Photo By Sgt. William Battle | Cadets train with the DSTS system during Cadet Summer Training 2015 at Fort Knox, Ky.... read more read more
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FORT KNOX, Ky. - Instructors participating here in this year’s U.S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps Cadet Summer Training are using virtual reality gear to train cadets how to react to various military scenarios. The cadets are using the Dismounted Soldier Training System and Virtual Battlespace 3.
To use DSTS, cadets wear motion sensors on their arms, legs and on their helmets. The sensors are connected to a battery pack, which the cadets wear on their backs. The packs transmit the cadets’ movements to the computer. They move through the virtual environment with a small joystick on their rifles. Cadets’ rifle movements and positions are also transmitted to the computer. The cadets are able to see the virtual world through visors attached to their helmets. They wear headphones to hear everything in the virtual world and speak to one another via microphones affixed to their helmets.
This system is connected to VBS3, the software running the simulations. Cadets can use VBS3 without the VR gear and experience simulations, in which the cadets lead platoons and squads on a computer. The view and controls on the computer are similar to a first-person-shooter video game. However, VBS3 is no game.
“Gamers are the first ones to die,” said Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Michael Lee Stivers, an instructor from Fort Knox’s 4th Battalion, 399th Regiment. The noncommissioned officer in charge of VBS3 explained gamers will try to jump over bullets just like they do in video games, but VBS3 simulates real-world scenarios and physics.
Administrators are able to load various environments, mission scenarios, opposing forces and even weather from their computers. Other instructors or bystanders can watch the cadets’ movements on a TV screen or computer monitor.
“You can bring everything in,” said Stivers. “You can make it rain, and you can make it night. You can make it nightfall where you would have to use your night vision goggles. It can snow, sandstorms. Anything can be thrown up in here. It’s more so like a virtual military gumbo.”
Cadets take turns being platoon and squad leaders, and as they become more comfortable with the system, they become more confident.
“From in the morning to the afternoon, it’s like night and day,” Stivers said. “This morning they couldn’t even navigate, but this afternoon, they’re running missions correctly, when they get to their objective they’ll call that up, if they get injured they’ll call for [medical assistance]. They do all of that.”
The training simulations prepare the cadets in an enclosed environment, in which instructors can show the cadets what they’re doing on a screen, something that can’t easily be done in the field. Ultimately though, there’s nothing like training in the field, Stivers said.
He added, “From what I’ve gathered it’s more about team building, and it’s really really good because sometimes you see the raging lion inside of a small sheep come out of them to where the competitive side really comes out of them when they’re doing this.”
Communication is very important, and with cadets being new to the Army experience, the instructors instill that into the cadets, said Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas Aaron Morris, the DSTS NCOIC.
Morris, of 4th-399th C Company, was a drill sergeant for three years so he has experience with training new Army recruits.
“Basically, it’s the same realm,” he said. “You’ve got people that are first time in the Army.”
He added, “You always want to try to get these guys to be good leaders. I think that’s the number-one focus is to push off what really good leadership looks like and then to try to instill that into them. If you can get that into them, then half the battle is won right there.”
“What we’re trying to get every Soldier and every cadet to understand, everybody used to say, ‘I want to be support because I know I won’t find combat,’ but when you’re fighting an asymmetrical war, everybody has an opportunity to see combat,” Stivers said.
Soldiers must be in the mindset that they may have to step up and become a leader on the battlefield.
“If they have that mindset, this great nation will keep on winning like it always has.”
| Date Taken: | 06.24.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.01.2015 21:27 |
| Story ID: | 168854 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 648 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Achievement unlocked: Cadets use virtual training to prepare for real-world scenarios, by SGT Anshu Pandeya, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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