Gaming and Real World Combat Tactics

[Arnoxthe1]

I've been playing violent videogames (among others) since I was like...12~13 or something. Starting with GTA2 I believe, in which I loved just going on rampages to kill and destroy as much as possible. And I still play plenty of games where you kill tons of people. On top of that I'm pretty violent in nature. Fighting feels awesome to me. But I barely ever use violence. Heck I haven't actually fought a real fight with anyone in many years now. I simply don't like hurting real people. I'd feel way too bad and guilty if I did so. If anything, games (together with music and LARP) are an outlet for what would otherwise become a lot of pent up aggression and stress.

Then there's two friends of mine. One likes himself some good old fashioned murderous rampage every now and then, yet is pretty much the friendliest and non-confrontational person I know. The other loves himself some mindless killing and can cackle like an excited child while doing so, but he'd sooner hug than attack you in real life.

So clearly whatever effect games are supposed to have on people doesn't affect every one at the very least. It's almost as if you need to already have problems to make games have a violent effect on you. >.>

In fact, I can say that "violent videogames" have helped me more than anything. I've noticed I'm more aware of my surroundings and have better peripheral vision than people I know that don't play games, for instance. My hand-eye coordination and reflexes also seem better, though I'm not sure about those two. And yes, that does mostly come from the violent videogames I play. Because the other games I play usually don't require a lot of that.

As for tactics, it's hard to tell. The tactics I use in games barely help me in real life I think. At most it might make me more careful in certain situations because games have taught me that even though you might think it's safe/quiet/whatever, the situation can go to shit real quick if you aren't.

These games are played over the entire world yet these recurrent mass shootings are only a problem in the U.S. The sole reason for that is the excessive circulation and easy access to military grade firearms.

I don't think it's JUST the easy access to firearms in the US. I also think it's because of America's culture at the very least being more accepting of violence, if not even glorifying it. Readily accessible guns are a large part of it though.

^^This in a nutshell. We're hypocrites. Our culture is a byproduct of quite a few disgraceful things we've done to build our western society, and we've so far been unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge it. If we were more honest with our history, that would be a good stepping stone. But we've woven a tangled web and lost track of what's important. We scoff at basic principles which would, if taken at face value and practiced, at least give us more solid ground to stand on as a civilization. It's no wonder bad things keep happening, and will continue to happen as long as we toss the blame onto trivial scapegoats like this.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

The most realistic war game I have ever played is the Close Combat series. And 'realistic' in serious contrivance of the idea of 'realism'. It's realistic because most of your soldiers won't ever be liable to kill someone before they are killed or incapacitated and liable to be shipped home or captured. They rout, their morale breaks, they end up spending half a fight merely digging in and trying to stay in cover. Yourorders are merely 'suggestions' that units will undertake if they're capable and in the 'right place' physically or mentally.

No mindless Starcraft marine or probably any'realistic' war game like ARMA. In ARMA I don't see soldiers openly question your orders or question your sanity. I don't see them say things; "If I go there, I'll be exposed..." Nor do I see soldiers panicking when they think they've been hit, and spend a minute on the ground checking themselves to see the severity or reassure themselves they're actually fine. I don't see them suffering what looks like the effects of worsening concussion as they are repeatedly exposed to nearby explosive force pressures... even if not in the immediate killzone or struck by any shrapnel or debris.

No healthbar, no matter how veiled or randomized in terms of damage, can really accommodate for the effects of successive concussion from the high explosive contained in things like mortar rounds or grenades soldiers experience on the modern battlefield.

And it's all those sorts of things that cause the huge degree of permanent diability and injury that runs rampant in terms of veteran's health. Precisely because the damages are hidden. Right until soldiers begin displaying symptoms of worsening brain damage. Inability to comprehend complex, multifaceted tasks. Losing their grip on being able to rein in their emotions. And that's for life that sort of damage.... particularly if it's not caught early on. Which is difficult, because you can't directly see brain damage.

I don't think videogames have gotten that far yet.

Frankly, a war simulation is already broken given the entire lack of direct feedback, and secondly because you don't need a game to teach you to commit an atrocity like another Columbine-like shooting.

