U.S. Army practicing by playing.

[baddo 0]

Is that VBS on their screens?

Looks very ArmA-ish so I think it's VBS.

( It's from article: Bad conduct gets Army recruits promoted faster, study shows

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/30/military.waivers.ap/index.html )

Does anyone know if Armed Assault is used for this purpose? Is it even allowed by its license?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

That's the ole VBS2 thar.

[Kirby 2]

ArmA wouldn't be allowed. But that's VBS2.

[baddo 0]

Why wouldn't ArmA be allowed?

[DrBobcat 0]

I do not believe ArmA is allowed to be used in any commercial context. Conversely, that is -exactly- what VBS2 is meant for.

- dRb

[0311 0]

Meh, tactical games will never be useful as a real training tool, and I've never actually seen this in real life other than on gaming websites.  I only see it useful for planning and setting up specific missions.

But then, that's what terrain models are for. Just my .02 cents

[mattxr 9]

Meh, tactical games will never be useful as a real training tool, and I've never actually seen this in real life other than on gaming websites.  I only see it useful for planning and setting up specific missions.

But then, that's what terrain models are for. Just my .02 cents

Of course it cant compaire with RL but it can prepare the troops for what might happen and gives them training into preperation of what they can do incase such a situation arises. etc

[dslyecxi 23]

Meh, tactical games will never be useful as a real training tool, and I've never actually seen this in real life other than on gaming websites. I only see it useful for planning and setting up specific missions.

But then, that's what terrain models are for. Just my .02 cents

Funny, I've met quite a number of people who use such training tools "in real life" who think that they're "useful as a real training tool".

I'm sure any of the people from the BIA team (VBS2) could tell you the same.

I'm not sure where your hate-on for such things comes from, but it's shortsighted and doesn't reflect the current realities of military training, and where it's heading more and more with each passing day. There are so many benefits to VBS2-style training, I wouldn't even know where to start in describing them. It's another tool in the training toolbox, and it provides solid, "real" results.

[walker 0]

Meh, tactical games will never be useful as a real training tool, and I've never actually seen this in real life other than on gaming websites.  I only see it useful for planning and setting up specific missions.

But then, that's what terrain models are for. Just my .02 cents

Hi all

Rehearsal is a key method of learning any task.

That is why all animals and that includes hominids such as our selves play. That is how a lion or tiger learns to hunt and how a child learns which bricks go in which holes or how to build walls with Stickle bricks.

My Guess is your parents never let you play with mechano or Lego as a child.

In order for them to let you play on the big jets nowadays they make you do hours in the simulation. The first flight simulators were just go carts with levers but they were used.

All the above are training simulation just some are of higher fidelity. Block shapes, Stickle bricks, Lego, mechano, 3D Program, Auto-cad.

As to whether the military thinks it is worth while; I point you to IITSEC and ITEC and the hundreds of simulation magazines and websites. They are full thousands of simulation of companies making lots of money, enough to support those magazines websites and trade fairs and make huge profits, while proving you 100% wrong.

I can also point to emails received from VBS users saying that the training they received saved their and their buddies lives.

You might also consider reading this thread and following some of the links:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=73232

Kind Regards walker

[0311 0]

Yes, it's necessary to prepare for situations in real life.  And the training in the Marine Corps reflects that.

Nothing can replace the training that comes from spending days in the swamplands, hours of kicking in doors in shoothouses.  The feeling of getting shot at by paint-sim or RPG sims while wearing gasmasks is priceless compared to sitting at a computer.

I just don't see the point of using a computer when one can do this in the real world with real boots and real guns and real packs on our backs.  Training needs to come with pain and physical stress.  That's where you seperate the men from the boys.

Anyone can play a videogame, and they can be fun.  But it has no application for actual training.

Any fresh "boot" Marine straight out of school can tell you how to tactically react in any battle situation. That's what the classroom time teaches you.

The Army can choose to train with these "computerised simulations" if they want. The Marine Corps does all it's training the old fashioned way and it serves us well. It's why Marines are today and will always be recognised as an elite fighting force.    

