Bohemia Interactive Australia (BIA) announced it has been awarded a contract by the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) for an upgrade to VBS4, a virtual desktop simulation for collective tactical and mission rehearsal with support for over 100 training use cases. The award also includes an enterprise-wide licence and supplementary development by BIA to ultimately deliver a customised simulation to the NZDF.

The NZDF also contracted BIA to develop an improved representation of the New Zealand Light Armoured Vehicle, and for continued maintenance of its licence of TerraTools, a terrain generation tool used to create high-fidelity, correlated terrain for simulation.

“We are grateful for the trust the NZDF has placed in VBS for the last 15 years. Our commitment to deliver added value continues in our VBS4 release,” said Ryan Stephenson, managing director for BIA. “The NZ Army’s Command and Control Systems School are real power users of simulation tools and have developed considerable expertise in leveraging simulation as a multiplier to produce training effects for their service men and women. We are proud to continue supporting them in their work.”

NATO member nations such as the UK, France, Germany, and Sweden, as well as several other customers, have upgraded to VBS4. VBS4 provides major improvements over previous versions, including whole-Earth representation and a faster workflow for content generation.