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USMC Shows Off New Toys
jonerik writes "And speaking of the future of unmanned combat, Wired today has this article on several new toys being developed for the U.S. Marine Corps. The Dragon Eye is a small remote-controlled airplane which can be disassembled and carried in a field pack. The Dragon Runner is a miniature camera-equipped wheeled truck about the size of a shoebox which can be sent into dangerous areas as a scout. The Dragon Warrior is a small unmanned helicopter which looks like a toilet seat with wings. Perhaps most intriguing is a device unofficially dubbed the RoboLobster, which skitters around on eight mechanical legs, detecting and disarming mines. Although the Dragon Eye is scheduled for deployment next year, the other three devices are still in the development stage."
Nooooooooo...
[Insert obligatory BSOD joke]
The escape of Osama Bin Laden and the invisibility
of the Abu Sayyaff in the jungles of the Philippines
show one thing. No amount of high tech weaponry
and no surfeit of surveillance equipment can beat
a human on the ground. After several months of
scrutinizing the tiny island of Basilan, using
satellites, aircraft and what not, no trace
of the kidnapped Burnhams have been detected.
The Abu Sayyaff and their hostages have effectively
vanished.
As the US Marine Corps continues to progress
towards its vision of the modern warrior, I
hope it remembers that human brains and
courage is still more valuable than all the
modern technology in the world.
Doesn't the USMC run "Toys for Tots?"
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
When these are issued out at Combined Arms eXercise at 29 Palms, and the geek-infantryman (believe me, they exist, I am one) is told to report to the commanding officer and figure the damn thing out so that it can be used, I'll believe these things are being used.
Still, the point here is that if it's not exceedingly easy to use, it won't get used. If there are lots of little parts that have to go in the case, they're going to get lost. SL-3 gear for night vision gets lost all the time. The PEQ-2 infrared laser sight for the M-16 is a good example. There's a neato little switch that mounts, using adhesive and velcro, to the handguard. We never use it, though. it's supposed to stay in the pouch, but it gets lost. All the little bits and pieces that come with this junk get lost. Just like the little pieces of MoLLE gear, just like the little pieces of SL-3 for anything that comes with little garbage.
A note to you engineers out there designing stuff for us to go kill people with: Make it monolithic. Configurable is nice and stuff, but if there are little parts that can get lost, they will get lost.
It happens with all the stuff we have now; it'll happen with the DragonEye. Which, by the way, I don't ever want to have to hump into an LZ. I bet it doesn't de well wet, either. Well guess what? Grunts get wet and muddy on a sunny day. We're not happy unless we're wet and muddy. This thing isn't going to last long, I surmise. It's going to get broken too much.