Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfighter

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Krishnakg
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Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfighter

Post by Krishnakg »

A series of articles will be posted to enable fellow BRF'ites to understand cutting edge tech developments in gaming, simulation and wearable networked personal computing, as the Next Generation War fighters evolve.

June 7, 2011: The U.S. Army is spending nearly $60 million to build the DSTS (Dismounted Soldier Training System), an infantry combat simulator using the most realistic 3-D commercial game engine (CryEngine 3) available. A game engine is the basic computer code for a game. Add your own graphics and scenario information and you have a game. Most commercial games either built their own engine, or, more frequently, rent one from someone else. The CryEngine 3 was developed for Crysis, a first person shooter (FPS) wargame acknowledged as the most graphically stunning ever. Crysis 2 just came out, and it is even more visually striking than the original Crysis, that appeared four years ago.
The new DSTS will be unlike any earlier infantry simulator in that troops will be in the game, not just playing it. To do this, each participating soldier will be on a 3.22 meter square (10x10 foot) mat that will record the soldier's foot movements. This will enable (along with other sensors) the game to record the soldier's movement. Meanwhile, the soldier will be totally immersed in athe game via tiny goggle displays. The small video screens inside the eyepieces mean that, when looking straight ahead, there will be a high-resolution display of what the soldiers should see. There will still be some peripheral vision to avoid moving off the mat or bumping into nearby soldiers. Earphones provide realistic audio. A hand held controller handles weapons and equipment. Running in place moves the soldier forward, and a turning move allows movement in any direction within the game's virtual world. Each soldier will have the equivalent of a high-end gaming laptop in their backpack, to drive the system. All soldiers in a training exercise will be networked, and use existing commercial software to enable them to coordinate their movements. Troops will be able to enter buildings, duck behind cover or hit the ground. If they are "hit", they will be disabled to varying degrees, or killed (and go off line, leaving only a virtual corpse behind for their fellow troops to see).

This sort of thing is actually part of a trend. Eleven years ago, noting that the troops spent a lot of time playing video games, the army hired video games developer Pandemic to create "Full Spectrum Warrior" (FSW). Compared to your usual video game, the military version of FSW seemed to drag along at times. It can take a minute or more for troops to do some things, like move to another position or use a smoke grenade (it takes nearly a minute for the smoke screen to form.) The player assumes the role of the squad leader, and uses the video game controller to intuitively give battlefield type commands to the two team leaders or, if need be, individual troops. The use of the game controller and the game software is pretty intuitive, allowing the player to handle a real time battlefield game without the game controls getting in the way.

The troops use the same drills and tactics taught to U.S. Army infantrymen today. The game is quite effective in showing users how well trained combat troops are supposed to move. One reason the army put over a million dollars into FSW is another program, begun in 2002, to improve the combat skills of non-combat troops. FSW appeared to be a painless way to expose these clerks, mechanics, cooks and office workers what they should do when under fire. There were scenarios in the game covering situations where non-combat troops have to fight. Many non-combat units are informally organized into squad sized units and often have machine-guns assigned as well. But unless the non-combat troops take the machine-guns and assault rifles out of the arms room regularly and practice, it does them little good to be armed.

The initial batch of scenarios involved going after irregular type fighters in Middle Eastern locations. By using the XBox, the players got photo realistic graphics and equally realistic sound. The army worked closely with the developers to make sure that the game was extremely realistic. The game was eventually available free to anyone in the army (active and reserve). Ultimately, the military and commercial versions shipped on the same CD. That way, civilians could experience the more realistic, but less "fun" military version (which has strictly realistic ammo loads and time durations for battlefield procedures). The game will have online multiplayer capabilities. The artificial intelligence of the enemy force was pretty realistic and deadly.

FSW was well received, and led to DSTS, which was made possible by advances in small displays (that, when placed in front of the eyes, and powered by Crysis class graphics, made you feel like you were inside the game), sensors and graphics hardware. The CryEngine 3 also allows accurate representation of vehicles, missiles, aircraft and all sorts of terrain. DSTS will also be used for mission planning and rehearsal, as well as training.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htcbts ... 10607.aspx
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Craig Alpert »

Eye bee four tea yell onlee! You can use "anticipating future threats thread"
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by PratikDas »

I say it stays.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by shiv »

