Firearms training simulators

[DDTSGM]

I think it's a Ti machine. We shared one with 6 other agencies. Each PD had it twice a year, and I spent the first week fixing all the issues and broken items on it before we could use it.
I finally convinced the chief to stop paying out the cash to be a part of the consortium to have the privilege of using it. Instead, I attended Ken Murray's excellent RBT class and we conduct scenario training a few times a year. Every cop I know has issues"talking to the screen" of a FATS/Ti machine.
The stress level, interaction and knowledge retention is so much higher with RBT than a simulator we'll never go back.
That said, I've never used a VR LE simulator.

Rbta.net is Armiger's site.

I agree, Ken Murray's class is a must for anyone who actually wants to conduct meaningful RBT training.

That being said, I used to get the 'I can't talk to the screen' bit from student officers. In their case I would cheerfully tell them they best figure out how because successful completion of their scenarios was a graduation requirement. After the first scenario I would ask them 'when did you forget it was just a video?' Rarely would someone say 'I never did.'

Obviously there was some degree of stress because of the go/no-go nature of the evaluation, but as the scenarios started I would look for signs that the student was assimilating into the scenario, breathing, hands clenching, etc. Our students weren't allowed to just stand and deliver, they had to maintain appropriate distancing, use cover, use verbals, etc.


We had a Ti machine as well as three FATS systems, and quite frankly, the Ti scenarios in general, were kind of lame, especially the ones that departments sent in. Ti themselves created and filmed some pretty good scenarios, but at one point the guy editing had a thing for exploding heads and blood splatters - it isn't a video game.

The FATS tetherless firearms, OC's and TASERS were far superior to the Ti, but at much more expense.

We ran each student through four evaluated scenarios in the final weeks of their basic course, I generally averaged about a student an hour. When you consider that our longest scenario on either system was less than three minutes, their was a lot of discussion going on. Instructors were supposed to use Socratic questioning methodology, but some would just tell the student what they felt they did right or wrong, and a couple would get so into the weeds explaining what they would have done, that I'm surprised we didn't have a student officer suck a training weapon muzzle.

After attending Murray's course, I encouraged the instructors let the students do a quick run through of the exact same scenario to implant a perfect run in their minds. I also encouraged the same thing for force-on-force exercises.

[jnc36rcpd]

I never attended Murray's class, but I did read his book. At the time, I considered it somewhat extreme in many of the protocols. The longer I did RBT, the more I appreciated the value of the protocols.

Simulators do have tremendous value as well. While they are costly to obtain, you save on the resources of role-players and safety monitors. Some scenarios would be unsafe or impractical to run in RBT. (I vividly recall an officer bailing out of a cruiser under Simunitions fire, forgetting to put the car in park. That induced a spontaneous and immediate recovery by the "injured officer" lying in front of the cruiser and resulted in a vehicular blue-on-blue. (Thank goodness for folding mirrors.)

Of course, my praise for the ease of the simulators is tempered by our young worthy firing a live round through the screen of ours.