The Hoffman tank gunfire simulator is a pyrotechnic device manufactured by Diehl Defence, used in military training alongside non-gunfire training systems such as

MILES The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

. It consists of an array of tubes (usually nine, though the variant for the Leopard 2 has seventeen) resembling a multiple

grenade launcher A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially-designed large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The mos ...

into which explosive cartridges are inserted: these generate a flash, sound and smoke plume designed to imitate the firing of a

tank gun A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are high-velocity, large-caliber artilleries capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high-explosive anti-tank, and cannon-launched guided projectiles. Anti-aircraft guns can also ...

Description

The Hoffman simulator mounts to a bracket which is mounted somewhere near the front of a tank's turret. On the

M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare and now one of the heaviest ta ...

it is clamped to the fume extractor, while on recent variants of the

Leopard 2 The Leopard 2 is a 3rd generation main battle tank originally developed by Krauss-Maffei in the 1970s for the West German army. The tank first entered service in 1979 and succeeded the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the West Germ ...

it is mounted on the frontal turret armor. The system is manually loaded and fired electrically, with firing linked to the trigger of the tank's main gun. The system is referred to as the "Simulator Tank Gunfire: Main Weapons Effect Signature" in US service, with the cartridges referred to as Simulator, Flash, Artillery M21.

Safety concerns

Over the course of 20 years of service with the US Army, the Hoffman Device acquired a reputation for being prone to accidental discharges: while it is only supposed to fire when triggered electrically, there were numerous cases where static electricity or other local electrical fields resulted in uncommanded firing. A series of internal documents obtained by CBS News in 2003 included statements that "the ammunition is always unsafe" and saying many of the devices were "an accident waiting to happen." In early 2004, modifications were made to Hoffman simulators to prevent uncommanded firing, and a notification was circulated stating that any unmodified devices found in stock should be destroyed.

References

Tank guns {{artillery-stub