I think the most effective video game to ever assist training combatants to exact casualties upon the enemy has been Microsoft Flight Simulator... precisely because you don't need a war videogame to commit an atrocity.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

The most realistic war game I have ever played is the Close Combat series. And 'realistic' in serious contrivance of the idea of 'realism'. It's realistic because most of your soldiers won't ever be liable to kill someone before they are killed or incapacitated and liable to be shipped home or captured. They rout, their morale breaks, they end up spending half a fight merely digging in and trying to stay in cover. Yourorders are merely 'suggestions' that units will undertake if they're capable and in the 'right place' physically or mentally.

No mindless Starcraft marine or probably any'realistic' war game like ARMA. I don't see soldiers openly question your orders. I don't see them say things; "If I go there, I'll be exposed..." Nor do I see soldiers panicking when they think they've been hit, and spend a minute on the ground checking themselves to see the severity or reassure themselves they're actually fine, and I don't see them suffering what looks like the effects of worsening concussion as they are repeatedly exposed to nearby explosive force pressures... even if not in the immediate killzone or struck by any shrapnel or debris.

A healthbar, no matter how veiled or randomized in terms of damage, can really accommodate for the effects of successive concussion from the high explosive contained in things like mortar rounds or grenades soldiers experience on the modern battlefield.

And it's all those sorts of things that cause the huge degree of permanent diability and injury that runs rampant. Precisely because the damages are hidden. Right until soldiers begin displaying symptoms of worsening brain damage. Inability to comprehend complex, multifaceted tasks. Losing their grip on being able to rein in their emotions. And that's for life that sort of damage.... particularly if it's not caught early on. Which is difficult, because you can't directly see brain damage.

I don't think videogames have gotten that far yet.

Frankly, a war simulation is already broken given the entire lack of direct feedback, and secondly because you don't need a game to teach you to commit an atrocity like another Columbine-like shooting.

I think the most effective video game to ever assist training combatants to exact casualties upon the enemy has been Microsoft Flight Simulator... precisely because you don't need a war videogame to commit an atrocity.

Yeah, but we're talking about combat tactics. Not the horrors of war.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Yeah, but we're talking about combat tactics. Not the horrors of war.

Kind of go hand in hand, don't you think? ARMA is divorced from whatyou actually suffer and how that changes your relationship to the battlefield.

As I was saying, you won't get soldiers thinking they're hit, panicking while checking themselves as they squirm on the ground in ARMA. You won't get soldiers following obviously bad orders but rather on the ground find reasons not to engage or betray their location.

In a squad, the average firefight in a skirmish with enemy combatants is often 4 or less soldiers of one particular unit actively engaging the enemy simply because the rest of the soldiers have not established PID or have eyes on the situation. I think the average number of soldiers actively and effectively participating in a firefight with their weapon at the company level per engagement is about 3 people. It's incredibly common for soldiers through an entire firefight to simply be asking whether they can engage and trying to ascertain a solid command decision to do so.

This is why I repeatedly suggest U.S. police officers learn gun discipline from Marines and you'd find a whole lot less innocent people shot dead. Simply because of that training to not fire without positive identification.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Kind of go hand in hand, don't you think?

Yes and no. Yes, the battlefield can be a very chaotic place and soldiers may not follow proper procedures even after a ton of training due to the insane amounts of stress or unfolding circumstances, but the stress and the orders and etc. doesn't change what is the most efficient way to end or escape a skirmish.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Yes and no. Yes, the battlefield can be a very chaotic place and soldiers may not follow proper procedures even after a ton of training due to the insane amounts of stress or unfolding circumstances, but the stress and the orders and etc. doesn't change what is the most efficient way to end or escape a skirmish.

It's not about the battlefield being 'chaotic' and it's not about soldiers not following orders. It's that the reality of the human and the reality of the battlefield, are unconducive to any game and its ability to teach effectively.

As I was saying, there's no healthbar system that can actively chart how soldiers change due to simply their cumulative exposure. If you're a soldier and you've felt as if you've had the wind taking out of you from a nearby mortar hit you've suffered residual brain damage. Some soldiers deal with it well, some get progressively worse as it happens again and again and again. Think of it as if a boxer taking ever more hits to the face. It doesn't feel like a punch, but it can have just as much force if not more ... and your brain is bouncing around in that skull of yours each time.

