US Army Digital Exercise

johndeerejedi writes: "The 4th Infantry Division (US Army)is conducting an exercise called the Division Capstone Exercise. The official website can be found here. There are lots of videos and photos for those with the bandwidth and/or the patience. We're using the latest digital goodies to give us the edge in this fight. Stuff like the M1A2 SEP tank, FBCB2, and a host of other cool stuff. One thing I thought you might all be interested in is that the FBCB2 and several other command and control systems appear to use a version of Solaris. FBCB2 and many of the other systems our here are used to enhance situational awareness and command and control via a tactical intranet." The combat computer looks pretty cool - automatically tracks its own location with GPS and reports to headquarters...

Comments

I wonder what the actual top speed is...

[Telcontar]

It is always odd how little the "official" top speed of vehicles (in this case, tanks) is compared to the actual one. On the data sheet linked to in the story, the top speed of that brand new tank is supposed to be 42 mph. Come on... these babies certainly make 60+ mph when needed.
Some other cool fact was that they take almost any fuel for their engines, it just has to burn :-)

Re:Two points

[Wyatt Earp]

Japan took three islands in the Aleutians in WW2.

They also took Guam, Wake, the Phillipines. Which are/were US soil.

But no one has been on the Contiental US since 1814. Well, there were British forces up in Washington state before the boarder was decided in the 1840s...but that wasn't really a war.

There were some German agents landed on the East Coast in WW2, Japanese aircraft, Subs and Ballons did attack the West Coast in WW2, and alot of ships were sunk off the East Coast and Gulf Coast in WW2 as well.

Re:I'm not US and...

[Wyatt Earp]

Australia/Asia's freedoms that exsist today are because of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Corps (Air Force today), as well as the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Dutch forces and the Free French. The US took the brunt of the fighting simply becuase the other United Nations forces were more involved in Europe.

Yes...it was nearly 50 years ago, but it's because of the sacrifices of those men against an oppresive Imperal Japanese military that Australia and Asia have the freedoms that they enjoy today.

War isn't cool, but it has been and will be a part of foreign policy of all nations. It's been that way in one form or another since Man formed communities.

Re:Chinese surveillance flights over USA

[Wyatt Earp]

Not our fault that the Chinese don't have the ability to project power. The Russians do still fly surveillance flights off the coast of the Western US.

If the Chinese wanted to, they could buy some Tu-95s or Tu-22s and fly Elint flights off the US coast and see what professional interception looks like.

Solaris isn't the only UNIX used

[Lally Singh]

I was talking to a recruiter for a contractor, and he mentioned that Linux is also used in some of the same type of command & control warfare stuff. He told me it was in a tank (I forget which), and I'll assume that since we were in a bigass auditorium, that fact isn't classified :-)

Hopefully they don't try the next BIND exploit in desert storm II.... ;-)

--

Re:Military and Technology

[Detritus]

The worse we abuse our rouge superpower status the worse the backlash will be.

That's right, Max Factor, Maybelline, and the other organs of capitalist aggression must be destroyed.

Re:Got Encryption?

[Detritus]

There are ways of reducing the problem.

• direct sequence spread spectrum
• reduce transmitter power
• directional antennas
• burst transmissions

Re:Got Encryption?

[Detritus]

Direct sequence spread spectrum with a high chip rate is difficult to intercept. The transmitter's power is spread over a wide range of frequencies. If you look at it on a spectrum analyzer, you can't even tell that a signal is present. The signal can be at a lower amplitude than the noise. Military and commercial systems are designed with different goals. The military wants low probability of intercept, resistance to jamming and communications security. Commercial systems are designed for low cost, throughput and band sharing.

Re:reminder

[Brento]

this "cool stuff" you speak of is designed to justify the federal government in taking your money, and to kill people.

Yeah, well, if it prevents incidents like the Chinese holding 24 of our soldiers captive, I'm all for it. In case you didn't notice, everybody's got nukes now, and we need a different edge. Our economy won't be bulletproof forever, and we need to do this kind of R&D work while the money is available.

Re:reminder

[el_chicano]

if it prevents incidents like the Chinese holding 24 of our soldiers captive, I'm all for it.

But it didn't prevent the Chinese from holding 24 of our soldiers captive...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!

Re:Give 'em some real ammo.

[el_chicano]

From the private's point of view, it mostly consists of sitting in a wet hole for a day or two, then moving to another wet hole.

Not if the private is mechanized. Then they get to drive between the periods of waiting ("hurry up then wait" is the unofficial motto of the US Army).

The senior officers (them in the HQ) get a fun week-long camping trip...

For the ones grading the exercises, yes it is a little like that, but for those taking part in the training it is hardly a "camping trip".

The "boys," I think, vastly prefer division-level simulation, combined with squad-level "real firepower" training.

That wouldn't work in a mechanized unit. We had many platoon-level and battalion-level exercises that are used to test logistical and command/control capabilities.

Large scale exercises for good for showing the officers how things fall apart fast in the real world, but are lousy for training the troops in the field.

