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On Training, Recruitment Uses For Army Games
Posted by
simoniker
on Sun Aug 22, 2004 01:36 PM
from the you're-in-the-army-now dept.
from the you're-in-the-army-now dept.
wgrover writes "The New York Times Magazine (reg yada) has a new longform article exploring computer games funded for training/recruitment purposes by the U.S. military, as previously covered on Slashdot. 'For the past three years, the military has been entertaining the surprising idea that video games, even those that you play on a commercial system like Microsoft's Xbox, can be an effective way to train soldiers.' Aside from training, the games also improve young people's perceptions of the military: '30 percent of a group of young people with a favorable view of the military said they had developed that view from playing America's Army.'"
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US Army To Invest $50 Million In Game Development 68 comments
$50 million in funding has been approved for the Army to establish a unit that will develop games. The purpose of the games will be to train soldiers for various tasks, and they say there is no intent to compete with commercial games. We've previously discussed other efforts by the Army to integrate games into their training programs.
"Col. Mark McManigal, the capabilities manger for gaming under the Training and Doctrine Command, said the selected game must provide low-cost training and must not require large number of technicians to run. It must also have a play-back function for after-action reviews, he said. 'One of the major events for training is to be able to capture all these events, good or bad, throughout the entire scenario,' he said. Trainers must be able to edit the game during play to change the difficulty level or add complexity to an exercise. For example, they must also be able to edit terrain to replicate training areas or combat zones, he said."
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too generic name... (Score:3, Funny)
What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they get to play with cool weapons, kill people and all at no risk of injury or death to themselves. Isnt this the sort of image we should be getting away from, the old military is a fine career and war is a big glory opportunity?
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a lot of "enthusiasts" would be singing a different tune.
(I failed to note having the fear of the situation crippling you mentally as a factor, because it's just a game
Parent
After a series of bad rolls... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
You would prefer to send them into harm's way with no training or preparation for what they're going to encounter? If you Read The Fine Article, you'd see that the simulations under discussion are intended to train soldiers who are already likely to head to the CZ anyway, and I really can't fathom why someone would object to training that potentially allows them to do a better job by reducing the risks to themselves and to innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. Whether we care for it or not, the raison d'etre for a military in the first place is to fight when needed, and I can't fault them too terribly much for wanting to do their jobs as well and as safely as possible.
Parent
False dichotomy. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't an either/or situation.
A far better means of training is what we've been doing for years. One unit is assigned a task and another unit is assigned as OPFOR. That way, you don't get just what the programmer wrote.
The problem is the situation briefly described in the article. We don't even have ammo for training because it is all going to the mid-East.
The best way to train is to have combat units who have just rotated back be the OPFOR. The next best way is to have a unit that has played OPFOR regularly. Video game simulations are way, way down on the list.
Parent
Re:False dichotomy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, these aren't cheap either: breast implants [yahoo.com]
You and I know these games aren't the first choices, but I dunno, it seems with all this stuff it's so easy to take that money and invest it in gel rounds (or whatever you guys use for "play ammo" these days), or even if it has to get that cheap, airsoft rifles, for crying out loud.
That's what really scares me about the military - all these ads, games, and propoganda glorify war in a way that makes it seem all so surreal... And of course, Dishonorable Discharge is one of the worst things anyone can have on their record, Court Marshal for be a deserter has even worse implications... Yet I have no guarantee that I will truly be "ready for combat" at the point that I am thrusted into it.
And since my chances of dying are significantly higher in the military than, say, staying home and playing Counter-Strike and working a civilian job to pay for my internet connection... Have fun!
Parent
Re:False dichotomy. (Score:3, Insightful)
This kind of simulation can supplement FTXs, even if it can't completely replace them.
Sean
Re:False dichotomy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the real purpose is to get soldiers to play these training games in their otherwise free time. It's the military's answer to "edutainment", except it might actually entertain too.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Errr, so when it's GTA3, we vociferously object to anyone criticizing it - after all, it's "just a game" - but when it's a military simulation, we assume that same ability to differentiate between fantasy/simulation and reality is nowhere to be found?
Not to say that you specifically do this, but speaking generally, you can't have it both ways - if people can understand why GTA3 and the like are not accurate reflections of reality, why assume that their critical faculties fail when presented with this?
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
and having played it for a while.. it's not like running around with a real assault rifle _at_ _all_, nor does it give you any fucking clue about what the military is really about. nice free game but that's it. it gives just an accurate view about the military as playing nintendo games gives about IT work.
