The U.S. Army has found that the U.S. Air Force use of mission planning (working out an aircraft combat beforehand using special flight simulator software) applies equally to ground combat operations. This was discovered as the army began using combat simulators for street fighting, that displayed the training areas used for combat exercises. Troops who used the V-IMTS (the computerized street fighting simulator) first, did much better when they went to the training area to do the street fighting for real. Troops learned the most effective combat moves better and faster using V-IMTS. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has already been working on mission simulator for their commando operations. Even before computers came along, it was common for commandoes to build a miniature model of the target area and game out the operation (and potential enemy responses.) Such preparations are time consuming, and regular combat troops often dont have the time. But cheaper, and smaller, computers, as well as digital databases of just about everywhere, make it more likely that combat operations can often be worked out in advance, and wargamed to look for flaws in the plan, before the troops go into harms way. This, of course, only applies to the initial attack. After that, things can change in many unforeseen ways. But ground combat basically consists of many of these small operations. Now most of them can be planned, and practiced, ahead of time using the kind of software found in V-IMTS.