View Single Post
Old 02-06-11, 09:21 PM   #3
Lieste
Soundman
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 142
Downloads: 0
Uploads: 0
Default

There is some overlap - many cost concious militaries augment their limited availability of formal 'Rayethon style' containerised simulators, and on-vehicle simulators with classroom simulators such as SteelBeasts Pro.

Some European Nations use SB Pro in a 'proper' sit-in cabinet for their tank crew trainer. (I'll try to find links to the relevant paper/article describing this use if no one else has posted first).

One advantage is that company or battalion wide scenarios can be performed with reasonable fidelity, for less than the cost of a single 'formal' simulator - particularly with the desktop implementation. The lower initial cost, and shorter lead time also allows the computers used to be 'normal' mid level PCs, running standard operating systems, and to have much better levels of visual accuracy and detail in the tactical presentation than the (I presume) ageing fleet of 'million dollar' boxes.

A design choice was made to limit the use of sensitive data within SB - so it will not exactly reproduce what the Rheinmetal or Rayethon simulators will do for their single vehicle simulator, but the results are plausible, well within the 'accuracy' levels of NTC/Miles or other abstracted rules for real-world training (eg the gunnery tables exposure times rules, hits required per kill etc). It does allow a 'personal edition' to be made available (with certain restrictions on connection limits, and simplification of some functions), which can be used by vehicle crews for 'at-home' or 'out of the classroom' study, and as a commercial 'entertainment' product - using classified data would make this impracticable or impossible.

Only my opinions, and observations - they could be based on out-of-date information, or flawed reasoning... but there is a perception that big $ == better result, and this may not be realised in practice.
Certainly some people see the benefit of the low-cost trainer as an additional tool.
Lieste is offline   Reply With Quote