ArmA Gamers fight real Soldiers in VBS2

[jerryhopper 286]

The army uses war-games to prepare soldiers on a wide range of combat-situations.

In attempt to research the best use of war-simulations within the dutch army,the 'Defense and Security' department of TNO organized on 13 September a gaming contest.

Five experienced civilian players took it up against 5 trained military personnel.

The army uses war-games to prepare soldiers on a wide range of combat-situations.

In attempt to research the best use of war-simulations within the dutch army,the 'Defense and Security' department of TNO organizes on 13 September a gaming contest.

Five experienced civilian players will take it up against 5 trained military personnel, who play the game following 'army doctrines'. TNO is currently selecting volunteer for this contest on the Internet. The researchers want to see the essential differences of of both teams strategy, to see if they actually make different choices and learn from failures.

Read the whole story at :

http://www.armedassault.eu/Misc.-A....S2.html

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

Gamers will probably win due to a difference in mind-set, and possibly, familiarity with the game. What the 5 soldiers might want to do to address a situation, they won't be able to do because of limitations in the mission or something.

Honestly, I don't see what this is supposed to prove? It's like putting a professional paint-ball team against an infantry squad with multiple deployments to combat zones. The paint-ball team might win at paintball, but will fail horribly at the real thing. Different mind-set and rules.

[Beagle 684]

There is another failure in loig which makes this just look like a "Marketign Gag"

Just for example... I'am a civil player that had been a recon soldier 13 year ago.

wouldn't this falsify the test result.

Aditionalyy I dont think that the experiences in both worlds could be portet over to the other.

Virtual Soldering is far from real solderring..it's more like the simulator training...just for example..you can't train a experienced tank crew just in the simulator.

In this simulator is doesn't really count if its a SF-team and a football team pitted against each other.

Too many situations are not to be correctly shown in the simulator, which constitute an interaction of the group in combat. That reaches from hand signals up to know-eats the characteristics of your comrades. I think in this case the Gamer will win... simply from experience with the difficulties of the virtual world. More it would interest me which background such a match have... political?

[DBO_ 0]

Fantastic Jerry "Mr arma " Hooper.

I like this angle you have presented its very nice and different from normal game related articles,you have presented it very well too ,thanks i enjoyed the read.

OOH,you can almost smell the Jealousy ,lol.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Honestly: if these soldiers try to use real combat behaviour in this game, chance are high they'll all die while switching weapons and waiting for the animation to end. That's what's killing me all the time.

Even if they win against the players what is there to learn from ?

So, yeah - a marketing gag basically.

[Heatseeker 0]

Well i think its a fun initiative, no respawn, obj based adversarial missions can put the gamers under quite a bit of stress.

Sadly we dont have much of that going on, its either coop or dumb adversarial out there, no middle ground.

I dont think this experience reflects much of the training potential of the software anyway.

Anyway well done Jerry and the others .

[celery 8]

A very good and interesting report, although the amount of typoes was terrible at times.

[dm 9]

A very good and interesting report, although the amount of typoes was terrible at times.

I believe the plural of "Typo" is "Typos"

[celery 8]

A very good and interesting report, although the amount of typoes was terrible at times.

I believe the plural of "Typo" is "Typos"

I hope my point wasn't missed because of that.

[jerryhopper 286]

Marketing gag.... *sigh*

About those spelling errors, im not native english.

if you want, you can send a spellchecked copy to hopper.jerry@gmail.com

damn, if you only knew how long it took to get a decent text.....

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Nice stuff as usual Jerry. Thanks

I knew the ArmA players would win

[icebreakr 3159]

Jerry: you're famous but you already know that, I guess

Here's our coverage of your article:

http://vojak.si/modules/news/?news_id=404

[KilJoy -SFG- 0]

Very interesting article thanks, lol @ losing connection on a lan.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

I still don't see how this exercise contributes to research

on "how best to use war-simulations". What possible

relevance is it that kids use particular strategies to play

their little toy-soldier game?

I suspect it's a covert recruiting strategy. The Dutch TV

pululates with recruiting ads for their armed services just now.

Jerry, were there "Geschikt/Ongeschikt" boxes on those forms

you had to sign?

[jerryhopper 286]

I still don't see how this exercise contributes to research

on "how best to use war-simulations". What possible

relevance is it that kids use particular strategies to play

their little toy-soldier game?

I suspect it's a covert recruiting strategy. The Dutch TV

pululates with recruiting ads for their armed services just now.

Jerry, were there "Geschikt/Ongeschikt" boxes on those forms

you had to sign?

The 'geschikt/ongeschikt' campaign is rather old.....

And if this was a covert recruitement stunt, why didnt they got MTV to report this? MTV actually asked to report this, which was a no go.

Try search the internet about this specific event.

