Post Comment

Name:

Email:

Comment:


Twitter
Facebook
You Tube
Blog
Forum
undefined
Trustpilot
Contact us Wishlist Support Blog
Account
Login or sign up
Personal details Payment details My delivery addresses My orders Return an item Check return status
Basket
Basket Updating...

Gaming PCs

Reign Gaming PCs

All Reign Gaming PCs NVIDIA RTX Gaming PCs AMD Ryzen Gaming PCs Intel Gaming PCs PCs by Game VR Ready Gaming PCs Next Day Gaming PCs

Reign Scout Gaming PCs

1080p Gaming

Reign Sentry Gaming PCs

1440p & 4K Gaming

Reign Vanguard Gaming PCs

4K Gaming & Content Creation

Desktop PCs

Custom PCs

Configure an Intel PC Configure an AMD PC View all

Home PCs

Intel Home PCs AMD Home PCs View all

Office PCs

Intel Office PCs Mini Office PCs View all
Browse our range of next day PCs, in-stock and ready for delivery

Workstations

Workstations by Use

All Workstations Media & Entertainment Architectural, Engineering & Construction Manufacturing & Product Design Deep Learning Forensics Multi-Monitor Rackmount

Filter by Technology

Intel Core Processors Intel Xeon Processors AMD Ryzen Processors AMD EPYC Processors NVIDIA GeForce RTX Graphics NVIDIA Quadro Graphics AMD Radeon Pro Graphics

Custom Workstations

All Custom Workstations Custom Intel Core Workstation Custom Intel Core X Workstation Custom Intel Xeon E Workstation Custom Intel Xeon W Workstation Custom Intel Xeon Scalable Workstation Custom Dual Intel Xeon Scalable Workstation Custom AMD Ryzen Workstation Custom AMD Ryzen Threadripper Workstation Custom AMD EPYC Workstation

Servers

Tower Servers

All Tower Servers Intel Xeon E-series Intel Xeon Scalable AMD EPYC

Rackmount Servers

All Rackmount Servers Intel Atom Intel Xeon E-series Intel Xeon Scalable

Storage Servers

All Storage Servers All Flash Array JBODs

GPU Servers

All GPU Servers NVIDIA DGX AMD EPYC

Laptops

Category

Everyday use Mobile Workstations Pro

Use

Home Business Gaming

Laptop Extras

Adapters Accessories Batteries

More

All Laptops Laptop Repairs Carepack Information Clearance Laptops Repairs

Monitors

Type

All Monitors NVIDIA G-SYNC AMD FreeSync 4K UHD 32:9 Ultrawide 21:9 Ultrawide

Refresh Rate

240Hz 165Hz 144Hz

Size

28"+ 27" 24" 21.5" to 22" 19.5" to 20" 18" to 19"

Monitor Accessories

All Monitor Accessories Monitor Mounts Monitor Stands Privacy Filters Screen Cleaning Audio & Video Cables
Check out our Monitor offers here

Peripherals

Keyboards

All Keyboards Gaming Keyboards Mechanical Keyboards Wired Keyboards Wireless Keyboards Keyboard Accessories Keyboard & Mouse Bundles

Mice

All Mice Gaming Mice Wired Mice Wireless Mice Mouse Mats Keyboard & Mouse Bundles

Other Input Devices

All Input Devices Gamepads Joysticks & Flight Control Steering Wheels Graphics Tablets

Audio & Visual

Headsets Gaming Headsets PC Speakers Microphones Webcams Projectors & Accessories

Gaming Chairs & Desks

Gaming Chairs Gaming Desks

Printing

Printer Cartridges

PDU & Surge Protection

View All

Components

Graphics Cards

Top Graphics Card Deals NVIDIA Graphics Cards AMD Graphics Cards NVIDIA RTX Series NVIDIA GTX Series Professional Graphics

