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Army collective SBT uses physically simulated military equipment (PSME) or virtual military equipment (VME)

• PSME approaches, such as CCTT and AVCATT, attempt to replicate the physical environment, controls, and sensory cues of an actual tank or aircraft. PSME development, use, and maintenance are expensive, and soldiers' access to PSME equipment may be limited.
• VME uses personal computers and other equipment in ways similar to commercial first-person-shooter games. These have less physical realism but are easier and less expensive to operate, maintain, and upgrade and are more accessible to soldiers, allowing for more practice.

While stakeholders value physical fidelity, psychological fidelity may be most important

• High physical fidelity does not necessarily produce better training. Psychological fidelity — the degree to which the simulator prompts relevant cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses — is key to effective learning and training transfer.
• Low physical fidelity can be effective if psychological fidelity is high. This is especially the case for collective tasks that involve largely cognitive skills, such as monitoring others' actions and synchronizing activities.

Additional measures are needed to evaluate effectiveness of SBT

• Training evaluation has emphasized performance of the simulator and relies on users' reactions rather than on the performance of trainees and objective performance measures. Additionally, research on learning principles in SBT has lagged development of the technology.
• VME is much less expensive than CCTT and AVCATT once utilization is taken into account, however, the Army needs to collect consistent data on system utilization and training effectiveness to produce robust estimates of cost effectiveness.

In the U.S. Army, the term collective training refers to events in which groups or units of soldiers learn, practice, and demonstrate proficiency in group activities key to their missions. The report examines the fidelity of virtual systems to train U.S. Army platoon- and company-level collective skills and estimates the costs of using simulators with different degrees of fidelity for collective training. Understanding how fidelity contributes to training outcomes can help inform decisions about current and legacy systems and future investments in simulation-based collective training systems. The analyses focus on dedicated physical simulators used by Army armor and aviation units and on virtual games that operate on networked personal computers. In addition to reviewing the literature on the effects of simulator fidelity on training outcomes, the authors conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys of key stakeholder groups and used archival data to estimate utilization rates and life-cycle costs. The authors recommend improvements in the design, delivery, and evaluation of the Army's simulation-based training and propose that the Army conduct definitive studies to determine whether a transition from Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) and the Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (AVCATT) to a Games for Training approach is warranted.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Current U.S. Army Collective Simulation-Based Training Systems

• Chapter Three

  Research Findings on Simulation Fidelity and Training Outcomes

• Chapter Four

  Stakeholder Views of Collective Simulation-Based Training Systems

• Chapter Five

  Comparing the Costs and Cost-Effectiveness of Collective Simulation-Based Training Systems

• Chapter Six

  Summary, Recommendations, and Conclusions

• Appendix A

  Examples of Platoon- and Company-Level Armor Unit Structures and Collective Tasks Taught in Collective Training

• Appendix B

  Interview and Focus Group Questions

• Appendix C

  Survey of Training Consumers