However the key to making them work is bringing together all the components into an integrated package. The command staff then have to prepare a plan to tackle the scenario set by the directing staff and issue orders to their troops. Once committed to action the participating unit finds itself up against a live enemy that has compatible tactical engagement system equipment. The ensuing battle provides a highly realistic environment, complete with battlefield stress, the fog of war and huge amounts of confusion. By using tactical engagement systems, units suffer realistic levels of casualties and have to improvise reactions to enemy action, re-supply units with fuel and ammunition in combat conditions and continue to operate when key commanders and headquarters are put out of action by enemy fire.
Success depends on the skill, tactics and combined arms team work of the participating units.
Computer printouts and graphical displays provide all participants with objective and irrefutable data on their performance. Increasingly armies are also using combat training centres as a means of trying out new tactics, battle procedures and new weapon systems. At the heart of the new generation of combat training centres is wide-area instrumentation to ensure that exercise control can monitor the ongoing exercises in real time and then convert that information into AAR data. All players in these second-generation combat training centres are equipped with compact player units that send location data and event data to exercise control. They also provide the medium to receive area weapon firing and effect control data.