The Rapid Decision Trainer (RDT) is a virtual, interactive, game engine-based simulation developed as an applied research effort by the US Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM), Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC). The trainer was developed in cooperation with the 11th Infantry Regiment and the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) at Ft. Benning, GA. The RDT simulates two live-fire training exercises conducted by infantry second lieutenants during IOBC. Unlike live training in which time and logistics constraints prevent all students from participating in key leadership positions, the RDT allows all IOBC students to assume the key roles of squad or platoon leader in the virtual training exercise. The RDT forces students to experience the same decision making process that key leaders will face during the actual live-fire exercises. The RDT has been a success with IOBC devoting three hours in the current program of instruction (POI) to using the RDT in support of platoon-level training.

Government and industry program managers as well as subject matter experts and developers will use this paper to identify and discuss a number of lessons learned from the development experience. We will describe key decisions made by the development team and will present ideas that contributed to the successful development of the RDT. The primary goal of this paper is to offer suggestions that may be useful to others planning to develop similar lowcost simulations. Many of these lessons learned are pertinent to the modeling and simulation for training community at large.