Krishnakg wrote: The troops use the same drills and tactics taught to U.S. Army infantrymen today. The game is quite effective in showing users how well trained combat troops are supposed to move. One reason the army put over a million dollars into FSW is another program, begun in 2002, to improve the combat skills of non-combat troops. FSW appeared to be a painless way to expose these clerks, mechanics, cooks and office workers what they should do when under fire. There were scenarios in the game covering situations where non-combat troops have to fight. Many non-combat units are informally organized into squad sized units and often have machine-guns assigned as well. But unless the non-combat troops take the machine-guns and assault rifles out of the arms room regularly and practice, it does them little good to be armed.
A classic book, (Men Against Fire) by a man called SLA Marshall was a "first of its kind in the world". Although the findings were later criticized, Marshall interviewed thousands of US GIs immediately after battle in WW2 to see what they had done and he discovered that only 20-25% of men were firing their weapons, and that in every engagement, success or failure - it was the same men who kept doing that. Marshall pointed out that the frontline in battle is the most lonely place in the world. It is silent - not a blade of grass moves. The enemy is rarely seen. And when firing occurs no one knows where it is coming from - but everyone ducks and one rapidly loses contact with one's mates leading to extreme fright and bewilderment. This is the time when it becomes easier to keep ones head down and not fire and not attract return fire. Besides - no one is visible so what is one to fire at?

Apart from this rather startling discovery Marshall had some keen insights into what was going wrong in individual engagements that had a bearing on the overall battle. For example on the subject of communication he points out that in a frontline if there are 3 platoons placed in a line facing an enemy - there is communication between each platoon and the back where the leadership is asking for info - but little lateral communication to see what the platoons on either side are facing. This can lead to errors. Platoon A and C on the flanks may be having an easy time with no resistance. B in the middle may be facing a lot of fire and not able to progress. This info going back to the leadership can in misinterpreted as A and C are "doing well" but B are not doing a good job. The fact may be that platoon B may have come up against the bulk of enemy resistance may be missed - meaning that platoons A and C may be employed more usefully rather than urging B to "do better".

Marshall says that all battles are won on fire and movement. Movement cannot occur without fire and getting men to fire and fire effectively was the first priority. The US, as it is wont to do, has studied all this further and has implemented, in a deliberately scientific manner, all the solutions to make sure that US soldiers are effective in firefights.

I am certain the use of virtual reality can be helpful in simulating certain situations. Marshall points out that the idea of training men to fire at targets that "pop up" (as we see in the movies) makes men think that the enemy will pop up. the enemy rarely pops up and the men don't fire. But unless they fire the unseen enemy will not be intimidated into keeping their own heads down. But when men don't see an enemy they may feel they are wasting ammunition. Keeping one's head down and not firing seems like the natural thing to do despite (and perhaps because of) training.

Again virtual reality may be good to train soldiers to cope with information. With each man, or each platoon leader wearing equipment that gives him info about what is happening along the frontline - he will himself be able to assess who is where. Marshall also points out that a man who is frequently ineffective alone suddenly becomes a dangerous fighting animal when he is paired up with someone - so putting him in a team like a mortar, LMG or artillery team may make him effective. Humans are social animals and not Terminators/Sperminators. Losing contact with buddies in a terrifying firefight can be disorientating and cause paralysis. This can be changed by equipment that keeps them in touch. But this is a two step process

1. That equipment has to be available to most/all men
2. Training to use such equipment can be done in a virtal reality scenario

If you have a low tech army where men do not have individual communication/GPS devices then such virtual reality training would be pointless.
Last edited by shiv on 09 Jun 2011 07:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by SaiK »

good thread, in the sense NG IAF would be all piloting UCAVs sitting in nilagiris or goa beach. So, virtual reality to delivery is the way to go! may wanna reopen/bringup the UCAV thread.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by manum »

^^ yes a very good thread...It'll support well other conventional discussions...
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

shiv wrote:
A classic book, (Men Against Fire) by a man called SLA Marshall was a "first of its kind in the world". Although the findings were later criticized, Marshall interviewed thousands of US GIs immediately after battle in WW2 to see what they had done and he discovered that only 20-25% of men were firing their weapons, and that in every engagement, success or failure - it was the same men who kept doing that. Marshall pointed out that the frontline in battle is the most lonely place in the world. It is silent - not a blade of grass moves. The enemy is rarely seen. And when firing occurs no one knows where it is coming from - but everyone ducks and one rapidly loses contact with one's mates leading to extreme fright and bewilderment. This is the time when it becomes easier to keep ones head down and not fire and not attract return fire. Besides - no one is visible so what is one to fire at?

Apart from this rather startling discovery Marshall had some keen insights into what was going wrong in individual engagements that had a bearing on the overall battle.

I am certain the use of virtual reality can be helpful in simulating certain situations. Marshall points out that the idea of training men to fire at targets that "pop up" (as we see in the movies) makes men think that the enemy will pop up. the enemy rarely pops up and the men don't fire. But unless they fire the unseen enemy will not be intimidated into keeping their own heads down. But when men don't see an enemy they may feel they are wasting ammunition. Keeping one's head down and not firing seems like the natural thing to do despite (and perhaps because of) training.

