March 6, 2012:
NATO has taken an American wargaming system and created a training game that runs on smart phones and tablets (Android and IOS). This enables troops to create and use interactive training simulations for combat and peacekeeping situations.
This all evolved from more than a decade of work by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to develop PC based wargames that enable the troops to create their own scenarios, or "mods", based on recent combat experience and use the modified games to train new troops, or keep their own skills current. The new NATO sim uses "Virtual Battle Space System" (VBS). The current version is VBSWorld.
VBS always allowed for elaborate scenarios, with wily, and realistically equipped enemy fighters. VBS is a FPS (First Person Shooter) with "Grand Theft Auto" aspects (a large virtual world to operate in) and enough realism to make it useful for effective training. The troops like VBS because it is realistic enough to be entertaining to play and accomplish training goals. VBS was particularly effective when mods for convoy protection training were created in 2004.
