Are the latest war video-games, actually a war simulation platform for the military?

edit: nvm, I'm retarded

Originally posted by skonaz
reply to post by yourmaker

 

Could it also be considered a virtual training ground ?
Teaching young mostly western males between 15 and 45 years of age to familiarise themselves with military weapons , urban warfare scenarios and tactics , improving hand eye co-ordination and environmental awareness.
I would not denote anyone in the military by pretending this was the same as actual combat training but in the event TSHTF it would be an interesting use for conscription don't you think ?

You're missing the point. The weapons in the game are nothing like the real ones. The names are wrong. The appearance is wrong. The behavior is wrong. The Warfare scenarios and tactics used are insane. None of that happens in the military. Insfoar as the hand-eye coordination is concerned, it will only help you if you're playing a console game, not on an actual battlefield. As far as environmental awareness is relevant, I'd have to say it's less challenging than going out for a coffee with your ipod and cellphone beeping at you in the middle of traffic. And where I live, that's every day, almost all hours of the day.

Video games train people to play video games. That's all they're good for. End of story.

reply to post by skonaz


No offense, but what hand-eye coordination is involved in playing a FPS for example(other than finding your bag of Doritos without looking away from the TV)? It is basically just you sitting on a couch staring at a screen. Use of the controller is all muscle-memory. Actually aiming and firing your rifle after running 800 metres with almost 80 kilos in your ruck......well let's just say that's another story altogether. People seem to forget the environmental effects on combat effectiveness as well. ie muddy terrain, heat, dust, humidity, salt water, etc. all effect performance in different ways and the ways that we adjust to different conditions cannot be taught by staring at a screen. Anyone who thinks so is a fool, plain and simple....then again according to some people I am just here for disinfo.

As pro-gamer for the last 17 years, I can vouch for this. Instead of our dearest world leaders fighting in real life and killing why, dont they just break out the controllers take it up online. I play battlefield 3 everyday, I can imagine the man in the White House and his CIA buddies getting their "play-on" after a hard day at work. Its seems we're in Iran on story mode alreadyn with the nukes and fighting the Ruskies on mulitplayer. Notice how were are NOT fighting any Iranians on multiplayter at all?? I'm sure that would cause an all out war months ago when the game was release

reply to post by Laxpla


You misinterpret my meaning. I mean only to snap the OP out of his fantasy that video games have any bearing on real life whatsoever. Field excercises and "war games" are on a whole 'nother planet compared to video games as they do their best to simulate war-like situations. Also, the above have their uses but there is no 100% way to know how someone will react under the stresses of combat and seeing what bullets and bombs do. That's why so many soldiers kill themselves these days. War is not the facade that you have been sold by Hollywood and the rest of the MSM. If anyone made a movie about what real wars are like, second by second (and I don't mean the p ss poor excuse for a war that was OIF and OEF), nobody would want to watch it. There's a reason why things got so messed up during vietnam and also why that was one of the the last true force on force engagements of the 20th century. Wars like that consist of usually hours and hours of boredom punctuated by brief spurts of sheer terror. There's also a reason why we now impose the strictest of economic sanctions on nations we want to take out before we invade them now, to weaken them as much as possible before we strike. Libya was a textbook example of this. It was also another premier example of how wars are not really fought on the front lines anymore, but through the inception of chaos throughout the AO, like with the false "freedom fighters" (who were also US funded Al-Qaeda btw) in Libya. Wars are won not by engaging enemy forces with your own forces these days. They are won by sending Special Forces in (this is their real MO, not the gung-ho crap you see in movies) to train indigs to do the fighting for us, which also creates the illusion that they are just people fighting for their country. Our soldiers are basically glorified police officers these days, as they are tasked mainly with checkpoint security, snatch and grabs ,OP postings and perimeter patrols. Video games in no way simulate any of the above.

Gonna have to agree with Mr. Infidel on this one 100%

As a Marine that was deployed to one of the worst Iraqi provinces for violence and someone who plays these type of games on occasion...

There is nooooooooo way these are "war simulations"
You don't get a respawn in real life. You get guys in fancy military uniforms informing your next of kin you have been KIA.

Video games are entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is not right in the head.

Also to the Saving Private Ryan reference earlier in this thread. Seeing as how I did not participate in WWII, I have no idea what it was like. When I saw the movie there was an older gentleman sitting in front of me. He was set for the movie. He had a soda, popcorn and even had some candy. After the opening battle sequence he walked out and never came back. He left everything. My thoughts were that it pained him to watch the reenactment. I could be wrong and it was an assumption on my part...just wanted to throw that out there.

I mostly agree with acid_burn.

