How Virtual Reality is Changing Firearm Training in the Defense Forces

Firearm training is an essential part of the defense forces, be it the military forces or the police department. Traditionally, Firearm Trainings and the regular recertification courses were held at the various indoor and outdoor ranges that one can easily find in the United States. Talking about the regular police shooting ranges, they consist of multiple, parallel lanes where the police officers practice and chisel their shooting skills with the bulls eye marked on a gunny bag filled with sand or specially created systems that have bullet traps made of plastic or metal. Same kind of training was carried for the paramilitary forces, but is this sufficient?

Before answering this question, let us consider one fact that while anybody, be it a cop or member of paramilitary forces, practices at such kind of traditional shooting ranges, they would be getting all types of facilities, but what about the environment and pressures? Let me elaborate this for you; whenever a person shoots outside a control environment, then it is either done with a defensive or attacking stance, both of which are the result of tense situations. This is altogether different what you get at the shooting range. There is nobody on the other end open firing at you or you don’t have vulnerable people around you. And keeping all this in mind, the US army decided to go for virtual reality training long time ago. These were the times when there was no concept of commercializing the VR technology.

You would be surprised to know that the face of VR that we know today is all because of thousands of millions of dollars invested by the US military to shape up the future of VR. The Pentagon was also the first one to finance the much ambitious project of the development of the very first effective headsets, named as HMDs. And it was just the initiation. Currently, defense forces of the USA have invested billions in the different VR projects, and the numbers are simply spiking. According to a rough estimates by the field experts, the investments done in the VR technology are expected to garner profits of roughly around $1.4 billion by 2025.

Applications of VR in Military

Talking about the current scenario, the different aspects of VR technology is used by all three major fields of military including the air, ground and navy forces. VR is used for various training purposes such as medical training, vehicle simulation, battlefield simulations and virtual boot camps. Till so far, VR was an important part of the military training, but now it is also being used to analyze the different battlefield positions and military strategies.

[1] VR Training

Time for a fact check! Do you know that at least 1 out of 20 deaths of soldiers occur during the course of training? Yes, it is true and that is why to convert these negative numbers into positive and to provide optimized safety during the training, VR was welcomed by everyone. Due to its effectiveness and the ability to simulate a situation in the most realistic manner, VR is the perfect choice to up the combat skills of cops and soldiers without making them vulnerable towards any danger.

[2] VR Simulators

With different flight and vehicle simulators, the pilots are virtually trained for different kinds of air battles, the coordination with the ground base and to get the trained under most stressful conditions that may arise in the battlefield. Most of the times, these flight VR simulators are tightly enclosed systems that are equipped with electronics, hydraulics and force feedback that react according to the actions of the pilot. For the ground vehicles, the military is currently using FCS in majority of the combat vehicles including infantry carriers, armored vehicles and tanks.

[3] VR Therapy

Who knew that VR could be used for therapy as well? Rehabilitation therapy is a must for all the war veterans as according to one study, the number of war veterans quitting on life has reached at an alarming number of 20 per day. This initiated the use of VR therapy in the year 2005 and has been used to treat PTSD.

Benefits of VR in Military and Police Department

Apart from the obvious benefits of safety, virtual reality has changed the face of training in military and for the police departments as well. Some of the other benefits of VR in military are as follows:

1. VR can easily create realistic environment where you have 100% control
2. VR technology is cost effective as well as compared to the traditional training methods
3. VR training is more like a gaming experience and thus, it enhances the engagement of the trainees

As we see, there are numerous aspects of VR technology that is used for different purposes in military and police department. Though a lot has been done in the field, yet we can’t wait for new technologies that are going to change the warfare.

Author Bio: I am Dave Smith working as a marketing strategist at Urban Carry. We house the best collection of leather gun holsters that you can easily wear against your body along with off the body holsters such as handbag holsters and desk or car holsters. We also offer a wide range of other gun accessories such as range bags, gun maintenance mats, etc.