The Air Force and MITRE are organizing an esports tournament to enhance service members’ ability to make critical mission decisions during combat situations.
According to Fox News, MITRE, a non-profit national security organization, is now accepting registrations for the game “Drone Guardians,” where teams must protect a deployed airfield from enemy attacks while maintaining their ability to launch aircraft missions.
The game combines elements of first-person shooters, strategy, and puzzles, requiring players to fend off multiple types of attacks, including land, air, sea, space, and cyber threats. Teamwork is crucial as players prioritize defense while maintaining the airfield for combat missions.
“Teams must make critical mission decisions such as whether to prioritize readying aircraft for launch over defending the air base or putting together a contested logistics strategy in order to ensure they have the supplies they need to complete the mission,” read a description of the game on the MITRE website.
The game’s purpose is to assist the Air Force in collecting data that can enhance the safety and logistics of actual airbases, ultimately safeguarding the lives of those responsible for their defense.
“Even without adversary intervention, military logistics networks can be brittle and chaotic while also having single points of failure, creating ripe opportunities for attacks,” said Eliahu Niewood, vice president of Air and Space Forces for MITRE. “Plus, as the military plans and carries out the movement, supply and maintenance of its forces, they easily could already be under attack in the next global conflict. GameX uses both military and civilian participants to test which logistics decisions will best enable the mission.”
The military has a history of using video games for training, such as a 1993 Super Nintendo game designed to improve marksmanship skills. They also partnered with Raytheon to create a virtual reality combat simulator that tracks soldiers’ movements.
The MITRE esports competitions are scheduled to occur at three different locations: Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina on September 22-23, MITRE’s main headquarters in McLean, Virginia on October 13-14, and the MITRE regional office in San Antonio, Texas on October 20-21.
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