Short response Yes and No
Long response
I am in no way suggesting that most war causalities are from friendly fire. It has happened and until there is no more war/conflict it will still occasionaly happen.
What does happen is this (in as short as I can make it)
Different types of training produce different types of results. The goal of training is to both
Be as real as possible with out lost of life or resources
To prepare the individual(s) for is expected of them
Now M.I.L.E.S. training system is very good and has been used for decades. But it has it weakness.
Leaves, clothing and such can stop or deflect the beam
Even though the sound of gunfire is a great training tool there are no actual rounds traveling down range (and trust me bullets make noise when traveling through air and make even bigger noise when they impact close to you.)
Wax bullets and white powder rounds are also used by some militaries (British if you want to look it up)
Both are good training tools as long as certain safety rules are applied and followed
Other than heat of the barrel and range they are a good tool
(And there are many other combat training tools including live fire but I am trying to keep it short)
Now how do you train your soliders to recongize and react to live bullets with out actually injuring or killing them
Way back when (and the Marines still use it today) Soliders would be down range behind berm and would raise & lower silolettes. It started because they did not have the computer/auto systems we have today. And for some units it was kept because studies showed that soliders who recongized bullet fire and impact reacted better to initial combat than those that had never heard or seen such before.
Now why does paintball (IF USED PROPERLY) work to train soldiers to react to real combat
Paintballs are not easily deflected by leaves and light cloth
Paintballs make sound and do impact objects when they hit (not as much sound traveling through the air as a real bullet, physics you know)
Paintballs allow both sides to clearly know if they have hit the target and if all rules are applied correctly will allow determination if target is emliminated (even if using MILES casulatily cards or such)
Now to keep it really short
It boils down to how the items/training is used. I have learned and taught others that anything can be used to train about anything if applied with approriate imagination and discipline (of course live combat is the final test and only real training that will train you for live combat, that is if you live through each lesson and exam.)
BTW
I have used MILES casuality cards for Miniatures squad level type games (each figure recieves one unless clearly eliminated)
And have used them once during a breach, contain and secure large ship MayDay Traveller RPG/miniature game (used miniatures to keep accurate track of the characters during the game and the cards which the players did not know were going to be used added flavor to the session.)
To train radio procedures once, a PLT SGT of mine (when I was still a private) had radio week for the Platoon. You could not talk with out using proper radio techinques. If you failed to use proper procedure you had to either do 10 pushes for each infraction or $0.25. Everyone carried a porcedure card. By the 3rd day some of the company picked it up for shits and grins and such. By the 5th day even some of our clerks where doing it back to our PLT because they thought it was a good idea and wanted to play/work along.
To train/educate a battalion on noncombatants and rules of conduct, I and another SGT instructor used Nerf toy guns. We created a set of rules and guidelines for the entire battalion (with premission of the Commander). Basically if a person was not wearing a certain arm band and/or not visually carrying a nerf toy gun(or any type of nerf toys) they were a noncombatant. Formations, chow and 10 min latrine rules were also in effect (ie no combat allowed) (there were other rules also but shortness Dave shortness) (a military version of the Killer(TM) game)
For the first 3 days many treated it as a joke and just played around until the current casualty figures & rule voilations along the reward for the winning side were posted (part of the training plan) Let me tell you it got interesting over the next 4 days of this continual training (ok I won't tell you here
These last 2 trainings are good examples of imprinting the desired results with out interfereing or taking away time from daily work. They also made you think outside of normal routine and cause you to develop a level of discipline.
Dave Chase
I, Dave Chase, apologize for hijacking this tread from its original subject. (off to do 10 pushups now 'cause I am broke
