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Real Warriors Trained In Virtual Worlds
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Feb 14, 2006 05:55 PM
from the new-meaning-to-weekend-warrior dept.
from the new-meaning-to-weekend-warrior dept.
The Washington Post has a piece looking at the U.S. military's increased reliance on gaming for training the next generation of soldiers. From the article: "'The technology in games has facilitated a revolution in the art of warfare,' says David Bartlett, the former chief of operations at the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office, a high-level office within the Defense Department and the focal point for computer-generated training at the Pentagon. 'When the time came for [a solider in training] to fire his weapon, he was ready to do that. And capable of doing that. His experience leading up to that time, through on-the-ground training and playing 'Halo' and whatever else, enabled him to execute. His situation awareness was up. He knew what he had to do. He had done it before -- or something like it up to that point.'"
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Hesitation (Score:5, Informative)
Using CG generated images helps significantly by enhancing the realism and lowering the threshold of resistance to "trigger pull".
What computers cannot teach however, is the NOISE and physical presence of a firefight.
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Interesting)
A 5.1 Surround System with a subwoofer set on high should fix that problem. When I recently started a Quake 4 game, and firing the machine gun in the game, I had no sound. Turned up the volume, still no sound. Unplug the headphones... WTF! I was on the floor as the machine gun firing at high volume blew me out of my chair. I was surprised that the police didn't surround my apartment since it was so OMG LOUD!
Re:Hesitation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hesitation (Score:3)
I'm sitting here with a bottle of nice wine and no one to share it with, a DVD and no one to watch it with, and fifty bucks worth of roses without the girl I wanted to give them to.
Exactly how would a ripped pericardium be worse than my current situation?
Re:Hesitation (Score:5, Informative)
Trust me..... No Surround system I have EVER seen will simulate the experience of standing next to/behind/infront of/below a M60 when that sucker goes off. You feel it as much as you hear and see it. The German contingent that trained with us also had an equivalent H&K that is unbelievably loud and fearsome. Even more so than the SAW. Even the combined fire of a squad with small 5.56mm based platforms (M4 and M249) can make for some pretty impressive sound sight and smell. Nothing I have ever seen can simulate that.
Parent
Re:Hesitation (Score:2)
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Insightful)
You may understand intellectually that you are tissue paper, but until you feel it via the shockwave of sound, it will never be entirely real to you
Surround Sound Doesn't Kill (Score:2)
Re:Hesitation (Score:2)
Sure they can - I witness this all the time. I have my super-amped stereo system belting out the sounds of laser blasters, rocket launchers, grenades, and machine guns, and inevitably this evolves into a situation that can be somewhat adequately described as a "firefight" when my wife comes in the room throwing things at me in an effort to silence my combat simulations.
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Funny)
Ever fire a gun? It's not just the noise, it's the kickback that you need to get used to. Plus actually aiming the damn thing.
I doubt real people will let you friendly-fire them two or three times before they start to get pissed off...
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Funny)
You and the Vice President....
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hesitation (Score:2)
I will tell you that it is in fact, true. Desensitizing people to violence can be accomplished virtually. However, there are no statistics that relate a person's likely hood of committing violence after playing video games (which is what the question they anti game people are talking about). The real problem with violence is the availability of small arms. They are everywhere in the world and are actually much easier/cheaper to o
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hesitation (Score:2)
In other words, people have a natural resistance to killing another human being.
You give me the creeps. I hope I'm not the only one.
Re:Hesitation (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. "The moment of truth" is a euphemism that is used as part of the training to further separate the soldier from the possible reality/finality. One of the major problems that any civilized society has however, is the re-indoctrination of soldiers back into civilian life after having those soldiers serve in combat. It is a real psychological/social/medical issue that many of our troops are having to face right now.
You give me the creeps. I hope I'm not the only one.