I can take a group of Marines, put them in a local library or someones private home, with no weapons or gear AND in civilan attire with some rocks and imagination, and teach them in 20 minutes about combat better than any computer could.

Just tell me then, what is the point of using a computer?

[suma 8]

Just tell me then, what is the point of using a computer?

I guess you should ask the marines? They were the one of the first to implement VBS and they still continue to use it.

Offcourse, they are not doing all of their training in VBS, but is has become a part of their training tools.

[funnyguy1 0]

Just tell me then, what is the point of using a computer?

The modern battlefield itself is becoming more and more a computer game, so it's not that simple. Even before the VBS flight sims were used, I'm not sure about steel beasts though.

It has no application for actual training? How do you want to train a Predator operator then?

Even as a gamer, I can see some benefits of spending hours playing simulators...those guys probably know what they're doing. It's good even as a form of entertainment, kinda "learning while playing" thing.

[0311 0]

I am a Marine. And in all my time in Infantry and teaching other Marines about combat, I've never even heard of this.

My guess that this is only being used by some officers in some designated building in Quantico to rehearse large scale battle drills.

The Marine Corps is poor. We can barely afford proper weapons and gear, much less computers.

I can liken learning to fight like learning to swim. There are far too many intricacies to learn on a computer. You need to actually get in a pool.

In the Marine Corps, Marines learning infantry learn by the use of pain. This is why we respond so unflinchingly in combat.

Any Marine can learn all the tactics and strategy in school. That doesn't need to be rehearsed. It's applying this in real life that needs to be done in real situations.

[0311 0]

Just tell me then, what is the point of using a computer?

The modern battlefield itself is becoming more and more a computer game, so it's not that simple. Even before the VBS flight sims were used, I'm not sure about steel beasts though.

It has no application for actual training? How do you want to train a Predator operator then?

Even as a gamer, I can see some benefits of spending hours playing simulators...those guys probably know what they're doing. It's good even as a form of entertainment, kinda "learning while playing" thing.

Ok, unless you've been to battle you can't claim to know anything about it.

I don't care what the airforce ads say on TV. These air drones were useless for us in Ramadi. The insurgents knew how to outsmart them.

Battle is still very old fashioned despite what you hear. All that new agey tech crap is alot of propoganda. I know firsthand how political this is. It's about money and contracts.

In a warzone, the only thing that matters are boots on the ground with M16s and SAWs and frag grenades.

I've first hand watched so called "guided bombs" miss, and helos light up the wrong target. What does hit is my M855 62 grain ball round out of my M16 or 203 round.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Clearly VBS2 is meant as a supplement to actual physical drill, and hardly a replacement.

You say the USMC is poor - well, isn't it quite a bit cheaper to rig up, say, a large scale convoy operation in silica rather than grabbing some spare leathernecks to act as OPFOR, throwing up a scale mockup of some part of Fallujah or the Green Zone and hiring and fuelling the vehicles and grabbing the blanks or other related logistics to get it done? Hell yes, someone could set that up in VBS2 in a fraction of the time that it would take for it to occur in real life.

VBS2 isn't a sit-around-in-the-swamp simulator, it seeks to improve other areas of combat that can fall by the wayside to actual weapons training, drill and PT. For example, radio communications, formation holding and general combat awareness, target designation and identification (one is much less likely to be chewed out for a virtual B-o-B than a real one, even in training scenarios) and combat scenarios which would be completely prohibitive to set up on a whim in the real world, e.g. combined arms ops, artillery overwatches, etc. If and when actual real combat comes, soldiers are far more likely to know what to do if they've done it before, even in a simulator.

VBS2 is an adjunct to training, not a replacement.

[0311 0]

Clearly VBS2 is meant as a supplement to actual physical drill, and hardly a replacement.

You say the USMC is poor - well, isn't it quite a bit cheaper to rig up, say, a large scale convoy operation in silica rather than grabbing some spare leathernecks to act as OPFOR, throwing up a scale mockup of some part of Fallujah or the Green Zone and hiring and fuelling the vehicles and grabbing the blanks or other related logistics to get it done? Hell yes, someone could set that up in VBS2 in a fraction of the time that it would take for it to occur in real life.

