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Table of Contents
Virtual Reality (VR) has been revolutionizing military training for years by offering immersive, cost-effective and safe solutions for training personnel for the incredibly wide range of scenarios that can exist in the duty of a member of the military. As early as the 1920s, there have been simulations used by the military such as the Link Trainer being used to train pilots in world war II. Almost 100 years into the future, in our current millennium, simulations and virtual reality has made incredible advancements and have been used extensively by the military, industrial companies, and in healthcare.
VR Military Training doesn’t just mean a virtual reality version of ‘Call of Duty’, virtual reality is used to train military in more aspects than just shooting a gun. Military members need to learn the correct responses to make, correct procedures, how to use complex equipment like tanks or other vehicles and machinery, as well as aim training. This post will through some of the VR military training examples being used across the world by various different nation’s armed forces.
Let’s start with the obvious example, combat training. Virtual reality (VR) allows soldiers to engage in realistic combat scenarios without the dangers from firing real weapons in a training exercise. The simulations give armed forces an opportunity to replicate any environment and have a virtual scenario that they need to be trained on within their headset.
A real-life example of his is the AVRT Military Training VR system, being used by the Singapore Armed Forces. This system uses use a huge floor-mat that with sensors attached for tracking the headset and physical replicas of weapons. The platform is designed to allow training instructors to create their own training scenarios and have up to 12 users be virtually in any environment or situation. This is a clear step into the future when it comes to easily training for intense combat and highly specific scenarios.
This is another well known use case of virtual reality in military training. Flight simulators have been in use for a decades by pilots whether to be a combat pilot or a regular pilot. Military vehicles are incredibly complex and require many many hours to fully understand and operate. They are also very expensive and come in very finite amounts. For context, fighter jets cost tens of millions of dollars which means damage and availability needs to be controlled.
But most of us have heard about flight simulators since it’s very mainstream knowledge, so let’s talk about how Trident Training Facility Bangor uses virtual simulations to train personnel in operating complex submarine vehicles. Submarines are even more expensive and limited then aircraft, and similarly can be very dangerous without an expert operating the vehicle. The US has ~64 submarines so you can imagine how difficult it is to train the navy on them.
Delving deeper into the lesser known use cases of VR military training, there are certain complicated equipment and devices that require knowledge and practice. One such example is a TMQ-53, a tactical meterological system device which is used by real weather teams who are needed to forecast weather for supporting other units in missions.
This example was developed by SHIIFT Training, a state of the art, highly interactive digital twin of the TMQ-53 and all of it’s separated parts, which can be interacted with and used to build the complete TMQ-53. This device needed yearly training, and similar to the military vehicle examples, they are expensive and come in finite amounts. Our virtual reality training tool saved the U.S. Air Force millions of dollars as it allows them to practice assembly just as they would need to in the real world, but they can have as many replicas of the TMQ53 as they need, and can train on it from anywhere in the world, saving them on traveling costs, instructor costs, and equipment costs.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Paul Shirk)
The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, or SAPRO for short, is the office responsible for sexual assault policy and educating on how to prevent and respond to sexual assault within the workforce, or in this case, the US armed forces. This training spreads awareness of sexual assault and helps teach how best to advocate for victims and report cases.
If you’ve played games that branch out into multiple endings and pathways, then the format of this SAPR Military Training VR experience will be familiar to you. The application put users into an SAPR related scenario, such as one example where you are in the perspective of an airman speaking with another airman who has been a victim of sexual assault. Without going into too much detail, it was designed to refresh airmen on their knowledge of which resources and support are available, while also preparing them for a real situation.
A post on Reddit from the r/AirForce community received many comments questioning the justification for integrating VR into SAPR Training, before knowing the details. This was until a beta tester of the VR experience commented about their experience with the training application mentioning it was ‘actually pretty cool’, had superb acting, and was one of the best training experiences they’ve had in the Air Force. It was fully voice activated and had branching dialogue that would lead to different outcomes of the virtual scenario.
Another heavy topic on this list, suicide and mental health. Military personnel are at a higher risk of suicide due to various things such as PTSD, stress from transitioning back to a civilian life, etc. For these reasons, it’s important to increase support and spread awareness of the topic, as well spread awareness of the support available. There is an aim to reduce stigma relating to mental health issues which prevents people from seeking help.
Similarly to the above section relating to SAPR, there also exists military training vr experiences for suicide prevention, putting Navy sailors into a situation where they need to respond in real time and do their best to prevent suicide and support those in need around them. This type of training is much more effective then a PowerPoint explaining where to find the resources needed and what you should do to help others, but instead ‘brings the situation to life’ with immersive VR.
Ultimately, virtual reality has already proven itself to be an incredibly useful tool in many different industries, and the military is one of those that have been consistently proving it’s worth by training for all the dangerous scenarios and highly expensive equipment and vehicles that exist in the military. VR Military Training has been adopted globally by armed forces across different continents, and will continue to highlight VR’s capabilities in increasing safety and reducing costs.
Like many other technologies that started out in military and eventually found their way into consumer products like GPS, internet, drones, etc, VR training will become a standard in all industries looking to save costs, increase safety and take advantage of other benefits.
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