If anything games like this put persons off going in the military. Even if you have a 6.0 kill death ratio in a game ... that adds up to the seventh person you meet during an encounter shooting you in the face. I think the vast majority gamers realise this. I think the gamers that don't are the kind that collect 'Mercenary Magazine' and have a full book shelf of Jane's manuals anyway.

Originally posted by JibbyJedi
Not me man, that's pretty much what I think is going on too.
They have the Xbox live database to analyze all that data and do whatever they want with it.

And I would disagree with this.

Code, by its very nature, becomes digital foot prints. There's all kinds of ways to detect that this type of information is being recorded. I would consider it a possibility there was a direct correlation between killing police officers in video games and certain types of behaviours promoted by good research ... but there are much better ways of judging a persons behaviour than their actions within video games for most purposes.

reply to post by xXxinfidelxXx


I must have took it the wrong way, I think you have misintereped mine too a little so thats where the confusion happened. In my orginal post I never said anything along those lines.

"Its simple, know where your enemy is while you stay hidden along with shock and awe. Not really anything that the army doesn't know."


I just said the basic and most simple elements of war games such as stealth can apply to real world situations, never said that video games have bearing on real life and its nothing that the military doesn't already know. You are right you will never know where every enemy is, but knowing where some or most is a big advantage. I created and used private cheats in almost everygame that I play, if you knew where your enemy is you get a very, big advantage. I totally agree with you in that commanders would get nothing out of a FPS though.

And pinke, how about 24272-20

I think he has a good point.
the games will tell the army how civilians will fight in combat against them.

so they know how to Kill YOU better!

reply to post by Laxpla


Think about it this way though. It's kind of hard to be stealthy when all the vehicles are rusted out. For example, an Amtrak going down the road sounds like a bag full of bolts going around in a clothes drier. The element of surprise does not exist when even the most basic army can spot you from miles away. If you're talking about lower-profile outfits like the Green Berets, SAS and the like, it's completely different, but all of their training involves real world experience, not the use of a toy, which is what video games really are: a form of entertainment that just so happens to be fraught with propaganda. Video games have a massive effect on Army and Marine Corps recruitment rates, but other than that, it just leads to a bunch of wannabes who think that killing is a cool thing to do, as the way it is portrayed in videogames is just another way to get a few points. Simply put, when you're talking regular Army, the element of surprise does not exist. The Americans make due with sheer numbers to offset that problem. In addition to that, whenever they want to initiate operations in a certain region, they pretty much always soften the target with ordnance before even thinking about putting a boot in harm's way. At least that's how it works in the invasion phase. As far as occupation goes, it is pretty much doomed to failure, as that is all that occupations have ever resulted in. Unless you count the Americas and Australia, but clearly societies have evolved to the point where that cannot be done again with any measure of success (look at Vietnam, the Russian Afghan occupation, any of the European occupations in Africa for examples of why occupations are doomed to failure in modern times)

Originally posted by xXxinfidelxXx
reply to post by Drezden

 

I don't know if you actually played that game but it sucked, even as a recruiting tool. It was glitchy, the animations were choppy, graphics were so laughable (even for an original Xbox game) that they made Halo look like Crysis in comparison. America's Army has got to be one of the worst games I have ever played. When you finally get over the laughably bad gameplay, they make you sit through all of their qualification courses, with nary a checkpoint among them (the sniper qualification caused me to break 3 controllers before I gave up and snapped the disc to save myself any further trouble.Sometimes the OpFor could see you through walls for chrissakes. Which is incredibly annoying when one enemy observation of your movements means game over, and guess what, there are no checkpoints in that mission) Even in the core gameplay, the checkpoints are so far apart that it makes them extremely aggravating. I'm just glad that game was so crappy though, to be honest with you, as they didn't sucker as many potential recruits into signing their lives away as they could have if it was actually playable lol. I remember seeing one of the America's Army recruiting tractor-trailers during a visit to Buffalo, as well, and you know what the recruiter told me? "Oh yeah man, you like that video game? Well you should join the army, cause it's exactly the same!" If I wasn't a fat 12 year old at the time, and he wasn't a buffed out recruiter (they have to look the part), I probably would have decked him at that point, as even at the age of 12, with (obviously) no military experience, I knew that he was full of sh t.

edit on 27/2/2012 by xXxinfidelxXx because: (no reason given)

The first AA that was a COMPUTER game, was fantastic for the time it came out in. All my friends were playing it. It's the only one I played, there wasn't a trailer for the first one.

i do wonder what type of statistics they could get out of such information on the psychological level.. about maybe like the choices made when faced with an idea of a situation..what % chose the correct tactic in the shortest amount of time, what type of tactic was chosen the majority of the time in a specific type of situation, etc.. i do agree a game will never be the same as real experience but i dont really think that was the point...

