Weapons and Equipment Research

Over the past few days I have been looking into weapons and equipment used by different militaries. Although the resources I have found are not specific to peacekeeping. I have read the specifications and uses, to try and make an educated guess to what if not all are used during peacekeeping missions.


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America’s Army

A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded and played a game that was recommended by one of my project supervisors. To begin with I started on the training missions to try and get a feel for the game and to also learn the control system that the game incorporates. The first few training mission get you started by introducing you to the guns and how to shoot them. The next few training missions teach you about moving though buildings and how to take out the correct people in the time allowed.

As far as this game goes I have not really carried on with it, due to other commitments. However I do intend to have another try playing it in the near future

The Library Visit

I went to the library today to see what I could find on our given project. Because I haven’t been in the library in a long time I had to re-due my membership. After this was all completed I was able to begin looking for some books.

I asked one of the librarians about where to look for which she directed me to an area of the library to look. Once there I found that area to be wrong. After about ten minutes or so I had only found one book for which wasn’t a great help but the references in the back of it would be. I then began to search the library for any other material when I stumbled across military sciences. Here is where a found three books that I think will be useful in my research. Two of the books were based upon the British SAS and the other was base upon the US Special Forces.

Although I have only found a few books at the moment I will be able to find more specific and better resources once I fully understand what I am researching for such as specific tactics, strategies, technologies and weapons.

Unforeseen Setback

As a major part of my research I was going to obtain a British military book that is given out to its troops from a friend’s relative. Unfortunately the book cannot be found at the present moment thus forcing me to change direction into the way in which I will complete my research. I have been reassured that he will keep looking so I can only hope that it can be found.

Although I didn’t have time to ask some questions that I had prepared. I will at the next chance be asking them, as I think it will help to get an actual perspective of the training involved instead of relying on text from books and journals.

The Game Developers Way

For the last few days I have had a little look into urban warfare and how this practice is conducted. Although my research has been small and at time non relevant I felt that, I needed to understand what urban warfare is. So that the next time the team meets I would fully understand anything that was brought forward.

To begin with I had a little play on Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 to see how the new games are linking the urban warfare combat into their gameplay. Although I have no information on how the real practice is conducted I did notice a few things that I think are based on real practices. For instance there are hand signals such as waving your hand in a circular motion to signal a regroup. I also noticed how the team members move such as:

• When you move where there is no cover the team are equally spaced.
• When you stop they all form a circle so that no area is uncovered and everything can be seen.

This I think represents how combat is done and I think with further research I will be able to get the full picture of how combat is done in urban areas.

What Blog is About

This blog will be used to detail what I have individually done for the Games Design Level 3 Team Project.

‘A Virtual Environment For Tactical Movement’.

Summary:

Tactical movement in urban environments is a large issue for militaries who operate more and more as “peacekeepers” in these environments. The American military alone spends a lot of money on training its forces in the tactical issues of safe movement in such an environment. This project aims to investigate the issues potential uses of virtual worlds and games in such training. Students will research the various aspects of tactical movement (such as military doctrine and rules of engagement) and will then produce a scenario or scenarios in a game engine that may be used to train soldiers in this important task.