From: Gordon Baxter <Gordon.Baxter@rdel.co.uk>
To: "'Tom Lindop'" <Tom.Lindop@rdel.co.uk>
Subject: The truth about those killer kangaroos
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 13:24:22 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
 
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 11:42:47 -0500
From: "Green, Paul" <Paul_Green@stratus.com>
Subject: 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