Globall War of Terror - Driver's Ed
Apr. 26th, 2018 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGloball War Of Terror - Driver's Ed
(immediately after Kill House)
[Major Alan Cartwright continues ...]
I watched two more runs through the kill house. One was by a novice guard, who embarrassingly enough advanced further than I had. Being behind the scenes in the control room let me see how the illusion of close combat was created.
The instructor wore a headset and was in constant (short range) radio contact with the control room. The control room in turn coordinated the role-players using 'umpires,' assistant instructors wearing zebra clothing to show that they were never to enter line of sight. To avoid confusion they were on two separate frequencies with two different technicians. A second instructor was in charge on the control room floor, wearing a headset and ready to make any necessary decisions.
The assistant instructors verified that roleplayers were ready for their roles. The roleplayers were of course ordinary employees from the site. This also familiarized them with the basics of combat, a useful side effect not originally intended.
Each station had carefully marked 'control lines' that were almost invisible. Experience had shown that students participating in a run simply did not see them. These indicated to instructors the start of each new station area, and where to hold up a student until the kill house was ready for them to advance.
A typical run therefore involved a field instructor, a control room instructor, two umpires and two technicians. This made the kill house very labor intensive.
But it was worth it. Not only did performance in the kill house improve, but the secondary performance improvements were dramatic.
Guards dry fired on the range. Guards worked out, both aerobic and anerobic. Guards talked tactics and compared notes on their kill house experiences. I learned that my weak performance on the triage module had resulted automatically in me being scheduled for the next first aid class.
They could only run the kill house for four hours a day, given the staff load. But in those four hours, eight of the employees would personally and intimately experience the terror of close combat ... and not die.
We staffed about forty armed guards; another eighty or so employees were Reaction Team militia. Counting myself, we had four armed Corporate Security personnel. Under our internal rules, all were considered managers. We had the highest priority on the kill house - and in my case, that meant I had to run the kill house six days out of seven. Arm injury notwithstanding.
The second run was by a Reaction Team officer, a Corporate manager who did not work in Corporate Security but was entrusted with the leadership of armed militia.
To my surprise, he started the scenario with an AR rifle as well as a pistol. I followed along on the control room's cameras.
His scenario was different. Harder. Less ammo at a time, more targets. And he had targets that shot back, not just the squibs that had been used to startle me, but actual remote control paintball guns fixed to fire into his path.
His rifle only had ten rounds. He repeatedly had to transition from rifle to pistol, reloading and back to rifle as soon as possible, presented with as many as -- in the finale -- eleven threats at once from two axes of approach. Periodically he 'found' ammo - but often finished a gunfire station with only one or two rounds remaining.
When handling roleplay scenarios, he was required to sling his rifle as well as having his pistol holster locked. His approach to the triage scenario was exceedingly direct - the second time the confused, injured woman did not follow commands, he handcuffed her to a table to keep her from wandering into death the way my victim had. He bandaged and applied direct pressure to the bleeding (upper arm wound ... my own arm twinged the entire time I watched) until the instructor said, "The bleeding is _controlled_" just as he pulled out a tourniquet. Then he held an extra 30 seconds, re-triaged the others, and returned to check the wound again. It did not resume bleeding. This time.
In the overwatch scenario, he activated his radio. "Edward 4 in the blind to all units, we have a single enemy armored vehicle, a four wheeler with oversized wheels, and approximately numbers twenty troops, in the center plaza between Buildings 4 and 6." Only after repeating twice - still no acknowledgement - did he engage with the rifle. And he took care to make sure the rifle did not poke out the fake window. When the enemy reacted, he withdrew and waited. Then went back and re-engaged. Only after two repetitions of this did he have to face counter fire - meaning more enemy killed.
After the final attack, he geared down and joined us in the control room while the video from his run was processed.
"You must be Major Cartright. I'm Randall Stewart. I manage the Visual Kinesthetics section for the Alliance program."
I had no idea what that meant but shook his hand.
"You know of course that we write code for the military - everyone knows that. But the code we write is for military command and control systems, logistics databases, and training aids. Once we understood what was needed, we were able to whip together this training facility in only a few days. [Echo 18] really helped."
Seeing the look on my face, he changed tacks.
"How was your first run?"
"Brutal. But good stuff."
"We try. I am helping demo more advanced training modules - but I have to keep my own skill level up. This is one of several simulator projects we have running for the site. I'd like to show you a few of the others."
He took me on the tour.
"Believe it or not, we get OK results from conventional arcade systems. We have to be very selective. America's Army and Police Trainer are not bad for pistol simulators, but they only capture hand-eye for the most part. Silent Scope is excellent for our snipers - they swear by it _and_ at it. But we can just plug them in on free play and let them run.
