Training “Shoot House” Tactics Using a Game Michael D. Proctor University Of Central Florida Oviedo, FL 32765 mproctor@mail.ucf.edu Michael D. Woodman Indra Systems, Inc. Winter Park, FL 32792 mwoodman@indra-systems.com JDMS, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2007 Pages –63 © 2007 The Society for Modeling and Simulation International Since the time of Ed Link, interactive simulators that replicated the critical components of the task and its environment have been cornerstones of highly specialized task training, such as pilot training. Today commercial off-the-shelf games promise similar realism. Yet, because of the dissimilarity between the traditional gaming interface and actual human motor activities, games have had only limited application to training where human motor skills are the dominant means of propulsion through manipulation of, and communications within, the environment. This research explores the possibility of expanding the paradigm of using games with traditional interfaces for these serious tasks. Speciically, this research evaluates the training transfer associated with the game Close Combat: First to Fight™ as part of a “shoot house” training regime for Marine Corps infantry. The research explores whether or not traditional ield training is equivalent to ield training combined with virtual training. Results include the measurements of the subjects’ objective performance in live training and self assessment questionnaires. Keywords: Game, training 1. Introduction Ed Link’s 1929 aviation trainer is oten cited as being the irst modern era light simulator. Yet few know that by the time the United States Navy bought its irst trainer in 1931, nearly ity “pilot makers” had been sold for use in amusement parks [1]. Perhaps relective of that earlier era, today some of-the- shelf games that irst found success commercially as entertainment games have later found serious use in education and training tasks of the Department of Defense (DoD). The notion of using games for training is appealing in many dimensions. Promises of reduced cost, greater access, wider distribution, more frequent use, and “just-in-time” training all stimulate further research. The realism of visual and dynamics aspects of entity models in some of these entertaining games has caught the atention of the not only the DoD training community but others. For example, X-Plane, a light simulation game, is currently approved by the FAA to drive an approved Level 2 Flight Training Device [2]. Device realism can still be expensive, particularly if building a replication of the system interface is necessary for efective training to take place. A traditional game interface may not be suicient for team training [3] or individual training [4], depending on the task. For team training, Proctor et al. [3] found that the traditional gaming technique of using a “hat” or buton on the joystick to pan the view both let and right on a single monitor was not suicient to portray to the pilot the necessary queues for situation awareness from the surrounding helicopters in a unit combat mission. For individual training, Proctor, et al. [4] evaluated expanding the use of X-Plane to drive three diferent interface conigurations for helicopter simulator light training. The least expensive of the interfaces in this experiment was the X-Plane game on a simple PC with a 19-inch desk-mounted monitor, joystick, collective, and pedals. The degree to which the three interface conigurations contributed to JDMS vol 4 no 1 JAN 2007.indd 55 3/12/2007 12:50:42 PM