I think on-line video games represent the ultimate battle between man & technology on an epic scale. On the scale of say, Dune.

And why don't they make FPS in the style of the WW1 or the American Revolution????

I think the military can learn tactics from observing clan matches and clan tactics. But i dont think the military would learn anything from observing random public servers, with random people.

Clans practice team play and team tactics, these players are very often a lot better skilled then public players and play their games a lot differently.

reply to post by xXxinfidelxXx


Sir, you have made your point, rather aggresively i might add. It is obvious you have seen real combat, and your opinion is appreciated. However, the way you post, and passive aggressive attitude, is a bit much.

. Tell me honestly, do you think the depiction of war in the movie :"Saving Private Ryan" was accurate?

How can any of us tell if it is? This was set during WW2, and i don't think any of us, have experience of being there. Sure, some have fought in wars, but wars are different, equipment is different, tactics are different. I don't think, that even you can judge how "accurate" the movie is.

There was a resent movie/documentary, that i think even you have to agree, is rather true to what it is like. It is called Restrepo. Set in a valley in Afghanistan.

vvv

reply to post by xXxinfidelxXx


I dont agree with you.

In a game sounds are also very important to recognize. Sound give you a sense of direction and what is being used against you, or what is in the field. If you play infantry, you will hear the difference between a tank, APC, heli or a car that is on the field. Different weapons have different sounds. The only true difference is that its not real.

In real war tactics 3D mapping and 3D simulators are being used more and more. How real soldiers view the reality of their situation can not be simulated. Simulations and simulators help soldier prepare their mind without the actual experiance of war.

When i served as a combat diver we often practised different combat scenarios with the help of projectors and a large screen. Pilots do the same. We also filmed our training so that we could view it on the screen after. That way we could make improvements on mistakes. We could also create our own scenarios by recording it. And then play it on the screen as a simulation. Its very much like a game.

reply to post by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep


Yup, there are a few good documentaries (OccupationreamLand, Restrepo, The War Tapes, Truth after the Killing Stops, etc.) that may give a civvie a better idea of what it is like to be involved in an occupation, but the fact is, the American army has not fought a real war in almost 50 years. I apologize if I came out of the gate a little strong, but when military fanboys and other types of people who think they know what's going on without ever putting their ass on the line come on this site and spread utter nonsense, I get a little unhealthy dose of righteous anger, as it seems like the only mainstream view of war is the glorified version of it that is viewed in movies and vid games. PS, my grandfather and I had a discussion about Saving Pvt Ryan, and he was in tears pretty much the whole time we were talking about it, not because it was realistic (he said the blood and guts were somewhat approaching reality, but the premise was utter #e), he said, but that because they turned it into a glory-seeking affair. The American Army does not give half a sh t about one private, regardless of whether or not all of his brothers are killed. The only reason they would have undertaken anything like that would be to save their asses in the papers, but back then it was very difficult for news to travel between the front and the home-front, so I doubt that they would have risked an entire unit to save one person. It just doesn't happen that way.

reply to post by spy66


I hate to break it to you but BUDS graduates rarely, if ever see any real sh t, so unfortunately for you, your disagreement does not phase me one bit. Also, what do military simulation programs and video games have in common? Almost nothing other than the fact that they graphically depict situations. Main stream video games have no basis in reality(as a matter of fact they are almost purely propaganda), and they will never make them exactly like their military counterparts as nobody would buy those games, they would be considered too boring for mainstream consumption. You have added nothing to the argument. Maybe next time. It's always appreciated (or not) to hear the opinion of a POG though. Oh how we love you guys. If it wasn't for POGs we wouldn't have any food, but don't think for a second that your opinions count as fact, when it is doubtful that you have ever seen combat with your own two eyes. If I am wrong, sorry, but I don't believe I am.

reply to post by Drezden


I never got to play the computer version. Then again I'm not too disappointed to have missed that one as it is pretty much pure shameless propaganda at it's worst or finest, depends on who you ask.

Originally posted by SayonaraJupiter
I think on-line video games represent the ultimate battle between man & technology on an epic scale. On the scale of say, Dune.

And why don't they make FPS in the style of the WW1 or the American Revolution????

I'm sure it's only a coincidence?

Next Assassin's Creed makes jump to American Revolutionary War setting
By Kyle Orland | Published about 5 hours ago

When Assassin's Creed III hits store shelves on October 30, 2012, players may be surprised to find the series making the jump from its traditional setting of Renaissance Europe to Revolutionary War-era America.

Source arstechnica.com...