January 19, 2006: The British Royal Navy is spending $180 million to build a simulation system that will work for all their major warships, including aircraft carriers. The system will concentrate on the crews that man the combat information centers (CIC) of these ships, and will work via all the computers and visual displays already present (or planned) for CICs of current, and near future ships. The system will enable the crews to run through wargames, as well as a wide variety of drills and training exercises. There is already a lot of these features built into some of the CIC equipment. But the new system will take this simulation and wargaming capability further, and enable the sailors to train with other ships, as well as against the computer. The training can take place wherever the ship is (especially when in port) and with other ships anywhere else in the world. These capabilities will raise the overall capabilities of the crews, and make training of new crew much easier and faster. The United States also has systems like this but, at the moment, nothing as powerful as this new system.