I can safely say I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t routinely get my ass handed to me in the simulators. It was during the age of Pong, but the simulation was realistic enough that you felt bad when you got everybody killed.
My experience with simulation has been mostly in aviation. You can do so much more. Other than the instructors, I know of no one who looks forward to getting in the box.
“I can safely say I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t routinely get my ass handed to me in the simulators. It was during the age of Pong, but the simulation was realistic enough that you felt bad when you got everybody killed.”
I remember learning how to call in artillery fire. The whole thing was run by a Commodore 64.
A location was projected on the wall, as though the viewpoint was that of hiding on a hill, looking down into valley where a white silhouette target was sitting. We were given a topo map and we were to call in grid coordinates and vectors and the type of round to use.
It was a lot of fun to be the only one nailing the target with the right ammo each time...watching the projected artillery round cross the ceiling and fall on target, followed by a boom and a mushroom cloud on the target.
Then it got boring, so I started calling in fire on our location...again hitting every time....Firing for effect on the first shot.
First time...”Oops. Sorry Sarge.”
Second time...”NOT AGAIN!”
Third time...”Cut it out, private,” Sarge warned in that bulldog growl.