USMC Licenses Operation Flashpoint Tech

Representatives from developer Bohemia Interactive, best known for the Operation Flashpoint series of titles, have announced that the United States Marine Corps (USMC) have purchased an enterprise license for Virtual Battlespace (VBS). The license provides an unlimited number of VBS1 and VBS2 licenses to the USMC for use in tactical training, mission rehearsal and experimentation. Virtual Battlespace is an interactive training system inspired by the Operation Flashpoint titles and used for military and civilian combat and experimentation purposes. Bohemia Interactive will deliver a range of customized VBS1 modules to the USMC, including the USMC1 pack, After Action Review 3 (AAR3), Instructor Interface and other USMC-specific enhancements. Two versions of VBS1 will be delivered – VBS1 Developer for use in simulation centers and VBS1 Lite for wider distribution. Virtual Battlespace 2 will be a completely new product based upon the new Real Virtuality 2 game engine, featuring rapid terrain generation for mission rehearsal in high fidelity, realistic environments and other functional and graphical improvements. In conjunction with Calytrix’s Live-Virtual-Constructive (LVC), Virtual Battlespace will also be integrated into the USMC DVTE network, interoperating with simulations such as JSAF. VBS1 and VBS2 may also be integrated with C2PC (Command and Control for the PC) to provide a networked environment linking live and virtual operation, with live marines in the field, tracked by GPS, interoperating with virtual entities controlled from within a USMC simulation centre. Bohemia Interactive has also announced that it will soon start development on the Virtual Tool Kit (VTK), a project designed to allow end users to modify every aspect of the simulation. To be sponsored by the USMC, the VBS2 VTK is intended to provide configuration, weapon and unit editors, improved terrain and modeling tools, easily modifiable artificial intelligence behaviors, an API for new plug-in AI models, deformable terrain and a range of other improvements beyond the extensive enhancements already available in VBS2.