Again virtual reality may be good to train soldiers to cope with information. With each man, or each platoon leader wearing equipment that gives him info about what is happening along the frontline - he will himself be able to assess who is where. Marshall also points out that a man who is frequently ineffective alone suddenly becomes a dangerous fighting animal when he is paired up with someone - so putting him in a team like a mortar, LMG or artillery team may make him effective. Humans are social animals and not Terminators/Sperminators. Losing contact with buddies in a terrifying firefight can be disorientating and cause paralysis. This can be changed by equipment that keeps them in touch. But this is a two step process

1. That equipment has to be available to most/all men
2. Training to use such equipment can be done in a virtal reality scenario

If you have a low tech army where men do not have individual communication/GPS devices then such virtual reality training would be pointless.
Very informative and context sensitive post Shiv. You have actually provided the historical context, by which modern mil tech is being shaped. Adding on, 1) Though Marshall's claims on ratio of fire were hotly contested later, it was this foremost research and reporting which resulted as basis for future systematic collection of battlefield data. 2) Marshall's insistence that modern warfare is best understood through the medium of those who actually do the fighting. 3) Marshall had some keen insights into what was going wrong in individual engagements that had a bearing on the overall battle. The above key points, along with advent of modern computing provide the rationale and have resulted in creation of realistic combat simulation systems.
http://warchronicle.com/us/combat_histo ... llfire.htm
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

Continuing from the first post of the topic,

The US Army's New Dismounted Training System has an extraordinary degree of realism, including everything from footprints and disturbed vegetation to varying kinds of precipitation, lighting, sound effects and more. CryENGINE video provided courtesy of RealTime Immersive, Inc.

If possible watch it in High Definition, the option is available on video.
http://youtu.be/rHA81e8LNW8


In another video, US army trains its soldiers, to patrol and man the check-posts in Baghdad, to expect the unexpected, using a sim based on a popular game engine. This sim is more focussed on interactivity between soldiers and civilians, including language, and not so focussed on high end graphics.
http://youtu.be/aFSMnjI0Cws
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by shiv »

While we are on this topic it may be worth looking at what earthly use these virtual war games might have. Why would they be any use to the Indian armed forces and what would be of use.

Clearly simulators are being used for aviation (air force) though not as widely as I believe they should be used. Simulators are used for tanks and for shooting (I have myself tried an INSAS simulator).

Why should the Indian armed forces adopt simulation the way the US appears to be doing?

One answer could be "The US is doing it so it must be he correct thing to do" That would be a bad answer as far as I am concerned. The US has developed a networked system of warfare that allows information sharing and such simulation could ensure practice in information sharing that may be useless fora less information dependent army.

It could also teach potential combatants expect certain scenarios and problems and think about how to deal with them beforehand. Another useful thing about immersive simulation might be to get US forces used to desert or forest warfare scenes in mid winter when outdoor simulation may not be possible. but this is one application that may not be a constraint fo the Indian armed forces.

Naturally fitness and physical toughness and the ability to negotiate tough obstacles under fire and in bad weather, carrying loads and patrolling for miles on end for hours on end will not come from this sort of simulation and that would have to continue as usual.

I am really interested in finding out the ways in which such simulation may be useful for the Indian armed forces.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Prasad »

Simulation is a great way to reduce costs. In the case of flying be it helis or planes, the cost reductions are evident. Rather than wasting airframe hours and fuel, one would spend electricity. For the army, physically transporting units to specific training locations along with their equipment might be a factor? If the unit is closer to the simulator then they wouldn't need to travel across the country to a specific school or spend lesser time at such a school and enable more units to go through the school if they spend more time on the simulator and reduced times at the school itself.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by manish.rastogi »

Well just a viewpoint but i think simulation is not good cause if you do a mistake over there you don't kill yourself, you even don't get hurt. So practising on the simulator most of the time might make that soldier way too aggressive and risk taking cause in his training whatever he did,he never got killed. So there's a possibility of making same mistake in real battlefield.


Instead of that i think real war exercises or laser gun competitions even paintball games will be more realistic and helpful. The whole battlefield could be arranged, one would need whole lot a space for that though.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by shiv »

manish.rastogi wrote:Well just a viewpoint but i think simulation is not good cause if you do a mistake over there you don't kill yourself, you even don't get hurt. So practising on the simulator most of the time might make that soldier way too aggressive and risk taking cause in his training whatever he did, he never got killed. So there's a possibility of making same mistake in real battlefield.

Manish - that is a good observation. But a simulator can be fixed to prevent that by "killing" the guy who takes "unnecessary" risks. War itself is risk and a battlefield is a big risk. So all soldiers are taking a big risk.

I have been doing some fairly intense reading about the psychology of soldiers in war. Soldiers who enter battle for the first time are usually scared but more often worried about whether they will lose face by being too scared. They soon discover that death and injury are almost random in the battlefield where a man who appears to be taking an "unnecessary risk" survives and another man who is taking cover gets blown away by a mortar shell.

