Battlefield training systems: it is not so long ago that battlefield training was conducted over dedicated ranges such as Salisbury Plain in Britain or Sennelager in Germany, while week long exercises could involve other rural locations. Vehicles and helicopters marked with white crosses would carry umpires through Blue and Red forces to deliver thunder flashes and declare deaths and injuries.

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Training & Simulation

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Battlefield training systems: it is not so long ago that battlefield training was conducted over dedicated ranges such as Salisbury Plain in Britain or Sennelager in Germany, while week long exercises could involve other rural locations. Vehicles and helicopters marked with white crosses would carry umpires through Blue and Red forces to deliver thunder flashes and declare deaths and injuries.

After such a training event in a rural environment, officers would assess damage claims and agree compensation to farmers and local authorities. However, the increasing power of the `green' lobby has discouraged this kind of battlefield training, while the global and often unpredictable nature of today's conflicts has encouraged the `export' of such training. Thus the jungles of Kenya and wintry wastes of Canada play host to soldiers who cannot tell where their next active service may be.

Small wonder that classroom and simulation training has had to meet an increasing percentage of the total battlefield training requirement, while laser-based systems have been refined to increase the fidelity of any range training still permitted. But it is not only noise and general disturbance that has encouraged the use of simulation, treasury bean counters in many countries do not permit more than rare opportunities to fire real missiles, while to expend ammunition rather than use laser-based simulation is d...

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