Marines use simulations to hone 'critical thinking' skills.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: 'Virtual' Combat Hunter

The Marine Corps is creating a digital simulation to help leathernecks "read" the urban battlefield for signs of potential threats and to track down snipers and insurgents hiding in cities.

The simulation, which will deploy in 2011, will complement a training program called "Combat Hunter," developed three years ago by the Marine Corps. The course garners the skills of game hunters and big city cops to instruct marines on how to observe, assess and track the enemy in a combat environment. All newly minted marines take the course.

Stressed for time to teach these skills adequately to marines, officials pushed for the computer-based trainer to help alleviate pressure on course instructors. A Woburn, Mass.-based engineering firm, Aptima, is developing the multimedia system to give marines more opportunities to learn the art of combat profiling--the ability to assess a situation by interpreting the behaviors of people.

Funded by the Office of Naval Research through a phase II small business innovation research contract, Aptima is focusing its efforts on producing the content of the software, called IMPACTS--"Improving and Measuring Perceptual, Attentional, and Critical Thinking Skills." It's a cognitive perception training tool, said Mike Paley, executive vice president.

The interactive program walks students through a number of scenarios in which they are asked to interpret what is going on and to look for clues that can tip them off to potential threats. For example, if troops are arriving in an area for the first time, they can look at the townspeople's body language to learn about their attitudes. Details such as whether they are standing in an open or closed posture, exposing the soles of their feet--an insult in many Middle Eastern cultures--or making eye contact are subtle but crucial signs of friendliness or hostility.

The team is incorporating images and video footage captured by military photographers both in combat and in training exercises to give students practice in realistic scenarios.

A sampling of themes covered includes crowds, small group situations, street events and "innocent" scenes. Scenarios that appear innocuous, such as children playing on street corners, will train troops not only in the detection of threats but also the signs of friendly force movement that can help reveal the locations of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Crowd scenes will highlight the dress and behaviors of the indigenous people while small...