So simulator training will be modelled to take out random people who are not taking risks and encourage soldiers to do what has been proven to be effective in battle. The only question is what aspects of training can be simulated for improved training and how much will be wasted if the simulation is useless.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Gurneesh »

Any sim will be cost/time effective when compared to actual activity. But for a sim to produce correct results, the input parameters should be fairly accurate and well modeled. This is not a problem when dealing with machines and their behavior (eg. sim for planes, tanks, uav's etc. work reasonably well). But once one starts to include natural stuff (animals, humans, insects etc.), it is then that most models fall flat on their faces because one cannot predict what these might do next. So, while sims are good for familiarization with high tech stuff, basic war scenario sims might not work out very well.

For example, a sniper could be taught to take head shots with a forest simulation. But how do you simulate the interactions of the sniper with his/her environment (like maybe a spider crawling on his/her leg or a snake causing distraction on the nearby branch). A sniper can only become comfortable with the forest by spending some time in the forest.

Moreover, as Manish pointed out, sims give no feeling of what is happening around a soldier. Most soldiers can fire a gun, but doing so and not loosing ones head when shit is blowing apart all around takes some practice.

In an urban environment, current and near future gen sims do offer some use by providing opportunities to familiarize the soldier with city layout, landmarks etc. But beyond that i do not think they would be of much use.

On a different not though, a Inception like setup where in soldiers are put to sleep and introduced into a battlefield will be the ultimate training sim (atleast for the mind).

P.S. maybe they can put some spiders and snakes to sleep too for maintaining authenticity :lol:
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by shiv »

Militaries have a very long history of simulation. For example para jumping training involves a simulator where one has a controlled drop from a height.

The only question here is what else can computerization and graphics do over and above that already exists? Clearly flying training simulators are a huge step forward. But what about the infantryman?

I guess a soldier can be put in an immersive environment that gives him a realistic feel of what he can see and hear in some scenarios and the same situation iterated repeatedly to show the effect of different types of action. If twenty men can have immersive simulation where each man's action can be fed into a central server that coordinated the data one can simulate, for example the action of a couple of platoons and their interaction with a battalion commander. Even better may be to have two sets - i.e the above platoons facing a hidden enemy - perhaps a machine gun emplacement or mortar fire coming in from somewhere and train for achieving specific outcomes. The sounds and vision part can be made frighteningly realistic.

Apart from the software requirement - I think a Rs 10 crore investment should be able to provide the necessary hardware infrastructure for a basic testing set up for simulation for a groups o soldiers in an immersive scenario.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by sanjeevpunj »

If anyone wants to train on the American way of warfare, try http://www.americasarmy.com/
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by manish.rastogi »

Thank you shiv saar

The thing is like when i play video games, i know that i will get many chances, so i play aggressively and taking too much risk. The soldiers though could be given basic idea of surroundings through the simulator, only basics could be taught in simulator rest on field, just like para training.
We all know that the more senses you use in learning,the better you learn.
Also these simulators that would be made would be very highly resource intensive,the hardware and stuff needed would be too much,so it will be not that cost effective.
Lastly, i think that the suit they would be wearing which would be tracking their movement, some tech could be incorporated in it which would give a sense of hurt, like if someone gets shot, he could be given a shock,or a bullet hits them so a shock could be given of lesser magnitude, all in all some kinda sense mechanism could be made.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

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Pentagon's advanced research arm tackles cyberspace

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Lockheed Martin employees are seen at work in November of 2009 in the company’s NexGen Cyber Innovation & Technology Center, which monitors internet threats, shortly after the facility opened in Gaithersburg, Marylanda as seen in this Lockheed Martin handout photo released to Reuters on June 15, 2011. – Reuters Photo

Image

The Pentagon's advanced research arm, the same group credited with developing the forerunner of the Internet in the 1960s, is working on many fronts to boost U.S. defenses against computer-generated attacks.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is building a virtual firing range in cyberspace -- a replica of the Internet on which scientists can test how successfully they can thwart feared foreign- or domestic-launched attempts to disrupt U.S. information networks

Called the National Cyber Range, it will also help the U.S. government train cyberwarriors and hone advanced technologies to guard information systems.

Reuters has learned that the National Cyber Range is expected to be fully up and running by mid-2012, four years after the Pentagon approached contractors to build it. It cost an estimated $130 million.

One of these companies is Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales and itself the target of what it called "a significant and tenacious" cyber attack last month.

Lockheed, the U.S. government's top information technology provider, was awarded a $30.8 million contract in January 2010 to continue to develop a prototype. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory won a similar deal at that time.

This summer DARPA is to select one of them to operate a prototype test range during a yearlong test.

It will also apparently help train cyberwarriors such as those in the U.S. military's Cyber Command, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June 2009 after he concluded the threat of digital warfare had outgrown existing U.S. defenses.

The cyber range actually will be a collection of "testbeds" that can carry out independent drills or be woven into one or more larger pieces, depending on the challenge.

