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To: ken5050

My gunner had been a tank crewman in the first Gulf War. He described landing in Saudi, and trying to do some training while they waited for equipment. One training device is the UCOFT, which is essentially a video game. And the Saudis had several (purchased from the US).

He was struck by how ‘new’ and ‘unused’ the Saudi UCOFT was. Back at home, the UCOFT is literally scheduled 24 hours a day...and I remember getting up to go do 3:00 a.m. shifts in it. In other words, we used the heck out of it. Like a video game, it had progressively harder levels, and a new tank commander/gunner combination would have to reach a certain level together, before the army spent money on training with real rounds.

The Saudis...well, they bought a lot of them...maybe tried them once. And that was it. My gunner described taking some of the equipment out of its original boxes, etc. And that’s the Saudi attitude. They have bought a lot of US equipment...but they never thought they would actually have to use it.

I’m skeptical of their capabilities.


7 posted on 03/31/2015 6:29:11 AM PDT by lacrew
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To: lacrew
He was struck by how ‘new’ and ‘unused’ the Saudi UCOFT was. Back at home, the UCOFT is literally scheduled 24 hours a day...and I remember getting up to go do 3:00 a.m. shifts in it. In other words, we used the heck out of it. Like a video game, it had progressively harder levels, and a new tank commander/gunner combination would have to reach a certain level together, before the army spent money on training with real rounds.

This being a more or less a video game, they don't even have the excuse that they lack the fuel and ammo budget to conduct the necessary training.

11 posted on 03/31/2015 6:46:38 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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