As one soldier put it; "It's like being kicked by a horse ... only its foot covers your entire body."

Soldiers don't expose themselves to that needlessly, and certainly even if it were merely """efficient""".

Because if that's how militaries conducted themselves, every battle would look like Stalingrad in terms of outright inumanity.

It's the simple fact that the tactics a videogame might be able to impart, are not actually that efficient, nor are humans going to want to, or be better of, for that needless exposure in a potential firefight.

To put it simply, videogames desire to emulate a situation and provide solutions based on that emulation. Real life imitates or emulates fuck all but itself.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

It's not about the battlefield being 'chaotic' and it's not about soldiers not following orders. It's that the reality of the human and the reality of the battlefield, are unconducive to any game and its ability to teach effectively.

As I was saying, there's no healthbar system that can actively chart how soldiers change due to simply their cumulative exposure. If you're a soldier and you've felt as if you've had the wind taking out of you from a nearby mortar hit you've suffered residual brain damage. Some soldiers deal with it well, some get progressively worse as it happens again and again and again. Think of it as if a boxer taking ever more hits to the face. It doesn't feel like a punch, but it can have just as much force if not more ... and your brain is bouncing around in that skull of yours each time.

As one soldier put it; "It's like being kicked by a horse ... only its foot covers your entire body."

Soldiers don't expose themselves to that needlessly, and certainly even if it were more """efficient""".

It's the simple fact that the tactics a videogame might be able to impart, are not actually that efficient, nor are humans going to want to, or be better of, for that needless exposure in a potential firefight.

I'm trying to understand what you're getting at here but I'm failing. A game doesn't need to have a super realistic damage system to teach you how powerful snipers can be. It doesn't need to simulate every single gram of weight on you to teach you how to clear corners.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Yes and no. Yes, the battlefield can be a very chaotic place and soldiers may not follow proper procedures even after a ton of training due to the insane amounts of stress or unfolding circumstances, but the stress and the orders and etc. doesn't change what is the most efficient way to end or escape a skirmish.

Sure it does. The quickest way to end a firefight in real life is to run away. Fast. This was the single thing that we practiced the most in the Army: How to disengage from contact and get out of the combat area in an efficient manner. In real life, that'd be done by a squad of soldiers putting up a massive wall of fire while gradually moving away from the enemy. In a game? Let's just say that you don't score points or win the match by not fighting.

If you absolutely must engage the enemy, you want to practice fire and maneuver. This means one guy fires, the other moves out to the side to get into a flanking position. It sort of works in games too, if you can get people on VoIP to listen to you.

The problem with real world tactics in games is that they are designed for the real world. In the real world people keep their heads down when someone fires their way, doesn't matter if that other person is firing specifically at your hiding place or in a general 90 degree cone that you are somewhere inside of. In games, firing blind wastes ammo and will get you killed by a noscoping pro one-shotting you with a sniper rifle. In real life, sustained area fire is the single most effective way of seizing the initiative in a firefight.

In real life, you get one life and getting hit means you are likely to die or get permanently crippled. In a game, the worst that can happen is that you'll have to queue up for another game. This is important, because military combat tactics are based on the realization that soldiers do not want to die, and that this is equally true for you, the guys next to you and the dudes on the other side that you are fighting. Suppressing fire, cover, fire and maneuver and all the tactics that goes along with them are effective because they all operate on the assumption that your enemy will do a lot not to die and that losing the initiative means you become paralyzed with fear of death or pull out of the combat, because you think you're about to get killed if you stay in place.

A soldier wants to achieve their objective and survive, not necessarily in that order. A gamer wants to get on top of the scoreboard or pull some sweet tricks on their Twitch stream. The incentives that drives a gamer are so removed from those of a soldier in a combat zone that tactics can not be transferred over. In real life, people keep their head down when a machinegun fires in their general direction. In a game it is the signal that the other person is a noob, since they're wasting ammo and fighting recoil, so it is time to pop out and deliver that sick 360 Noscope HS.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm trying to understand what you're getting at here but I'm failing. A game doesn't need to have a super realistic damage system to teach you how powerful snipers can be. It doesn't need to simulate every single gram of weight on you to teach you how to clear corners.