I am sorry you feel that way. I myself am not a soldier, but a scientist now and I would hope that you could reserve judgement for when you truly understand a person. Many of our soldiers are simply carrying out their jobs and doing what they are trained to do. It's a job. If you have a problem with their job, then talk to the people that direct soldiers and deliver the policy and strategy that sends soldiers to work.
Parent
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Interesting)
From
Maybe it's bullshit for you (Score:5, Insightful)
I never had to shot someone, but I know that in a combat situation I would have done it without hesitation.
For most armies, the most important and difficult task they face is in training their young soldiers to accurately and deliberately fire their weapons at enemy soldiers. S.L.A. Marshall's classic work "Men Against Fire" first addressed this issue over 50 years ago, and although the statistics he cites in the book have been vigorously disputed, the gist of his argument is still true. So modern armies spend an awful lot of time and energy doing the sort of training you mentioned - running around in the rain and dirt and snow and mud, creating situations that are as close as possible to real combat. If you want to talk about successful training, don't look to video games. Look instead at the NTC [army.mil] and JRTC [army.mil].
One of the things that no video game (in particular) or sterile target range training environment will ever reproduce is the uncertainty of combat. You are not operating in a pre-defined, bounded killing zone. Your squad leader is shouting something and you're trying to hear what he's saying. You hear the crack of an AK nearby, but your hearing is so screwed up that you can't tell where it came from. You're hot. You're tired. Sweat is running down into your eyes, forcing you to swipe at your face every few minutes with the back of your free hand. Your flak vest is trying to strangle you. There is dust all over the place, making it that much harder to see. There are friendlies nearby. They're supposed to be on your flank, but are they? There are enemy combatants to your front, but they've hidden in a crowd and they don't wear uniforms. Is than an AKS or just a big stick in that kid's hands? Your ears are ringing from the M60 being fired right next to you, and when you can't hear things, it takes one more of your sensory inputs away from you. Now you're relying purely on your vision. What if that guy waving at you at the intersection 100 meters away is a friendly, who lost his helmet somehow? Is he shouting? What is he shouting at you?
All of this business about virtual combat training is crap. There's a reason small unit combat courses aren't virtual. There's a reason Ranger School, BUD/S, and the Q Course aren't virutal. You train to fight. The closer you can replicate the real experience in training, the more likely you'll do the right thing reflexively in real combat.
Still, even with all that training, I find it difficult to believe that anyone truly "knows" what they will or will not do when forced to fire a weapon in combat. The military training makes it more likely that you will react as you have been trained, but there is only one way to find out for sure.
Parent
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Oooh, you're so tough. I'm so impressed.
I was a medic in Desert Storm (and a civilian ER tech at a hospital nicknamed "The Knife and Gun Club," which was in many ways a comparable experience) and I can tell you that if you'd ever seen the effect a bullet has on a human body up close and personal, you might not be so sure.
And before that, I was an infantryman, so I went through the same kill-kill-kill
Re:Hesitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Killing civilians gains the resistance recruits. Killing friendlies lowers moral and damages alliances.
The result is what you see in Iraq. A very quick and effective offensive in the first few weeks followed by a long, drawn out occupation, with a lot of unnecessary fr
Columbine ... (Score:3, Insightful)
As I recall, the kids who did the Columbine massacre had a higher percentage of accuracy than many sea
Tis true! Video games teach real life lessons (Score:5, Funny)
wait (Score:5, Insightful)
What does Jack Thompson have to say about this?
An armchair soldier's perspective... (Score:5, Funny)
Military better watch out.. (Score:4, Funny)
Finishing the Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
"He was the perfect drone."
Well, that's how I imagine the next sentence to go. Talking seriously about war and somehow working in Halo doesn't give me the vote of confidence I would expect to get from the military. It simply conjures up images of kids playing FPS's and thinking that it's somehow even remotely close to the real thing.
Re:Finishing the Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
The average 18 year old is barely smart enough not to get (s
Re:Finishing the Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
A few examples:
Fatigue: Physical stress is the one people always think of, but food/water/sleep deprivation are multiplying factors. The difference between a hero and a coward can be full belly and a good night's sleep. This element is often mixed heavily with the others.
