U.s. military prepping for virtual warfare

[Mister Frag 0]

From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,75497,00.html

U.S. Military Prepping for Virtual Warfare

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For 60 years the U.S. military has conducted training on Vieques, an idyllic island off Puerto Rico.

Aircraft carrier battle groups have used the island for target-practice, by shelling the Vieques bombing range from ships and planes. Since 1941, U.S. military men and women have learned from live fire experiences at the island, seven miles southeast of the main Puerto Rican island.

But on Monday, the military began dropping the last of its practice dummy bombs over the island. Although U.S. military planners have forever claimed that Vieques is the best place to train for war, as of May 1, troops will begin a new virtual way of training.

Demonstrations and politics there have finally forced the military to leave Vieques.

Politicians, non-governmental organizations and groups such as the Dominicans for Justice and Peace and the North American Dominican Justice and Peace Promoters, have protested U.S. military exercises there for 60 years. They say the military activity has caused a higher rate of cancer and other health and environmental hazards for the island’s 9,300 inhabitants.

Tensions became particularly high in 1999 when militants invaded the training range after the April 19 death of a Puerto Rican civilian security guard in a bombing range accident.

The island's government eventually agreed to let the Navy resume bombing, using only "dummy" bombs for another three years. They also gave Vieques residents a vote as to whether they want the Navy to leave.

National figures such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson traveled to the island to get a first-hand look at the effect the military's presence was having on the island's residents.

The Navy said that once Puerto Rican protestors began sabotaging military exercises, the cost to run the operation shot up to $11 million a year.

Although U.S. military chiefs tried to smooth the tensions with island leaders, negotiations failed. Finally, President Bush last year declared that "they don't want us there" and ordered the exercises to stop as of this May.

For now, the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet has had to find training alternatives. One answer may lie in video game technology — computer simulators — to keep the fleet combat-ready. And all it takes is a laptop and a mouse.

"Technology is allowing us to change the way we do our training, and we need to take advantage of that technology," said Adm. Robert J. Natter, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

The technology is called VAST — for virtual-at-sea-training — and the Navy is using it in war games at sea off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Using VAST, a designated area of the ocean can be made to resemble downtown Baghdad, or the mountains of Afghanistan, with a simple click of the mouse.

"Instead of firing at one target year in and year out, we would be able to lay down a simulation that would provide us with the real targets that we might be going against," Natter said. "It will provide the primary objective of making our forces much more combat-capable, so that what they're encountering in combat would be very closely simulated in the way we train them."

Being able to set up these grids anywhere is becoming increasingly important the closer the United States and its allies comes to a war in Iraq.

Here's how it works.

On board a destroyer like the USS O'Bannon, a series of computerized buoys is launched into the water to create a target zone. The buoys use sensors and global positioning satellites to measure how close the ship's weapons come to hitting their targets.

"You get feedback almost instantly. It's only a couple of minutes before you get feedback on the rounds on target," Natter said.

After the buoys are set, sailors load their shells into the O'Bannon's 5-inch guns. The gunner turn on a firing switch and the shells are ready to be shot. After all the shots are fired, the portable buoys are retrieved, ready to be used again and again, anywhere in the world.

"I think this is the best thing that's available right now for training outside of being able to shoot at dirt somewhere," said Chris Rice of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. "That seems to be tougher and tougher to do now, so we may have to rely more and more on tools and technology in the future."

The simulators are only two-dimensional now, but soon, they'll become three dimensional, able to more accurately depict things like altitude and terrain.

"I would envision that in the next five or 10 years, it will be just as realistic as going into an actual target," Natter said. "So I would expect to see improvements year after year."

But even in its early stages, the simulator systems provide a certain comfort and confidence to commanders and crew alike.

"It just provides that much more training for us, in case we're called up to provide shore bombardment for the Marines, or anyone who's out there," said one fire control man. "And you're not going to be able to have good quality rounds going out the barrel unless you have the training for it. And this provides exactly that."

"They're actually getting real live training for their money," Natter said. "And any time you can train before going into harm's way, that's the best thing for any crew."

The technology is a huge step forward since some of the Navy's top people have said there was no way anything could be better than live-fire training in Vieques.

The virtual war games are a product of the Institute for Creative Technologies. These games could last anywhere from six to eight weeks and could be carried out three times a year. And while this road to freedom now passes through point and click technology, military officials say the end result is still the same — doing whatever it takes to win a war.

[DarkLight 0]

Hmmm, it might be nice for tactics and learning what to do but stuff like aiming and fighting under real pressure can't be learned with that game...

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Mister Frag @ Jan. 15 2003,02:39)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The virtual war games are a product of the Institute for Creative Technologies.<span id='postcolor'>

ICT games. Make sure you view their video.

[Oligo 1]

Emm, why doesn't U.S. Navy just conduct live fire exercises on U.S. soil? There must be uninhabited areas on U.S. coast that can be used for such things.

I mean our navy fires on special areas reserved for just that and these areas are part of our country.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 15 2003,14:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Emm, why doesn't U.S. Navy just conduct live fire exercises on U.S. soil?   There must be uninhabited areas on U.S. coast that can be used for such things.

I mean our navy fires on special areas reserved for just that and these areas are part of our country.<span id='postcolor'>

Maybe because they now better anticipate the health risks to adjacent populations and the political upheaval that will result.

Checked cancer rates lately in that part of your country?

[Oligo 1]

I checked and there seems to be no increase in the rate of cancer or other illnesses in the areas with military shooting ranges for heavy weapons.

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 15 2003,15:56)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I checked and there seems to be no increase in the rate of cancer or other illnesses in the areas with military shooting ranges for heavy weapons.<span id='postcolor'>

Hey, I'm gonna email the US Army, suggesting they contact you to find out if they can share the area in your country.

[nolips71 0]

you can tell war is comeing because yesterday 6! f15s were bombing the range. ive not seen that many at one time since the kosovo crisis