U.S. Army practicing by playing.

[0311 0]

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.

Yes, I've played the ISMT games.  Alot of my peers who are getting out work there at the ISMT giving instruction on things such as CAS, calling for IDF etc.

For certain tasks, the ISMT is great. I already mentioned CAS and arty.

Let's not get into other jobs in the Corps.  I already know tankers use sims like this all the time, that's fine.  Infantry work is different.

I've seen the grey war training "shoot or don't shoot" sims too. They don't  hold a candle to having a real AK armed coyote screaming at you as you scream back at him.

As for learning to shoot. Nothing beats ranges.  We've all seen grunts be "ISMT snipers" but flunk out on the range.

Sure, ISMT training can be ok to grade certain skills, but at the loss of quality.  

Convoys, assaults, raids.  These things can be rehearsed multiple times a day and at night for weeks at a time, and we do.  

Aside from certain specialised skills, there's nothing that can be done in sim that can't be done BETTER in real life.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention.  An ISMT or certain "wrap-around wall projection sims" are a far cry from a mouse and keyboard game, no?

[0311 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

Yes, we do and HAVE done full company level assaults, convoy ops, etc multiple times in a day, plus several times at night with live ammo, for days at a time if not weeks. Whenever the range is completed, we just "reset" and run it again, though completely exhausted.

And often enough we have our own cameramen recording how it goes down for evaluation.  It all makes for a great training package.

We do all those things you mentioned for days at a time perfectly well IRL.

Yes, after some thought I do admit there are certain specialized tasks such as calling for indirect fire, or forward observation that are better suited to a sim.  None of them are the kinetic force on force training that most of infantry requires.

My best buddy just made it through the combat climbers course in West Virginia. He reports the same things you say. But I doubt he would ever relegate the training to a computer sim.

I concede the fact that ISMT training can be used to teach certain basic SOPs. But when it comes down to it the only way to tell if you can handle it or not is when you are actually doing it.  That's what makes or breaks a good field Marine.  

My main point is that some Marines can handle it, but alot of good Marines can't.  I've just seen too many Marines break down the hard way. It's better that this happens in training instead of combat.  This is why I have little faith in sims, as good as they may be.

[baddo 0]

The USA spends ridiculous amounts of money into its military. The amount could be brought down a couple of notches if you would train more using VBS2 and not run around in some desert all year long wasting tremendous amounts of fuel and other expensive supplies while doing it. The military vehicles are far from being economical, and infantry uses vehicles too we all know that.

I think people are not taking into consideration enough here that the "real" training is many magnitudes more expensive compared to just setting up some computer simulations.

Maybe a lot of that money could be spend on something else than a military. You should be asking "Money well spent?" when you do your real training. I know I did that while I was in our military. I was pissed off about a lot of things, and the most when I realized how inefficient/expensive some things are in our military to have and to operate, and how little people paid attention to the fact that a lot of things there could be improved a lot with relatively little effort. I paid my share of the taxes and would like to see it wisely spent also in the military. Why would it be different for the people of the USA.

[snYpir 0]

For the record the application they are using in the first post is DARWARS Ambush!, a modification of OFP. You can tell by the coloured keyboard and the orange looking Humvee on the far screen.

[0311 0]

The USA spends ridiculous amounts of money into its military. The amount could be brought down a couple of notches if you would train more using VBS2 and not run around in some desert all year long wasting tremendous amounts of fuel and other expensive supplies while doing it. The military vehicles are far from being economical, and infantry uses vehicles too we all know that.

I think people are not taking into consideration enough here that the "real" training is many magnitudes more expensive compared to just setting up some computer simulations.

Maybe a lot of that money could be spend on something else than a military. You should be asking "Money well spent?" when you do your real training. I know I did that while I was in our military. I was pissed off about a lot of things, and the most when I realized how inefficient/expensive some things are in our military to have and to operate, and how little people paid attention to the fact that a lot of things there could be improved a lot with relatively little effort. I paid my share of the taxes and would like to see it wisely spent also in the military. Why would it be different for the people of the USA.

Well yes I admitted there are certain applications that simulation could be used for such as CAS and arty/mortars.

But most of our training involves movement on foot. We did all of our operations in Iraq on foot.

Also rigging up realistic scenarios to train in isn't really that expensive. The most expensive part of alot of training is the price of ammo(blanks or live), that and sweat and blood.

The military always has trucks going all over the places on bases, so a ride out to a range isn't going to be such a big deal. Even then, we can always "hump" out to the range on foot.

[dm 9]

You're argueing a lost point 0311...

It doesnt matter that you "ARE" a Marine, people both higher and lower on the chain than you have seen the positive effects of the SUPPLIMENTARY training provided by VBS and similar applications, and are rapidly rolling out more and more copies.

No one said its meant to replace the real world training, no one has said that its better than real world training. It does, however, have very clear advantages. Mostly in the area of mission recycle rate, and after action review.

Compare the AAR you get from a real mission "humping it" to the AAR you get from VBS. I think you'll find that while the real mission is good for the physical and mental elements, the virtual version is MUCH more rewarding in highlighting the sucesses and failures of the mission and its participants.

[0311 0]

I admitted that there are certain applications where sim is useful.

I still believe however that there is no way to fully reproduce real training by comp sim. I'm wary of this. Certain situations yes, but most - no.

Anyways, with the way the Corps is run, most infantrymen will never see it, atleast they don't right now.

I suppose we'll have to see what the future brings in terms of computer technology.

