Doing some patrol drills and room clearing for the U.S. Army and National Guard Units these days don't actually need for them to go outside to practice patrolling or go to a kill house for some live fire room clearing exercise. With Virtual Reality (VR), they can do all of these with minimum risks of injuries that are inherent in military training exercises.

Early this month, the Missouri National Guard tried the VR technology called the Dismounted Soldier Training System (DSTS) at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. First introduced at Fort Bragg in 2012, the DSTS allows leaders to maintain the proficiency of their squad members to their assigned tasks, even with the introduction of new squad members, integrating them even faster.

They can repeat the drills frequently with lesser "reset" times, which consumes more time to repeat the drill if done with the DSTS. The other thing about using VR is that it actions can be recorded and soldiers can watch and do critique in After Action Reports as the drill is played back to them. This will include shots fired and radio communications between squad members. From there, they can improve coordination, movement, communications, and shooting.

What's more, with the use of VR, it's easier to introduce different types of training environments into the  squad members' VR headsets, adding some elements that would require some specific reaction from the soldiers at the push of a button. It is easier to recreate an AO using computer without the need for physical infrastructure that, again, will take time to be designed and setup.

The DSTS is not designed to replace existing training exercises, but rather to enhance them. While VR is a good tool, there will still be the need of some real live exercises that will require more units and coordination. The DSTS of course, will have prepared the soldiers for these types of exercises, and can be easily setup when there is no time for such.

Such technology, if available to some civilian tactical training sites, can also be used in having airsoft players do squad training, especially in preparing them for milsim events. Airsoft teams can avail of such VR trainers and enhance their members' proficiency at squad level and different types of scenarios without actually going out to the field. Just imagine seeing airsoft teams doing proper movement to objective just like trained soldiers in milsim events.