3D stereoscopic vision is used in many applications, but the level of benefit to the user differs depending on the particular application. We studied its benefits for command and control applications such as battlefield visualization or disaster response. We conducted experiments where the subjects completed some simple military planning exercises both with and without 3D vision. 3D users had lower error in general, particularly when judging line of sight between two points. Furthermore, survey results show that most subjects preferred 3D. However, 3D took longer for completing the tasks. We also compared two ways of rendering military symbols in the virtual environment, finding that billboard style visualization boosted the subjects' efficiency when compared with draping the symbol on the terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]