VBS2 isn't a sit-around-in-the-swamp simulator, it seeks to improve other areas of combat that can fall by the wayside to actual weapons training, drill and PT. For example, radio communications, formation holding and general combat awareness, target designation and identification (one is much less likely to be chewed out for a virtual B-o-B than a real one, even in training scenarios) and combat scenarios which would be completely prohibitive to set up on a whim in the real world, e.g. combined arms ops, artillery overwatches, etc. If and when actual real combat comes, soldiers are far more likely to know what to do if they've done it before, even in a simulator.

VBS2 is an adjunct to training, not a replacement.

You say all that training would be prohibitively expensive in real life?

Well that's what the Marine Corps spends its money on.

Better to do it right and be properly prepared than to practice on a computer in some substandard training regime.

When you lower the quality of training, you risk individual Marines lives.  

The Marines are primarily a combat branch.  The most important Marine in the Corps is the individual infantryman.

So Marines can rig up or buy their own gear. We've been doing this all along and we're quite crafty at it.  But the Corps takes training seriously and we don't cut corners there.

The Army can cut corners by implementing computer games if they want. In the Marine Corps we "train like we fight". And we spare no expense on all the mockups and training environment. The Corps won't compromise the standard of training for mere convenience.

[MehMan 0]

I am a Marine. And in all my time in Infantry and teaching other Marines about combat, I've never even heard of this.

My guess that this is only being used by some officers in some designated building in Quantico to rehearse large scale battle drills.

The Marine Corps is poor.  We can barely afford proper weapons and gear, much less computers.

I can liken learning to fight like learning to swim. There are far too many intricacies to learn on a computer. You need to actually get in a pool.

In the Marine Corps, Marines learning infantry learn by the use of pain. This is why we respond so unflinchingly in combat.  

Any Marine can learn all the tactics and strategy in school. That doesn't need to be rehearsed.  It's applying this in real life that needs to be done in real situations.

Quote[/b] ]You say all that training would be prohibitively expensive in real life?

Well that's what the Marine Corps spends its money on.

Better to do it right and be properly prepared than to practice on a computer in some substandard training regime.

When you lower the quality of training, you risk individual Marines lives.  

The Marines are primarily a combat branch.  The most important Marine in the Corps is the individual infantryman.

So Marines can rig up or buy their own gear. We've been doing this all along and we're quite crafty at it.  But the Corps takes training seriously and we don't cut corners there.

The Army can cut corners by implementing computer games if they want. In the Marine Corps we "train like we fight".  And we spare no expense on all the mockups and training environment.  The Corps won't compromise the standard of training for mere convenience.

The USMC uses it.

Infact, the first VBS customer was the USMC.

Quote[/b] ]You say all that training would be prohibitively expensive in real life?

Yes. In a time when fuel is rather expensive and where cost cuts need to be made simulators come to power. Exercise is done before hand so that fucks up don't happen on the real exercise and money is saved.

Quote[/b] ]The Army can cut corners by implementing computer games if they want. In the Marine Corps we "train like we fight".  And we spare no expense on all the mockups and training environment.  The Corps won't compromise the standard of training for mere convenience.

This supplements training. It's there to help, not to replace. Try to see the benefits, it helps training, increases survivability and is just another form of training. This is beneficial rather than cutting a corner as you put it. For example, it's so detailed that soldiers get to know more of the green zone before setting foot there. It's detailed, accurate and can help.

[0311 0]

You say the Marine Corps uses it?

Where? I have never heard of this the whole time I have been in Infantry. Ask any Infantry Marine about this and he will say "WTH is that?". So if some officers are playing with this in some secluded office in Quantico it doesn't really count.

As for the rest. You either train hard or not at all. You do it right because training the wrong way can build bad habits.

We will spend millions of dollars setting up huge mock cities for us to train in. It's only a 10 minute ride or a 5 hour hump to them, so why would we abandon them for a computer screen?

Would you use a computer to teach yourself to box?? Or would you go to the gym and get in a ring? Same concept. I've played games like these before and they don't hold a candle to REAL training.

