On Training, Recruitment Uses For Army Games

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.'"

Comments

What a surprise

[Timesprout]

Aside from training, the games also improve young people's perceptions of the military:

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how often one's character gets shot and/or dies in America's Army even when you're a relatively good player, I fail to see how it'd make me want to join the US Army (or any other, for that matter). ;)

Re:What a surprise

[general_re]

Yes, they get to play with cool weapons, kill people and all at no risk of injury or death to themselves.

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.

Re:What a surprise

[spangineer]

Realistically, that's the image that soldiers need to have, in some respects. I've heard that the male brain doesn't fully mature until about the mid-twenties, and before this time, men are less capable of seeing the final consequences of their actions. I'm 20 myself, and I notice this all the time in my own life (and in my peers) - I think I'll be perfectly fine doing whatever, and I'm usually (but not always) right. The military needs people who are going to take risks, not those who are going to sit around weighing pros and cons while a battle is going on. If a low-class soldier thinks too much, he won't obey orders and battles will be lost. Risk is absolutely essential for anything of value to occur.

Yes, these games probably promote inflated self-confidence, but that's not necessarily an entirely bad thing.

Re:What a surprise

[warriorpostman]

From the Simpsons:

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you. -- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"

Re:What a surprise

[LGagnon]

This isn't about training; it's about marketing. He was not talking about actual military personnel being trained; he was talking about the kids at home who are playing the game for fun. These people have not decided to go into the military yet, but are already being trained to see it as harmless play, when in truth it is far from that.

Re:What a surprise

[gl4ss]

well the comment was more about the PERCEPTION of what military work is, the perception that the young people have is easily affected by games like americas army, military even having pr(MARKETING) staff for stuff like that is scary/useless enough. and yes, the whole point is to get the young people to 'join the navy' using pure marketing techniques, which is why they assist movies that display pentagon is good fashion too. now, if your (professional) army needs that kind of marketing to get people in.. well.. there's something wrong already then and the answer is not to confuse people into joining, that's not really how you find 'few good men'(but if you really need couple of trigger happy jocks then why not).

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.

Re:What a surprise

[general_re]

These people have not decided to go into the military yet, but are already being trained to see it as harmless play, when in truth it is far from that.

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?

Games can only do so much

[x-naga]

Games do develope a lot of good skills, eye coordination, aiming, and so on and so forth. But nothing beats the real experience. You can have a soldier that's been training on games for a long time but the second he's on the battlefield, he could be the first to go because of lack of experience.

Re:Games can only do so much

[OverkillTASF]

Aiming? The mechanics of moving a mouse so that what you want to kill is in the center of your screen is far from something I would classify as teaching "aiming". Pointing a gun at something is the easiest part. Then there's breath control (No, AA:O's "breathing" does not count), stance, and most importantly (and hardest to master), trigger control. As much as I played video games, it did absolutely nothing for my ability to aim a rifle or pistol. Only through practice with the actual weapons would you get any better with them.

But maybe that's just because I don't own a BFG 9000 or plasma rifle...

Will bunny hopping make my legs stronger? :-)

Study concludes...

[MrDomino]

Like much else, brainwashing starts in the home.

Re:Study concludes...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems in training a soldier has always been getting him to be willing to kill someone without hesitation. The more you can make the experience like a video game, the easier it is. If you can't see the face of an actual human and identify with him then you don't feel like you are actually killing a real person.

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.

Re:Study concludes...

[signingis]

Can they pipe music over the comm system of the tanks? Yes. Were they build for the express purpose of blasting Slayer and Metallica so that the soldiers would get juiced up and ready to kill? No. It's just an auxiliary line in. You'd be surprised at what a bored combat soldier will rig up for entertainment in their vehicle or bivouac.

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 the wheel, others get hotter on the tire itself. Different vehicles have different placement of exhaust pipes and these show up on thermal sights as well. I know for a fact that the Marine Corps does normal (daylight) Armed Forces Vehicle Identification (AFVID) and they also review thermal images of enemy and friendly vehicles so they can tell the difference and not just go blasting away at anything that moves. You are being very obtuse in your criticism, Mr. AC.

/me lights a bonfire and sings "Kumbaya". :)

Newsflash!

[th0mas.sixbit.org]

This just in: Propaganda is effective. Now to Bill for the weather.

Former military perception

[bstarrfield]

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.

Re:Former military perception

[BoneFlower]

The point of the games is to teach tactics and teamwork. They aren't attempting to simulate the full reality of military life(haven't heard of any head cleaning games), but the can and do give a good exercise in basic tactics and teamwork in a system that the trainees can get into easily, and at far lower cost than a traditional exercise. That leaves the rest of the training budget to go to preparing for the rough realities of combat, rather than spending thousands just to teach them when to drop and have a firefight with an ambush party and when to just charge headlong into them.

I agree they cannot teach everything about combat, but video games are well suited to teaching tactics and teamwork.

Re:Former military perception

[BoneFlower]

True, live fire exercises are still needed, but with the games, they will get the basic tactics down, and live fire can focus on doing it without shooting your buddies.

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.

Re:Former military perception

[Erik Hollensbe]

No disrespect to your service, but you're saying that -- in order to get people to join the military -- we should present it in the worst light possible?

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.

False dichotomy.

[khasim]

"You would prefer to send them into harm's way with no training or preparation for what they're going to encounter?"

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.

Add a touch of reality

[nanoakron]

Does the latest version include the Abu Ghraib expansion pack?

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.