New Army Propaganda Game

[MKSheppard]

from Battlefront.com forums:

The Army just released a new, free game. This one is a propaganda piece for the FCS systems. I'm still downloading it, but it looks like you're commanding an FCS armor company team in a notional land against a notional foe. Can't tell what the gameplay is like (RTS maybe?).

Looks like you get plenty of unmanned systems to play with too.

http://www.army.mil/fcs/f2c2/index.html

[Velthuijsen]

Wired news story on the game.

A game that has the ability to learn to counter strategies? I want one!

[Vympel]

I love the wanky new-age military speak that stains the entire website. Not surprising since they're copying Army fluff directly, but god it's just so cheesy.

[Vympel]

A game that has the ability to learn to counter strategies? I want one!

For a second I thought you were saying that this game did that, but I see what you mean now. Of course, critics of the FCS program itself have been pointing out the problems with the FCS philosophy for ages, and this game seems to be something of a demonstration of what (some) in the US Army thinks FCS will do- it's total fantasy, of course, and if ever implemented will get lots of people killed in lightly armored vehicles in assymetrical warfare.

Never mind the disaster that would ensue if a savvy enemy commander of a near-peer force deceives the so-called "information dominance" the US Army is striving for and slams right into an FCS equipped unit with a horde of actual armored vehicles. It'd be over quite quickly.

[weemadando]

The whole "information dominance" thing was destroyed by the US Army (or Marine Corp) general, I forget which, who during a war game in Australia decided to not use radios and instead had runners and motorcycle couriers, thus rendering the "Good Guys" entire (and we are talking a significant portion of their over all force as well) ELINT dependant groups redundant.

[Vympel]

The whole "information dominance" thing was destroyed by the US Army (or Marine Corp) general, I forget which, who during a war game in Australia decided to not use radios and instead had runners and motorcycle couriers, thus rendering the "Good Guys" entire (and we are talking a significant portion of their over all force as well) ELINT dependant groups redundant.

A Romanian bloke who was in the Army a few years before on the train going from Bucharest to Sofia told me a story along somewhat similar lines- only that they had used equipment so old and archaic in their exercises that the ELINT was worthless.

[General Deathdealer]

There is only one problem to this game. Nobody actually knows what the FCS looks like or is supposed to do. It could be a tracked vehicle or it could be a wheeled vehicle. The system is supposed to start fielding in 5 or so years, but they have not even produced a proto-type yet. So what you see in the game is what they think the vehicle will look like.

[Ace Pace]

Fascinating, you CAN'T lose...

It's an impressive game, simulating weaponry the military is actually using or building, gamers say. But the gameplay is designed so it's hard to lose: The equipment holds up awfully well and the enemy doesn't learn from experience.

"They didn't ask for hole punchers," says Mark Long, co-CEO of Zombie, where the game was built under contract. "High tech has all kinds of low-tech vulnerabilities and they didn't want the vulnerabilities programmed in."



For example, there's no consideration that military power or technology could fail or be jammed, she says. And the enemy doesn't learn, in contrast to a certain real-life conflict where the hallmark of insurgents is their ability to rapidly gain knowledge and evolve.

"All their use of technology is so off-label, so future-forward," Nash says. "And you've got to figure the enemy is playing the game too."

Long wanted to see the enemy evolve, based on his own experience in the Army and defense contracting.

"The first time a UGV toddles in for reconnaissance, insurgents will stare at it until the air strike follows," he says. "The second time, they'll throw a blanket over it and run. The third time, they'll immobilize it and plant an IED because they'll have figured out someone has to recover that million-dollar piece of equipment."

More than anything else, Nash is bothered by the fantasy the potential recruits may have that they'll end up the commander riding a joystick rather than understanding what military life means.

"You don't see the day-to-day boredom, you don't see broken legs and equipment failure," she says. "You don't see that the military is mostly grunts and only the grunts on the ground die."

[Velthuijsen]

The whole "information dominance" thing was destroyed by the US Army (or Marine Corp) general, I forget which, who during a war game in Australia decided to not use radios and instead had runners and motorcycle couriers, thus rendering the "Good Guys" entire (and we are talking a significant portion of their over all force as well) ELINT dependant groups redundant.

The wargame was called Operation Millennium Challenge.
Blue (USA) VS red (Rogue state in the gulf region).
Red has as supreme commander: Lt. Gen. Van Riper (retired, marines).
Sank basically the complete task force and kept nailing the blue forces by doing unexpected things, which is good if people learn from this, instead Van Riper got more and more restrictions laid down to stop him from doing the unexpected. He finally quit when he learned that his orders were being delayed or countermanded by the people running the wargame.

[edit]
Vympel my apologies, next time I'll include something indicating sarcasm
[/edit]

[Losonti Tokash]

Weren't they pulling shit like respawning ships he had sunk?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Now if only the game simulated an advanced heuristic neural net for the enemy that learnt everything you did. How good would you be if the enemy was not only copying or improving on your tactics, but recovering and improving your technology too?

We can barely fight off insurgents with AKs and RPG-7s and home made explosives. The Army will be in for a shock if we happen to fight someone with *gasp* a military!