Technically speaking the Marine Corps uses the game "first to fight" as a training tool also. It even says so on the box!! But noone actually "uses" it if you get what I mean. Probably laying in some dusty bin somewhere.

The Marine Corps has always opted for better training instead of better technology. The Marine Corps emphasizes fundamental military skills that other more "high tech" armies have lost.

There are just too many complexities in combat to be reproduced in a computer.

You ever heard of Airsoft? We would be better off using Airsoft rifles for training than sitting down and manipulating a mouse and keyboard.

That's all I have for now. C ya'll later.

[HotShot 0]

Interesting video by the Canadian Army regarding their use of VBS1 here. For them VBS is used to develop cognitive skills and to help "people make the transition between the theoretical portion of the course and practical portion in the field". Only short though and doesn't go into detail about scenarios they use VBS1 for.

[dslyecxi 23]

Your entire argument rests on the fact that you personally have never used it. I don't know where you are, or what unit you're with, or anything of that nature, so it's not really possible to cover the specifics of your situation. Instead, let's go a bit more global...

VBS2 is used as the baseline for things from convoy simulators to aircraft sims and actual firearms training. This is above and beyond "mouse and keyboard" desktop training. The results from them have been overwhelmingly positive and they get actual no-kidding measurable results.

Quote[/b] ]You ever heard of Airsoft? We would be better off using Airsoft rifles for training than sitting down and manipulating a mouse and keyboard.

How about an actual real rifle firing real rounds at a screen projecting a combat scenario in VBS2? Did you know that was possible? Surprise, it is. I'm sure you've used the ISMT in your time - imagine that, except much more robust and able to represent any number of varied scenarios with relative ease. If you discount the value of such training, I'm afraid you're a lost cause - I have plenty of hands-on experience with such things, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that they have had a real, measurable, positive influence on my marksmanship. My entire job is off of the premise that that sort of training is valuable, trains effectively, and ultimately saves lives. We hear it from our customers on a very frequent basis.

Quote[/b] ]There are just too many complexities in combat to be reproduced in a computer.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Walker already covered the depth to which simulation "in a computer" is used to "reproduce" combat. I won't go over it again, since he nailed it already.

The majority of your posts so far are crammed brimming full of chest-thumping "OORAH MARINE CORPS INFANTRY" stuff that is 100% motivation at the expense of reason. It's great that you're moto, and I know the feeling - I'm prior service USMC myself. However, you need to recognize that this type of training is actually useful, has saved lives in the past and will in the future, and allows for an ease of training and a depth of analysis that cannot easily be reached in any other way.

Are you familiar with the DVTE? If you've been on a recent float, you should have had had a set of DVTE equipment & laptops there - to include VBS1 or 2 depending. If you can explain to me how you could find another way to do convoy operations while cooped up on a ship, I'm all ears. That's just one of countless examples of how VBS2 and similar simulations can provide valuable training to Marines.

Quote[/b] ]We will spend millions of dollars setting up huge mock cities for us to train in. It's only a 10 minute ride or a 5 hour hump to them, so why would we abandon them for a computer screen?

Who ever said anything about abandoning real-world training? You're using this as a straw-man argument.

Quote[/b] ]Would you use a computer to teach yourself to box?? Or would you go to the gym and get in a ring? Same concept. I've played games like these before and they don't hold a candle to REAL training.

If you want to learn to shoot, firearm simulators are a very valid and recognized step of the process. By this I mean sims where you are holding a real (or 'close to real' weapon and are using actual sights to fire at targets, with recoil and everything. This is good training. VBS2 facilitates this.

As to melee, of course you would not train for such things in a game. There are no sims available to this date that can offer any reasonable representation of that. However, there ARE sims that can provide firearms training, tactical training, etc, and VBS2 is one of them.

Quote[/b] ]Where? I have never heard of this the whole time I have been in Infantry.

Sounds like you should be asking your command some rather pointed questions.

There are many, many skills that can be trained via VBS2 aside from "kicking in doors" and other similar things that you are almost certainly alluding to with your "combat is too complex to simulate" comments. Examples have already been posted - CAS coordination, artillery forward observing, convoy operations, firearms training - but it's up to you to think about that and decide for yourself what the value in such training. It will require a bit of open-mindedness, though...

edit: I just re-read the post prior to the one I responded to (from you, 0311), and man... you are quite simply ill-informed of how this stuff works. Your comments about "substandard" training via simulations are flat-out wrong and show clearly that you have no concept of how VBS2 is used by the USMC, or what value it has.

