WILL JFETS REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY AMERICA TRAINS ITS SOLDIERS? [+] ballot by aya created Thu Dec 23, 04 Rote learning: for centuries grueling routines and punishing drills were continuously taught to soldiers in order to replace thinking with instinct, so at the sound of gunfire, a soldier would automatically return fire. However, the Pentagon now believes that this unacceptable for the Sunni Triangle. Using JFETS (The Joint Fires and Effects Trainer System), training has now begun through ‘virtual war’. One of the advantages of using this system is that it’s cheaper than training soldiers in the fields. Firing a rocket in a live exercise can cost $10,000 or more, and a three week exercise for 13,500 participants costs up to $250 million. Using synthetic environments, however, for the next 5 yrs, costs up to $45 million. Even rehearsing in one environment also requires weeks of planning and construction. The director of JFETS is fascinated by things like how troops maintain command under such chaotic conditions and “how the decision to increase the infantry baseload by a few pounds creates cascades of cause and effect.” His goal, he claims, is to have the virtual project be an election year trophy for Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz so “they can say, We’re transforming the army.” Think like a commander is a virtual scenario that engages captains in training in conflict scenarios. In one scenario engages trainees in actual conflict scenarios taken from actual interviews with senior officers who trained in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Coalition troops, tribal leaders, and villagers are played by programmed characters that are engrained with megabytes of artificial intelligence, army doctrine, and speech-and-recognition software. The first hurdle to creating ‘virtual war’ was convincing the Pentagon that ‘not everyone in Hollywood is a freak.’ However, the JFETS team avoids using the word, ‘game,’ calling ‘virtual war’ tactical decision aids, and instead of ‘game over’ the words ‘too many soldier causalities pop up. On the other hand, researchers say “When they’re still talking about it in the mess hall afterward, you’ve got a game!” The problem with ‘virtual war’ is that it can’t experience the full reality of what it’s like to live in the field. But, researchers say, as weapons systems grow smarter, they are more and more expensive to use in the real world. Hence, ‘virtual war’ is currently being used as an effective training tool at Fort Sill where Army infantrymen, Marine Corpsmen, and Navy Sailors are training in this new type of art of combat. If successful, similar facilities will go up at other bases such as Fort Bliss and even in Fallujah. To get a sense of how realistic this type of ‘virtual war’ is, Senator Inhofe, a Republican, tried it. As a technician shouts out, “load the flying bats!” the senator found himself in a damp tunnel near a farmhouse that may be an enemy hideout. As insects swirled around him, water trickles around him, and digital bats swoop overhead. The senator is impressed and said “It’s the closest thing to reality that I’ve ever experienced. My feet felt wet.” Apparently, this new type of reality is more effective than what some call a ‘video game,’ because training and navigating in virtual worlds in simulated environments increase learning speed and retention of tasks. Michael Macedonia, head of the Army’s simulation office, claims that the most important thing is the story. As a veteran of Gulf War 1, he found himself, on the morning of 9/11, watching CNN on the third floor of the Pentagon when a colonel walked in and announced, “We are at Threatcon Delta,” (the code for an imminent terrorist attack). Four minutes later, American Airlines flight 77 slammed into the building killing 189 ppl. “The big challenge is, do we have the story right? Are we teaching the right thing? The real story of warfare is that your buddy’s dying—what do you do? Or ppl are yelling at you and you’re really scared, b/c you think they might hurt you, and you’ve been ordered not to hurt them.” Yes, 'vritual war' will revolutionize the way soldiers are trained no, rote learning is more effective Ballot #62938 : SEE RESULTS Comment: show your vote with comment?

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