"It's only SIMNET," another tanker told him at last. "You're not bleeding."

They weren't bleeding. That was undeniable. On the contrary, they'd just been killed in combat, yet also had the amazing luxury to learn by this experience. The CATTC trainers called off the battle in time for lunch; the result was now a foregone conclusion. As Capt. Baker explained to his virtual enemies and real-life students, "There'll be hot borscht and vodka at Objective Kiev tonight." The dead soldiers, and the few pleased survivors, had shakes, fries and burgers from the local Burger King.

When they returned from their lunch, Maj. Rogers replayed the battle for them, hitting the high points with detailed graphics from the big machine called Radcliff. Any event can be scrutinized, from any angle of vision, at any moment in time that the trainers desired.

Virtual Reality as a Strategic Asset

SIMNET today is a clunky and rapidly aging mid-1980s technology; its giant, $100,000 image generators are so large that they bear red adhesive labels: "WARNING: RISK OF PERSONAL INJURY FROM RACK TIPPING FORWARD." SIMNET still thrives in everyday use at Fort Knox, Fort Rucker, Fort Denning and a number of other sites, sometimes linked together through long-distance lines, more often not. But better stuff is coming: faster, cheaper, more sophisticated, and far better-connected.

The people at the Institute for Defense Analyses know all this. The Institute is a large, brown, campus-like building set in a pleasant wooded lot outside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. Its tall brick walls are festooned with white security telecameras. White shuttle-vans with the IDA logo - an infinity-sign in a triangle with the IDA acronym - pull up periodically, disgorging small scholarly groups of tweed-jacketed military-academic spooks.

I visited the Institute last fall. Groups of Air Force bluesuiters ambled