"Same with a couple of the arcade driving simulators - especially the truck game with the shifter. Employee gaming systems, salvaged TV sets, controllers ... the arcade is one way that all the employees can blow off steam, and it has some training values.
"However, we had to hack together something special for our convoy drivers. It's too dangerous in time and fuel to train drivers during a convoy run. So we kluged up an interface to allow four immersive vehicle drivers to work together, communicate by intercom, and be in the same shared reality. Of course, coding vehicles is easy.
"It's actually a mod of Grand Theft Auto 3. But the bad guys shoot at you while you're driving, and the ability to dismount is disabled. So far we haven't simulated our gunners, just a decision to shoot back represented by a 'fire' verbal command. It's really a tactics sim, not a driving sim."
I had to ask.
"Is some of this based on what we do for DoD?"
"Neither confirm nor deny."
In other words, yes.
"You mentioned several simulator projects. I've seen three so far."
"I can show you two more - the PTD program and the immersive driver simulator."
"PTD program?"
He checked to make sure the room was not in use and showed me the interior - a split design, with the subject wearing a VR headset in a comfortable chair, and a second person running a console, with provisions for a technical assistant.
"The psychologist can add or subtract elements from the subject's VR experience while conversing with them. Care to give it a try?"
I shrugged and put on the VR headset. It also had a boom mike.
I could hear him sit down at the console.
"Welcome to Fallujah."
On the VR, I could see a very Iraqi rural town street. Dusty, clay and mud brick buildings, shacks ... but also cobbled paving stones.
"So far so good. Now I add an element."
I heard helicopter blades. Blackhawks. Two, on a patrol sweep off to the right.
"...and another..."
Distant crackling of rifle fire. AKs.
"... and another..."
A distant pillar of smoke. The sun dimming slightly. The crackling intensifies and I hear sharper lighter cracks above it. M-16s.
The helicopters bank over me. I briefly see their shadow on the ground as they fly towards the fighting.
"... and another..."
"Mike 4 Actual, proceed to Phase Line Charlie, over." Further radio crackling.
"... and another..."
People walking towards me down the street with items in their hands.
I brought up to point a rifle that I did not have in my hands. Then I tore the headset off.
"That, sir, was truly fucked up."
"But you can see how powerful a tool it is in the hands of a psychologist. Add or subtract stimuli and talk the person through coping with it. In complete safety."
I did. This was powerful stuff.
"Now for the driver simulator."
Two corridors later, he took me to a room that contained, to all appearances, a pickup truck door through the wall. He opened the door and I got in the driver's seat.
When he closed the door, I was sitting in the cab of an American midsize pickup truck. But the windshield, side windows, side and rear view mirrors, and even behind the bed were all projected video wall views.
I was parked by the South Gate in a space marked 'Security Parking Only'
I heard his voice from a concealed speaker.
"Go ahead, start it up."
I turned the (permanently attached) key and the engine started, with sound.
"Drive forward."
Animated figures rolled the gate barrier out of the way.
I was driving off the site ... in virtual reality. It was fairly accurate - not as much trash, but clearly someone had been busy with photos and color sampling and wireframing.
"We have a pretty good database for the area. We had to shelve the self driving truck project for now, but we are using that dataset among others."
I drove to the nearest major street corner. There was a roadblock. Not ours. Not law either.
Men waved and gestured. I floored it.
"Not a good idea."
Two of them leveled rifles and opened fire.
I swerved and punched it. Simulated bullet holes appeared on the windshield and right side window. I ducked.
Then I saw a long tube over one's shoulder and started driving very erratically, jinking back and forth until I could get out of range.
Then I got out of the cab, ignoring the lies of the simulation. Angry,
"They don't have RPGs!"
"Actually, sir, they do. But just like we mount long metal pipes on our hardpoints and act like they are machine guns, they throw large tubes over their shoulders and pretend they are rocket launchers."
Echo 18. In the flesh. He'd come to the simulator bay. I could see on the active - now showing my crash - repeater displays that he'd seen my brief simulated drive off campus.
He was fully armed, as was proper for someone who was always on duty.
I was unarmed, having just participated in simulator combat. I hadn't had the chance to put my gear back on yet.
It had been deliberate on his part, to catch me unarmed. A power move.
"What do you need?"
"We're taking a convoy out in an hour. Care to come with?"
I realized that the entire morning - the kill house, the control room, the exercises proving my relative incompetence, the PTD simulator turned up to eleven by a non psychologist, and finally the driving simulator when I had just come off driving close combat - all of it, was a setup.
A setup. By Echo 18. To rub my nose in just how powerless I really was here.
"Wouldn't miss it for worlds. One moment while I gear up."
