ARMA 3 as a Training Aid, by GuerrillaLogistician

For those of you who know https://vs-training.com/ Von Stuben AKA Mike on the forums you know he likes to use ARMA 3 photos and does play ARMA from time to time. I am not sure how to exactly explain ARMA to people, but the original system was designed to be used as a military training program, then it was turned into a game. Realistically it isn’t a bad infantry simulator and allows you to do lots of the motions of war without the threat of death.  You can call for fire, move units around maps. Some addons allow you to effectively command a fairly large battle space.  The AI can be stupid or expert snipers depending on settings. Real players are stuck looking into a screen and don’t have the field of view real people do, but they can be devious and prevent you from gaming the system.  This does make it a game, and not an FTX like you will get in NC at a scout course.

That said a lot of training can be done with ARMA, and even if you play it casually it will help you learn how to lead random people. It also is a great way to remember learned skills.  That said most of my friends and I just play the war part, operating vehicles like tanks, APCs flying A-10s F-16s, or becoming the bad guy’s as Russian military and fighting real players. The game isn’t like Call of Duty at all.  If you get on a sever with some “MILSIM” you will get a hint of the military. MILSIM groups are hit and miss on quality so be aware it’s like finding a good church, shop around.  You also will get a lot of “interrogatives” and dumbass actions as well. I say this so you realize there are limits to ARMA as well as some ability to practice things.

Well, we have some guys who are either Alumni, or veterans, and our friend Rabbit decided it was time to play a what if, and it really got me thinking. Often times people who are in the prepper circle and veteran love to wargame ideas, but just like a square range war gaming ideas is an optimal situation with no stress or time constraints.  While not perfect ARMA is a great way to role play decisions real time and with stress.  The guy operating the sever can and will adjust to your skill, he can’t always do everything 1 for 1 but you can mentally play ball and have fun.  So let me set up our little scenario.

You live in a shitty urban dwelling, and have left with friends to retreat near limestone, FL. You are going to a place where your friend we will call “Chris and Mel” live when things turned bad. He is a prepper and has invited you and your loved ones to come live on his farm in a farming community. Luckily, you are kind of known because you have traveled to the area a lot, the town isn’t big, and Chris is a local celebrity of sorts.  Chris is out of town and trying to make it back, but he is safe, and he told you how to get in.

Day 1 of our little wargame is simple, get oriented, and go into town because there isn’t any reliable service, and you want to see how things are going in the area.  Think of it as a site survey/recon of the area. What do you pack and what do you wear? Mind your major cities are burning, counties have locked down in areas, but the rule of law may or may not be on its way out? You know the sheriff is extremely 2A and just like Polk County so you could walk around with a rifle and battle gear. Honestly, with how things are going in the world it might not be a bad idea, but what will that present you as? We tried to plan and roleplay things out as close to realistically available stuff as we could which gets important.

We ended up travel into town, (Rabbit modified the town map from the real thing) and we see people walking around, and lots of people looking at a board setup in front of the joint EMA Police department. When we get up there, we are recognized by a Capt. of the PD as friends of Chris. He had introduced you before and asked if you could get Chris to check on his friends down south. They apparently needed some help with there farm, and a little bit of extortion issue. You tell the captain that Chris is out of town. We decided to help the captain in place of Chris. Although we didn’t have to go it made sense to help for the benefit of the community.  It was a goodwill thing as the PD was at half strength due to everyone taking care of their own family. The Capt. gave us the repeater frequency of the local EMA was monitoring as cellphones were hit and miss and asked us to check in once we had been by. How do you meet people you barely know? How do you prove the PD sent you? How do people respond to police presence? Were you temporarily deputized, or are you purely a civilian? These are all questions you start to ask.

Like I said we decided to go out that way, and as we traveled, we took it slow and casual as not to scare anyone. With all the things going on, brown outs, and the like people were on edge, as we would be. As we got into view of the farm, we saw a fight going on. Two people were shooting at the warehouse, and we slammed on the breaks. What would you do? Would you engage, turn around, call for help on the radio? We had 3 people and a clear shot from the vehicle, would you have engaged, or would you have backed out?  To be honest ARMA lets you make bad decisions, and even great decisions that go poorly. We did the correct thing, but the AI shot me, and in real life I would not be throwing a bandage on and continuing the fight very easily. If you play ARMA and roleplay similar to what we did, you encounter situations and you might do things you wouldn’t do in real life.  With that said those actions in the game give you a better understanding of where you are in your head and allow you to make decisions. It expands your thoughts and really that is what training should be. Add to that you are experiencing things in real time and making decisions with people.  If your group is like the military maybe you make all the decisions yourself, maybe you are a group of friends and talk things out.  You could even setup a sever and have people come in you never knew and operate via voice and see how they would react.