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, these games probably promote inflated self-confidence, but that's not necessarily an entirely bad thing.
Parent
Former military perception (Score:5, Insightful)
As an ex-infantry soldier - who's actually been in combat in the Middle East - these games have no relation to reality. Combat is hell, it's not a game .
Some of my student employees - I work for a university - were playing America's Army. I watched them for a bit. Though they were not taken up by the adventure, I was still worried. You cannot simulate combat, you cannot simulate the smell, the fear. You can't even simulate basic training. These games are worse than a lie.
I realize that the authors of America's Army have tried not to create yet another Quake - but in the end, that is the result. A nice, quick, sanitary view of military service. All of the excitement, none of the tedium or risks. If you want a real simulation of war, visit a VA hospital.
But isn't this the whole point of the modern US military? Trying to convince the people back in the States that war is a distant, calculated situation, not something up close and dangerous. The Pentagon filters what people see on TV, refuses to show caskets coming home, refuses to discuss the wounded.
Moder warfare is not clean. It requires a degree of courage which playing a video game cannot teach you. To make war trivial and fun is an incredible disservice to all who actually have to fight. Serving in the military is more than being part of an army of one and going to college for free. Though I'm proud to have served, it was terrible. I can't say anything more.
Parent
Re:Former military perception (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree they cannot teach everything about combat, but video games are well suited to teaching tactics and teamwork.
Parent
Re:Former military perception (Score:4, Insightful)
If the games were to replace traditional field exercises and live fire exercises, that would be dramatically bad. But as a supplement, they have the potential to improve military traing a great deal, and save a ton of money in the process- money that can be used to fund end strength improvements, better weapons, more training, more aircraft, more spare parts for existing aircraft, or even funneled to non-defense programs.
I'm certainly in favor of something with the potential to improve the effectiveness of our military while saving money at the same time. The better our military is, the faster it will win wars- meaning less death and destruction on both sides, making it much easier to secure a more stable peace post-war. The cheaper it is, well, it should be obvious why thats a good thing.
Parent
Re:Former military perception (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... how about using the new medium to illustrate stories of how awful warfare is, in order to discourage the use?
No, I don't fault the military for m
Re:Former military perception (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as I would love world peace as much as the next person, the survival of our way of life requires some sort of military. And for the US, since "our way of life" includes being the richest nation in the world, preserving it requires a huge military. At the very least, big enough that
Re:Former military perception (Score:3, Insightful)
We didn't enter World War II because of Pearl Harbor, just as we didn't invade Iraq because of 9/11. Both events were catalysts that allowed those in power to do what they had wanted to do all along.
While I agree completely that World War II was more directly in our best interests (Iraq, vietnam, and afghanistan was just a dumb thing to drag ourselves into), saying we shouldn't attack anyone who hasn't launched an amphibious as
Re:Former military perception (Score:5, Insightful)
YES!
If I were a recruiter, or someone telling recruiters how to recruit, I certainly wouldn't want some nitwit who thinks getting up after he gets shot is as easy as "moving his right index finger up and down". An exaggeration perhaps, but I guess I would want to be recruiting people that are very aware of the dangers of war - these people are more likely to be mentally prepared for situations that require it.
When we sit down to interview someone for our programming team, we give them a test in our primary language (filled with trick questions), then we go over that test with them. Being right all the time is not the goal, but how you accept the criticism you recieve is. Then questions are asked about your skills as a designer. While the person with "all the answers" is not only impossible to find (because 7 or more people are dredging the waters for the most obscure development knowledge they can think of), people with the ability to say, "I don't know, can you explain it?" are just as hard to find.
Some people walk out during the test, some people never call us back because they think they have to be a super-human to work here. We didn't want people like that anyways.
Everyone in our group has a willingness to learn and work with the team, and a set of knowledge that contributes to the team (whether or not they picked it up on the job is unimportant). They are proactive learners and require little to no hand-holding. They aren't afraid to read code and ask questions.
As far as our team is concerned, that's what makes a good developer. Judging that site traffic has at least doubled every year and our systems scale to do it, and that we've gone from a 5-man team to an 8-man team in nearly 4 years time, I think we're doing a pretty good job.
