Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Speaker to Animals]

The literal state of Britain. LOL

A soldier has been formally charged after “losing his rag” during a virtual battlefield exercise and killing his comrades.

The Edinburgh-based Army rifleman is believed to be the first soldier to be punished under UK military law for offences in a virtual scenario rather than in real life.

He is said to have been fed-up with being stuck at a computer rather than training outside.

A source from 3rd Battalion, the Rifles told the Mail on Sunday: “We'd spent two weeks sitting in front of laptops pretending we were in a really hostile urban environment - I'd challenge anyone to take it seriously for that long.

“All this was taking place in an office at our headquarters, when we'd rather be doing real-life soldiering outside in the fresh air. But there's less of that sort of exercise these days because the Army has committed to Unit-based Virtual Training.

“We were supposed to imagine we were travelling in armoured vehicles through a really hostile built-up area. One of the lads just lost his rag and ‘opened fire’ as it were, killing the soldier next to him.

“He then drove down the street deliberately smashing into cars. It's safe to say the officers in our battalion did not find it as funny as we did.”

The unidentified Rifleman was reprimanded after the exercise and later formally charged with disobeying orders.

His reputed punishment was to spend a weekend carrying out guard duties at the 3 Rifles base at Redford Barracks in the Scottish capital.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We take the training of our service personnel very seriously and anyone who is disruptive to this training will receive disciplinary action.

“Virtual reality training programmes are able to deliver greater flexible training and replicate complex scenarios allowing for rapid experimentation, development of tactics and ability to test new vehicles in multiple environments.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/0 ... ttlefield/

You don't discipline guys for refusing to obey orders in the US army?

LOL

[BjornP]

While it does speak to a lack of discpipline (stupid orders are still orders), what money are they saving excatly by doing the "training" in a simulation going on - not in a simulator - on a frigging laptop? They really can't dust up a single armoured vehicle and simulate an attack?

[Montegriffo]

While it does speak to a lack of discpipline (stupid orders are still orders), what money are they saving excatly by doing the "training" in a simulation going on - not in a simulator - on a frigging laptop? They really can't dust up a single armoured vehicle and simulate an attack?

It's right there in the excerpt...

“Virtual reality training programmes are able to deliver greater flexible training and replicate complex scenarios allowing for rapid experimentation, development of tactics and ability to test new vehicles in multiple environments.”

[BjornP]

While it does speak to a lack of discpipline (stupid orders are still orders), what money are they saving excatly by doing the "training" in a simulation going on - not in a simulator - on a frigging laptop? They really can't dust up a single armoured vehicle and simulate an attack?

It's right there in the excerpt...

“Virtual reality training programmes are able to deliver greater flexible training and replicate complex scenarios allowing for rapid experimentation, development of tactics and ability to test new vehicles in multiple environments.”

"Virtual reality" does not equal sitting down playing a game on a laptop, Monte. Aside from that, you can get most of those things the PR guy wrote up there in a real life excercise. I don't object to it in principle, only to its use as an exclusive training tool.

[Otern]

"Virtual reality" does not equal sitting down playing a game on a laptop, Monte. Aside from that, you can get most of those things the PR guy wrote up there in a real life excercise. I don't object to it in principle, only to its use as an exclusive training tool.

They probably do real life stuff too.

[Montegriffo]

While it does speak to a lack of discpipline (stupid orders are still orders), what money are they saving excatly by doing the "training" in a simulation going on - not in a simulator - on a frigging laptop? They really can't dust up a single armoured vehicle and simulate an attack?

It's right there in the excerpt...

“Virtual reality training programmes are able to deliver greater flexible training and replicate complex scenarios allowing for rapid experimentation, development of tactics and ability to test new vehicles in multiple environments.”

"Virtual reality" does not equal sitting down playing a game on a laptop, Monte. Aside from that, you can get most of those things the PR guy wrote up there in a real life excercise. I don't object to it in principle, only to its use as an exclusive training tool.

Where are you getting exclusive from?

VR gives the ability to try more scenarios in a given time period than real life exercises.

[BjornP]

One would hope so. Otoh, from my conscript days I do remember we got one or two guys who were these wannabe-types. The kind who tride to look the part and who parrotted the phrases of the officers when they were in earshot, but when it came to stuff like marching, sleeping outdoors (lots of Copenhageners in my battery) or gun or howitzer maintenance, they either whined or "got sick". And the two types who fit that bill were both volunteers, btw.

I imagine if the source is one of that particular type of soldier, one who had ridiculous expectations for military life, he might have gotten impatient. But it really depends on the frequency of the VR training.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The army paid a dozen soldiers to play the worlds most boring session of call of duty. And they only had a single incident of trolling.

That is exceptional actually.

[Smitty-48]

We were Keeners.

On duty we were gung-ho.

Anybody who was acting the clown got a beat down, from his peers, the officers rarely had to get involved.

It was only once we were off duty down at the bar did we get rowdy and insubordinate.

[Speaker to Animals]

For what I did, the stakes were too high for any serious goofing around.