In recent years, eighty-five percent of our war casualties have come from infantry and ground units, and there is a demand signal at the highest levels of the Department of Defense calling for more effective training of infantry for the challenges of irregular and modern warfare. By simulating the immersive conditions of the combat environment, we hypothesize that we can improve tactical and ethical decision-making by small unit leaders, increase small unit operational effectiveness, improve individual resiliency, and reduce casualties.

The Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) is a two-year, $36 million Department of Defense-wide initiative to demonstrate the value of advanced small unit immersive infantry training systems. The first year of the program focused on developing the training strategies and implementing them in a squad-sized element (9-13 man) using an individual worn virtual reality system. This system integrates a body-worn computer, a helmet-mounted display, a realistic replicated weapon, and a built-in wireless network. The software for simulating the virtual world is an enhanced version of Virtual Battlespace 2 (VBS2), a widely used game-based simulation. The result was a training system that immerses an infantry squad into a scenario driven tactical problem, which was demonstrated and evaluated in the early spring of 2010