If I was in an infantry division, I'd be damn scared to be next to the guy who "joined because he'd get a free ride to college and played a video game that gave him a 'good idea' of what the army would be like". That guy is nothing more than a meat puppet with a rifle, is and more likely to get me killed than a dedicated soldier who knows what he's getting into.
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, with FSW you command a full 8 man team. You give orders and control fire zones. You don't target anything. There is a lag between the time the order is issued and the troops respond. You also don't control explicitly where they go. You instruct destinations and the troops figure out how to best achieve that. If you plan badly and walk them through a crossfire you have dead troops. It's real simple.
How do you mount an assault down an alley that's covered with a RPG on one end with elevation and infantry on the sides when your team of 8 is on the opposite end and has to make their way down said alley without casualty? You use everything you know.
Combat is primarily problem solving. The solutions are fairly well known. How do you apply those well known solutions when the scenario is a total curve ball?
If you think military training games are purely FPS, you don't know anything about how the military works.
Parent
Re:What a surprise (Score:3, Funny)
Usually it's easy to avoid RPGs and makes it harder for you opponent to snipe you when you jump around non-stop on the battle field.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
No one likes to register for news. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Making of an X Box Warrior
It was only a virtual Baghdad, baking under a virtual sun. As in real life, though, troops were dodging gunfire. I was at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Marina Del Rey, Calif., playing a new X box video game called Full Spectrum Warrior. Leading eight men in an Army squad on a patrol of the war-torn city, I got a taste, however approximate, of why Iraq is such a hard place to be a soldier these days. My job, as squad leader, was to order my soldiers where to go and what to do. First, I sent half of my men into an alleyway, where they immediately came under fire from insurgents hiding nearby. Scrambling for safety, I ordered us to duck into a building, pausing to marvel at the detail of the architecture. I then led us back out onto the street, directing my team to crouch behind a car while we tried to locate the snipers. This was a bad idea. Despite what you see in action movies and other video games, cars do not provide good cover from bullets. The snipers cut loose, and my troops crumpled to the ground. It was surprisingly distressing. In barely three minutes, I had led every single one of my soldiers to his death.
I play video games regularly and, modesty aside, usually do quite well. Though this was my first attempt at Full Spectrum Warrior, the reason that I played poorly was not that I was inexperienced but that the game was not designed solely for entertainment. Full Spectrum Warrior was created by the Institute for Creative Technologies, with help from the Army, to teach soldiers realistic strategies for surviving what the armed forces call ''military operations in urban terrain.'' As a result, the game is unforgivingly precise. The soldiers you command are programmed to respond the way a real soldier would. There are no magic weapons to bail you out. All you have going for you is the real world. ''This is what you'll really see when you're out there,'' said Maj. Brent Cummings, a soldier then stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., who worked as a consultant on the game and walked me through it.
For the past three years, the military has been entertaining the surprising idea that video games, even those that you play on a commerical system like Microsoft's Xbox, can be an effective way to train soldiers. In fact, the Army is now one of the industry's most innovative creators, hiring high-end programmers and designers from Silicon Valley and Hollywood to devise and refine its games. Some of these games are action-packed, like Full Spectrum Warrior. Others, like one that the military's Special Operations Command is currently designing to help recruits practice their Arabic, are less so. All the games, however, speak to the military's urgent need to train recruits for the new challenges of peacekeeping efforts in places like Iraq.
Teaching someone to be an accurate shot is not particularly hard to do. Military trainers have learned that if you put someone through a week of intensive work with a point-and-shoot simulator (not unlike today's commerically available shoot-'em-up video games), he will be reasonably good with a rifle. Teaching judgment, however, is much harder than teaching hand-eye coordination. Today's military is in the market for games that train soliders, in effect, how not to shoot -- how to avoid conflict whenever possible, to recognize danger and find a route around it. As a squad leader in Full Spectrum Warrior, you do not even carry a gun that fires, which makes it the first military-action video game in which the player never discharges a weapon.
Some skeptics worry that if the military's games are not realistic enough, they will encourage bad habits and incorrect strategy -- tactics that work on the screen but get soldiers killed on the battlefield. It is certainly true that many video games for sale in stores would be disastrous for training and would trivialize a task that is literally a matter of life and death. James Korris, the creative director of the Institute for Creative Technologies, said that he once anal
Marine Doom (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Marine Doom (Score:3, Informative)
Games can only do so much (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Games can only do so much (Score:3, Insightful)
Study concludes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Study concludes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have recently seen Farenheit 9/11. There were interviews with tank crews in Iraq. They build the tanks so the soldiers can pipe music over the communication system. The soldiers pump themselves up and kill anything that moves enemy or not. They also showed what looked like infrared targeting. Again, anything with a heat signature got blasted.
