eSim Games partnered with AFV Sim at this year’s ITEC exhibition in Cologne, Germany. The main attraction was one of five containers of the Austrian Leopard 2 combat drill trainer. Built in 1993, the trainer is currently undergoing a major reconstruction to extend its lifetime and will be delivered to the Austrian Bundesheer later this year. In fact, the ITEC stand was the Austrian customer’s first opportunity for a hands-on inspection of the ongoing refurbishment project:
eSim Games chose Diehl BGT Defence of Röthenbach, Germany to complete the hardware related work of the lifetime extension program. As a part of this, old UNIX based computer components had to be removed and were replaced by off-the-shelf gaming PCs running Steel Beasts Professional as the main simulation software component. SB Pro is then connected to the cabins’ crew control elements with Diehl’s ATLan-AS technology. Aside from a substantial capability increase – instruments like the auxiliary sight, emergency fire button, muzzle reference system, or the smoke discharger control panel – the main advantage of this solution is the ability to link up with a larger network running on desktop trainer stations, as was demonstrated live.
The stand saw substantial visitor traffic throughout the entire show, not the least because all crew stations inside the container were accessible to the general public. Visitors acknowledged the appeal of a simulation solution that is both deep enough in its fidelity to run a crew trainer, and broad enough to support battalion scale combined arms exercises at the same time. Of all exhibitors at the ITEC this year, only Steel Beasts Professional offered such a unique combination of versatility, fidelity, and the unmatched price point. eSim Games and its partners stand by to offer lifetime extensions to other containerized crew and platoon trainers for any kind of armored fighting vehicle.
As Steel Beasts Professional supports a wide range of fire control systems, e.g. for the vehicle families CV90, Leopard 2, M1 Abrams, M2 Bradley, or various remote weapon stations, a broad range of containerized simulator systems could be refurbished at remarkably low costs, thus extending the lifetime of the crew compartment instruments without having to retain proprietary electronics and legacy simulation software.