Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
An anslysis of simulation usage at the U.S. Army Armor School, Fon Knox, Kentucky, indicates that while many instructional objectives could be trained using simulations, the resident courses generally fail to utilize the available simulations for instruction. The majority of simulation usage is directed toward skill practice by visiting units as opposed to instruction. ?hc The likely cause for this situation is a fundamental mismatch between the instructional design model used to develop Armor School training and the technical design model used to develop the simulations. The primary effect of this mismatch is that the technical aspects of the simulations evolve must faster than the instruction, which cannot keep pace with those changes. The result is that course developers do not incorporate simulations into their instruction since it would be rendered obsolete almost immediately.
INTRODUCTION
The use of simulations in the U. S. Army has experienced dramatic growth in .recent years. Following the Gulf War, all services were subject to significant cuts in manpower and funding, and these cuts forced some unit commanders to seek training methods which would produce the maximum benefit for each training dollar spent. An obvious choice for many commanders then and now is the use of simulators, many of which allow for a wide choice among training exercises in a variety of situations and conditions. The U.S. Army Armor School at Fort Knox, Kentucky has four different simulators available for training, and these will be examined in terms of their functionality and utilization by the courses offered at the Armor School.
MILITARY TRAINING DEVICES
Military taining devices can be divided into seven general categories (Farrow, 1982, pp.14). These categories are:
The mission of the Armor School is to train soldiers to operate armored equipment such as the M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank and the M-2/3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. To achieve this mission, it offers four primary courses: Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Course (BNCOC), Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Course (ANCOC), Armor Officer Basic Course (AOB), and Armor Officer Advanced Course (AOAC) (see Appendix A for a more detailed description of these. courses). Within these courses, the following simulators are available for use: the Conduct of Fire Trainer (COFI); large scale Simulation Networking (SIMNET); JANUS; and Battalion/Brigade Battle Simulation (BBS) (see Appendix...