The Griffin is a light tank prototype that General Dynamics would like to sell to the Army. But since it's not real yet, the company is using virtual reality to show Army leaders what it can do.



To do that, they brought an Oculus Rift virtual reality system to the annual Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, D.C., where anyone can immerse themselves in simulated combat to see how the Griffin moves and shoots -- and they can do the shooting.



"We bought this and I wanted to bring it here to kind of show people what the difference is between that and the other Strykers," the vehicle that the Griffin is trying to complement, spokesman Mike Peck told Army Times on Monday.



Users can sit down with the headset and be dropped into an urban combat scenario, firing at enemies and blowing holes in buildings, in the infantry-support role that General Dynamics envisions for the vehicle.



And there are other implications for the headset, he added.



"We want to show people that industry is not anti-innovation," he said. "We've been using 3D capability and immersion capability for human-factors engineering for a long time. This is just an upgrade to it."



For now, they can use it to demonstrate their programs, but the services have looked into the technology for training and simulation. There's potential to use virtual reality to train on weapon systems or teach maintainers how to fix equipment.



"At some point in time, this may become a way to do that training and modeling and sim for those systems – we're just not there yet," Peck said. "The Army's not quite ready for it, quite honestly. But I wanted them to know that we are."