There is only one report about it, and thats from me. So i guess that makes me 'Geschikt'

Btw: about that 'Kids' part, whoever told you those five guys were kids?

[-Snafu- 79]

I still don't see how this exercise contributes to research

on "how best to use war-simulations". What possible

relevance is it that kids use particular strategies to play

their little toy-soldier game?

I suspect it's a covert recruiting strategy. The Dutch TV

pululates with recruiting ads for their armed services just now.

Jerry, were there "Geschikt/Ongeschikt" boxes on those forms

you had to sign?  

The 'geschikt/ongeschikt' campaign is rather old.....

And if this was a covert recruitement stunt, why didnt they got MTV to report this? MTV actually asked to report this, which was a no go.

Probably because MTV are more concerned about music than video games. Moreover when me and my mates are going through the music channels we always skip MTV because it plays no actual music and is filled with utter shit TV programs like 'My Super Slutty 16'.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

The 'geschikt/ongeschikt' campaign is rather old.....

Saw some of those ads on the TV last night. Unless by "old"

you mean "long running".

Edit: For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Dutch TV. On

Dutch TV they run adverts trying to recruit kids to their

armed forces. Each ad' starts with a scene of a civilian doing

something that demonstrates some aspect (or lack of)

discipline, leadership, assertiveness, technical aplomb etc.

Two boxes at the corner of the screen read "Geschikt"

(= "suitable") or "Ongeschikt" (= "unsuitable"). Depending on

the civilian's actions or demeanour one of the boxes are

ticked, upon which the scene cuts to show how that

attribute is needed for a career in the Dutch army. Wouldn't

make we want to join up. In my day recruiting ads showed

BFO* tanks careering across the N. German plains "Join the

Professionals"

*BFO is a British Army technical term. It means Big F*ck Off

[Inkompetent 0]

Fantastic article! Thank you, Hopper!

[wika_woo 182]

Very interesting stuff..

I would love to see some video footage from the military guys..

[jerryhopper 286]

Very interesting stuff..

I would love to see some video footage from the military guys..

A video would be VERY hard to get.

but i am doing my best to get the 'group picture' of us all.

[Second 0]

Heh heh, bit of nitchpicking:

What is real soldier? I find name of this thread a bit misleading To my understandment Jerry Hopper has got militarytraining (yup, Jerry said so in one interview) and i do believe that some other of these "gamers" got it too.

Should name of the thread be: "Old school beats sh*t out of new school!" With "old school" i'm ofcourse referring to days when there was not such thing as simulators, but the training and Making Men To Be Soldiers were done in real life and in real terrain

[shinRaiden 0]

A few things that stand out to a not very impartial observer :

Yes, there was a marketing angle. In fact, that was likely the primary purpose of the endeavor. The difference, was that it was inside sales, not outside. If they were trying to target the general public, as a recruitment or political support tool, then yes, they would have wined and dined MTV-E and everyone else in.

So instead, it should be fairly clear, in light of comments in the interview, and the greater global transitions in military modernizations - specifically the training component of the various Future Soldier programs, that the intended 'customer' at this early stage is the internal decision makers, who make the determination if virtual training at the individual infantryman level is an effective training tool, and whether it is sufficiently advantageous in all aspects.

In military training environments, they have a limited amount of time and resources to reach qualification in occupational specialties, and as a result constructive squad behavior training as opposed to strictly technical qualifications can be short-changed.

The ability to have a deployable, scalable, integrated, and dynamic training platform, has substantial theoretical benefits. However, as expressed in a series of international panel discussions on the applicability of game-based virtual training, there is little or no statistical data that is quantifiable by traditional methods for validating the absolute and relative effectiveness of Game-based training.

That's where most organizations are at. Some organizations, such as the USMC and ADF, for logistical or budgetary reasons, have been obliged to accelerate evaluation and deployment compared to other organizations. Across all organizations however, a common problem is the lack of integration into core operational training programs. As a result, in many cases Game-based training can be relegated to 'time-filler' or remedial roles. However, in organizations that have adopted wide-spread deployment of squad-level simulation systems, they have found entirely new training cycle processes that have resulted in substantial statistical advantages over conventional training methodologies.

In referencing the term 'constructive simulation', I refer to concepts not entirely common in the larger gaming community. For example, as was evidenced in JerryHopper's report, the functional capability and proficiency of both teams improved dramatically with adequate inter-squad communication. In some cases, that may be the entire objective of the exercise, to assess the squad's communication and coordination behavior, or to evaluate the team, squad, or platoon leader's leadership capability. Another scenario may be to deliberately remove the squad leader without warning, to analyze the team's response. In many cases, traditional gaming objectives such as "clear the building" or "kill the target" are in actuality only the 'story' to give a scenario progression, and are at best only secondary objectives.