IMHO driving an APC 50 kilometers in the desert during a dark moonless night on 2 hours sleep is excellent training for the lower-level troops. After all you don't know you can do it until you try and this is not something that you can easily simulate using CombatSim2001.

You also have to train the support units. You have to be sure that the supply units can provide adequate food for the troops and fuel for the vehicles...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!

Re:Two points

[el_chicano]

2. In the history of the last few hundred years, did _ANYONE_ ever intruded the borders of USA?

IIRC the last time a foreign government intruded on US soil was when the British invaded and burned down Washington DC during the War of 1812.
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!

Re:I'm not US and...

[el_chicano]

Just that I find slashdot bizarre in that the community is about hoping for a better world, but constantly denies that the US acts only in the interests of a small proportion of the world's people.

Not bizarre, just typically American. But we all know that we Americans are callous, selfish SOBs.

I thought it was pretty sad that when a disturbed person took a few whacks at the "Liberty Bell" (liberty for Whites that is, as Blacks were still property back then) most Americans were more concerned about an inanimate piece of metal than a living, breathing human being obviously having mental problems.
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!

Can you say 'APRS'

[Brew Bird]

Automatic Position Reporting Systems are easily available. just check out
Aprs.Org

Got Encryption?

[Jarvo]

Those tanks better use an encrypted transmission...
On second thought, the enemy just has to use a directional antenna to find them.

"We have the latest technology to coordinate our tank assaults. "

The tanks' radio transmitters are basically screaming:

"I'm over here! Lock onto the source of this transmission and blow me up!"

You think that's high-tech?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I bet they don't have any of those genetically engineered kangaroos that launch stinger missiles...

http://www.loeschfamily.net/home/kangaroo.html

*cough*

[Galvatron]

Someone doesn't read the papers very much, do they? Either that or they subscribe to the Chinese state run papers.

Point of fact 0: You should already know this, and I dearly hope it was just a typo, but the plane was not shot down, collided with a Chinese fighter jet. Point of fact 1: The collision occured in international airspace.

Point of fact 2: The US had expressed concern numerous times in the past few months about how close the Chinese were flying to our planes (ever see Top Gun? Pilots pull this kind of shit all the time)

Point of fact 3: The propeller-driven E3 is far less manuverable than the Chinese jet fighters, and could not possibly have hit them even if it had tried were they to keep a safe distance.

Point of fact 4: Flying spy planes off the coast of other nations is a well established practice that occured throughout the Cold War, and the Russians did it all the time to America and most of Europe, including, I believe, you Brits, without anyone crashing into anyone, and without the taking of hostages.

Finally, in conclusion, you better hope to whatever power you believe in that America gets those pilots back SOON, because any war between China and America will almost certainly go nuclear. America does not have the ground forces to conquer China (not only would it be a land war in Asia, but it would be a land war against a country with some 6-7x the population of America), and China does not have the air or naval power to reach America with anything other than cruise missiles. Maybe nuclear winter will make the arrogant British less likely to make stupid statements about things they know nothing of.

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

Re:Give 'em some real ammo.

[Gorobei]

This is a division-level exercise. From the private's point of view, it mostly consists of sitting in a wet hole for a day or two, then moving to another wet hole. The senior officers (them in the HQ) get a fun week-long camping trip, including the occassional helicopter excursion for increased enjoyment.

The "boys," I think, vastly prefer division-level simulation, combined with squad-level "real firepower" training.

Large scale exercises for good for showing the officers how things fall apart fast in the real world, but are lousy for training the troops in the field.

SimNet

[HerrGlock]

We've been using SimNet for years. Flying an OH-58D from Ft Bragg, inside a flight of six, none of whom are on the same installation. Airforce assets, ground units, etc all there and if you look around in your unit, you see them accurately and in position where they are supposed to be (if they are where they are supposed to be.)

I'm glad that they are actually allowing civilians to see some of this stuff. It's neat as all hell. You think that streaming media eats bandwidth? Try SimNet with a whole division.

DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page

I wonder

[Alien54]

how many sites there are that are like this? I remember how there was some sort of bruhaha in the past year or so about sites needing to be made more secure. I also recall some sites, that is you went into them via a search engine, seemed okay, but if you went up to the parent you got this big nasty warning that said basically if you proceed past this point you better be official or else well will track everything you do and hand it over to the NSA, etc.

So I wonder how smart it is to have sites like this available to the public and unpassworded, or not verified as coming from a .MIL domain or something.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

cheetos for some, twinkies for others

[mother_superius]

The 4th Infantry Division (US Army)is conducting an exercise

Exercise? Doesn't that invlove running? What kind of site do you think this is?

Re:Quicktime videos,... oh well.

[thatmoron]

You have a good point. Linux users cant see these videos. What about me? I don't have a monitor. They should really make it so I can see the movies too.

If there are any spelling errors in the post above it is simply because I don't have a monitor. Not becuase I can't spell.