Today's warfighter needs comprehensive, immersive training before deployment. To help coordinate, organize, and plan this complex training, CTC developed the Reactive Information Propagation and Planning for Lifelike Exercises (RIPPLE) software application. CTC developed RIPPLE in 2005 for the National Training Center (NTC) with the support of the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). Since then, RIPPLE has been deployed to multiple U.S. training centers and will reach European clients in FY08.

RIPPLE is used by training planners at NTC to develop complex training scenarios, to track and update role-player biographies and relationship networks, and to generate critical training products.

RIPPLE improves the realism of training scenarios using network modeling and artificial intelligence to simulate, organize, and capture combat exercise data. The NTC, for example, uses RIPPLE to track roles, relationships, and players in its intelligence database. These roles are played by Iraqi-American role players acting the parts of Iraqis living in the towns used in the scenarios. Soldiers training at the NTC interact with the Iraqi-American role players as the exercise scenario unfolds. Using the software, exercise designers can select the right role player to take the right action to create credible cause-and-effect chains of events.

RIPPLE's success has resulted in continued new work for CTC as the NTC installs the program at more and more U.S. installations, automating training in an innovative manner that not only saves time, but money. By mid-2007, RIPPLE was in use by the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms and at the Battle Command Training Center at Fort Lewis, with plans underway to bring RIPPLE to five additional U.S. sites. Additionally, the Land Warfare Collective Training Group [UK] at the Land Warfare Centre in Warminster will begin using RIPPLE as soon as export permission is obtained. The Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany—a U.S. Army installation— will be using RIPPLE before year-end 2007.