online-gaming environments to train soldiers

At the very hour a terrorist bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad played across worldwide TV screens, Jim Grosse, principal investigator at the Army's Simulation Technology Center in Orlando, FL, was speaking to Military Training Technology about training soldiers for fighting the wider war.

Grosse was describing a Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDEC) project that is as timely as the nightly news. Known as the Massively Multiplayer Simulation for Asymmetric Warfare, or simply MMP, it's essentially a virtual world intended to train soldiers well beyond the goals of war gaming. It will help prepare warfighters for the worst real life scenarios during long term, asymmetric military missions. Grosse's new science and technology objective (STO) will ultimately help reduce the replay of terrorist events in the future, wherever they occur.

It is generally accepted that immersive simulations form the gateway to training the armies of the future. The MMP is a bold new thrust in that direction, and it's very similar to the massively multiplayer role-playing game concept common in the commercial world.

The Army version of this unique training system will have a server and PC-based distribution capability intended to change the way soldiers interact online. It is expected to widen soldiers' view of the mission by stressing a long term, asymmetrical scenario, Grosse noted.
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