The British Army in January this year conducted its largest virtual battle simulation, involving 220 soldiers. The experiment was carried out at the Army’s Land Warfare Centre in Warminster, Wiltshire. The two-hour scenario saw soldiers from 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh on computers completing virtual missions in a fictional French town.

Urban Warrior 5, as the project is called, has cost about £1million to develop and was built with VBS2 software, which is also used commercially by the games industry to create virtual worlds.

Further simulations involving different troops will be run until June 2013, after which all the data will be analysed. Exercise Urban Warrior 5 used advanced science and computer technology as part of a cutting-edge experiment designed to help the Army better understand the battlefield of the future.