Brno developers prepare soldiers for war with groundbreaking wargames
VR Group has developed the so-called Wargaming Table, a cross between a desk and a large tablet. Officers and soldiers can open large digital maps and practice different military operations on it to prepare for war.
The Wargaming Table is about a meter and a half wide and a meter long. Jakub Ondrůšek, who leads the development of the table at VR Group, opened a wargame for Czech Radio to explain its utility:
“This is our wargame for training drone operators. Now we’re going to plan a route, just like real drone operators do in the actual software to control them.”
The drone is flying over the forest when it is given its first task, which Ondrůšek outlines:
"We need to detect multi-purpose, hostile helicopters. They are in the open, so we can document them with a regular camera. If they were camouflaged, we would need to use an infrared camera."
This is the first game developed for the table, but other games will follow, focusing on serving soldiers, Ondrůšek explains:
"It’s for their education at every possible level—tactical, operational, strategic, and other specialized areas. Whether it's individual units or students."
Developers will now focus on more strategic types of games rather than drone control, according to the developer:
"They need to develop commanders' thinking at all levels. For example, we are currently developing a game focused on commanding small units."
Jaroslav Galba is working on wargaming at the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the University of Defense in Brno, where he introduces officers to wargaming. He explains why they have chosen to use this format:
"There is room to make mistakes in a safe environment, allowing you to learn from them. It fosters creativity because people can approach the problem in different ways each time."
Meanwhile, instructors are creating their own games for the courses using paper maps, models of technology, and so on. However, the Wargaming Table is significantly larger, allowing for more detailed maps and giving soldiers or other players a better overview.
Purpose
In wargames, it is possible to model almost any situation where two or more parties compete against each other. But this applies to other areas as well, adding to the utility of the technology, explains political scientist Jan Kleiner from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University:
"They can also be used by private companies that plan their approach to competitors' behavior in this way. They prepare various scenarios of how the competition might act and how they will respond to it."
Professor Kleiner teaches a course at Masaryk University called War Games, where students learn to model wargames. He plans to use this table in his teaching starting next year. In addition, he is planning research in which the Wargaming Table could be helpful:
"I can imagine the lower command of the army conducting operations at that table. They will be wearing sensors to monitor their physiological reactions. We can have a camera there to observe what's happening, specifically the officers' reactions to stressful stimuli. Based on that data, we can then model an AI that behaves like a human in those wargaming scenarios, making it as realistic as possible."
And it's AI adversaries that the developers at VR Group would like to incorporate into wargaming in the future.