The range is to test such things as new network protocols plus satellite and radio frequency communications.

A key goal is to run classified and unclassified experiments in quick succession, "in days rather than the weeks it currently takes," said Eric Mazzacone, a DARPA spokesman.

That would require a system capable of being completely reset after an experiment -- reconfiguring it and purging all data from related memory, hard drives and storage devices.

Such an ability to reboot and start over is central to the plan, keeping the facility available "at all times for both experimentation and training," without fear of corruption or compromise, Mazzacone said by email.

CRASH AND CINDER

DARPA is also working on other plans to advance cyber defense.

A program known as CRASH -- for Clean-slate design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts -- seeks to design computer systems that evolve over time, making them harder for an attacker to target.

The Cyber Insider Threat program, or CINDER, would help monitor military networks for threats from within by improving detection of threatening behavior from people authorized to use them. The problem has loomed large since Army Private First Class Bradley Manning allegedly passed a trove of confidential State Department documents to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy

website.

Then there is "Cyber Genome," aimed at automating the discovery, identification and characterization of malicious code, which could help figure out who was behind a cyber strike.

President Barack Obama has asked Congress for more than $250 million to fund DARPA's cyber initiatives in the coming year, double his fiscal 2011 request.

The U.S. Defense Department, meanwhile, is preparing an expanded pilot program to boost the sharing of cybersecurity information with the companies that provide arms, supplies and other services costing some $400 billion a year.

The new effort, like a predecessor that began in 2007, is voluntary and is aimed at protecting sensitive but unclassified information on or passing through computers owned by companies that make up what the Pentagon calls the defense industrial base, or DIB.

About 35 companies took part in the initial program, including Lockheed Martin, which said last month its computer networks had become "a frequent target of adversaries around the world."

The expanded "DIB Opt-In" program will be open to many more companies. It is "vital to the nation's military readiness and the government's overall efforts to enhance cybersecurity," Air Force Lieutenant Colonel April Cunningham, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said in a statement to Reuters.

Ultimately, the new program may be a step toward putting major Pentagon contractors behind military-grade network perimeter defenses, such as those that protect the Pentagon's own classified networks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/ ... RY20110616

On the Indian side, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) is at the forefront of variety of organisations investigating and securing cyberspace. IA, has Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) doing the same.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... c-controls

Cyber Wargaming is continuously being done by IA to keep up the defense preparedness. A publicly speculated but never denied Wargame called Divine Matrix was done by IA in 2009, with Indo-China cyber scenario.

http://www.stratpost.com/navy-chief-cal ... r-capacity
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by UBanerjee »

I was watching a program on Discovery channel which showed how the US army uses tank simulators for training. Like a flight sim you actually get into a box which moves around like a tank presumably would and you work with your crewmates to "move" the virtual tank and fire on virtual enemies. There is some footage here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAeNXiY1 ... age#t=460s
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »



See how immersive training technology is helping soldiers experience real world, but in a training environment.



This 4 year old video features Soldiers utilizing actual FCS systems in training experiment 1.1. The video shows training with various hardware, software and robotic systems. The Future Combat Systems - FCS - is the core of the US Army's efforts to ensure that the Army, as a member of the Joint team, will move, shoot and communicate better than ever before. Current tech has gone many steps ahead in increasing a Soldiers accuracy, lethality and sustainability. What is shown in the video as future systems is already implemented to a high extent.

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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by prabhug »

hi
I was thinking in these lines

1.Computer wargaming for the war planners with some random situations occuring / adding real time variables like climate.
2. Networked gaming where one person doesn't know about the other
3.Accurate modelling of the forces and effectiveness

For example if we are able to pick some weather from last few years and set for the war gaming that day it can through up some challenges to planners. A satellite failure , communication failure etc
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

Stuxnet - Cyberweapon: Incredible true story and brilliant piece of reporting by Kim Zetter, on Wired.

The article traces back and pieces together the fascinating story of the most advanced cyber weapon used till date. Of interest and of note is, that 3700 of the infected machines were in India, and thankfully benign, since Stuxnet was selective on the attack profile and we were not the target.
Whether the “bad guy” was the United States or one of its allies, the attack was causing collateral damage to thousands of systems, and Symantec felt no patriotic duty to preserve its activity. “We’re not beholden to a nation,” Chien said. “We’re a multinational, private company protecting customers.”

The clock was ticking. All the researchers knew at this point was that Stuxnet had a foothold on more than 100,000 computers, and they had no real idea what it was doing to them.

“For the longest time we were thinking, well, maybe it just spread in Iran because they didn’t have up-to-date security software, and that if this gets over to the United States, some water-treatment plant or some train-control system or anything could be affected,” Chien recalled recently. “So, really, we were trying to find out, full steam ahead, what exactly does this thing affect?”
The article points out, this was a one-shot weapon, so the government(s) that wrote this may have already determined this was as much or more an experiment in designing and developing cyberweaponry rather than a truly useful tool in and of itself; a cyberweapon beta test to see what would happen. In fact, one could even hypothesize that the specific non-involvement of US government was another test, to see how long it would take the world at large to dissect what is obviously an incredibly complex and devious cyberweapon.

