The Pros & Cons Of Video Games For Combat Training -- Breaking Defense
This summer, the US Army’s research & development command, RDECOM, has kicked off an experiment to try infusing the latest commercial video game technology into the Army’s most important combat simulator. The new tech brings real potential for better military training – but also a very real danger.
Famous for powering games like 2012’s Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Epic Games, Inc.’s award-winning Unreal Engine is already used for military software ranging from medical simulators to the free game/recruiting tool America’s Army. But what the Army wants to do this time is much more ambitious. It wants to use the latest version of the software, Unreal Engine 3, to improve the revolutionary but still somewhat stilted Dismounted Soldier Training System. Unlike earlier simulators that trained aircraft pilots in mock cockpits or tank crews in dummy vehicles, DSTS is the Army’s first attempt at immersive virtual reality for ordinary infantrymen – who after all suffer the vast majority of casualties in war.
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My Comment: I do not know how effective this training program is .... but I know computers and programming .... and I know that a lot of money (a hell of a lot of money) was spent in constructing this platform.
1 comment:
The army already (and I would assume still does) use VBS, which is a realistic military sim, similar to ArmA. So that was going on for years, nothing new there. They also had a virtual command chair for carrier training using VBS, which they would sit in and practice carrier landings and chopper landings.
This just seems an evolved state of that.
"The Army’s temptation, however, is to use simulators to replace live training." - Now that's a mistake if I ever saw one. Another prime example of what happens when you make serious cut-backs.
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