Right, but if a game doesn't endeavour to present a holistic depiction of the whole it is thoroughly unsuited to anything beyond; "This is a hyper-sterile, hyper-romantic, hyper-idealized situation where you are not nauseaus, dizzy, thirsty, taste copper in your mouth and you're worried why, tired, have sand in your panties chafing the shit out of you, partly deafened, and wearing a metric fuckton of gear, and feeling somewhat detached from reality and worrying how your paltry pay cheque even with combat pay won't save your home being repossessed while on duty, and you can't sleep well anymore and you don't know why."

Hell, you don't even blink in ARMA. You blink, you do ... but it's not like you're covered in grime and sweat.

Videogames can only ever emulate a hypersterility. It makes assumptions the character can and will just make a new character. It makes assumptions that by actively participating in already understandable scenarios rather than the reality of knowing you will never understand truly just what the fuck is going on. You bring those assumptions into a game yourself.

You can memorize game maps through purely repetition. Real life isn't like that.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Sure it does. The quickest way to end a firefight in real life is to run away. Fast. This was the single thing that we practiced the most in the Army: How to disengage from contact and get out of the combat area in an efficient manner. In real life, that'd be done by a squad of soldiers putting up a massive wall of fire while gradually moving away from the enemy. In a game? Let's just say that you don't score points or win the match by not fighting.

If you absolutely must engage the enemy, you want to practice fire and maneuver. This means one guy fires, the other moves out to the side to get into a flanking position. It sort of works in games too, if you can get people on VoIP to listen to you.

The problem with real world tactics in games is that they are designed for the real world. In the real world people keep their heads down when someone fires their way, doesn't matter if that other person is firing specifically at your hiding place or in a general 90 degree cone that you are somewhere inside of. In games, firing blind wastes ammo and will get you killed by a noscoping pro one-shotting you with a sniper rifle. In real life, sustained area fire is the single most effective way of seizing the initiative in a firefight.

In real life, you get one life and getting hit means you are likely to die or get permanently crippled. In a game, the worst that can happen is that you'll have to queue up for another game. This is important, because military combat tactics are based on the realization that soldiers do not want to die, and that this is equally true for you, the guys next to you and the dudes on the other side that you are fighting. Suppressing fire, cover, fire and maneuver and all the tactics that goes along with them are effective because they all operate on the assumption that your enemy will do a lot not to die and that losing the initiative means you become paralyzed with fear of death or pull out of the combat, because you think you're about to get killed if you stay in place.

A soldier wants to achieve their objective and survive, not necessarily in that order. A gamer wants to get on top of the scoreboard or pull some sweet tricks on their Twitch stream. The incentives that drives a gamer are so removed from those of a soldier in a combat zone that tactics can not be transferred over. In real life, people keep their head down when a machinegun fires in their general direction. In a game it is the signal that the other person is a noob, since they're wasting ammo and fighting recoil, so it is time to pop out and deliver that sick 360 Noscope HS.

Right, but if a game doesn't endeavour to present a holistic depiction of the whole it is thoroughly unsuited to anything beyond; "This is a hyper-sterile, hyper-romantic, hyper-idealized situation where you are not nauseaus, dizzy, thirsty, taste copper in your mouth and you're worried why, tired, have sand in your panties chafing the shit out of you, partly deafened, and wearing a metric fuckton of gear, and feelin somewhat detached from reality and worrying how your paltry pay cheque even with combat pay won't save your home being repossessed while on duty, and you can't sleep well anymore."

Videogames can only ever emulate a hypersterility. It makes assumptions the character can and will just make a new character. It makes assumptions that by actrively participating in already understandable scenarios rather than the reality of knowing you will never understand truly just what the fuck is going on.

I'm assuming you both are or have been in the military?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm assuming you both are or have been in the military?

Was, ages ago. But it's hardly the point. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if videogames can't teach stuff. It's that it is forever with a grain of salt.