In the end though, no matter what the Stuxnet developer's true goals were, as a one shot weapon it had limited long term value even if nobody ever managed to figure out how it worked; just knowing that it targeted command and control software for controller cards would have been enough to make anyone suspicious of future equipment malfunctions and force CNC developers and manufacturers like Siemens to start putting security measures into their code and hardware.
Stuxnet required an enormous amount of resources to produce, but its cost-benefit ratio is still in question. While it may have helped set Iran’s program back to a degree, it also altered the landscape of cyberattacks. Stuxnet’s authors mapped a new frontier that other attackers are bound to follow; and the next target for sabotage could easily be a nuclear facility in the United States.
What has been achieved by this sophisticated piece of code is mind boggling, with implications of clear and present danger to our nation's establishments, both military and civilian, from state and non state actors. We are a nation importing the highest amount of tech and Mil hardware, which leaves further weak links in the defense chain for such cyber exploits.

Request the forum to read all the 8 pages of the article and to provide healthy commentary
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/0 ... d-stuxnet/
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

Video games and simulation software designers have for years tried to make players feel like they are really part of the action.
As graphics and sound have improved a greater sense of realism is now possible but beyond the pretty pictures and rumbling soundtrack, how immersed in a virtual version of something can you get?

BBC click article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/c ... 567040.stm
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Manish_P »

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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

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War gaming centre to prepare IAF for global operations
India is setting up a war gaming centre for its air force to enable the aerospace power train for warfare anywhere in the world by simulating scenarios at the strategic and operational levels.

The Delhi-based War Gaming Centre (WGC), as the Indian Air Force (IAF) would call it, will be up and functioning in about three years from now and will be more advanced than the Gwalior-based Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE), a top IAF officer told IANS here.

The WGC will be modelled on the Indian Army's Delhi-based WARDEC or War Gaming Development Centre, but would go much beyond the latter's role to develop warfare doctrines for strategic reach, he said.

"The system will be able to generate scenario and simulation at strategic and operational levels in collaboration with other agencies, both military and civil, at the national level," the officer said.

"The facility will have the capability to play the war game in coordination with or independently from varied locations across the country," he said.

"The centre will paint scenarios anywhere in the world," he added.

Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne had, in his first press conference as IAF chief Oct 3, pointed out that his force's area of responsibility is beyond the Indian Ocean region and wherever India's strategic interests lie.

Apart from taking into account the current fleet of aircraft, helicopters and infrastructure of the IAF, the centre will also cater to future inductions of aircraft and systems.

The WGC will be capable of playing out scenarios of being a neutral power, apart from planning for high number of contingencies and missions, and address issues like application of air power.

"Most importantly, the centre will provide and incorporate out-of-area contingencies, and include army and naval forces deployment in the overall simulation models, to help in planning and execution of joint operations," the officer said.

The WGC will carry out strategic and operational doctrinal selection, integrate aerospace elements in the planning, and allow for execution of the war game in "real and turbo" time.

With a seamless integration of existing tactical war gaming tools and packages in the IAF, the centre, once established, will undertake creation of a bank of scenarios and objectives, including secondary ones, of various types for use in all planned exercises of the IAF
IANS report
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

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Interesting article based on aspirations, setbacks and bottlenecks of creating a net enabled warrior.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06 ... n=Previous
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Starting in October, some soldiers — represented by this dummy in the Pentagon courtyard — will carry a Motorola Atrix like the one strapped to the dummy’s chest, enabling them to send and receive data while dismounted in warzones. Photo: Spencer Ackerman/Wired.com

In October, the Army will do something it’s wanted to do for more than a decade: send a pair of combat brigades to a warzone equipped with a new data network, and the hardware to operate it. It’ll let more than a thousand troops rapidly send voice, text, imagery and data across a warzone and to a soldier on patrol. It’s a milestone, following years of aspirations, setbacks and adjustments. And it arrives pretty much too late for the wars.

When the 3rd and 4th Brigade Combat Teams of the 10th Mountain Division reach Afghanistan in October, between 1,200 and 1,400 soldiers will take with them a rejiggered Motorola Atrix running Android that’s the heart of a communications program called Nett Warrior. When they go out on patrol, their devices will load mapping applications layered with data about where they are and where their buddies are. When they encounter insurgents, homemade bombs or Afghan civilians, they’ll be able to record that information, which will appear on those digital maps as icons dotting layers of data.

