One of the unique training opportunities available to 10th Special Forces Group on Fort Carson, Colorado is access to the VirTra simulator at the Human Performance Training Center on the unit's compound.
The shooting simulator helps to augment the Green Beret's training schedule, as it is right at their unit, requires no long-term range scheduling, or ammunition, and can be done during the day or night, regardless of weather conditions. In a virtual environment, VirTra can simulate various scenarios that soldiers may encounter in the field.
“Everything comes down to increasing lethality, so the more triggers we pull in the correct manner, that’s what we want," explained a Special Forces Captain whose team was going through the simulator. “Practice makes permanent — ultimately we want to be training the fundamentals all the time and this is another venue for guys to pull their personal weapon and become better at the basics.”
Some of the different scenarios that can be simulated include active threat, hostage situation, threat recognition and high-risk entry. Soldiers also perform physical exercises between simulations in order to get their heart rates up and mimic combat conditions. Results of how they react in the simulator are carefully noted and future scenarios react to the previous ones.
“This allows us to pair marksmanship with a variety of different training environments where they are coupled with a strength coach to simulate physical stress,” said Jake Blumberg who oversees training at the Human Performance Training Center. “[Operators] are then able to create a variety of different ranges and targets to really hone their craft.”
