There’s a thing in the Army called hip-pocket training. It’s training, usually at the noncommissioned officer (NCO) level, that can be done with little notice or preparation — normally in 15- to 30-minute blocks. The Army Field Manual 7-0 formalized the process and even set specific responsibilities of the commander, first sergeant and lower NCOs for the planning and implementation of hip-pocket training.
The historical tradition is much less formal, with sergeants basically just grabbing their troops when they’ve found themselves with downtime for short training blocks. That could be quizzing your team on the basics of field sanitation or going somewhere to practice room clearing maneuvers.
But, if you’re looking for something new, video games offer a fun, instructional platform.
Here are five games that have value as quick training modules for things like weapons system familiarity, like the drones in Death from Above, or because they illustrate a common military concept, like squad attack drills in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30.
Because this list is in the tradition of hip-pocket training, it has a few limiting principles. Anything that takes more time, preparatory training or hardware more complicated than a Steam Deck or pocket emulator won’t work for hip-pocket training. In these cases, sergeants would be better off setting up “glass houses” in a parking lot or field to practice room clearing.
For simplicity, every video game in this list:
- Has low hardware requirements.
- Is easy to play (at least in the lowest difficulty tiers or on low difficulty settings).
- Can be queued up in a single level that takes less than an hour to experience.
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Here are five great candidates for your next hip-pocket training session.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
This one’s value is in a few particular missions, especially a nuclear scene that can’t be discussed without major spoilers. So, if you’re still planning on playing an 18-year-old video
game with no plot knowledge, then scroll to the next game in this list.
The Call of Duty series has a few scenes where characters actually reckon with the costs of war in a way that many video games don’t approach. One mission in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is fairly grounded in reality; it shows Marines fighting heroically for the greater good, then kills off almost every character the player has met in the blink of an eye on the order of a person miles away.
The “Shock and Awe” level is a good way to introduce a discussion about how tactical decisions plug into the strategic picture, how quick intelligence sharing and communications affect battlefield decision-making and outcomes, and how death in war can often seem random or indiscriminate. During this level, the player’s character actually dies after attempting to save a downed helicopter pilot, so leaders can also leverage it into questions about what degree of sacrifice members of the unit believe they would be willing to bear, even if it might not save the other person.
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
As a game based on real history, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 has some value as a discussion about what challenges World War II paratroopers overcame in the weeks after D-Day, as well as what it means to take control of a squad in combat. In that light, it pairs well with the “Band of Brothers” episode “Carentan,” which depicts the same battle featured in the game.
Leaders can also use the game to review squad-level maneuvers, especially pinning and flanking – otherwise known as the Army’s Battle Drill 1a, squad attack.
Squad attacks are built into the gameplay of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. Players control a small group of paratroopers and are encouraged to pin down the enemy with fire and then maneuver to a flanking position to kill them. Leaders can use the game to illustrate the tactic and show the difference between outcomes when squads take suppression and maneuver seriously, versus when they don’t.
One important training note in the discussion, though: Video games struggle to calculate and display large areas, and so most game studios drastically reduce the size of the maps and range of the weapons to compensate. So, it’s good to discuss the unit’s real-world standard distances for maneuver in Battle Drill 1 and 1a in different terrains. You won’t find realistic ranges in Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30.
Company of Heroes 2
This one is just an easy, entry-level, real-time strategy game. Frankly, any similar RTS game would work here. These games show the struggle of building combined arms units and employing them tactically. It also leads to a good discussion about tactics, techniques and practices, such as screening, recon, defense-in-depth, local superiority of numbers and more.
With most levels lasting only 20-40 minutes, Company of Heroes 2 is not only fast but also is grounded in real history. Leaders, though, could hold similar discussions based around levels of Halo Wars or Warcraft III, if their units have a lot of science fiction or fantasy fans.
War Thunder
The real value of games such as War Thunder for unit leaders is that they can introduce discussions on how different military branches work together and provide a fairly quick idea of what considerations their frontline members have in a battle.
War Thunder is free to play and features tanks, planes and ships, so it gives a glimmer of how the branches work together. Leaders who want to focus on a single branch have other options. Army leaders trying to give their soldiers a quick down-and-dirty on Navy task forces before a joint exercise, could choose World of Warships. World of Tanks can give an idea of how Army armored units fight, and Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) can be good for air forces. Keep in mind, DCS is a full simulator with realistic cockpits and physics, so the learning curve is steep.
Death from Above
As the nature of war continues to evolve with drones, Death from Above gives a chance to fly as a frontline drone operator trying to quickly identify and attack Russian forces invading Ukraine.
The game is, to put it lightly, arcade-style. It’s not realistic, and it shouldn’t be seen as adding anything for your actual first-person-view (FPV) drone soldiers. But, it gives a rough idea of the types of concerns that drone operators have, such as how to avoid an enemy while getting drones out, prioritize targets and create dilemmas for the enemy with drones. As with Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, the ranges are extremely short, compared to actual combat.
A similar game that leans more into realism, Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator, is coming to Steam Early Access soon. The game promises a hyper-realistic drone operator experience, but it’s way too early to tell whether the slick gameplay footage will actually translate to an engaging simulator experience.
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