Battle Stations 21
Project of the Year: Institutional
Battle Stations 21 is the culminating event for U.S. Navy recruits, a grueling, 12-hour test of skill that marks a final rite of passage. Successful recruits earn the title of Sailor.
The Battle Stations 21 building is formally dubbed the USS Iowa. The name gives little hint that it contains an intensely realistic simulation of a battleship layered with special effects honed in the entertainment industry.
The centerpiece is the USS Trayer, a 210-ft-long replica of a guided missile destroyer floating in a 90,000-gallon moat with the scent of seawater in the air.
Recruits proceed through 17 scenarios—some routine, some horrific. They test problem-solving and communications with realistic consequences, good and bad, for their actions. Facilitators use wireless, hand-held computers to control the action, monitor recruits and communicate with operators behind the scene.
Battle Stations is designed to operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and accommodate 352 recruits at once.
Welcome Aboard
The Navy sought unrestricted creativity because of the audience: recruits who grew up in the multimedia age.
As a result, a barrage of special effects was gleaned from the entertainment industry. Indeed, the design-build team’s fact-finding work included visits to Disney and Universal Studios with more than a half-dozen special-effects teams.
The USS Trayer feels, smells, sounds and looks like the real thing because of special effects lighting; sea and diesel scent; surround audio; and 90,000 gallons of water sloshing between the pier and the ship.
Recruits experience intense simulations, including mass casualties and shipboard fire.
A firefighting segment features 1,200-degree jets of flames. To create flooded compartments, hundreds of gallons of water rush through as recruits try to salvage missiles. With built-in MP3 players, “injured,” 170-lb dummies scream, moan or make faint breathing sounds as recruits attempt to rescue them.
The design emphasizes durability and repeatability to facilitate round-the-clock usage. Each scenario is duplicated four times to keep recruits moving efficiently.
The ship has four flooding missile compartments, four berthing areas and four mass casualty zones. Each scenario incorporates automatic resets, down to injured mannequins whose “beds” are dumbwaiters to return them to their starting position.
Preconstruction included meetings with maintenance professionals to figure out how to keep the building in good shape even while it held 90,000 gallons of water. Durable coatings and finishes help withstand the daily beatings.
Jury Comments: “What a fascinating project! This will save sailors’ lives. What a complex job. The whole experience of being in the Navy is there—the sites, sounds, explosions. It’s really an exciting project.”
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