Operations and Training Converge at DSET

DSET 2026 arrived at a moment when defence is redefining the relationship between operations, training and simulation. Across three days at Cheltenham Racecourse, speakers returned repeatedly to the same conclusion: the pace of technological change means training can no longer follow capability. It must evolve alongside it.

That message was reinforced elsewhere in the UK during the week. Speaking at the RUSI Land Warfare Conference in London, the head of the British Army, General Sir Roly Walker, said that by 2030 half the army's entire capital budget would flow to consumables and uncrewed systems, with= every soldier expected to operate a drone. Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis similarly committed to uncrewed ground vehicles, warning that where innovation in defence was once measured in years it is now measured in months.

Those strategic ambitions were reflected throughout DSET. Rather than discussing future possibilities, delegates focused on the practical implications for training, force generation and simulation as military capability rapidly evolves.

Major General (Retd) Chris Barry, chairing Day Two’s keynote, framed the challenge directly: “Why is it that the Houthis have a better drone capability than the British Army?” It was, he acknowledged, a question that invites much despair about procurement rules.

Colonel Toby Till set out the training challenge. Today's training estate is still largely optimised for crewed platforms rather than the reconnaissance-strike approach emerging from the Army's 20:40:40 force concept. While ranges such as Salisbury Plain are well suited to tanks and other armoured vehicles, they remain less able to support the large-scale use of drones and other uncrewed systems needed to train reconnaissance-strike operations.. Career pathways for drone operators, counter-UAS specialists and electronic warfare generalists do not yet exist at the required scale, and there is one safety duty-holder for novel drone training where there should be twenty.

Brigadier Stu Nasse, who has run the 21-nation drone coalition that delivered over €2.4 billion (£2.07 billion) of systems into Ukraine, argued that success lies in ecosystem thinking rather than programme thinking. “We can’t do this as government alone,” he said. “If you’ve got something we don’t know about, come and tell us.” Nasse also highlighted Ukraine’s remarkable use of gamification. Verified strike data is published on a live public scoreboard every five seconds, with performance points converted into funding for better drones. Around 2% of Ukraine’s armed forces, drawn from the technical and gaming community, are now delivering over 40% of impact on Russian casualties. The lesson for Western militaries is as much about culture, feedback loops and training pipelines as it is about technology.

Ukrainian UAS Squad Commander, Oleksandra Ahapova, addressed DSET on both Day One and Day Two, the first time to the Army Servicewomen’s Network, which was running its own programme stream. Her argument about the future of military service was unsentimental: the debate over whether women belong in combat becomes irrelevant the moment warfare becomes primarily about cognition, technical fluency and adaptability rather than physical mass. A lack of muscles, she told the room, does not equal a lack of principles.

On training , she was equally direct: “The best weapons must belong in the hands of the best prepared soldiers. Even the most advanced weapons in the hands of an unprepared soldier is nothing but expensive scrap.”

Brigadier Rosco Noott on the Future Force panel made the same human capital argument from a British Army Personnel and Administration perspective. The workforce the army needs by 2030 does not look like the workforce it has traditionally recruited. For Ahapova this was operational reality for her soldiers fighting now; for Noott it was a vision of what the British Army must become.

Another recurring theme was the changing role of simulation itself. Brigadier Errico De Gaetano from SHAPE, the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Allied Command Operations,and James Gavin from the UK Defence Innovation directorate, both made the same case: simulation has outgrown its training role and is now a decision-support system, a capability development platform and an operational planning aid.

The demand for faster, sharper analysis was visible throughout the conference, not least in the professional wargaming strand, and together with the Serious Games Showcase showed that the community’s definition of its own tools has widened. Colonel Felice De Rosa of the NATO Modelling and Simulation Centre of Excellence put the challenge bluntly: Once NATO’s scenario preparation cycle took two years. In support of this NATO SHAPE has since gone from two wargames a year to one per month.

The programme ranged across all domains, with space having its own dedicated afternoon session on Day Two. Wing Commander Richard Fawkes described Gladiator, the RAF's Live Virtual Constructive training capability, as doing valuable work as the lead enabler for NATO's distributed synthetic training.

Commodore Thom Hobbs set out the implications of the Royal Navy’s Hybrid Navy concept: a fleet augmented by uncrewed and autonomous systems at range. Simulation, he said, gives the Navy “the option and a choice to do all of that hard thinking before a single hull touches the water” and. “ will be a key aspect to introducing the Hybrid Navy.”

Outside, despite the intense heat,live demonstrations went ahead including a model village and drone and mortar training serials. Delegates including from the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Canada and the United States were represented in sessions throughout the three days, reinforcing that these challenges are shared internationally.

If there was one overarching message from Cheltenham, it was that the future of defence capability will depend on treating operations, training and simulation not as separate disciplines, but as parts of the same system.

DSET 2027 returns to Cheltenham from 29 June to 1 July.