Why does everyone think the military wants some crazy ulimate combined arms sim? They want a training aid to teach selected tasks that are expensive, difficult, or dangerous to do. Not the worlds most realistic infantry simulator. That is silly. It will NEVER be close to the real deal. But basic soldier tasks. Or gunnery tasks of large equipment etc etc is I am sure what they are after at cheaper prices than bloated defense contractors charge. VBS2 i simply can not imagine being used at the Private level. Nothing there is useful to lowest levels. At platoon leadership and above it may have value. But from basic soldier perspective a waste of time. better to run around in the woods yelling bang bang at each other. At least you will get some exercise and not turn into a fat #%&*$#.
Wow! So far off base of what the Army and I would assume, the military is looking for, it's almost comical. In case you've missed the technology advances of the last 10 years in both the military and computers, ultimate combined arms is exactly what we are looking for. Gone are the old days of combat arms units only combining in their BDE FTXs before they move onto a military training center for their capstone event. Especially today, with much fiscal restraints, it is even more paramount to a units success to perform their individual and collective tasks virtually before expending real bullets, gas, food and time in the local training environments, so once they do deploy to the field they have advanced through the crawl and walk phases before running. With so many FPS shooter engines available, why not capitalize on existing technologies rather than reinvent a new engine specifically for the military? So we have, Bohemia Interactive and it's Arma II engine.
Now, it's combined arms focused, as it should be, it's a flipping first person shooter, not a vehicle recovery simulator. We can practice vehicle recovery in the motor pool. I can't shoot blanks or even a shoot house in the Motor pool. It's combined arms because we've learned from the USMC that a mobile expeditionary force is far more lethal than a dedicated infantry brigade. We fight alongside tankers, scouts, artillery men, cooks, mechanics and even admin specialists. We have a mandate to conduct semi annual 12 mile foot marches. Some, such as infantry, tankers, scouts and artillery do 1 a month. We, as a combined arms BDE, have to know how to enter and clear a room/building. In addition, basic and advanced rifle marksmanship is conducted by all, again amount of qualification varies by unit type but gone are the days soft skill MOSs not grasping basic infantry tasks, again, kudos to the USMC for setting us straight. When we patrol a street, there's an MGS Stryker vehicle supporting us, along with scouts in the outer cordons with their LRAS sights and dismounts looking for bad guys. Above us, flitter AH64s, OH58s and UAVs providing real time imagery feeds to the ground commander. Then, mortars are outer perimeter, standing by to lob high angle hell precisely into a 13 digit grid, called for by either a 13F, 19D, 19K or an 11B because we've all trained intimately together, as a combined arms unit. So, why wouldn't we want a combined arms simulator?
Now, you elude to having used it before, perhaps in its inception and without any innovative thinkers on how best to practice your unit TTPs or SOPs, but it works great. I can put a whole platoon, virtually, into their deploying theater, whether its their back yard, NTC, or Afghanistan. There, the PSG, PL, and squad leaders can shoot move and communicate as either a sole mounted or dismounted element, or they can add additional stations for aviation( including HOTAS and Track IR), mortars and scouts, for dare I say, combined arms. Where they use the actual call for fire format, have binos, GPS and maps available, as well as laser range finders. Additionally, while they are working their platoon personalities through, their company commander can watch via FBCB2 or another station, all connected to his TOC. So, please stop speaking on behalf of the military and its needs, as you missed the significant importance of tools like VBS2 and what it can do for my unit. It works, and works well. It also saves you, the taxpayers millions in expenses that I would have squandered without a virtual enhancement. It also graphically looks pretty good, though VBS3 is around the corner.
So, apologies to all for the lengthy soapbox. I've tried to refrain from some of these talks but this fired me up a bit.