In evaluating training methodologies, military organizations have very complex and structured analysis protocols. They have established extensive standardized training procedures with validated and predictable statistical outcomes. They know exactly what the attrition and proficiency rates will be for processing x number of y grade units with z time and efficiency. In most cases, when you introduce some "new cool thing", there is not the option to supplement what's known to work. If it works, why do you need to add to it? You don't. So then is the more realistic situation, that if you want to add A, you will have to eliminate B.

In that case, the "new cool thing" of infantryman level virtual training has an implementation cost, an operation cost, and a question as to what the outcomes may be. If the profiency or attrition outcomes exceeds prior protocols, by what amount is required for it to be functionally competitive? What is the offset ratio between increased costs and increased returns?

Additionally, most of the western nations have made some form of commitment to implement sweeping transitions in their organization, structure, and methodologies. As a result, there is a unique opportunity in this window (2000~2020) to in effect 'reinvent the wheel' with creating entirely new ways of implementing training programs. Instruction can be immersive, collaborative, portable, and all the other buzzwords you care to throw at it. It takes time, but the results are beginning to show substantial rewards.

One other nugget of goodness, the whole article in general, but there's special reference on the last two pages.

UK MOD Virtual Training

[alext223 0]

Mr. Hopper, good article man. I looked fwrd to seeing what the outcome was and was not really surprised that the gamers won after reading that the soldiers had very limited experience with VBS 2. But I wonder one thing, what if there was to be a rematch, but with the soldiers to actually be familiar with VBS 2. What would be the outcome? Would their training show in their game play? Would they be able to understand the tactical situation better than the gamers thanks to the money invested into them? I really do wonder. But another thing, in a book I read not too long ago, "From Sun Tzu to Xbox, war and video games" by Ed Halter, in one of the interviews with a sim company in the US, they said that they are trying to create an experience for the soldier so when he or she ( Most likely he.) enters combat and he encounters a situation on which he experienced in the virtual world, they will use that to their advantage and know how to overcome the situation. What I wonder is: Is that possible? Does it REALLY work? I work as a Chef and CAN NOT think of any way that the virtual world can recreate the intensity, let alone the stress, pressure and heat, of feeding 100 people, three courses, in the space of two hours. Yes there may be some things that may help me, but in all honesty, it just means jack shit at the end of the day because this is the real world, not a world of 1's and 0's. When under extreme stress, some humans freeze, I have seen it many a time with people new to my line of work. Hell I've even done that when I first started. I have never served in any arm of my country's defense forces and pray that I will never have to, but, I if I may guess, and to the few of this community whom have served I am sorry if I am wrong by being presumptuous , no matter how much virtual training you may receive, (Please bear in mind that I am only talking bout the small niche of virtual training and not the physical. ) it really doesn't do shit at the end of the day. The screaming you get stays in your head, not the LMB. (Oh, and the screaming's I've copped over my years! ) I am open to opinions on this matter as I have only my experiences to speak of and IMO, that really is not enough to go on. I would like to hear more on this matter and I look forward to see if my hypotheses is coming out of my arse or if it actually has a valid point. If you have experiences in such a situation, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Yous sincerely.

alext223.

[Second 0]

Videogames can, by my experience and facts that i've read and discussed, increase leader's tactical skills in some manners (but not all). But grunt get's next to nothing out of it. Well, difference would be in forexample Steel Beasts which teaches basics of some certain weaponsystem (like Leopard), but what forexample ArmA can offer to infantry?

Wasting valuable traning time to virtualtraining is bad, but instead getting lasersimulators to weapons and heading for trainingground is far better. I do believe this is somewhat official line of my defenceforces, and i do believe that it's quite good one. There's only half year to use to grunts and year to leaders, so traning needs to be used efficently to make soldiers who can even somehow adapt to wilderness, ways to behaving in it (camoflage etc) and fight in it. Skill to move/live in typical terrain of area, physical fitness etc. have vital importance.

Ofcourse there's hardwaresimulators, but to my knowledge this far Steel Beasts is only "software" simulator used, and it has only limited use at start of tanker's traning to teach the very basics of operating tank.

I'm purely talking about basictraning. Hard to say how forexample US uses VBS.

[celery 8]

Videogames can, by my experience and facts that i've read and discussed, increase leader's tactical skills in some manners (but not all). But grunt get's next to nothing out of it.

I disagree. I have a feeling that the gaming generation, especially the FPS one, is/will be one of the most versatile the military will yet experience, apart from their worse than average fitness.

With games like Hidden & Dangerous, Red Orchestra and Flashpoint you get insight into soldier level tactics and techniques first by trial and error, later with experience. Multiplayer games also give a good idea about the unpredictable but loosely patterned "human factor" which the gamers in the article seemed to grasp while the grunts acted quite stiffly by the book assuming that the enemy lets them operate that way.