New Military Combat Simulator Lets You Feel Getting Shot

Call of Duty has nothing on the new combat simulator from defense giant Raytheon.

Fully rigged soldiers can roam freely in the real world and engage unseen virtual enemies through their VR goggles, tossing real flash-bang grenades and even shaking off the muscle-numbing effects of getting shot.

Raytheon teamed up with Oscar-winning 3-D simulation company, Motion Reality, Inc., to develop the combat simulator, which can train up to 12 soldiers on clearing IEDs (roadside bombs) and small unit tactics. The interactive simulation went on display at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, D.C. this week.

The simulation creators wanted soldiers to feel physically and mentally immersed in their training environment. That meant giving participants the freedom to physically crawl and run through hours of virtual training without being tethered by wires or cables.

Such immersion also contributes to providing some stressful training that can help at least mimic real combat situations. Raytheon's simulator can even provide a jolt when participants get hit by a virtual bullet in the simulator -- not enough to floor people like a TASER device, but enough to put an arm into spasms and render it temporarily useless.

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[Link: Popular Science]