U.S. Army to train units using VR

This is the new way soldiers will train for battle. In September, a select group of Army infantrymen, Marine corpsmen, Navy sailors, and Air Force pilots at Fort Sill will become the first military personnel to learn the art of combat and the rules of engagement from surround sound action movies starring themselves. The installation is the brainchild of the Institute for Creative Technologies, an Army-funded R&D group at the University of Southern California. ICT brings together videogame developers, f/x artists, research scientists, and Pentagon experts to create faster, cheaper, and more effective ways of preparing recruits for their jobs on the front lines. If all goes well, similar facilities will go up at bases from Fort Bliss to Fallujah.

Sources:

original news source:
www.wired.com...

Extensive Detail and pictures can be found here:
www.tradoc.army.mil...

This would seem to be a definate step toward 'Holo-deck' styled training. How effective would this be in contrast to standard field training?

Remember this game? Metal Gear Solid Vr missions. In that game Snake the special ops soldier trained constantly in Vr Missions to better him self, the vr training would also simulate pain. Then when Raiden came along in part Metal Gear Solid II he kinda thought that he was invisible because he would also train in Vr Missions, the missions would also give a sense of invisiblity since if you "die" in durring a mission all you have to do is hit restart or w/e . Snake him self that Vr missions can never achieve that feeling of the battle field.

I understand that visceral experience in actual combat would be the best teacher, yet the most dangerous. To clarify, I was wondering which would be more effective? Staged field training (paint ball, tracer/rubber rounds) compared to the VR training mentioned above. I am inclined that doing both would probably be best. Additionally, would there be any other advantages to using VR to train people for emergency situations? What applications outside of military use would exist?

[edit on 22-8-2004 by Crysstaafur]

It depends on how realistic vr will be. If the soldiers are going to be put in a room holding a gun like the old nintendo guns and firing at a screen well of course live fire exercises will be better for the soldier to train in.