August 19, 2013: In an effort to hone up firing skills among its mechanised forces, the Indian Army is looking to economise on ammunition and move largely to the realm of simulators, a global best practice among militaries in the west. The Army has announced interest in acquiring SIMFIRE, a German company's range of shooting simulators, for its T-90/T-72 and BMP I/II in the near future.

"Tactical training in the Mechanised Forces is conducted with realistic depiction of battlefield scenarios and resultant manoeuvres/counter manoeuvres being carried out by participating units/sub units. In such circumstances, though all efforts are made to paint realistic tactical situations, but the outcome is left to the judgment of umpires/control organisation set up for the conduct of the exercise/ training. This, leads to a lot of subjectivity in the entire process of imparting realistic training," says the Army in its request for information. Furthermore, to draw out correct tactical lessons, it is imperative that the effectiveness of the own/opponents fire is seen by the crew operating on the A vehicles. Therefore, in order to obviate the above mentioned drawback in our present tactical training and enable a two sided live firing exercise, it is intended to induct SIMFIRE equipment into service.