SharePoint training was never this exciting: Military simulation trains officers for counterinsurgency

3/4/2010 8:06 PM

Move over, Command and Conquer: The U.S. military's joint project with the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies is being used to train the next generation of military officers in urban counterinsurgency strategy and tactics using a video game.

The game, called UrbanSim, is a complex simulation of an insurgency in an urban area. Players take the role of an Army battalion commander and attempt to control the situation on the ground. Government tech blog NextGov reports that the goal is to "train adaptive leaders capable of handling the primary, secondary and tertiary effects of decisions on a local environment."

UrbanSim uses real-life events to demonstrate how players - and future leaders - will react to the exact types of challenges that they will face on the ground. The system is in use at the School for Command Preparation, the Command and General Staff College, and with several units in the field.

NextGov says that military funding was the primary source for the development of UrbanSim.

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