Russian soldiers train with "boom" shouts vs. high-tech Western drills

Russian television showed soldiers practicing urban combat (also known as black tactics), where shots are simulated by shouting "boom-boom-boom." It’s worth noting that real shots can be heard in the background, but they are most likely fired safely into bullet traps and serve only to create the "appropriate atmosphere."

Training soldiers through man vs. man combat is considered the best form of training because the opponent is not a passive shooting target. Unlike a static target, a human can adapt to what the other side is doing, similar to real combat. Below, you can see a video of the Russian training.

In contrast to shouts simulating shots, in the West, simulators utilizing weapon replicas, often based on airsoft replicas, are increasingly used. The movements of the weapons are continuously scanned and transferred into a virtual world based on special software (a popular simulator base is the military game Virtual Battle Space), displayed on a large screen or virtual reality goggles.

This method allows significant savings during the initial training but doesn’t replace reality. This is why the highest levels of training still involve man vs. man drills using real weapons equipped with conversion kits for ammunition types like UTM or FX.

This can be described as military airsoft or paintball, where the fired projectiles have a muzzle energy of around 2-10 ft∙lb (rubber or aluminum paint-filled bullets). This is more than in paintball, but the hits must hurt. The only required protection is for the face, hands, and neck.

Due to sanctions, Russians have very limited access to this type of equipment, which can only reach them through intermediaries from countries such as Kazakhstan. A few months ago, through this country, components for the production of Western sniper ammunition and parts for maintaining Su-30SM aircraft were delivered to Russia.