Perhaps off campus I could shoot this bald headed bastard in the head and get away with it.
(immediately after Kill House)
[Major Alan Cartwright continues ...]
I watched two more runs through the kill house. One was by a novice guard, who embarrassingly enough advanced further than I had. Being behind the scenes in the control room let me see how the illusion of close combat was created.
The instructor wore a headset and was in constant (short range) radio contact with the control room. The control room in turn coordinated the role-players using 'umpires,' assistant instructors wearing zebra clothing to show that they were never to enter line of sight. To avoid confusion they were on two separate frequencies with two different technicians. A second instructor was in charge on the control room floor, wearing a headset and ready to make any necessary decisions.
The assistant instructors verified that roleplayers were ready for their roles. The roleplayers were of course ordinary employees from the site. This also familiarized them with the basics of combat, a useful side effect not originally intended.
Each station had carefully marked 'control lines' that were almost invisible. Experience had shown that students participating in a run simply did not see them. These indicated to instructors the start of each new station area, and where to hold up a student until the kill house was ready for them to advance.
A typical run therefore involved a field instructor, a control room instructor, two umpires and two technicians. This made the kill house very labor intensive.
But it was worth it. Not only did performance in the kill house improve, but the secondary performance improvements were dramatic.
Guards dry fired on the range. Guards worked out, both aerobic and anerobic. Guards talked tactics and compared notes on their kill house experiences. I learned that my weak performance on the triage module had resulted automatically in me being scheduled for the next first aid class.
They could only run the kill house for four hours a day, given the staff load. But in those four hours, eight of the employees would personally and intimately experience the terror of close combat ... and not die.
We staffed about forty armed guards; another eighty or so employees were Reaction Team militia. Counting myself, we had four armed Corporate Security personnel. Under our internal rules, all were considered managers. We had the highest priority on the kill house - and in my case, that meant I had to run the kill house six days out of seven. Arm injury notwithstanding.
The second run was by a Reaction Team officer, a Corporate manager who did not work in Corporate Security but was entrusted with the leadership of armed militia.
To my surprise, he started the scenario with an AR rifle as well as a pistol. I followed along on the control room's cameras.
His scenario was different. Harder. Less ammo at a time, more targets. And he had targets that shot back, not just the squibs that had been used to startle me, but actual remote control paintball guns fixed to fire into his path.
His rifle only had ten rounds. He repeatedly had to transition from rifle to pistol, reloading and back to rifle as soon as possible, presented with as many as -- in the finale -- eleven threats at once from two axes of approach. Periodically he 'found' ammo - but often finished a gunfire station with only one or two rounds remaining.
When handling roleplay scenarios, he was required to sling his rifle as well as having his pistol holster locked. His approach to the triage scenario was exceedingly direct - the second time the confused, injured woman did not follow commands, he handcuffed her to a table to keep her from wandering into death the way my victim had. He bandaged and applied direct pressure to the bleeding (upper arm wound ... my own arm twinged the entire time I watched) until the instructor said, "The bleeding is _controlled_" just as he pulled out a tourniquet. Then he held an extra 30 seconds, re-triaged the others, and returned to check the wound again. It did not resume bleeding. This time.
In the overwatch scenario, he activated his radio. "Edward 4 in the blind to all units, we have a single enemy armored vehicle, a four wheeler with oversized wheels, and approximately numbers twenty troops, in the center plaza between Buildings 4 and 6." Only after repeating twice - still no acknowledgement - did he engage with the rifle. And he took care to make sure the rifle did not poke out the fake window. When the enemy reacted, he withdrew and waited. Then went back and re-engaged. Only after two repetitions of this did he have to face counter fire - meaning more enemy killed.
After the final attack, he geared down and joined us in the control room while the video from his run was processed.
"You must be Major Cartright. I'm Randall Stewart. I manage the Visual Kinesthetics section for the Alliance program."
I had no idea what that meant but shook his hand.
"You know of course that we write code for the military - everyone knows that. But the code we write is for military command and control systems, logistics databases, and training aids. Once we understood what was needed, we were able to whip together this training facility in only a few days. [Echo 18] really helped."
Seeing the look on my face, he changed tacks.
"How was your first run?"
"Brutal. But good stuff."
"We try. I am helping demo more advanced training modules - but I have to keep my own skill level up. This is one of several simulator projects we have running for the site. I'd like to show you a few of the others."
He took me on the tour.
"Believe it or not, we get OK results from conventional arcade systems. We have to be very selective. America's Army and Police Trainer are not bad for pistol simulators, but they only capture hand-eye for the most part. Silent Scope is excellent for our snipers - they swear by it _and_ at it. But we can just plug them in on free play and let them run.
