The Americans annihilated the Iraqis in 22 minutes.
The Battle of 73 Easting has become the single most accurately recorded combat engagement in human history. Army historians and simulation modelers thoroughly interviewed the American participants, and paced the battlefield meter by meter. They came up with a fully interactive, network-capable digital replica of the events at 73 Easting, right down to the last TOW missile and .50-caliber pockmark. Military historians and armchair strategists can now fly over the virtual battlefield in the "stealth vehicle," the so-called "SIMNET flying carpet," viewing the 3-D virtual landscape from any angle during any moment of the battle. They can even change the parameters - give the Iraqis infrared targeting scopes, for instance, which they lacked at the time, and which made them sitting ducks for high-tech American M1s charging out of blowing sand. The whole triumphal blitzkrieg can be pondered over repeatedly (gloated over even), in perfect scratch-free digital fidelity. It's the spirit of Southwest Asia in a digital nutshell. In terms of American military morale, it's like a '90s CD remix of some '60s oldie, rescued from warping vinyl and remade closer to the heart's desire.
Col. Thorpe and his colleagues first demo'd "73 Easting" in late 1991 at the Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) #13, the premier convention for the military training, simulation, and VR industry. The virtual battle was the hit of the show, and it went on to tour the Senate Armed Services Committee, where it much impressed Sam Nunn and John Glenn.
"The Reconstruction of the Battle of 73 Easting" is an enormously interesting interactive multimedia creation. It is fast and exhilarating and full of weird