Dawid Dobies / Calculator
Tool · XR Training · Defense & public safety

XR training cost and throughput calculator

What an hour on the equipment costs you today, what the same hour would cost on an XR station, how many crews you push through in a year now, how many you would push through with stations added, and what is actually holding you back. Put in your own numbers, because only yours mean anything here.

Calculator

What XR stations would do to your throughput

Everything here is your assumption, not a benchmark I am selling you. The formulas are written out at the bottom so you can check every step, and the cost of an XR hour is derived from what you enter rather than assumed. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere.

Your training programme

120
40
1600
55%
Further right means more hours in XR and fewer on the equipment. Whatever is left stays on the equipment.
1,400
Fuel, ammunition, servicing, vehicle depreciation and range time. Not the instructor, he is counted below. Example figure, put in your own.

Instructor time

40
1
Usually one, because he has to be physically at the vehicle.
12
Supervised from a single console, with the system flagging where to look.

XR stations

6
80
Hardware, software, training content, integration and support across the whole service life.
5
900
Cost of one hour on the equipment €1,440 running cost €1,400 plus instructor €40
Cost of one hour in XR €21 depreciation €18 plus instructor €3
Crews per year today 40 without XR stations
Crews per year with XR 88 equipment is the limit
Cost of training one crew today 57,600 EUR for the whole programme
Cost of training one crew with XR 26,384 54% lower
Target is reachable.
How this is calculated
  • cost of an hour on the equipment = running cost + instructor cost ÷ crews per instructor
  • depreciation per XR hour = station cost ÷ (years in service × hours per year)
  • cost of an hour in XR = depreciation + instructor cost ÷ stations per instructor
  • hours on the equipment = hours per crew × (100% − share moved to XR)
  • hours in XR = hours per crew × share moved to XR
  • crews per year today = equipment hours available ÷ hours per crew
  • what the equipment allows = equipment hours available ÷ hours on the equipment
  • what the stations allow = number of stations × hours per year ÷ hours in XR
  • crews per year with XR = the smaller of the two above
  • cost per crew = hours on the equipment × cost of an equipment hour + hours in XR × cost of an XR hour

The model assumes one hour in XR replaces one hour on the equipment across the share of the programme you select. XR does not replace live fire or anything that needs hands on the real vehicle. Where that substitution holds and where it does not is exactly the question worth settling before you buy anything, and it is the first thing I would look at with you.

Reading the result

How to read this without drawing the wrong conclusion

Look at the bottleneck, not the saving

The most common mistake is to look at the drop in cost and consider the matter settled. What matters more is what limits throughput. If the calculator says equipment availability is the limit, adding more XR stations changes nothing, because you still cannot push more crews through the part that has to happen on the vehicle.

Check where the saving actually comes from

Where running the equipment is expensive, almost all of the saving comes from fuel, ammunition and range time. Where it is cheap, for instance when you are comparing XR stations against an existing simulator rather than against a tank, the cost of instructor supervision becomes the deciding factor. Those are two completely different conversations, held with different people in the organisation.

What this calculation does not cover

If the result surprised you

That usually means one of the assumptions is worth talking through with someone outside the programme before it goes into a document. Most often it is the share of the programme that can genuinely be moved, or the cost of a station where training content and support were left out.

Talk through your own numbers