USN Missile Defense Game

[LongBlade]

The U.S. Navy has introduced a multi-player video game to help train sailors in missile destruction and avoidance. The game has now been deployed to 30 ships, totaling 115 onboard personnel.

According to the Office of Naval Research, the game, called Strike Group Defender: The Missile Matrix, calls on sailors to make split-second decisions in order to dodge missiles fired at a Navy ship. Sailors can choose to respond to the missiles with electronic means, which constitutes a "soft kill," or more traditional methods like direct interception, called a "hard kill."

The game tests Navy tacticians with a wide range of missiles and issues recommendations on how to eliminate the missile, with one of the options being a decoy flare. Once over, the game tells players which missiles they eliminated, and which ones they missed. The response so far from sailors has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, a response which was anticipated by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and other experts in the gaming industry.

source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/30/navy-video-game-missiles/

[MetalDog]

Outstanding!

[GDS_Starfury]

Wait till hermann bug tests it...   ::)

[MetalDog]

He'll drain the fun out of that PDQ!

[LongBlade]

He'll save the list of the worst bugs until it has been deployed for six months or so...

[besilarius]

The NTDS in use before the Aegis system actually looked a bit like Pong on steroids.  The icons were very basic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Tactical_Data_System

If Aegis, or the present air defence system, is anything like this, then making a video game for training should be a snap.

There were so many problems in the fleet after the Vietnam war, that many ships were more concerned with engineering problems than fighting the next war.
And the computer systems could be very frustrating.  Farragut (DDG37) had NTDS that had first been installed on one of the carriers (want to say Intrepid).  The system had three main frame computers and loading a program could be akin to coming down with a stroke.
The computer techs would be down in their space tweaking the computers and in CIC, there was a panel.  On the panel were about twenty red lights.  While loading, the lights would start to shine when a subprogram finished loading.  After the lights had all lit, then they went dark except for the first one.  It stayed on while the rest of the lights went on, very slowly.  Then when the row was all on, all the lights went dark again except the first and second lights stayed on.
This continued until all the subprograms were up and the system could begin to operate.
Watching the panel of lights slowly turn on, over and over again, could take up to twenty minutes.  And that was only if all the programs started running properly.  If one stumbled, then the whole process began again.
Turning the system on, early enough for it to be operating, when you needed it was heavily discussed.  We heard newer ships, with newer computer systems, were more reliable.

[Nefaro]

The NTDS in use before the Aegis system actually looked a bit like Pong on steroids.  The icons were very basic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Tactical_Data_System

If Aegis, or the present air defence system, is anything like this, then making a video game for training should be a snap.

There were so many problems in the fleet after the Vietnam war, that many ships were more concerned with engineering problems than fighting the next war.
And the computer systems could be very frustrating.  Farragut (DDG37) had NTDS that had first been installed on one of the carriers (want to say Intrepid).  The system had three main frame computers and loading a program could be akin to coming down with a stroke.
The computer techs would be down in their space tweaking the computers and in CIC, there was a panel.  On the panel were about twenty red lights.  While loading, the lights would start to shine when a subprogram finished loading.  After the lights had all lit, then they went dark except for the first one.  It stayed on while the rest of the lights went on, very slowly.  Then when the row was all on, all the lights went dark again except the first and second lights stayed on.
This continued until all the subprograms were up and the system could begin to operate.
Watching the panel of lights slowly turn on, over and over again, could take up to twenty minutes.  And that was only if all the programs started running properly.  If one stumbled, then the whole process began again.
Turning the system on, early enough for it to be operating, when you needed it was heavily discussed.  We heard newer ships, with newer computer systems, were more reliable.

A good friend of mine served on USS England (CG-22), which was a contemporary of Farragut and another old vessel which had a long stretch of being upgraded with new tech.  And they ended up wallowing around at very low speed with engine problems during much of the first Gulf War, outside the carrier group it was supposed to be protecting.  Reportedly acting as wounded bait.

It's crazy how much they squeezed out of the primitive computer tech back then.  My C64 probably had much more processing power than most of the weapon and sensor systems used in the 80s.  ;D


As for missile defense.. I wonder if that freeware SAM Simulator is still being expanded.