By GI Korea on January 5th, 2009 at 1:37 am

Pentagon Channel Report on Military Simulation Systems

• Vik
  7:37 pm on January 4th, 2009 1

  are you serious???

• Jason (kimchi-icecre
  7:54 pm on January 4th, 2009 2

  Interesting report. I fail to see a difference between the traditional target silhouettes used on firing ranges to simulate human figures vs. digital graphics representations of human bodies in the training game/simulator. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with the simple fact that training is designed to program muscle memory and behavior to do the unthinkable (kill a human) when in a combat environment–but this is what soldiers have to be able to do or they die, and at the same time put their buddies in danger by their own inaction. The politics, to a degree, have to be separated from the training methods.

  I think the problem is that the social issue of violence and its relationship (or not) to computer games is being confused with how the military trains its personnel. There is a lot of confusion regarding first person shooter games, RPGs with a high degree of violence, and how people perceive kids/teens/adults are getting a similar kind of 'programing' (read 'training') in terms of how the brain and body can be conditioned to do physical harm and lower the socialized taboos that the public education system and other mediums try to instill in the development of children as they grow up to become 'citizens' (the military has to undo this and the repetition and realism of games achieves the goal) The key difference being one medium (computer games) is for entertainment and the other (training simulators) is for training people to kill other people–the overlapping technology and ethical issues are where things start to get muddy . . .

  J

• Unsatisfied LG DACOM
  11:56 pm on January 4th, 2009 3

  This is all horse s**t. Sure, training on a simulator makes soldiers better marksmen before they go on a qualification range. What the CPT is saying is not new knowledge. We had a row of MACSs (Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulators, plastic M16s connected to old Ataris) set up in my platoon's bay in basic training. The last time that I saw them in use, some time ago, it was the same thing but connected to Super Nintendos instead of Ataris. Practicing fires at simple silhouettes on a screen to compare shot groups did me a lot of good. The simulators are good for refining certain things, like breathing or trigger squeezes, but they're junk for clearing a room.

  Is something fancy, as what's portrayed in this video, really a step up? No. They're propaganda. They're the Army's clumsy attempt to connect with the Nintendo-Nofriendo generation(s).

• GI Korea
  12:15 am on January 5th, 2009 4

  I agree with LG-DACOM and this is why I stated simulators are great training enhancers. Every unit I have been to that has had a vigorous pre-markmanship training program where simulators were part of the training, the marksmanship scores increased.

  Likewise convoy live fire simulators are another great tool to train soldiers with. A convoy defense is a complicated thing to do and using simulators to work out training kinks before doing an actual convoy live fire once again is a great training enhancer.

  As LG-DACOM stated these simulators are nothing new. There has been pre-marksmanship simulators since the day of Super Nintendo called a MARKS system. Bradley and tank crew members have been doing pre-gunnery training in simulators for as long as I can remember. The only thing that is changed is that the simulators are getting more flashy and are being marketed by the Army to the public.

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