[Cao Cao]

The wargame was called Operation Millennium Challenge.
Blue (USA) VS red (Rogue state in the gulf region).
Red has as supreme commander: Lt. Gen. Van Riper (retired, marines).
Sank basically the complete task force and kept nailing the blue forces by doing unexpected things, which is good if people learn from this, instead Van Riper got more and more restrictions laid down to stop him from doing the unexpected. He finally quit when he learned that his orders were being delayed or countermanded by the people running the wargame.

What the fuck? What is this? Back to Prussian style "Any outcome that isn't the outcome we want is to be disregarded" military strategy?

[MKSheppard]

The whole "information dominance" thing was destroyed by the US Army (or Marine Corp) general, I forget which, who during a war game in Australia decided to not use radios and instead had runners and motorcycle couriers, thus rendering the "Good Guys" entire (and we are talking a significant portion of their over all force as well) ELINT dependant groups redundant.

Too bad doing that significantly cuts into your reaction time. In essence you have to have a pre-planned plan ready, and each unit you have will essentially have to fight to the death, with no support, due to no radios.

[Pablo Sanchez]

What the fuck? What is this? Back to Prussian style "Any outcome that isn't the outcome we want is to be disregarded" military strategy?

I believe I remember reading about this, it was in the run-up to the Iraq war. The guy commanding Red had some civilian aviation in his order of battle, which he used as kamikazes. The US forces were taken completely by surprise and he put the Blue carrier out of action for the duration of the exercise and then ravaged the landing craft that were supposed to make the initial assaults, so that the entire Blue army was neutralized.

Part of the reason the army made them do it over is that this made a waste of the entire exercise because it had ended so fast. They needed to get something out of it, after all.

[Velthuijsen]

Weren't they pulling shit like respawning ships he had sunk?

Yes but that isn't to bad seeing that Van Riper basically killed the most of the blue force in the first hours of what was supposed to be a very long wargame.
The problem started when they didn't allow him to try again and wipe out the blue force from the moment it broadcast the to see if the blue force learned anything about it. Instead they pretended it never happened and overruled anything Van Riper tried to do to stop the blue forces from landing (or sinking the blue fleet again for that matter).

@Pablo Sanchez:
Correct, every non fighter airplane and non navy ship he had was buzzing around in the zone, the moment that he received the unconditonal surrender ultimatum instead of debating it he gave out a command that turned those into attackers. Varying from firing dumb missiles, bombs & silkworms to ramming with explosives. A combination of a lot of targets, those targets initially designated civilian and the fact that most of the gear in a carrier group is designed for open sea warfare (and not something like the big lake that the gulf is) resulted in the loss of IIRC 17 ships including at least one carrier.

[Edward Yee]

Come to think of it, for some reason I'm reminded of a reported difference between the commercial and military versions of Full Spectrum Warrior (original) being that in the commercial one, doing everything "right" guarantees success, while in the military version you could do so and fail anyway...

I lose interest in a game the moment it's too obvious, because that for me is the point of "loss of challenge," after which it's railroading (and tedious -- when you can't even have the possibility of defeat as a reward for trying). If this is such a game, I will pass.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

The best part is that FCS was Rummy's baby and with him out of the picture it will probably die a quiet death. Hopefully the hojillions that got spent on it will turn into some useful technologies for *real* nex-gen systems. Some of the FCS stuff was actually pretty good but over-all the program was shit.

[Uraniun235]

If I wanted to play a game which masturbated furiously over buzzwords and "transformational" chicanery, I'd take up the PDS mod for Homeworld2 again.

[Admiral Valdemar]

They already did this and better, I might add. It was called C&C: Generals.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Shit's fucking with me, I download it and it gives me the fatal error prompt when installed...

[Ritterin Sophia]

Anyone know what this means, "FATAL PROBLEM at .\Render.cpp:571:
-->Failed to create Direct3D Device. Cannot continue."

[Edward Yee]

I'd take up the PDS mod for Homeworld2 again.

Please elaborate, Uranium235?

[Covenant]

They already did this and better, I might add. It was called C&C: Generals.

Once I research the "Shoes" upgrade for my GLA terrorists, the world shall be mine!

[brianeyci]

I remember seeing something on the Discovery channel or CBC or BBC, one of those, years and years ago, about FCS. One douche in a suit was saying "One day, we will no longer need any tanks, no longer need any artillery, no longer need any APC's. We'll be able to kill everything at long range." Then they had a General counter with "Retreat and hit with long range weapons if possible, but be prepared to go in and battle with the enemy." The douche in the suit was going along the lines of "I ask these kind of people, opponents of progress and technology, how much technology is too much?" This was before Iraq and before it became painfully clear asymmetrical warfare was the future, so the General didn't have an answer, but he was clearly miffed at the suit since the fantasy of knowing where everything is and killing it before it kills you had nothing to do with real life.

Anyway is the game any good?

[Stark]

Please elaborate, Uranium235?

It's a HW2 mod that outfits the ships with a more sensible and flexible loadout of weapons. It's fun to play and very, very pretty.

However, the PDS crowd are a bunch of furiously masturbating military wankers. PDS is basically used as a way for them to play out their fanfics, and the ingame descriptions has little useful 'big gun, little gun' information. Instead it contains huge fanfics about ships. The capabilities of different types feature incredibly lame shit like FCS-style fighters that are awesome and cool because of 'transformational warfare' and 'network-centric control paradigms' and shit like that.