You could be talking to guys in Germany, Panama, Kansas, and California, and we'd all meet on the same piece of virtual map-sheet. The thing about semi-automated vehicles is that you wouldn't know if they were real or Memorex. The slippery fuzz between the real, the faked, and the hyperreally faked can be used to some advantage in war. U.S. Forces in the Gulf War overturned popular opinion of the relative expertise of both sides. Yet the lopsided victory of the U.S. could not be accounted for merely by the absence of gumption from Iraq.
Military insiders point to simulation training.
We had fought such engagements six times before in complete battle simulations at the National Training Center and in Germany. It was no different than practice. Participants of the Battle of 73 Easting were not unique. Ninety percent of the U.S. Air Force units in Desert Storm, and 80 percent of the leaders of the ground forces had intensive training in battle simulations beforehand. They have a reputation of being unbeatable.