How Simulators Help Our Army, And Save Our Planet

June 06, 2023 - 7:46 pm; By: Ramananda Sengupta

Using simulators to train the Indian army not only leads to a dramatic reduction in costs, it also helps save our planet, says a report released by The Energy and Resources Institute (better known by its acronym TERI) on June 5, celebrated as World Environment Day.

The release of the unique report, titled ‘Supporting Armed Forces Efforts Towards Sustainability: Application of Simulators in Military Training’ at New Delhi’s India Habitat Centre, was followed by a brief panel discussion on the subject.

“By using simulators, we can minimize consumption of ammunition and fuel, therefore create a more sustainable future where armed forces can also be a key player,” said TERI Director General Dr Vibha Dhawan in her opening remarks, which followed a presentation on how simulators cut costs, reduced greenhouse gases and the release of toxic gases into the atmosphere by artillery and rockets fired during training, which also poisoned the soil around the target areas where the shells landed.

Even as the forces acquired increasingly modern weapons systems and equipment, training areas and field firing ranges had actually shrunk due to population growth, said the keynote speaker, Maj Gen C S Mann, VSM, Additional Director General, Army Design Bureau, which spearheads the Indian Army’s Make in India initiative.

Apart from budgetary constraints and the cost of fuel, ammunition, transport required for training across various levels and arms, he said training also reduced the actual operational life span of expensive equipment. “Any untrained handling of such equipment could also cause damage with large ramifications,” he added.

The army had therefore adopted a simulator-based training philosophy, and identified broad training areas like firing weapons ranging from pistols to missiles, “driver training, particularly heavy vehicles like tanks and other armoured vehicles like the BMVs, which consume 4 to 5 litres of fuel per kilometre, preparatory drills for all kinds of weapons platforms., handling IEDs, mines, radio telephony, repair and maintenance training,” he said. However, “the best simulators cannot replace training. Only supplement it,” he clarified, before explaining how the army had taken up various other environment-friendly projects, including the installation of solar power station in Siachen.

The high cost of ammunition used by sophisticated weapon systems had led to restrictions on their use for training purposes, which impacted the efficiency of the people who would ultimately use such systems. Simulators (such as the Anti-Aircraft Air Defence Simulator, or “3ADS”) address this gap, said Ashok Atluri, Managing Director, Zen Technologies, which manufactures a range of simulators for the Indian army. “This study by TERI proves that simulators are cheaper, faster, much more sustainable, and a better way to train armed forces making their usage all the more sensible.”

The lively panel discussion, which was moderated by senior adviser to the government Dhiraj Mathur IAS (Retd), had TERI Associate Director Souvik Bhattacharjya, Ex-Chief of the Armed Forces Special Operations Division Major Gen Ashok Dhingra (Retd), the Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Bharat Shakti Nitin A. Gokhale, and the Zen Tech Founder & Joint Managing Director Kishore Dutt Atluri voicing their views on how training simulators had become a game-changer for the Indian army

“Although the armed forces spend the bulk of their time training, a variety of reasons prevent us from training in a manner we would like to do,” said Gen. Dhingra. While they “cannot replace live training, simulators are getting more and more capable, and able to meet this training requirement gap in the armed forces,” he said.

“The Indian armed forces operate in a very unique environment, so applying a global training template might not be correct,” noted Nitin Gokhale. “You have deserts, jungles in the northeast, you have mountains in the north, you have Siachen, all these conditions cannot be replicated by a global template, like the ones used by NATO and allied powers,” he said.

However, “simulation has improved so much in terms of technology that you can actually add various scenarios.” In a driving simulator for instance, “because driving in the hills of Ladakh is very different from driving in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh. Then there’s driving in snow, which is another dimension. Then there’s the wind tunnel used by the Special Forces to which simulates the free fall jumps that they practice,” all these things are now available. He then went on to add that the ‘forward looking policies on simulators adopted by the MoD could also be emulated by the CAPs,” who also operated in diverse conditions, ranging from Assam to the Naxal-infested areas. According to an estimate by a veteran, using simulators improved the efficiency and accuracy of gunners by almost 50 per cent over one year for a battalion of soldiers, he said. Simulation, on a larger scale, “saves costs, increases efficiency, and also saves the environment,” he said.

He credited former defence minister, late Manohar Parrikar for having initiated radical reforms in the system which now allowed even small players to approach the defence ministry with their projects. This would help India become self- reliant, which in turn would make India into a real global power, “and that’s why I say the biggest reforms in India in the past 10 years has been in the defence sector in terms of mindset change. The rest will follow,” he concluded to a round of applause from the audience.

Asked whether simulation would ever be able to replicate the five senses used by the soldier on the battleground, Kishore Dutt Atluri said it was only a matter of time, and that virtual reality could already emulate other sensory inputs to replicate real life situations.

The lively question and answer session that followed indicated that while there were certain concerns over what the ratio of simulated vs real on the ground training should be, there was no doubt that simulated training is necessary and it is here to stay. And that our army — and our planet –will be better off for it.