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The Pentagon's Ultimate Home Theater

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lovely-lovely-fort-sill dept.

Steve Silberman writes "I was the first reporter to see the inside of a new battle-simulation system designed by the Institute for Creative Technologies, a 'military-entertainment' think tank sponsored by the Defense Department. Starting in September, Marines, infantrymen, and Air Force pilots will train for war in Matrix-like rooms in Oklahoma simulating urban and desert environments, with surround sound and photorealistic rendering of bombing runs and other scenarios. It may or may not be the future of military training, but it's certainly the future of home gaming. My article, 'The War Room,' will appear in the September issue of Wired."

4 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. How long by Lanzaa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How long will this take to get to home gaming though?

    Or will these leave millitary use and get sold to private companies to have people pay to play in them?

    --
    Never Smoke A Banana.
  2. Replacing training with intution.... by freedom_india · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The goal of the punishing routines and endless drills was to replace thinking with instinct so that at the sound of gunshots, a soldier would automatically return fire.

    Intution is of no use when there are snipers hidden in a street to kill you and you panic. That is the army tries to replace intution with training.
    As a man under fire, my friend used to say how many times training and automatic reflex saved his life instead of intution. if pentagon thinks they can replace training with intution they are building a bad army.

    --
    "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
  3. I've seen it once or twice by Bruha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's called Snow Hall I believe and it's at Ft Sill in Lawton, OK. I have friends up there that work at the place but they've never mentioned any signifigant upgrades. But being the military it does not mean that it didnt happen and they were probably not allowed to tell anyone at the time. I'll have to visit sometime to check it out hopefully.

  4. 4 Years too early!! by Big+Yak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I joined the Air Force as an officer 6 years ago, and just left a few months ago. When I originally went to Carnegie Mellon University, I took multiple classes in Virtual Reality. Unfortunately, the AF would not allow me to take the time off to pursue a Masters in Virtual Reality there... as they needed my computer skills immediately.

    I guess I was just 4 years early... those skills are in very high demand, now.

    --
    -Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned for /.