Processors

All Processors Intel Processors AMD Processors Thermal Paste

Memory

All Memory DDR4 Memory DDR3 Memory Laptop Memory

Motherboards

Top Motherboard Deals All Motherboards Intel Motherboards AMD Motherboards

Power Supplies

Top PSU Deals All PSUs Modular PSUs Non-Modular PSUs PSU Cables

Cases

Top Case Deals All Cases Full Tower Cases Mid Tower Cases Mini ITX Cases Mini Tower Cases Rackmount Cases Case Accessories Case Cables

PC Cooling

Top PC Cooling Deals All-in-one Watercoolers Open-Loop Watercooling CPU Coolers Case Fans

Part built Bundles

Intel Barebone Bundles Intel Motherboard Bundles AMD Barebone Bundles AMD Motherboard Bundles

Other Components

Sound Cards Optical Drives Clearance Components

Storage & Networking

SSD / Solid State Drives

All SSDs M.2 NVMe SSDs M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs

Hard Drives

All Hard Drives All 3.5" Desktop Hard Drives All 2.5" Desktop Hard Drives SATA Cables

Other Storage

External SSDs External Hard Drives Flash Memory USB Memory Sticks Clearance Storage

Wireless Networking

All Wireless Wireless Routers Wireless Extenders Wi-Fi Adapter Cards

Networking

All Networking Powerlines Network Switches KVM Switches Network Interface Cards Network Cables Clearance Networking

Network Attached Storage

All NAS Solutions Desktop NAS Solutions Rackmount NAS Solutions

Business & Education

Training & Defence

Training & Defence Solutions Rack Integration GPU Solutions Virtualised Environments How we work

AI & Deep Learning

AI & Deep Learning Solutions Technology Platforms Research & Development Proof of concept Proof of concept

Education

Education Solutions Desktops for Education Laptops for Education Google for Education Internet & Safeguarding
Future Proof your
school
Enhanced Fulfillment
Services
Blog Your account Contact & Support
COVID19 and Showroom Collection Information
×
Home | Training & Simulation | The Humble Beginnings of Today's Military Training Sims

The Humble Beginnings of Today's Military Training Sims

Posted in Training & Simulation

Author - Danny Adams

Last updated on 29 Jul 2020

"Many years ago, someone at Bohemia had a very, very good idea. They realised that they have this game engine and that maybe it would be a good thing for the military to use."

Ted Turnbull - Senior Lecturer, Computer Games Technologies and Enterprise, University of Portsmouth.

 

Twenty-three years ago, newly formed games studio, Bohemia Interactive Studios (BIS), unveiled a small tech demo showcasing a new game engine, named 'Real Virtuality.' This demo would go on to play a considerable role in the development of Virtual Battle Space (VBS), today's virtual training software of choice for over fifty militaries around the world.

Bohemia Interactive Studios

It may come as a surprise to some, but today's military training sims have their past well and truly planted in the gaming world, from the utilisation of Commercial off the Shelf (COTs) 'gaming-grade' hardware, right through to the software and tools used to train military personnel on strategy, decision making and team leadership. We've even seen a rise recently in the use of gaming and esports in MOD recruitment drives.

It's a fascinating cross-over, so to find out more on the history and future of military training simulations, we caught up with Ted Turnbull, from the University of Portsmouth, and CPO Neil Sutton, of Technology and Enhanced Learning & Simulation at the Royal Navy.

Where did it all begin?

In 2001, Bohemia Interactive released Operation Flashpoint (OFP), a tactical military first-person shooter, where you played the part of a soldier caught up in a NATO-Soviet war, set on one real-world and two fictional islands. OFP was one of the first titles that allowed players to explore a vast and realistic virtual environment, where you were free to use whatever means necessary to defeat your virtual foes.

Operation Flashpoint

The flexibility and extensibility of the game's engine, 'Real Virtuality 1,' wouldn't go unnoticed for long, and a few short months later Bohemia Interactive's Australian branch was formed, with a mission to develop 'serious games' for use outside of the entertainment sector.

"It was probably around 2002, maybe 2003, when Pete Morrison brought Flashpoint into training in the Australian Army. When he left the Army, he set up the military side of it, which is the Virtual Battle Space (VBS)" said Neil.