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to 0311

I can see the passion with which you hold your view point.

My questions for you are:

How many times a week do you do a full company level assault or defense exercise?

Or how many times a month do you run a full beach invasion?

How many thousands of rounds a day can you fire at moving targets?

How many times a day can you run a convoy through an ambush?

How many of the rounds fired are tracked?

How many hours of video AAR does your OC have for analysis of how well trained the troops are?

I put it to you that you are assuming that all training is about physical fitness or muscle memory. I respect and understand the need for physical training but all the physical training in the world does not make for a good soldier other wise there would not be a USMC the government would just grab solders from the local gyms.

I am a climbing instructor. One might wrongly assume this to be a purely physical task. In fact it is quite the opposite. Climbing is primarily a cognitive task.

In climbing we say your body can only follow where your mind has already been.

Yes you have to be physically fit, have strong emotional control over fear, anxiety and excitement, and the muscle memory of a range of physical moves but the most important skill is the cognitive one of being able to comprehend the climb; get this wrong and you will climb blithely in to a vertical cull-de-sac and serious injury or death for you and probably others.

Being physically fit in climbing is a given but some one who is uber fit does not make a good climber. It requires so much more.

I would submit that being a good soldier is just the same.

VBS as many military training personnel have said is not just some first person shooter it is a First Person Thinker.

It is about practicing the cognitive tasks that are part of a soldiers job. Whether it be a 9 line or the formulation of Actions On or SOPs.

I would once again point out that many USMC soldiers have stated that the training they received with VBS has saved their and their buddies lives.

You can go straight to MCAGCC and have your OC ask about training using VBS.

http://www.29palms.usmc.mil/dirs/ont/mands/VBS.asp

There are a couple of videos of VBS2 being used to train marines, I would submit they give you an idea of the kind of tasks VBS can do. I should point out there are others around on the web as well as AARs in text and video form.

Simulation including VBS2 is used by the USMC

http://www.marines.mil/units/mciwest/29palms/Pages/MAR3.aspx

And the USMC are looking to extend VBS it is used in the latest man wearable computer system

http://www.mil-embedded.com/news/db/?9429

Others have pointed out the use of VBS with live ammo.

I find it hard to believe that with such a weight of evidence including that from your fellow marines that you maintain it is not used.

It may well be that your unit has not had training on VBS2 yet.

Never the less I respect your statement of the importance of physical training but as others have pointed out VBS2 augments it does not replace traditional training.

Kind regards walker

[stakex 0]

You say the Marine Corps uses it?

Where? I have never heard of this the whole time I have been in Infantry.  Ask any Infantry Marine about this and he will say "WTH is that?".  So if some officers are playing with this in some secluded office in Quantico it doesn't really count.  

I actually had a friend in the Marine Corp who was an infantry man, recently get home from Iraq... and his unit had trained useing VBS before they deployed. So its not just some officers sitting in a secluded room somewhere toying with it. So right there your whole point is wrong. He also said the training they recieved from useing VBS was very useful, and invaluable...

Now, what I want to know is how can you make all these statements about VBS/VBS2 (all computer simulated training for that matter), just because YOU personally have never used it? And since you have never used it, how can you make any serious judgement on how useful it is or not? Sounds like nothing more then a fear of technology, or a fear of change to me.

[General Barron 0]

I can understand the resistance / hesitation to the idea of using a computer to train infantry skills.

Bear in mind, that the USMC has been using "simulations" like sand tables, simple games for fire support adjustment, etc, since 1775. VBS just seeks to make these simulations a bit more useful.

I think the main point, is that no one is saying VBS should be used to train skills that are easily trained in real life. In no way can a computer replace getting dirty, crawling in the mud, digging fighting holes, etc etc.

The important point though, is that you can train some things in VBS which you simply *can't* train in real life. Read some of the above posts for examples.

