The iPad military app that looks more like a video game

If you’ve poured dozens of hours into games like Starcraft, you may have thought you were just honing your pointless video game skills. But in reality, you were years ahead of the government in realizing the best way to manage time and resources during war.

A new iPad app designed to work for real-life military operations looks a lot like a video game, but uses GPS data and other systems to track troops on the ground of a live battlefield.

It’s called SoldierEyes and has been developed by a company called Textron Systems. The app can track both friendly and enemy troops on the ground, send data to military bases through secure cloud servers, and let other troops know what’s in the area.

The SoldierEyes app is just one of many that have been submitted through the iTunes App Store and Android Market after the US government called for independent, non-contract developers to see what kind of military app concepts they could come up with.

Still no word on an app which will allow military commanders to instantly build massive defense towers and upgrade their troops’ weapons.