About us

Virtual-Shot is designed and built in Australia by a team of Australian Army Veterans

Virtual-Shot Origin Story

The Idea for Virtual-Shot started back in 2010 when one of the founding members was serving as an Infantry Officer in the Australian Army. He  had just been appointed as a Mentoring Team Commander tasked to deploy to Afghanistan. He had 4 months to prepare his team for a 9 month deployment to an isolated patrol base in Uruzgan province Afghanistan where they would patrol with, mentor and train the Afghanistan Army. 

Reporting received during lead up training indicated that engagements with Taliban fighters were sometimes at close range, but we’re mainly between 300-800 meters, and were usually ‘shoot and scoot’ tactics (which means firing a few shots at long distance before withdrawing to avoid close contact). To prepare for this, the found member wanted to improve his soldier’s marksmanship skills with rapid target acquisition drills to increase first round hit probability at distance.

This was difficult due to limited ammunition and range access to perfect their skills. They made best use of the simulation facilities on the Army base, however getting access to these facilities was also difficult, because the simulation center could only accommodate 10 soldiers at a time and on a base of 5000 people it was almost always booked out months in advance.

At the time, the founding member thought they needed an individual shooting simulation to enable constant and repetitive marksmanship training…. However the laser based shooting systems that were available were not sufficient, and they needed something else… something that they did not have.

Fast forward 5 years, the founding member had returned from Afghanistan, left the Army and made a career change into software development. He soon learned that the technology to create a personal shooting simulation system, the kind that he had wanted for his soldiers, was feasible with the advances in mobile technology, so he started a company with some friends and set about building it…

Daryl

Daryl has fifteen years military experience, specializing in Infantry, Training, Operations Management and Simulation. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Information Systems and Management and holds diplomas in business and teaching. After leaving full time service, he has worked predominately in Web & Software Development.

Matt

Matt has nineteen years military experience, predominantly in Special Operations, and Training Institutions. He holds a bachelor of Information Systems and diplomas in Management and Training. He has significant experiences in strategic problem solving and military modernization. Notably, he worked with a number of foreign military and law enforcement services on the development of training systems and technological adaptions and innovations.

Simon

Simon has over ten years of military and private security contracting experience, spending the majority of his time as a sniper in the Infantry before leading mobile protection teams providing security for Australian diplomats. He has deployed and operated in multiple theatres, including Afghanistan and Iraq with the Australian Army and as a private contractor. He has extensive experience in training and development of both domestic and foreign forces in Infantry skills and is particularly passionate about marksmanship training.