Simulation + Training: The games soldiers play | ADM May 08

1 May 2008

After some initial hesitation, senior levels of the military in this country now appear to be sold on the concept of using commercial interactive media - computer games -to attract, educate and even train young soldiers, sailors and airmen.

By Tom Muir, Canberra

In keeping with the Xbox and PlayStation culture of potential recruits, the Air Force employs arcade style flight-sim play stations in shopping malls, to encourage recruitment, and multi-player simulation games have sprung up on service websites for the same reason.

But these outward displays are but a minor indication of the extent to which commercial interactive gaming has permeated the ADF's training establishments as a preliminary to the more formal and wide use of simulation during training.

And now the line between interactive gaming and military simulation systems is beginning to blur with the former finding increasing employment in the continued use of gaming-style simulation for ongoing unit training without the overhead involved with military simulations.

One protagonist for the increased use of commercial interactive gaming is simulation expert Robert Carpenter, currently working at the Army Simulation Wing, Puckapunyal.

Previously he worked in the Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) where he was involved in studying the use of commercial games as a means of exposing ADF personnel at all levels to the benefits of simulation and the potential cost savings associated with some commercial products.

Research had shown that commercial games products were being used successfully elsewhere.

His studies found that increasingly people had an appreciation for the benefits of using simulation for training, having experienced it themselves, and could see the only cost-effective way of exploiting it in their unit was through the use of commercial games.

Mutual benefits between supplier and user grew as it became clearer that there were a number of commercial gaming products good enough to be used in this way.

Carpenter says one of the earliest potential applications of commercial computer games for training was first identified by accident in the early 1980s.

A gunnery course at the School of Armour, Puckapunyal had a course of 'gun' recruits who were well above the average on the application of fire for the Leopard 1 MBT.

The trainers were keen to identify the cause of this excellence.

They discovered that the students were practising their skills on a newly installed arcade game in the soldier's club!

In this case the soldiers were learning the concepts of leading a target, observing the fall of shot and changing their aim, basic education that enabled them to learn more quickly during the subsequent training.

Research conducted on the ADSO's behalf by the University of New South Walesindicated successful use of these products elsewhere in the world and that since military units and individuals were using them anyway, not much effort was required to encourage and support their use of games.

An interesting point was that the subject area matched the culture of current recruits, and it was thought might help to support an element of self-selection in the process of recruitment in the future.

Games included in initial studies by the ADSO included:

Virtual Battlefield Systems (VBS1)
The Army Simulation Wing started the evaluation of the military version of Operation Flashpoint, Virtual Battlefield Systems (VBS1), based on work conducted by the University of NSW and its use by the United States Marine Corps.

VBS1 was subsequently used by the Army Experimentation Framework to support studies into alternative squad level organisations.

It was later developed to support tropical wet season tactical combined arms training for the 1st Brigade in Darwin.

Harpoon3
Harpoon3 was used to support the first Australian Joint Experiment, and later the Navy Headmark Experiment based on work by the DSTO.

During these exercises Harpoon3 was used for tactical combat modelling in the Joint Experiment, and as a situational awareness tool in the Headmark Experiment.

It was only marginally successful due to software limitations, primarily multiplayer functionality.

Funding was subsequently gained to support modifications to Harpoon3, the key one being multiplayer support (for up to 256 players).

The scenario was built at no cost to Defence by the HarpoonHQ team, one of the benefits of being recognised as a relevant and proactive member of a game's community.

The scenario was subsequently modified and added to the existing community managed database, but allowed the original scenario to be publicly released.

The Airforce experimentation program evaluated the modified Harpoon3 product for desktop wargaming support and it was evaluated for use by Navy, including cadet units and ships crews in refit.

TACOPS ANZAC
TACOPS has been commercially available for over 15 years, and has been used by the US Army, US Marine Corps, Canadian Army, New Zealand Army as well as by individuals in the Australian Army.

In 2003 the Army Training command ordered a version specific to Australia and New Zealand.

It is now being used in units who had been procuring their own copies from local funds, and is being used on a number of formal courses as a Command Post Exercise tool.

TACOPS ANZAC strengths are its multiplayer capability, including multiple friendly, hostile and neutral players; and it's after action review functionality.

The database is fixed by the developer and the terrain generation is easy (if tedious).

SteelBeasts Pro
Steelbeasts is a virtual Leopard 2A4 and M1A1 tank simulation for gunners, crew commanders, troop/platoon leaders and squadron/company commanders.

It depicts the firecontrol and weapons systems of a number of vehicles.

It is in use with Australian, German, Danish and US forces and is being evaluated by a number of other defence forces.

Current developments
NATO is also exploiting commercial games for military use through a series of workshops, the last of which was hosted in Australia and this country is working closely with US Armed Forces, in particular the US Marine Corps.

There have been major advances in gaming technologies and VBS2 , launched in April 2007, is the latest generation of the interactive, three-dimensional training system VBS1, developed in close cooperation with the USMC, the ADF and other military customers of the earlier version.

By July 2007 VBS2 developer, Bohemia Interactive, announced the release of a tool suite for VBS2, a comprehensive set of content development tools for importing new terrain and generating new models in VBS2, which is quickly evolving in accordance with customer feedback into a true developmental platform.

VBS2 already boasts substantial capability, not only as a desktop training or analysis solution, but as a fully featured development environment.

According to Bohemia Interactive, their goal is to make content development easy, enabling the end user to:

- rapidly import and modify terrain areas and 3D representations,

- configure the characteristics of simulated entities (characters, vehicles, weapons),

- modify artificial intelligence and develop new behaviours, and

- develop complex scenarios quickly and easily through an intuitive 3D scenario editor.

The VBS2 Tool Suite was recently employed to develop a geo-specific Green Zone terrain area for the Australian Defence Force.

The base data included high fidelity DTED (height field) and satellite imagery, and low-fidelity (VMAP1) shape data that specified the location of main roads.

The base data was imported in a few hours, and the terrain was then improved to a standard suitable for convoy training and mission rehearsal.

The development also included the generation of 45 geo-specific models of various Green Zone landmarks including embassies, bridges, arches and statues.

And if that wasn't enough, recent work within the ADFA simulation laboratory has led to an experimental user exertion system for VBS2.

Fundamentally, the system requires the user to exert energy in order to move their in-simulation avatar: if they want their character to run they must 'run'.

The current system, hooked up to a stationary bike, is the work of Officer Cadet Chris Leedham, who is finishing the final year of his Electrical Engineering degree at ADFA.

Employing a USB interface, and thus appearing as another human interface device to the computer (just like a keyboard or mouse) the system could actually be connected to a range of mechanical devices such as various gym equipment (e.g. a rotary walker) to show the correlation between Chris' rate of pedalling and the walk, jog, and run movement rates in VBS2.

"We're about to begin experiments with the system' says Dr. Spike Barlow, the laboratory director and sponsor of the project.

"We'll be looking at subjective and objective measures of how play varies between a traditional mouse and keyboard control versus with the exertion system."

Dr Barlow believes that the closer match to the real-world, in which soldiers become fatigued and tired as they carry out actions, will lead to a number of differences ranging from fire-and-movement through to tactics employed.

Leedham's thesis will be published at the end of the year, while the full experimental results will likely be published at a scientific conference sometime in 2008.