Exclusive: Meet the FN VictoR – the possible future of military firearms training

BFBS Forces News has been granted an exclusive look at a new bit of kit that could increase the chance of a soldier identifying and hitting their target.

The FN VictoR is the size of a small tactical torch that can be mounted onto a pistol or rifle.

It uses a camera computer system with artificial intelligence to identify multiple targets, telling the firer what they are and whether or not they hit or missed them.

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Did you hit or did you miss?

Jay Thomas, director of innovation at FN America and a former commander in the US Army, describes this as "operations-changing technology" that could save lives if it gets into soldiers' hands in training.

"If you think about the force-on-force training, knowing and understanding that we can not only identify a hit, we can identify a hit, miss and body segments within the camera view," he said.

"You can add in medical training, you can add in casevac training. All of these things are going to create not only a more lethal force, but a better trained force to sustain and enhance our lethality and our ability take care of our people."

Target identification

FN says the VictoR is designed to seamlessly integrate with any firearm equipped with a Picatinny rail.

"Being able to identify your target and know where you are, and know where your muzzle is moving in and out, and tracking as you create your shot, that is very important on the marksmanship side," he explained.

"If you're doing either force-on-force training or you're doing live operations... seeing where targets are within the field of view of the camera, knowing how far they are, using passive estimation on distance, and also knowing what types of targets, be it vehicles, drones, personnel, a fence post, as long as the camera can identify what it is, you'll know the difference."

This means the device can help differentiate friend from foe, and can also identify the angle to a target from the baseline.

Mr Thomas says the VictoR could be used during a live operation to help commanders call in extra help if required.

"The system can talk to a network system for operations to say 'hey, we're in a firefight – we've identified this many targets, we only have this many personnel – it might be useful to send us some help'," he said.

For ops as well as for training

It's being hailed as a game-changer that will enhance the training environment.

​"So the VictoR itself, the whole idea behind it is to use this as an AAR [after action report] function," said Mr Thomas. "So in the US Army, we use after action reports – that is where the VictoR shines."

The device can show what a soldier was doing as they were firing, and can also show how they were moving within a section, and if any corrections need to be made, then this can be done before they go out on a live mission.

But how accurate is VictoR?

"The system has about an 80% accuracy within people as detecting human targets," said Mr Thomas. "Detecting actual targets is higher, because they're flat and they sit still... but as people are moving and as targets are moving it makes it vastly more difficult."

And just how close this is to being used on the battlefield?

"Operationally, I think we're probably still a few years away," he said. "For training-wise, we're a few months."

He said the VictoR was already being used for marksmanship training for force-on-targets, while force-on-force training was likely within a year.