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The budget cuts are coming home to roost, folks: 220 of the British Army’s finest infantry soldiers spent Tuesday in the Land Warfare Centre ‘training’ by having a massive LAN battle.
It was an ‘exercise’ to work out the best way to position Intelligence Corps people on the battlefield or something, but the important thing is that the Army now thinks that soldiers playing computer games is an acceptable way to get better at real-life soldiering. In fact, this was the biggest ever virtual exercise conducted in the UK, and things are only going to get worse — the MoD wants virtual training to be a whopping 25 per cent of overall training by 2015.
It might be ok if they were playing a cutting-edge, highly realistic game with immersive 3D technology or something, but they’re not. In fact, the game is called JCOVE, and it’s based on a commercial engine called Virtual Battlespace 2. There’s actually a free version of JCOVE you can download (called JCOVE Lite, pretty much the same but with fewer maps), and judging from that, it’s got pretty shocking graphics and a user interface that makes MS-DOS look like the pinnacle of user-friendliness. Go download it if you don’t believe me/want to fly around Afghanistan in an Apache for free. Oh, and the cutting-edge gaming rigs? XP-laden office PCs.
Virtual training has its place — it’s excellent for getting different units working nicely together, for instance — but I have a suspicion that infantry warfare isn’t one of them. The desire to phase it in and reduce the amount of (expensive) physical training reeks of cost-cutting rather than innovation. [MoD]
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Future wars could be fought online between teams
that would be a better way of dealing the war over oil.. rather than slaughtering millions of innocent people..
I have a feeling most of that 25% of virtual training will involve a greater use of the DCCT, not for playing JCOVE.
I believe the 25% by 2015 was to do with field training; but yeah, DCCT will play a big part too.
DCCT is a great place for recruits to get an approximate idea of how a rifle will react when they pull the trigger before we put them on a range with live ammo.
And a great place to catch up on some sleep
Na, the butts is the place to get your head down.
Would be easier if there weren’t so many inconsiderate folk about insisting on being noisy
Are you talking about the Gurkha range staff, or all those bastards turning ball to brass all day long?
The latter, the former are generally happy sitting in their hut with a thermos. The wardens however I presume were bullied at school.
Back in my cadet days, we used to call that a SAT range (different contraption or outdated term?).
Fantastic tool it was too, with all the sensors in the rifles it was great for showing cadets how they were snatching the trigger or not applying enough butt pressure.
*snigger*
VBS2 is made by Bohemia Interactive, who also do ARMA 2 – ARMA 2 is quite similar in interface, but more gamey and not as fully featured.
Can I write for Gizmodo UK? I can prattle on complaining about things I know nothing about as much as the next man.
as a general rule, I don’t think they employ anonymous douchebags.
ooh, snap!
http://www.army-technology.com/uploads/feature/feature88886/2-opj2.jpg
LOL, what’s with the only dude in a suit.
Got so fed up of seeing people say on newspaper comments “I’m fairly sure that’s a COD custom map” or “they should play BF3, so realistic”… as a ArmA player knowing that this is based on VBS and is pretty much as real as it gets for a game, it really bugged me
Chris, they use the system to test operational systems not how to kill people. its similar to whats known as a desktop test but with the ability to test the details and see how things would work as a whole. its far cheaper than running a massive war game and shooting real bullets, whilst giving the ability to test things like deployment of personnel, logistics capabilities and seeing if its better to have one type of facility in one place or another without having to build two of them and see which one works better in the real world.
its a very good idea and is vital not for shooting people but for the work that has to happen to support those people who are fighting in a cheap quickly adaptable way. before you spout of so badly maybe understanding what they are doing would be a better idea!
Yeah, this is whatI meant, its a vital and intelligent use of funds, not a result of budget cuts. Plus the “shocking” graphics are on one of the most complex and realistic simulations you can get.
To be fair the graphic settings do seem to be low in the photos in the article it links to, compared to what I have seen VBS2 look like it does look rather poor.
But after all as you hint at the graphics aren’t that important, its the actual simulation that is important. I guess lowering the settings helps getting all the computers to run it at a reasonable rate. Not to mention it probably lowers the initial cost.
This!!
If computer game training is good enough for Prince Harry they’re good enough for the rest of Her Majesty’s men. I remember reading about a similar army training game based on Doom back in the day. Hopefully the graphics have improved a little since then.
Bet they all are tad boring compare to COD, I love my arcade style
Anyone else hate how much of gizmodos coverage is based on the military?
It does grate on me a bit, too. Makes me wonder if I’m in a minority that finds the promotion of warfare a bit crass. Luckily the UK site is heavily diluted in comparison with the US (understandably, with the amount of gun nuts over there).
Yup, f*ck the US site. They’re in love with DARPA and act as a crowd fundraiser for all of their little projects.
One in three female personnel in the US army has been sexually assaulted. That’s what you get if you brainwash a bunch of remedial males into thinking they can do anything.
I’ll raise my cuppa to that! HMPH!
They should do Left for Dead 2 to prepare them for the upcoming popular riots of 2015 where we burn Cameron and Nick Clegg at the stake. And JLS.
Chris, VBS2 is hardly a game more of a hard core, purpose built Military Training Simulator. (ArmA and ArmA 2 were born out of its engine) and considering it costs over $2000 per seat I think it puts it way out of the price range of most FPS Games and gamers…
I remember when I used to play Delta Force: Land Warrior on PC, and one of the selling points was that the game engine was based on military training technology.
It’s crazy that now things have come full circle and the military now look to “civilian” computer games to train troops. I’m surprised that there isn’t a game, developed for the public or military, that perfectly simulates a real battlefield and all the restrictions that apply, such as fatigue, loss of radio contact, mud, stealth detection, realistic jumping, etc.
I know games like Battlefield and like Far Cry go a long way to achieve this, but I wouldn’t say they’re 100% realistic.
VBS2 isn’t a civilian computer game, and it can simulate nearly all of the things you listed (except jumping…) and many more.
Ah right, I thought the game was essentially just based on an open source engine for civilian games, with maybe just a few customisations.
By “realistic jumping” I really meant “no jumping” because it’s ridiculous to think in any war game you can jump a few feet in the air carrying all that equipment
In that case it simulates it perfectly, all you can do is vault over low fences.
It had a bad ass intro and theme tune!
I’m sure i read an article years ago by some US general saying that people who play fps shooters are actually worse in a combat environment.
Another idiotic post from Chris. If you’re reading this here’s a tip for you, graphics don’t mean shit where as tactics do.