[Gollum1 0]

No one said its meant to replace the real world training, no one has said that its better than real world training. It does, however, have very clear advantages. Mostly in the area of mission recycle rate, and after action review.

Compare the AAR you get from a real mission "humping it" to the AAR you get from VBS. I think you'll find that while the real mission is good for the physical and mental elements, the virtual version is MUCH more rewarding in highlighting the sucesses and failures of the mission and its participants.

It's possible to get an AAR like that without computer games. We conducted a company-level exercise for a week with SAAB BT 46 simulator vests which have an integrated GPS that updates the soldier's position in real time. It is also possible to watch a recording of the battle as an AAR. It basically looks like a recorded Command&Conquer game. Each round fired and each hit is also recorded and visible on the screen. Vehicles, mines, indirect fire, NBC and AT weapons are also simulated. I agree with you, just wanted to mention this better and much more expensive alternative.

That said, VBS-like simulators are very cost and time-effective and fun, I believe they are very useful as training tools. Another advantage of it (for an infantryman) is conditioning the soldier to kill; the process of "aiming" at a realistic-looking human target through realistic-looking sights, pushing a button and watching him "die" can be repeated quickly and endlessly. Airsoft and paintball (/simunition) games are ideal for this and provides much more realism, along with the fear of being hit yourself and inflicting pain on another human being. Shooting live rounds at paper bullseyes doesn't train you to kill, it trains you to shoot paper bullseyes. I think that games can actually provide more realism in this case (paradoxically?). Yes, I recently read a lot of Grossman.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Operant conditioning  is one of the major functions of military training but it has its downsides; ones that I like Grossman think are being ignored once again in Iraq and Afghanistan as they were in Vietnam (the first war where operant conditioning was successfully used by the USA)

Already we see the consequences. Masses of PTSD. Suicides. Murder Rates. Mental illness rates. Marriage break ups.

Take a person who is by evolution, psychologically and socialisation programmed not to kill their own species. Reprogram them even with their consent so that they will kill on command. No matter how you cut it that is going to leave social scars of self loathing, fear of your self with others you love. The idea that you are just Pavlov's dog must ruin self esteem forcing people to create very rickety frame works of psychological lies, fantasies and excuses to hide behind.

I think far too often people who should not pass the tests to weed them out are getting through and the PTSD rates bear it out.

More money needs to be spent on getting veterans though it and most of all this factor has to be talked about.

We all know it is the elephant in corner of the room.

Sadly walker

[0311 0]

Hi all

Operant conditioning  is one of the major functions of military  training but it has its downsides; ones that I like Grossman think are being ignored once again in Iraq and Afghanistan as they were in Vietnam (the first war where operant conditioning was successfully used by the USA)

Already we see the consequences. Masses of PTSD. Suicides. Murder Rates. Mental illness rates. Marriage break ups.

Take a person who is by evolution, psychologically and socialisation programmed not to kill their own species. Reprogram them even with their consent so that they will kill on command. No matter how you cut it that is going to leave social scars of self loathing, fear of your self with others you love. The idea that you are just Pavlov's dog must ruin self esteem forcing people to create very rickety frame works of psychological lies, fantasies and excuses to hide behind.

I think far too often people who should not pass the tests to weed them out are getting through and the PTSD rates bear it out.

More money needs to be spent on getting veterans though it and most of all this factor has to be talked about.

We all know it is the elephant in corner of the room.

Sadly walker

What you say here is all too true. Myself and my peers have had personal experience with this. Suicides and marriage breakups are all too commonplace.

Thankfully there is help out there for vets. The hardest part is acknowledging this.

It's made worse by ignorance about this in todays society. Some people just have no clue.

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

Hi all

Operant conditioning is one of the major functions of military training but it has its downsides; ones that I like Grossman think are being ignored once again in Iraq and Afghanistan as they were in Vietnam (the first war where operant conditioning was successfully used by the USA)

Already we see the consequences. Masses of PTSD. Suicides. Murder Rates. Mental illness rates. Marriage break ups.

Take a person who is by evolution, psychologically and socialisation programmed not to kill their own species. Reprogram them even with their consent so that they will kill on command. No matter how you cut it that is going to leave social scars of self loathing, fear of your self with others you love. The idea that you are just Pavlov's dog must ruin self esteem forcing people to create very rickety frame works of psychological lies, fantasies and excuses to hide behind.

I think far too often people who should not pass the tests to weed them out are getting through and the PTSD rates bear it out.

More money needs to be spent on getting veterans though it and most of all this factor has to be talked about.

We all know it is the elephant in corner of the room.

Sadly walker

What you say here is all too true. Myself and my peers have had personal experience with this. Suicides and marriage breakups are all too commonplace.

Thankfully there is help out there for vets. The hardest part is acknowledging this.

It's made worse by ignorance about this in todays society. Some people just have no clue.

What help is there for veterans diagnosed with PTSD while on active duty?

A: None. Going to mental health, even voluntarily, is a nail in the coffin of a career and if the soldier is unlucky enough to up with PTSD anywhere on their record, it's over and done with. Chapter 5-17, out the door, no appeal, no chance of re-enlistment ever again. That's the best case scenario, at worst, the soldier gets charged for malingering, is issued an Article-15 and then bounced out on a General discharge.

[earl 0]

It's possible to get an AAR like that without computer games [...] It basically looks like a recorded Command&Conquer game. Each round fired and each hit is also recorded and visible on the screen.

Just thought I would point out that you still need a "computer game" to see such an AAR. VBS2 can be used there too, and with good quality source data, the terrain can be recreated for a very useful 3D replay of a live training event.