The Army National Guard's (ARNG) training strategy prescribes the use of a platform-independent, low-cost, PC-based appended trainer to support the Guard's Armor and Infantry forces to train individual, crew and platoon gunnery at the Armory location. The National Guard is accomplishing this by upgrading the current Abrams-Full-crew Interactive Simulation Trainer (A-FIST) with PC-based image generation and developing the Full-crew Interactive Simulation Trainer-Bradley (FIST-B). The identical Instructor/Operator (I/O) console and open architecture allows training support for both combat vehicles at a fraction of the traditional procurement costs. The combination of these training devices has been renamed the Appended Conduct of Fire Trainer or A-COFT.

Application of open architecture technology allows the ARNG to provide increased gunnery training opportunities for individuals, crews and platoons, producing increased unit readiness at a fraction of the time and funding of conventional training methods (list some of these). A common hardware and software baseline to these and other gunnery systems provides the added advantage of reduced lifecycle costs and "welded" upgrades with Army-approved trainers, such as COFT.

The development of the A-COFT program has lead to the reuse of traditional gunnery training matrices while moving away from a hardware-dependent system. The emergence of PC-based technology may provide the groundwork for the utilization of SIMNET to meet the maneuver training requirements of the ARNG. Networked with the A-COFT, the PC-based trainers will provide increased training opportunities at an Armory location, overcoming the distance and time constraints of ARNG training.