FW: Here's an update to the simulated Kangaroos story (RISKS-20.47)

  [Many of you have sent in the Kangaroo story that was excerpted from
  rec.humor.funny in RISKS-20.47.  This item from Paul Mallory was
  forwarded to RISKS by Paul Green.  PGN]

> Date sent:         Thu, 16 Dec 1999 15:49:34 +0000 (GMT)

> From:              walter.mallory@gecm.com (Walter Mallory)
> Subject:           (Fwd) Re: Probably should be in .software_eng,
> To:                mallory@west.net
> Organization:      GEC Marconi Dynamics, Inc.
>
> Adrian Frith wrote:

> This sounds like an urban legend and when I first heard of it (as reported
> on the Defence Systems Daily web site).  I thought that it was until I
> read the correction story shortly afterward.  I have attached the

> correction below.  It is even weirder than the original.

> What those Killer Kangaroos really fired, 29 November 1999

> On Friday DSD told the story of the killer kangaroos. Now we know the
> truth. And it is even weirder: the kangaroos threw beach balls!

> Dr Anne-Marie Grisogono, Head, Simulation Land Operations Division at the
> Australian DSTO has told us what actually happened and we are delighted to
> set the record straight.

> "I related this story as part of a talk on Simulation for Defence, at the
> Australian Science Festival on May 6th in Canberra. The Armed

> Reconnaissance Helicopter mission simulators built by the Synthetic
> Environments Research Facility in Land Operations Division of DSTO, do
> indeed fly in a fairly high fidelity environment which is a 4000 sq km
> piece of real outback Australia around Katherine, built from elevation
> data, overlaid with aerial photographs and with 2.5 million realistic 3d
> trees placed in the terrain in those areas where the photographs indicated
> real trees actually exist.

> "For a bit of extra fun (and not for any strategic reason like kangaroos
> betraying your cover!) our programmers decided to put in a bit of animated

> wildlife.  Since ModSAF is our simulation tool, these were modeled on
> ModSAF's Stinger detachments so that the associated detection model could
> be used to determine when a helo approached, and the behaviour invoked by
> such contact was set to 'retreat'. Replace the visual model of the Stinger
> detachment in your stealth viewer with a visual model of a kangaroo (or
> buffalo...) and you have wildlife that moves away when approached. It is
> true that the first time this was tried in the lab, we discovered that we
> had forgotten to remove the weapons and the 'fire' behaviour.

> "It is NOT true that this happened in front of a bunch of visitors

> (American or any other flavour). We don't normally try things for the
> first time in front of an audience! What I didn't relate in the talk is
> that since we were not at that stage interested in weapons, we had not set
> any weapon or projectile types, so what the kangaroos fired at us was in
> fact the default object for the simulation, which happened to be large
> multicoloured beachballs.

> "I usually conclude the story by reassuring the audience that we have now
> disarmed the kangaroos and it is again safe to fly in Australia."
> Andy

Australian virtual reality kanga-rues the day

From rec.humor.funny....

This is supposedly a true story from a recent Defence Science Lectures
Series, as related by the head of the Australian DSTO's Land
Operations/Simulation division.

They've been working on some really nifty virtual reality simulators, the
case in point being to incorporate Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters into
exercises (from the data fusion point of view). Most of the people they
employ on this sort of thing are ex- (or future) computer game programmers.
Anyway, as part of the reality parameters, they include things like trees
and animals. For the Australian simulation they included kangaroos.  In
particular, they had to model kangaroo movements and reactions to
helicopters (since hordes of disturbed kangaroos might well give away a
helicopter's position).

Being good programmers, they just stole some code (which was originally used
to model infantry detachments reactions under the same stimuli), and changed
the mapped icon, the speed parameters, etc. The first time they've gone to
demonstrate this to some visiting Americans, the hotshot pilots have decided
to get "down and dirty" with the virtual kangaroos. So, they buzz them, and
watch them scatter. The visiting Americans nod appreciatively... then gape
as the kangaroos duck around a hill, and launch about two dozen Stinger
missiles at the hapless helicopter.  Programmers look rather embarrassed at
forgetting to remove *that* part of the infantry coding... and Americans
leave muttering comments about not wanting to mess with the Aussie
wildlife...

As an addendum, simulator pilots from that point onwards avoided kangaroos
like the plague, just like they were meant to do in the first place...

  [Also noted by Scott Rainey.  PGN]