Before the launch of VBS1 in 2004, there was actually already a popular training application being used by the US Army - DARWARS Ambush! developed by US company BBN Technologies. The sim was built upon Operation Flashpoint and could technically be considered a 'mod'. DARWARS provided a training environment for soldiers to practice tactics used against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was an excellent example of how a 'game' could be used for serious training.

VBS1 was deemed a success, despite some serious limitations. However, it wasn't until major funding was provided by the Australian Defence Force that VBS became an established success as a 'serious' training tool.

Gaining a foothold

"They got hold of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, and they agreed with them. Then it became the de facto thing that everyone was using."

Ted Turnbull - Senior Lecturer, Computer Games Technologies and Enterprise, University of Portsmouth.

With a mass of user feedback and a huge list of requirements, VBS2 development commenced in December 2006, this time built upon the follow up to Operation Flashpoint, ARMA: Armed Assault. With an updated game engine, improved graphics, physics, multiplayer functionality, scripting capabilities, and new units and vehicles, VBS2 would go on to cement itself as the tool of choice for training.

Part of this success was thanks to the ease with which users could customise VBS2 to fit any scenario, and it also made it incredibly easy for developers to work with.

"Blitz, the games studio where I was working at the time, had an arm called TrueSim which was set up to do "serious" games, what is now referred to as Synthetic Environments, and we were using all sorts of different tools. We had our own in-house engine, but we also used VBS. At the time there was a much more diverse landscape in terms of engines, but pretty much all of them would cost tens of thousands of pounds, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, to use. Bohemia, rather sensibly, made their licensing model very, very attractive. At the time, if you wanted to license Unreal Engine, for example, you had to fork out half a million to have access to it as a commercial developer. Whereas VBS was actually significantly cheaper than that which meant that the barrier to entry was a lot lower," said Ted.

While Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) focused on the development of VBS2, their sister company BIS continued the development of their 'Real Virtuality' gaming engine, leading to the launch of ARMA 2:  Operation Arrowhead in 2009. By now, you can probably guess what follows - VBS3 was launched shortly after. The updated engine introduced some huge improvements, including multi-core support, which enabled a much-improved graphical performance and simulation.

VBS3

The pros and cons of an outstanding(ly old) engine.

Since then, VBS3 has gone on to become the industry standard when it comes to Synthetic Environment development tools, and there's yet another reason for that - ease of use and implementation. The last thing developers for the MOD need is software which is time-consuming or unnecessarily complex; many of the scenarios they create for simulations are similar in nature, where you might see a combination of individual units on the ground, vehicular or armoured support, and a variety of weapons which behave in fundamentally similar ways. VBS2 and VBS3 made it easy to create a multitude of these scenarios - with the ability to quickly alter datasets, values and AI behaviours at the forefront. As Neil pointed out, to its credit, "it is quite simple - it's just drag and drop software that anyone can learn in the space of a week."

Eleven years of continuous patching and modding later, however, and development flaws started to appear.

Ted drew attention to this, noting that, "there are template configuration files, which are bespoke for each type of object, and you then have to put information into it which will make it act sensibly. The thing is, if you want to do something it [the engine] currently doesn't do, like for example a quad-copter, that proves to be remarkably difficult. So a good example of this; I want to have, let's say... exploding rats - there's no template for exploding rats in VBS, unsurprisingly. So, all of a sudden, what I end up doing is going, "ok, I'm going to get a donkey template because there is one of those, and I'm going to scale it down and then I'm going to have another thing which, it itself doesn't explode, but it carries around a thing which does explode," and these things are parented together. So you end up having to do stuff in a really, hacky, clunky kind of way to make it work. Now, from the user's point of view, they wouldn't know, one would hope. But under the hood, it ends up with all of these crazy exceptions just to make it work. Eventually, it starts to break down."

Competition and evolution

There is no doubt that at present, VBS is the standard for virtual training and for generating synthetic environments. Plus, with the upcoming release of VBS4, it appears as though that isn't likely to change soon. It's an area that until recently, BISim prominently had all to themselves. But there is serious competition in the wings, one of which has an even stronger background in gaming than Bohemia.

