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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.'"
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
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Was Marine Doom the first example of using a video game as a military training tool or does something predate it?
So if simulation hones skills and makes later real life training more effective, breeding filial feelings and approval, why would it only apply in ostensibly positive situations?
Why would this not apply just as much to Grand Theft Auto and its ilk?
Whoa. Did they include the part about leading POWs around naked on a leash and falsifying death certificates to hush up torture? I mean, shouldn't a computer game give you the whole fun of being in uniform?
And most of all if you get killed the game should remove itself from the HD and prevent further installations :)
this distinction of military, "favorable vs. unfavorable", is kind of bullshit.
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.
anyone remember ender's game? yeah, this is peanuts ...
doom as training was a joke, i now tons of people that could kick the army's collective butt in a game of deathmatch
LTG Peter Cuviello (Army G-6/CIO 2000-2003)
LTG Stephen Boutelle (Army G-6/CIO 2003-present)
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.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Yeah it sucked, but does anyone remember the Robin William's movie Toy's? The whole plot was about the military using a toy company to create video games which would develop skills useful in the military. It sounded farcical 12 years ago.
There's more to training soldiers than simply shooting. Take a look at games like SOCOM or Full Spectrum Warrior. The focus is less on the ability to put cursor over target and press button and more on active thinking in analyzing a situation.
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.
It's a cool game and pretty one of the most realistic FPS games I've seen
So, I would have to assume you have real-life experience walking through mazes and shooting stuff before it kills you? After all, how could you determine the level of 'reality' in a game, if you do not have real experience to compare it to? If this is not the case, you are still comparing it to a fantasy of what you beleive real combat to be like.
If it does not happen in the REAL WORLD, it is still a simulation -- a fantasy. Even the best REAL WORLD training is just that -- just another simulation. Be it in the dojo, or basic training, you will not really know what you will do, or what it is really like until the rubber meets the road.
That being said, I'm sure these games are good training tools, but its nothing a few hours in reality can't cure .
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
With drones such as the Predator seeing lots of action (which are now armed), and iRobots out in the field (not armed yet), it is only a matter of time before humans remotely control a significant portion of our military might. Sure, you have to worry about securing the control channels and there are lots of bits and pieces that need to get worked out.
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.
And of course, like AA : Slaughtering Civilians In Falluja :
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
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.
1. the US military has been using video games for a while to convince people to do things. When I was in high school 6 years ago my friends brother was recruited into the army with the promise that if he signed up five of his friends he'd get either a Playstation or a N64 (i forget which) and five games.
needless to say he couldn't sign up five friends, and got nothing but a few years of military service, and for all i know is in iraq now.
2. as the computer technology for all modern combat increases the ui changes; these games are a really great way to get kids used to the ui of some weapons systems; and also awesome market research on what the people playing their game find as intuitive.
this will all go into producing easier to use weapons; and a generation of soldiers who can't distinguish the ui if their simulations from the ones in the helicopters that actually kill people.
Maybe wasting money on video game development and ads that will never convince me to join the service could be better used to provide ammo to you guys.
Also, these aren't cheap either: breast implants
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!
I see your point, but I don't think it applies. You really oughta play Full Spectrum Warrior and see what it's really about.
The goal is to keep your peeps alive first and foremost, and ultimately to shoot the bad guys. Most of the game's tactics and mechanics revolve around surviving and evading fire. Most of the tactics used in the game are rendered entirely useless when your targets are unarmed and not trying to kill you, like in a mass murder situation you described.
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You must not have played America's Army before because BOTH teams are American. It's setup so that whatever team you are going up against looks like the enemy (terrorists, etc).
This would be an excellent point for you to show us all where the Army has made such a claim. After all, if they don't, or if they insert appropriate caveats about the nature of reality versus simulation, your argument sort of falls apart, doesn't it?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Reminds me of the 80's movie The Last Starfighter (which I rather liked). A league of aliens seeded the habitized planets of the galaxy with video games to find potential candidates to pilot ships to defend the galaxy from a common enemy.
A rogue recruiter put the video games on Earth, which was not an active planetary member of the league (we're too primitive and all that). Yet a teen proved to be so good at the game (he "won" it) that he was drafted to help defend our galaxy.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.