All of this is OK if everyone is an enemy. This is not OK if most of the people you encounter are unarmed civilians. Also it sucks to fight along with the Yanks if you are, for instance, a Canadian (in Afghanistan). It seems like the Americans kill more of your soldiers than the enemy does.
I really think the Brits have it right. They are much more likely to treat people as humans. Mind you they have a lot more experience dealing with terrorists.
Video game trained soldiers make fine berserkers.
Parent
Re:Study concludes... (Score:3, Insightful)
The thermal targeting system is precise enough to allow for vehicle identification. Different vehicles put off different images. Some vehicles get hot at the axle of
Can't have it both ways (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would this not apply just as much to Grand Theft Auto and its ilk?
Ammunition to video game opponents? (Score:5, Funny)
Newsflash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Played AA since release (Score:5, Informative)
* There are official servers run by the Army where you gain "honor" for completing missions and killing people. Negative honor is given by shooting your teammates or civilians. This is a good way to see what kind of people you're playing against.
* In order to use special guns, or even to become "Special Forces" you must go through extensive training in single player mode and then sometimes even have a minimum honor to use X gun or Y skill. For instance, to become a medic you must sit in a virtual classroom and learn how to perform CPR, treat shock and bandage players. Once you have this certification you can then become a medic in game and stop people's bleeding (if you don't treat a player they sometimes bleed tod eath).
The AA team just released it's final update for the next year in June, and next year will support driving vehicles and more missions. Overall it's fun and exciting and I recommend it to anyone who likes to play modern day first person shooters. Sometimes it may seem a little slow but you just gotta be patient. Going through the training is boring but it actually does teach you stuff.
Rude Awakening... (Score:5, Funny)
What we really need are some mods for America's Army, like AA: KP and Latrine Duty or AA: Abu Ghraib.
k.
Re:Rude Awakening... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rude Awakening... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is, when you're bunny-hopping around like an idiot, the only penalty you get is that you're not bunny-hopping anymore. No lack of oxygen from exhausting yourself (and all the real penalties that come with that), and I imagine you can still run at full speed (or least if you can't, the time between not running at full speed and running at full speed is not long enough).
And of course, when you've been playing for
Re:Rude Awakening... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
In the near future in a desert far far away... (Score:5, Funny)
Says one soldier to the other: "What the hell are you doing!?
The reply: "I'm camping their spawn point!"
oops...team kill! My bad!
favorable vs. unfavorable. (Score:5, Interesting)
the military follows orders. it's the orders, from the pentagon and the white house, that roll downhill, that give the military such a reputation.
the people in the field rely on trust, teamwork and training--things that pretty much everyone depends on in their day-to-day life. the orders sometimes make them roll their eyes.
i'm gonna give you a long-winded example of what i'm talking about. in the news lately there has been a heated discussion about "atrocities committed in war" and whether "outing" tales of atrocities denigrates the warfighter.
my pop was a US WW2 carrier pilot around japan. as the war winded down, the "offical rules" from washington and the pentagon were "do not engage non-military targets unless fired upon" (i'm paraphrasing).
so my pop had to fly his plane down to fishing boats and stuff, overfly them, to see if they would shoot at him, before he would open up with his machine guns and kill them.
now, another pilot on the carrier got shot down doing this. immediately, the unspoken agreement among the pilots was "sink anything in your search area"--don't bother checking it out anymore.
this was an illegal act. not all fishing boats were armed resistance, but he and the other pilots stopped checking them out. they just started sinking them, in fact anything that moved in his search area was a fair target from that point forward. he wanted to live, not get killed from a "lucky" shot, from some guy hiding under a tarp on a fishing boat.
later, the same thing happened over land. he started strafing groups of civilians, because, early on, he would get shot at from the groups.
so now the questions are:
1) did same or similar things happen in vietnam?
2) do you really have to check out every boat, every crowd, putting your life on the line, when you damn well know what could be coming?
3) does washington and the pentagon make this shit up to cover their ass from a strictly legal point of view, while shifting the blame for anything that goes bad down to the fighters?
I already know the answers to these questions for myself (yes, no, yes).