"Same with a couple of the arcade driving simulators - especially the truck game with the shifter. Employee gaming systems, salvaged TV sets, controllers ... the arcade is one way that all the employees can blow off steam, and it has some training values.
"However, we had to hack together something special for our convoy drivers. It's too dangerous in time and fuel to train drivers during a convoy run. So we kluged up an interface to allow four immersive vehicle drivers to work together, communicate by intercom, and be in the same shared reality. Of course, coding vehicles is easy.
"It's actually a mod of Grand Theft Auto 3. But the bad guys shoot at you while you're driving, and the ability to dismount is disabled. So far we haven't simulated our gunners, just a decision to shoot back represented by a 'fire' verbal command. It's really a tactics sim, not a driving sim."
I had to ask.
"Is some of this based on what we do for DoD?"
"Neither confirm nor deny."
In other words, yes.
"You mentioned several simulator projects. I've seen three so far."
"I can show you two more - the PTD program and the immersive driver simulator."
"PTD program?"
He checked to make sure the room was not in use and showed me the interior - a split design, with the subject wearing a VR headset in a comfortable chair, and a second person running a console, with provisions for a technical assistant.
"The psychologist can add or subtract elements from the subject's VR experience while conversing with them. Care to give it a try?"
I shrugged and put on the VR headset. It also had a boom mike.
I could hear him sit down at the console.
"Welcome to Fallujah."
On the VR, I could see a very Iraqi rural town street. Dusty, clay and mud brick buildings, shacks ... but also cobbled paving stones.
"So far so good. Now I add an element."
I heard helicopter blades. Blackhawks. Two, on a patrol sweep off to the right.
"...and another..."
Distant crackling of rifle fire. AKs.
"... and another..."
A distant pillar of smoke. The sun dimming slightly. The crackling intensifies and I hear sharper lighter cracks above it. M-16s.
The helicopters bank over me. I briefly see their shadow on the ground as they fly towards the fighting.
"... and another..."
"Mike 4 Actual, proceed to Phase Line Charlie, over." Further radio crackling.
"... and another..."
People walking towards me down the street with items in their hands.
I brought up to point a rifle that I did not have in my hands. Then I tore the headset off.
"That, sir, was truly fucked up."
"But you can see how powerful a tool it is in the hands of a psychologist. Add or subtract stimuli and talk the person through coping with it. In complete safety."
I did. This was powerful stuff.
"Now for the driver simulator."
Two corridors later, he took me to a room that contained, to all appearances, a pickup truck door through the wall. He opened the door and I got in the driver's seat.
When he closed the door, I was sitting in the cab of an American midsize pickup truck. But the windshield, side windows, side and rear view mirrors, and even behind the bed were all projected video wall views.
I was parked by the South Gate in a space marked 'Security Parking Only'
I heard his voice from a concealed speaker.
"Go ahead, start it up."
I turned the (permanently attached) key and the engine started, with sound.
"Drive forward."
Animated figures rolled the gate barrier out of the way.
I was driving off the site ... in virtual reality. It was fairly accurate - not as much trash, but clearly someone had been busy with photos and color sampling and wireframing.
"We have a pretty good database for the area. We had to shelve the self driving truck project for now, but we are using that dataset among others."
I drove to the nearest major street corner. There was a roadblock. Not ours. Not law either.
Men waved and gestured. I floored it.
"Not a good idea."
Two of them leveled rifles and opened fire.
I swerved and punched it. Simulated bullet holes appeared on the windshield and right side window. I ducked.
Then I saw a long tube over one's shoulder and started driving very erratically, jinking back and forth until I could get out of range.
Then I got out of the cab, ignoring the lies of the simulation. Angry,
"They don't have RPGs!"
"Actually, sir, they do. But just like we mount long metal pipes on our hardpoints and act like they are machine guns, they throw large tubes over their shoulders and pretend they are rocket launchers."
Echo 18. In the flesh. He'd come to the simulator bay. I could see on the active - now showing my crash - repeater displays that he'd seen my brief simulated drive off campus.
He was fully armed, as was proper for someone who was always on duty.
I was unarmed, having just participated in simulator combat. I hadn't had the chance to put my gear back on yet.
It had been deliberate on his part, to catch me unarmed. A power move.
"What do you need?"
"We're taking a convoy out in an hour. Care to come with?"
I realized that the entire morning - the kill house, the control room, the exercises proving my relative incompetence, the PTD simulator turned up to eleven by a non psychologist, and finally the driving simulator when I had just come off driving close combat - all of it, was a setup.
A setup. By Echo 18. To rub my nose in just how powerless I really was here.
"Wouldn't miss it for worlds. One moment while I gear up."
Perhaps off campus I could shoot this bald headed bastard in the head and get away with it.