Using the Rifleman Radios plugged into their Motorola devices, they’ll be able to transmit that data in a series of relays from one radio to another, across their units, into their trucks and back to their company headquarters. When the data reaches the computers within a tactical operations center, their captain and first sergeant will be able to see their battlefields like never before, as they change, in near-real time. And those officers will be able to ping that picture up the chain of command, to the battalion and then brigade headquarters — and, should a colonel decide it’s necessary, onward and upward, all the way back to the Pentagon, thousands of miles away.

And it works both ways. When the captain decides that there’s information at his or her level that a squad leader needs to know — say, a suspicious car moving at a high rate of speed toward the squad, captured on video from an Army drone overhead — the captain can send it out to the squad leader. A new icon will appear on the mapping app on the Atrix.

“This is a capability we have never, ever been able to provide,” says Brig. Gen. John Morrison, one of the key figures behind the Army’s new data network, called the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T.

He’s not kidding: WIN-T has been in the works since 1996. For most of that time, it lived as the dream of Pentagon officials — and the frustrations of soldiers in confusing, arduous fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, who didn’t have the tactical information they needed when they needed it. Army colonels and generals who announced the deployment of WIN-T to Afghanistan at the Pentgon on Thursday used terms like “sea change” to describe it.

Only that change may have come too late.

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Inside a mock-up of a mobile Tactical Operations Center that’s running the Army’s new Warfighter Information Network-Tactical. The TOC (“tock”), as soldiers call it, is designed to be mobile: It can be picked up, moved and reconstructed in three hours. Photo: Spencer Ackerman/Wired.com

In order to develop WIN-T, the Army had to tear up its playbook for how it develops, well, everything. When the Army wants a new tank, it determines the specifications it needs, figures out of those specs are realistically deliverable, picks a contractor to build it, tests it once it’s built, and then starts to buy it and send it out to the units who’ll drive it. You can’t buy IT gear this way.

Nett Warrior is an example. It began life in the mid-1990s as a different program called Land Warrior. In order to connect dismounted soldiers to the data they needed, the Army’s idea was to strap them full of wearable computers, with dangling banana-shaped keyboards and monocles strapped to their helmets displaying maps, all cabled together in a cumbersome get-up that weighed over a dozen pounds. By 2010, when the renamed Nett Warrior had been panned by the few soldiers who used it, the program had less computational power than an iPhone, which could fit in a soldier’s pocket. And it still hadn’t gone to war.

But developing Nett Warrior was hard enough. A different Army office developed the Rifleman Radios that were supposed to be how the wearable computers to the outside world. Another one worked on what waveforms the Army should use. Another one worked on providing deployed soldiers with the bandwidth necessary for them to communicate. The costs ballooned; the deadlines slipped; and the network never arrived.

About 18 months ago, the Army decided — thanks in large part to its former vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, an iPhone enthusiast — that it needed to develop the whole network, all at once, and test it all at once, so soldiers wouldn’t discover in the middle of a firefight that the network didn’t work as advertised. That led to a series of tests at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Fort Bliss, Texas, appropriately called Network Integration Exercises.

Among the lessons: shrink Nett Warrior down to a smartphone loaded with apps. (Well, a smart device; the 3G/4G and the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device are disabled for data-security purposes and you can’t make a call on it.) Don’t demand the defense industry produce gear that will quickly become archaic; buy existing tech off the shelf instead. Hughes isn’t married to the Atrix: He envisions a newer smartphone forming the basis for Nett Warrior maybe every year or every other year. Design tactical operations centers, or TOCs, that can be boxed up and moved closer to the fight, so as to ease the strain on the network. Newer TOCs that the brigades from the 10th Mountain will take to Afghanistan this fall can be moved in three hours; when the Network Integration Exercises began, it took 12. The Army estimates these tests saved it $6 billion.

“Just think of the power” that soldiers will be able to tap into, Morrison beams.

Now comes the hard part — taking it to war.

Image
A closer view of the data displayed through the Army’s Warrior Information Network-Tactical, displayed on a giant flatscreen in a tactical operations center — this one on display in the Pentagon courtyard. Photo: Spencer Ackerman/Wired.com

WIN-T works well at White Sands, swear Morrison and Col. Dan Hughes, the Army’s director for systems integration and an amateur app designer. But however accurate and exacting the training scenarios for the network have been, Afghanistan is an acid test. Even technology that tests perfectly has a habit of breaking in wartime — especially if that technology has lots of moving parts, like WIN-T and Nett Warrior.

Then come the usage issues. A young, bored soldier with an Atrix in his hand might be tempted to send his buddy a funny video he shot. Stopping that, to some degree, is a matter of an alert sergeant growling at him to knock it off. But there’s also a technological solution: Back at the TOC, the captain’s staff will be monitoring for potential bandwidth hogs — especially if they seem to come from anomalous sources. More related to a mission, Hughes concedes that sending video out to a dismounted soldier’s Nett Warrior device is “harder to do,” given the file size and available bandwidth. That video might have to stay in the TOC, while the key bits of data become icons on the Atrix’s networked maps.

