The Uses of Simulation in the Military

The Uses of Simulation in the Military

Week 1, Research Paper

Simulation has been a part of the military for almost as long as war has been around. However the types of simulations that we use today are a modern invention. Generals have been creating and testing strategies in simulation for a long time. Today we have the technology to create virtual representations of a battle zones stocked with geographical landscapes, both hostile and non-hostile NPCs (non-playable characters) and controllable entities acting as the various soldiers and vehicles. Simulation is a great and a necessary tool for training your soldiers and winning the war, the most important of these simulations are wargames, field exercises and flight training.

One of the oldest types of simulation in the military are Wargames. A wargame generally is a type of game or simulation that is designed to expose a player to concepts and aspects of war (University of Virginia, 1999). Wargames would have started at the time of the first organized war (University of Virginia, 1999). These games were most likely picking an action then taking that action testing it and then tweaking the plan to make it better (University of Virginia, 1999). Generals used this setting for many years, allowing them to come up with better strategies, therefor winning more battles. In 7th century India there was a wargame called Chaturanga, Chaturanga in many aspects is much like the game chess which is often played today. In the game each piece of the board represented the different types of units you may have seen on the battlefield which include foot soldiers, elephants and chariots (University of Virginia, 1999). With the invention of computers it gave the military the ability to simulate these war games in a more virtual environment. This was a large advantage because the only limitations where those set by the computer. One of the earliest consumer games that was modified to be a military game was Doom II, which was...