Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 104

enough to drive creation of
innovative tactical solutions
as well as the design, implementation, maintenance,
and improvement of the
FA-CDT technology.
First, there could be
potentially misleading results
if the crowdsourced gaming
population is too small. The
global gaming market is
more than 1.6 billion users;
the Army’s gaming should
(Photo by Pamela Redford, Fort Riley PAO)
include millions of users.
Soldiers use the Virtual Battle Space 2 program 10 April 2012 in the Mission Training Complex
Second, initial FA-CDT
Gaming Lab at Fort Riley, Kansas. Using the program, soldiers create personal avatars and enter into
a realistic virtual mission scenario that is tailored to meet their unit’s training needs.
technology could be designed, tested, implemented,
revalidated, and improved by 2020. The Netflix Prize,
part is for the Army to create a squad-level tactical game
the UPS Orion project, and others have shown multiyear
playable on Android and iOS mobile operating platforms.
efforts can produce good initial results that are further
The game must incorporate Army tactics and capabilities
improved over time to be ultimately successful. Third, the versus a threat competitor. The second part is to crowdgames would have to be constantly updated and revised
source an audience of soldiers who are given access to
to include new Army equipment; capabilities; threats;
play the game through their Army Knowledge Online
doctrine; tactics, techniques, and procedures; and enviaccounts. The third part is a big data analysis of the game
ronmental mission factors. Fourth, the games would have results from an individual to an aggregated level to deterto effectively simulate and accurately evaluate the success
mine the patterns of the crowdsource gaming audience
probabilities of the Army missions being considered.
that allow them to successfully “win” the game. The end
Fifth, game software would have to maintain effective
goal is for the crowdsourcing, big data analysis, and molanguage, readability, cultural aspects, and underlying
bile-game platform to be able to produce game-winning
similarity of game results to allow big data analysis.
squad-level tactics.
Finally, while operational security is of some concern,
Expanded testing. The winning squad-level tacoverall security would be for the totality of the evaluated
tics would then be tested at the various Army Combat
gaming results—not for the individual games. Some strat- Training Centers (CTCs) using historical results as a conegy games may not even need to be military-style games.
trol group and FA-CDT results as the test group. Once
the squad-level analysis was successful, the FA-CDT proThe Approach to Developing the
cess could be applied to platoon-, company-, battalion-,
Technology for Army Use
and brigade-level CTC operations following the same
The Army can use a systematic, sequential approach
testing process. The final step would be to open the game
to developing and implementing FA-CDT technology.
to global crowdsource testing at squad through brigade
This type of development process would allow the FAlevels to identify best practices and effective tactics. The
CDT to b