Francois

This is about how the military uses computer simulations to train it's own troops (rather than as a recruitment tool. This is off the military.com website.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,115158,00.html

The article says that computer based training is attractive for wounds training because it is so graphic. Before in real life excercises people had to carry slips of paper. The designers hope that the graphical realism of wounds will help people freeze up less in the real world. I don't know though... how real will the computer training be compared to the smell of blood in real life. But maybe the soldiers will think that it is a game and so be able to carry on.

Here is an interesting snippet about Jihadi AI:
“Developing the artificial intelligence so [virtual enemies] know how to act like a person from a specific culture . . . with goals that are completely different from traditional combat is a really hard thing,” he told ITP.

And the military acknowledging the limits of simulation:
“You can play Call of Duty or America's Army all day long, but you'll never get a sense for how heavy that pack is you have to carry, how dehydrated you get operating in this environment, or what it feels like when a round jams in your gun,” he said, referring to two popular games. “You have to do that in a live environment.”

Also apparently troops leaving Iraq use software to show the troops coming in to their area a 3D map of the area they patrolled:

“Here's the street we usually work on, here's where our checkpoint is,” Smith said, describing some of the information Iraq-bound troops can inspect in the virtual world. In addition, troops could review typical traffic patterns, car models used by insurgents to deliver improvised explosive devices, or popular insurgent sniper hangouts, he added.