Also, you can train faster and more times, compared to real life. I'm sure you know the phrase "hurry up and wait" quite well. Sometimes it takes so much logistics, just to run a simple exercise that doesn't really have much training value. On one such roleplay, I spent 3 days sitting in the desert, waiting for a *single* convoy to drive thru our little "Iraqi town", so we could pretend to be harmless Iraqis. There was a *bit* of training value to the scenario, but if you ask me, it wasn't worth the enormous cost. It could have been run 50 times over in VBS in the same amount of time, plus they would have been able to see AAR between each scenario, so their NCO's could point out what they did and didn't do well.

Bear in mind, earlier in the week, we had been slugging simunitions at each other as they practiced house clearance. THAT is something I will never forget, and I felt 100x more prepared for a house fight after that single afternoon. No way could a computer do that.

There is definitely a place for computers to help train the warfighter. The USMC, and others, are trying to find that place. What they need is people like you, who know what they are trying to teach, and what they can and can't teach well with the current tools. People like you are the ones who can help figure out this new tool's place in the training schedule.

[USSRsniper 0]

Using software as training tool is usefull, for example Steel Beasts Pro, VBS2. But they are not good enough to replace real life training. but when combined its perfect, for example field excercises were failed, soldiers can practice more in "game", or even do the excercise in actual "game" before the real one.  Also almost anythng can be simulated cheaply, compard to real life training. Who will buy real T-72's or BMPs? Or Mi-24 for training? I don't see any problems, if Air Force piltos get to fly simulator, why not have ground fighting simulator for soldiers, or tank simulation for tank crews like Steel beasts Pro. Computer simulation is not about replacing real training, its building up on the real field excercise.

[Second 0]

Okay-okay-okay. Lets draw list of things which soldiers (from different tasks like rifleman, cook, radar-operator) and their unit needs most to do well in what he does.

Starting from me.

Hi. My name is Second and i'm alcohol-... ATGM squad leader, and no i don't think computer games would have given me nothing in art of leading and handling my squad and it's weapon. We had lasersimulatorequipment attached to our ATGM.

About training in ATGM:

What we need most is to understand how our weapon works and how it's handled and how equipment in our platoon is handled (radios, saws, axes, growbars, sledges, tents etc). How fast they are required to handle. We also look theory of how ATGM sqaud, platoon, company fights in different types of battle (offence, delay, defence. Not very much, just to get understandment of what the frameworks are). We learn how missile works, what limitations there are etc just like in school and we have to pass thru exams.

What else do we need? We need to understand how to react to certain events in battlefield like enemy airplanes and mines. Then we train those bit more. Computer? No-no, we need to train our "musclesmemory" so that if instructor takes off our brains we still function at same speed and reliability. We become machines of ATGM-system in that sense.

In short we don't need computergames to train as they simply can't give anything to us. Our operation is mostly just about speed and reliability of how we do things, this can be trained with cheap methods. All we needed for daily drills was gas for vehicles which ain't expensive when comparing to many other things.

NCO-class and bootcamp/basictraining:

thoughts conserning NCO class. There i get basics of leading riflesquad and various AT-wepons and leadership in general... In there i can see some indes of using computergames as traning porpuses. Then again there is no time to waste, half day spent on computer and then half day going it thru in "real life" desn't sound very promising, as we usually understand the basics in less than one hour when doing it in reality.

So i have hard to time to see any positive effects to be gained from computer games during my NCO-class. Same goes for basictraning (aka bootcamp) when i'm just rookie learinng to be a good rifleman and soldier... Again, time is limited and there is no time to waste into poor forms of traning.

So in short:

Here is my point of view, which is related to things to which i got trained. Basic reason i think computergames are not effective or practical to me or my squad is that it is waste of time. There would be something other to which we could learn/train during that wasted time. Time-time-time.

One thing more. We actually never "hurried to wait" because we didnt' train in divisional exercises (which might turn to be wasted time for squads, platoons companies). usually biggest exercises were comapanies, but we usually trained as platoon (because of our weapon-system and it's place in organization: batallion's ATGM-platoon). Twice we took part in large and long exercises which consisted brigade strong force.