Simulations of warfare don't usually take into account that there are fixed variables you can't understand. It's not even a case of realism of what a player can do, or the immensity of the options and effects that play upon those options. As I said, I'd place the Close Combat games above those of ARMA. And that's not because Close Combat is 'realistic'. The reason why I do so is because the assumptions you bring into a game of either are different, and one of them embraces that idea of diminished control as part of its core gameplay features.

I think videogames could, one day, present a hyper-realistic environment.

But what they will never be able to emulate is the sheer fact of human fallibility itself and that innate chaos that must be, by default, a part of reality.

A videogame can recreate and simulate down to the finest detail. I have no doubt that eventually videogames will approach a level of integration of the human consciouness that will border on tangible reality and perhaps even feel as if tangible reality through neuroscience and various transhuman and posthuman technologies. Some of which we're beginning to use now ... like direct stimulation of the visual cortex through submerged chipping and a specially designed computer.

But the problem is that in reality, the programming of that down to the finest detail ... betrays the nbormal functioning of a tragically unknowable tangible reality.

No military would ever win a war if it predicated its actions on the same surety as we can give a perfect recreation through a computer program. Every weapon by nature requires the capacity of collateral damage. Every weapon ever devised must allow for a suitable margin of error and stress that embrace this idea of inherent complexity or else it would be a useless weapon.

And that includes people, and the principle targets of those people.

Videogames can't handle that by nature. Whether of the assumptions we take going into one, or the sheer coding and programming that tried to replicate that infinite divide between it and reality.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I'm assuming you both are or have been in the military?

Yup, both as a conscript and as a part-time soldier. Most of my friends are also in the army for some reason...

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Was, ages ago. But it's hardly the point. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if videogames can't teach stuff. It's that it is forever with a grain of salt.

Simulations of warfare don't usually take into account that there are fixed variables you can't understand. It's not even a case of realism of what a player can do, or the immensity of the options and effects that play upon those options. As I said, I'd place the Close Combat games above those of ARMA. And that's not because Close Combat is 'realistic'. The reason why I do so is because the assumptions you bring into a game of either are different, and one of them embraces that idea of diminished control as part of its core gameplay features.

snip

Well let's just hope that we don't ever develop true VR. Mark my words. The time that we're able to trick the brain and feed a fake environment/interactions into it is the day that mind control is a very feasible thing.

Yup, both as a conscript and as a part-time soldier. Most of my friends are also in the army for some reason...

If you'll allow me to participate in a bit of armchair psychology, I imagine that you simply identify much more with someone who volunteers for the military more than someone who wouldn't.

 

[CaitSeith]

There are very few games that can teach any combat skill that can be applicable in real world combat (and most of those games aren't commercial ones).

Again, I disagree very much. How did I learn to clear corners and to find viable positions? How did I learn that stealth is the ONLY way to succeed at all, especially if going it alone? I learned it somewhere and it certainly wasn't from Banjo-Kazooie or Lord of the Rings.

How many real-world battles have you been in?

 

[Dirty Hippy]

Former US soldier here. Video games did not prepare me for the first time I did something as simple as throw a grenade.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I read that as Real Wombat Tactics.
Anyway, I don't think videogames can "prepare" you for much of anything except more videogames.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Wow. More people not reading the OP. That's real great.

 

[Dirty Hippy]

I think there's far more to your questions than you realize. Basic tactics are such an extremely simple part of combat that it's hard to answer in an honest way. Being able to remember and execute your basic tactics and follow orders under extreme duress is the real problem. All the training in the world is useless if you can't keep it together, although real world training does help with that. Video games do not help with that.
Games are extremely skewed in the player's favor, even when it seems like they're not. Trying to equate that to real world tactics only works in the broadest sense. The difference between someone who's played video games and someone who hasn't is negligible when it comes to training or executing real life combat tactics.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

If you'll allow me to participate in a bit of armchair psychology, I imagine that you simply identify much more with someone who volunteers for the military more than someone who wouldn't.

The more likely reason is that I met one of my best friends in the Army, he stuck with it while I didn't. Over time he's introduced me to his colleagues, as we all share similar hobbies. It is just an amusing coincidence that my current gaming group is me, 3 NCOs and 1 officer.

 

[Kyrian007]

If Minecraft can't actually make someone a better miner, a shooter can't make someone a more well equipped rampage psychopath.