Battle noise/Fog of war: Live ammo fire and manuever assaults with mortars/artillery (or artillery simulators), machineguns firing over your heads (usually from a hill that allows you to hear the crack of bullets), etc. This is often against plastic pop-up targets (a.k.a Crazy Ivan).
Enemy fire/cover: This is probably the hardest to simulate. Paintballs and Simunitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_bullets/ [wikipedia.org] are one strategy. Paintballs are undesirable because you want to use your actual weapons. Simunitions are undesirable because it requires expensive weapon parts and simunitions aren't even as accurate as paintballs. Of course, neither of them simulates a near death experience.
Rifle range - marksmanship: accuracy, speed, distance shooting (500 yards with no scope and a man-sized target)
Simulations - Inexpensive way to play out complex scenarios. This is newer, but it can be surprisingly creative. The digital portion is only one piece, many Slashdot readers are familiar with what you can do with that end. I've seen some complex scenarios that involved a four man simulation in one room playing military scenarios on a big screen, communicating via radio to a mortar team practicing in a field. This scenario also had a corpsman (medic), referees (point out casualties), and it involved physical training before and after you were in the simulation.
By the time you get behind your rifle to execute the scenario you are dripping sweat and breathing heavily. In the middle of the game you might have to fireman carry your buddy to the corpsman (medic) or call in fictitious artillery/air strikes.
It isn't combat, but it is good training.
Parent
Americas army... (Score:3, Informative)
very role based, strategic shooting game...& above all its free
$$ profit
Re:Americas army... (Score:2)
Re:Americas army... (Score:3, Informative)
[chill]
The Geneva Convention will have to be modified... (Score:5, Funny)
So, on the one hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, which is it?
Re:So, on the one hand... (Score:2)
"When the time came for him
The video games are just an effective supplement to and replacement for some aspects of regular military training. I find it very plausible that FPS and related game
Training isn't cause-and-effect; it's context (Score:4, Insightful)
Training in a video game prepares soldiers for firing on real humans in battle because they know that is what they are training for. A soldier is a professional killer. They have already signed up to kill people, and are being trained in how to do that. The simulator is just preparation, preparation for a real-life job. Mentally preparing soldiers for the difficult task of firing on another living human was done long before the video game, and this is nothing more than an extension of that training using technology.
This is nothing at all like playing a game casually at home. Could a student bent on shooting up his school use an FPS to mentally prepare themselves, like the soldier? Sure. Could a mentally unbalanced person try to carry over their virtual endeavors into the real world? Sure. But in both cases, whether deliberately or not, you have a person blurring the line between the game and reality. This person was already dangerous/i> and video games aren't doing anything that any number of movies, books, or just imagination couldn't do.
If you are capable of distinguishing between reality and fantasy -- and any sane child over age 9 should easily be able to do this -- then there is no danger of video games causing you to shoot up a school. If you make the conscious decision to use video games to train yourself to kill, then you are either a soldier training for war, or a psychopath training for crime. In no case are video games to blame.
Parent
Re:So, on the one hand... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a fundamental difference between using combat simulators for training, and combat simulators for casual entertainment. Proof? Military training is very effective at producing soldiers who are able to pull the trigger in the real situation, but isn't 100% as many soldiers still have problems firing on a real human. The desired goal is to blur the fantasy of the simulator
Why just the soldiers? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why just the soldiers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh, because my SUV doesn't use virtual oil!
Parent
Enders Game (Score:3, Interesting)
At what point do you draw the line? (Score:4, Interesting)
We all know that "simulations" - be it games, VR, or whatever - are getting more and more realistic. And that trend will continue until things are VERY realistic. We all also know that many simulations are based on a wide variety of behaviors that society would not want to encourage. (ie: killing someone in Doom is fine, doing it in the real world is obviously bad)
So how do you draw a line between these two? Or is there even a line? Obviously a simulation is just that -- a fake environment that mimics a real environment. But from the sound of this article, simulations have a very REAL effect on those who are participating in them - at least according to the military. So their impact stretches beyond their own environment and "spills out" into real, quantifiable behaviors, actions, and feelings.