A lot of people get pissed about number 2) saying you have to obey all orders and die on the field from a lucky shot, that's the way it goes in the military. it's called orders and discipline.
if you get caught, your career is shot; you probably go to military prison. if you keep checking out every boat and crowd up close, you die. the coice is simply one to be made. sometimes
sometimes i see news shots from iraq showing a gunbattle in the street, and kids and adults are standing outside, in the street, watching. ever hear of a ricochet? i wish i kept those pictures, just to send them to people who talk about the poor innocents dying in iraq. here's a lesson--when the shooting starts, get your ass inside!
in iraq, how would you like to be the guys going in an searching houses for suspects? total dependence on teamwork, training and trust. i suspect most of our dead in iraq are from "lucky" shots out of nowhere.
in related news "pwned" now standard military term (Score:5, Funny)
but mainly the use of the word? "pwned" is almost universal in combat.
Two men (Score:5, Interesting)
LTG Stephen Boutelle (Army G-6/CIO 2003-present) [army.mil]
These are a new generation of Army commander who have much more in common with today's geek than you would expect. Both are technology-centric men who are interested in the network and the applications we run on it, including games. I've had the opportunity to meet both men and I have to say that the generational issues regarding technology have been overcome with the arrival of men like this in command. Before them, perhaps the Army's senior leadership was brought up in an era before personal computing. That is no longer the case.
Inevitable..? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of technology is already there, it just needs to mature a bit, let's say 5-10 years. DARPA should have set the Grand Challenge rules so that vehicles could be remotely controlled, with hundred of test targets all over that get tagged by lasers or something similar.
The army would be smart to collect gameplay data from America's Army, etc. I found it curious that I had to submit my training scores to the AA servers before I could even play the game, but maybe I'm just paranoid. It's doubtful that the Army has some grand plan here, but there are definately many who get it. Basically, the Army could recruit the most skilled operators/players, and lots of people would probably be more likely to serve their country in front of a virtual screen as opposed to seeing real combat.
Is it too out there to assume that the gamers who clean up in today's FPS and FSims may find yourself being drafted by the military one day...?
Of the obstacles to be overcome to make remote combat operations, it would seem most are straight-forward to overcome with time.
How do you go up stairs and handle rough terrain? How about a helibot? Take a remote controlled model helicopter, stick on a few cameras, various sensors, GPS, etc. Very much like today's FPS, it seems to me.
Final Fantasy X-3 - America's Army (Score:4, Funny)
---
Rikku: How many people had I already killed? There was those 70,000 hit points worth that I know about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time it was an Al Bhed and an officer. That wasn't supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit... charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in Grand Turismo. I took the mission. What the hell else was I gonna do?
---
Paine: Zero through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't do hit point damage, you can't go out into the world map, you know, with, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to hit with - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Bevelle or something? That's integer RPG math.
---
Tidus: You smell that? Do you smell that?... Firaga spells, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of firaga spells in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill hit with Bahamut summons, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' fiend body. The smell, you know that brimstone smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... a level up. Someday this cut scene's gonna end...
Add a touch of reality (Score:4, Insightful)
You can mod me as flame-bait but this is what new recruits need to know - the consequences of their actions, and indeed the decision to go to war itself, in the eyes of an international audience.
-Nano.
All our little Starship Troopers (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, US foreign policy in the era of preemptive invasions calls for attacking resource-rich nations that pose no threat to us. That's a different thing, morally, from blasting bugs. It's wrong, as 90% of the planet knows.
The mental candy of video games can help to sweeten this awful task. If you look even casually at the top-selling shooters, they're nearly all war games that put the white American soldier-player in the heroic role of killing black, brown and yellow-skinned peoples to "stop terrorism," or "fight for freedom," or any of the other popular cant that our drooling politicians preach. These games are rehearsal chambers for more than killing technique: they incubate a poisonous right wing sensibility, the stuff of America Uber Alles that has plunged us into a senseless and unwinnable war in Iraq.
From the White House to FOX TV to your X-Box: that is the new slipstream of fascism. Because there's money in it. Because it's fun--until, of course, the Wal-Mart job isn't cutting it and, with all the skills you've honed playing America's Army, you sign up for the National Guard gig to make ends meet, and sooner or later find yourself shooting women and children in a real desert.
Mommas (and daddies), don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.
Old News (Score:4, Funny)
Prior art?
I cleared all the mines ! (Score:5, Funny)