A quantitative simulation of ion beam sputtering and related collision cascade effects is essential for applications of ion beam irradiation in thin film deposition, surface treatment and sculpting with focused ion beams, ion beam smoothing of surfaces and ion-induced nanopattern formation. The understanding of fundamental ion solid interaction processes relevant for nanostructure formation, ion-induced mass redistribution, sputter yield amplification, ion beam mixing and dynamic compositional changes requires reliable simulations of ion-solid interaction processes in particular at low ion energies. In this contribution we discuss the possibilities, the key benefits and the limitations of three popular binary collision Monte Carlo simulation programs (SDTrimSP, TRIDYN and SRIM). The focus will be set to the calculation of angle dependent sputter yields, angular distribution of sputtered particles, sputter yields for compound materials, sputter yield amplification effects, as well as the extraction of parameters relevant for modeling ion-induced surface pattern formation from vacancy and recoil atom distributions. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.