So, I guess my question is this: is there ever a point where we have to draw some lines about what is and is not allowed in simulations? Be it violence based. Or sexually based. Or behaviorally based. Is there ever a point where we have to say NO?
Re:At what point do you draw the line? (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not, except for designing safety protocols for the Holodeck so nobody really gets hurt. Aside from that, no I think we will continue to try improving simulation regardless of subject matter, to the point of it being BTL (Better Than Life), and that the motivation to pursue virtual reality will continue until we get there. If we never do get there, we will probably still keep trying as long as our species exists. We started all this a long time before co
Re:At what point do you draw the line? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you kill someone with a gun in real life and they die, that's bad. But if you kill someone with a gun in a game, and they don't die in real life, that's okay.
If we need to draw a physical line, we can draw a nice outline around the chips in your computer. Until knives and bullets come flying out of your computer chips, the line has not been crossed.
Now as for the next question: "Is there ever a point where we have to say NO?"
You are free to limit your own mind, for the sake of protecting yourself from whatever horrible creatures of the imagination you want to avoid choosing for yourself. But that does not give you blanket authority to determine the operation of other people's imaginations, no matter how much you fear the creatures of their imagining.
Punish them for their actions, but not their drawings. I mean words.
Glad to be of service.
Parent
Thank you Full Spectrum Warrior (Score:5, Funny)
All thanks to you, Full Spectrum Warrior!
Trigger Happy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Might this cause an entirely different problem -- Trigger happy soldiers?
Ultimately, success in almost any occupation situation depends on making the people accept the new government. If soldiers are too trigger-happy and don't mind shooting people, you can end up with more innocent 'collateral damage'.
Dead non-combatants can make the surviving members of the family more hateful of your army. Some of them will go into the resistance, and the army now has more people to worry about -- so they become more trigger-happy. It quickly becomes a death-spiral.
This would explain at least part of the problem that US soldiers are having.
Not true. this is what actually happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to confess this actually happened to ME, I witnessed a real robbery, one of the robbers was shot (in the leg) a few feet from me, I couldnt even MOVE. Let me get this straight: contrary to Jack Thompson's and Government theories I did not grabbed a gun from the robbers and blew them away while dropping catchy lines or checking some imaginary score, I was PARALYSED, convinced I was going to get killed any minute, and tried to stay as low as possible (just like any guy would) then as soon as things were calmed I almost puked in the bathroom.
Soldiers have to go trough basic training as always, games such as AA have been used for years only to teach soldiers to strategize during combat, and specifically AA teaches soldiers to play by the book other than going out solo, they have to comply every task they are commanded or lose.
Dont even try to get the "Murder simulator" on me you cant even save your OWN life with that "training".
Re:Not true. this is what actually happens. (Score:3, Insightful)
One only needs to play a racing game and then take a cruze to get it.
On Killing (Score:5, Interesting)
Firing rate? Contrary to what you may think of the typical Civil War battlefield, most soldiers did not fire their weapons. On a big field running with blood, cannons booming and everyone screaming, most soldiers would not fire a single shot. Battles would end with literally thousands upon thousands of loaded muskets on the ground. Fast forward to WWII, where we have the image of brave American soliders firing automatic weapons under terrible conditions. The nonfiring rate among infantrymen was 80-85%. Further, only 1% of airmen accounted for over 40% of all downed enemy aircraft. Most pilots did not shoot anyone down or even try to.
