to note that Rheinmetall was not using any revolutionary technologies. However, the way in which they integrated these systems delivered a novel and useful capability. This effectively demonstrated the importance of systems engineering and integration in capability development. Our first day ended at Rheinmetall and we then travelled back to Montreal for the evening.

The next day started with a short bus ride to the 202 Workshop Depot, where we got an introduction to logistics engineering in the Canadian Army. The visit included briefs on the 202 Workshop Depot's procedures, processes, capabilities and tours of many facilities in the workshop. The highlight of this visit was a tour of the communications and weapons repair shops, where we learned how damaged equipment was repaired and refurbished. This visit ended at noon and we travelled back West to visit CAE.

At CAE, we received a good understanding of applied modelling and simulation. This visit included a tour of the CAE production facility where they produce military and civilian aircraft flight simulators for customers around the world. The CAE tour guides highlighted their production method, where several commercial and proprietary technologies are integrated together into a system of systems. CAE then develops its own software to tie all the hardware together and create custom flight simulators 24 hours a day!

Although this was a short FST, it reinforced many of the concepts we have learned in class and collectively brought us one step closer to gaining the full AMS advantage.

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