Finally, there are issues that technology can’t solve. Brig. Gen. Randall Dragon, head of the Army’s Brigade Modernization Command, says that the key data soldiers need are “where are my buddies, where is the threat, and where do I put effective fires.” But in a counterinsurgency like Afghanistan, a soldier on patrol may not know if the Afghan giving him the thousand-mile stare is an insurgent or a civilian. That complicates his ability to create a red — enemy — icon on his mapping application. Hughes says the soldier can input an icon annotated to clarify that the Afghan’s status is unknown — but quickly concedes that technology can’t fix basic intelligence problems.

Still, WIN-T has field-tested a number of anticipatable problems. Hughes says the data that soldiers send and receive is encrypted at multiple points, unlike drone video was in Iraq. The Army’s working on procedures to make sure that it isn’t bombarded with data, like the Air Force was when it started shooting terabytes’ worth of full-motion video from loitering drones. “The guys in the TOC, we don’t need to see everything,” says Maj. Shane Sims, another officer working on WIN-T.

The most bittersweet part of the imminent WIN-T deployment is the calendar. The Iraq war was one of the longest in American history, and it came and went without a modern Army data network. Danger Room boss Noah Shachtman wrote a blog post speculating that WIN-T might be deployed ahead of schedule; that blog post was published in 2005. The Afghanistan war, the longest war in American history, is winding down. The Army wants to outfit a total of eight brigades with WIN-T over the next two years. They will probably be the last combat brigades of the war. Networking soldiers was a major priority of the Army before 9/11 in a labyrinth of programs called Future Combat Systems that proved to be an expensive failure. WIN-T will surely undergrow growing pains when it actually meets the trial by fire in Afghanistan. It might only truly be a mature network after the Army is done with the war — leaving open the question of how relevant will be in the next one.

What remains foremost in the mind of the officers, themselves war veterans, that developed the network is how they and their soldiers needed something like WIN-T for the past decade and didn’t have it. “We took a lot of shortcuts,” says Maj. Gen. Gennaro Dellarocco, who runs the Army’s Testing and Evaluation Command. “We’ve paid for it, dearly, literally, with lives.”
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

Guys we are devloping Combined Arms Simulator system and we are looking for indipendt contributers who are willing to help in anywhy possible. We are not working with MOD, GOI or Indian Army yet but devloping this system independently in the hope that we could possibly impress Indian army in future. So if you are intrested in finding more about our project please drop me a line at "ashdivay AT gamil Dot com".

Regards
Ash
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Zynda »

Ashdivay,
Are you guys developing Indian combat vehicles for DCS Combined Arms simulator or is this a venture of your own? Are you looking to create Indian Armed forces skins for vehicles such as T-90, BMP etc?
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Gaur »

ashdivay,

You've got mail. :)
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

Hi Its not DCS, i cant say what it is on here. But we are devloping Indian terrain , Buildings , AFV's such as T-90, Arjun, BMP-2 etc. Please deop me a line if you want to get involved and contribute.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by pralay »

i sent u email,
ashdivay :)
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Shrinivasan »

Ashdivay,
you have got mail(s)... respond directly...
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

[youtube]http://youtu.be/fpgcp3aJeUM[/youtube]
[youtube]http://youtu.be/EY7D9j9B0lc[/youtube]
[youtube]http://youtu.be/7M6Ni3g849Q[/youtube]
[youtube]http://youtu.be/MaLr77RvN40[/youtube]

Some vids of our work.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

here is something interesting. This is old video.
There have been lot of devlopments since this vid.

http://youtu.be/YJpYpGTwgJw
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

Some Anti Tank Guided Missile action

http://youtu.be/7M6Ni3g849Q
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

Developing a new scenario based on Location of historical battle of 1965 war between Indian and Pakistan.
I used GIS data to develop a 50k x 50k map of Khem Karan. The map is still work in progress but its close to real world.

For your ref here is Google Earth shot of the location
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And Google map
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And finally my work in progress.
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And the Indian Army Defenders
Image
Image
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what do you guys think ?
More coming soon.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

http://bcove.me/3j757yys

Value of gaming in training !

Implemented with 6 consumer grade gaming PC's, hand held controllers, headsets, Call Of Duty game SDK, Geo specific data model, 6 LED monitors, 28 LED video wall monitors, couple more desktops for monitoring the game environment. Low cost effective simulation for training and learning.

Implemented similar setup long back here. But alas, no traction from the decision makers then. Pity.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by ashdivay »

Call of Duty is good for Infantry level tactical training cant say the same for its Combined arms capability.
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Re: Gaming, Simulation and other tech for the NexGen warfigh

Post by Krishnakg »

Yes, for combined arms capability, Battlefield 3 is a better fit. As the earlier video says, Call of Duty is being used for Infantry level tactical training and area familiarization.
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