"Titan (TitanIM) and various other competitors targeting the military market have missed a trick, I think, and I reckon that eventually, Epic will hoover up everything. They even have a dedicated team that's looking at military simulations now," said Ted.

Neil agreed, adding, "I think that long term that's probably how it's going to end up going. So what you'll end up seeing is some Bohemia or Titan type or whoever, with some sort of middleware package that bolts into a more standard game engine that provides the back-end information, which is then integrated with various military systems."

So, a company almost universally known for the free-to-play Battle Royale hit, Fortnite, a 12+ rated, colourful and over-the-top survival-shooter, could be the ones to push the industry forward, and help innovate in the training and simulation industry.

Epic Games' Fortnite

"Epic have all that delicious Fortnite money sloshing around. They have an advantage that even if they gave away their software for free to every military in the world, they would still make insane amounts of money. And also, from a military standpoint, if you use an engine that every game developer knows, it's very easy for you to get developers," said Ted.

Whatever happens, it's clear from the last 20 years or so that the training and simulation industry has very much followed the path set out by the gaming industry. We are now at a point where game engines can simulate the entire world, from space, all the way down to individual trees and even the blades of grass.

What's more, with interest being shown by Epic, and the capabilities that the Unreal Engine 5 is promising to deliver, plus with headway being made with machine learning and VR/XR technology, it's certainly an exciting time. And, as a result, serious training is only going to become ever more realistic, immersive and effective.

Novatech supply custom, purpose-built hardware to some of the biggest names in the Security, Aviation, Defence and Marine industries.

If you have a project you'd like to discuss, please contact our dedicated Simulation and Training team using the form below, or call us on 02392 322500.

 

Recent posts

How To

14 Jan 2021

A Guide to Picking Custom PC Parts - Part Four: The Nervous System

As a newbie to the world of custom-building, things can be a tad overwhelming at first. If this happens to be you, then fear not, as today we're starting a short series covering the basics of custom-building, discussing all you need to know when it comes to components, specs and all the relevant jargon...

How To

13 Jan 2021

A Guide to Picking Custom PC Parts - Part Three: The Brains

As a newbie to the world of custom-building, things can be a tad overwhelming at first. If this happens to be you, then fear not, as today we're starting a short series covering the basics of custom-building, discussing all you need to know when it comes to components, specs and all the relevant jargon...

Tech

12 Jan 2021

Intel's Best 10th Gen Gaming Processor

2020 saw a great deal of hardware launch from Intel and AMD alike. From Intel, we had the ever-memorable 10000 series of processors, which brought an extensive range of CPUs to market, as well as breaking past the 5.0GHz mark with their Turbo and "Thermal Velocity" boost modes. As such, we saw several particularly good processors for the gaming scene.

Get the latest from Novatech

Signup to our mailing list to get the latest info on deals and events before everyone else. Don't worry, we won't fill your inbox with spam.

Contact Novatech
  • Technical Support
  • Sales
  • Customer Services
  • Our Showroom
  • Get in touch (webmaster)
  • Forum
  • Blog
  • Latest News
About Novatech
  • Careers at Novatech
  • Who we are & What we do
  • Why Buy From Us
  • Trust Pilot Reviews
  • Privacy & Security
  • Novatech & WEEE Regulations
  • Quality & Environmental Policy
  • Modern Slavery Statement
  • COVID-19 Risk Assessment Policy
Your Account
  • Login / Register
  • Track an Order
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy & Security
Services
  • Repairs / Service Centre
  • Affiliates
  • Trading Schemes
  • Payment Methods
  • Finance Options

© Copyright 2000-2021 Novatech Ltd - Computer Supplies | Company Reg No: 2605046 | WSV 8.2.1-JMM - sti

Head Office - Novatech Ltd, Harbour House, Hamilton Road, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 4PU

db

We use cookies to provide a better customer experience on our site. By continuing to shop with us, you consent to our use of cookies. Our cookie policy is available here