The Army decided to look into this. What they found out is that people generally don't want to kill anybody, and would often rather die themselves, even in battle when they are scared to death, than shoot someone. Not that the soldiers were cowards. On the contrary, the same soldiers that would not fire a shot would repeatedly take terrible risks to rescue a wounded comrad. But the Army wanted them to pull the trigger and hit something, and they figured out how. The only way someone that scared would be able to do anything in that situation is if they had been subject to operant conditioning. They would need to program the soldier's midbrain to fire the weapon, since the forebrain is no longer in use under that much stress. They began to make training as realistic as possible in terms of exposure to violence, and make the thought/action of killing part of a soldier's reflex, so that when the bullets started flying, the American soldier would respond.
It worked. During Korea the nonfiring rate among infantrymen rose to about 55%, and by Vietnam it was an amazing 90-95%. The American infantryman was a killer on the battlefield, and only later did the Army realize that fully 98% of soldiers who experience close combat and pull the trigger would be psychiatric casualties. The 2% that weren't mentally crippled are people who, outside the military, would be locked up.
The author makes an excellent study of how this sort of operant conditioning for violence exists outside the military, in movies and video games. Before you knee-jerk and say that violent video games have no impact on the children who play them hours and hours a day, and who then go watch violent movies and television, you should check out this book. It's hard to dismiss the data out of hand.
Re:On Killing (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice myth-spinning there. But ignoring your regurgitated lefty talking points, how would you like to send armed forces into a situation when they are likely to be under fire? You know, like when they're working with the UN to disarm a bunch of Serbs slaughtering Muslims in Bosnia? Or when you have armed UN peacekeepers protecting the progress of an election in east Africa? Or would you rather that there were no armed forces other than those armed by the thugs, killers, cleptocracies, and medieval-minded extremist theocratic movements? If you cannot imagine any circumstance when western democracies might need to field armed forces, then you're spectacularly naive. If you do recognize the need for armed forces, then you have to recognize the need for the people in that role to be able to act to defend themselves and accomplish what they're setting out to accomplish. And sometimes that means shooting someone before they shoot you.
Parent
Experience with combat simulations (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm active-duty Army (only for a few more days, hallelujah), but I'm not infantry or a "combat arms" MOS. I'm Signal, and have likely spent more time debating OSPF vs EIGRP than being on patrol. MOS25F/Node Center FTW.
As I said earlier, this was back in 2003, so I'm sure the tech has improved a bit since I went through.
Typical exercise involves 6-8 guys in a darkened room. The simulation is projected at one end of the room, and we are arrayed directly across from it. We are provided with M16s, and one person each gets an AT4 anti-tank rocket and M16/M203 grenade launcher. I don't recall if blanks were used with the M16, or if firing sounds were simulated.
Simulation starts with a nostalgic orange/white 3dfx splash screen. They wouldn't let me near the console PC, so I'll never know if it ran on a Voodoo5 6000.
Everyone is in either a crouched or prone position, and we are greeted with picturesque dunes. A Soviet-style armored vehicle rolls across the screen, slowly meandering towards our posision. Nobody does anything. Bah, everybody's frozen up, I thought. I take the initiative, and start unloading my M16's magazine into it. Sure enough, everyone else does the same a few seconds later.
Fun fact: 5.56 mm rounds have no effect on armored APCs. After being enlightened of this by the instructor, the simulation is run again. This time we get infantry swarming at us from over and between the dunes. We engage, and shoot at squad based groups for a few minutes. A running tally is maintained, and we are told our scores at the end. As expected, we were all wildly inaccurate (I blame sensor calibration), with the exception of the M203 guy, who managed to rack up a sizable percentage of kills. Who needs accuracy when you have grenades?
Since then, training has been heavily modified to focus more on "modern" threats, but I don't think I should go into particulars.
The two greatest lines from MGS2: (Score:4, Funny)
-- Solid Snake meeting Raiden, referring to that whiny metrosexual on his first mission with nothing but VR training under his belt.
This was simultaneously a very humorous and clever way of smacking the player into realizing that there is a vast difference between war in video games and real war; yet, that the wars of video games assist real-world warriors by desensitizing them to violence... The blunt irony of that conversation was probably lost on more people than it should have been, and I imagine a lot of impatient fools skipped over it as being "just another damn cutscene"...