Slashdot Mirror
New and Improved - SmarTruck II
jmoriarty writes "The Army's next generation SmarTruck is on display in Detroit. The original version of the SmarTruck was covered back in May, but the Army now admits that version was 'hardly ready for the real world'. Apparently the real world version needed interchangable nodules, and the absolute must-have for every Slashdotter's vehicle - a 'hacker in a box'."
I mean, it is obvious this thing wasn't really intended for a desert. I mean, the hacker in a box thing, and all the modifications to fight off crowds. We already had one story recently about drones being used over US air, and we all know about Tempest and Carnivore. I think it is clear that this thing is designed to either operate in America or other countries similarly structured, not against any target the administration is likely to publicly attack (i.e. 'heathen desert living primitive terrorist types').
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Crudely Drawn Games
Sounds and looks like designers having fun with themselves. Lines like 'we wanted to make something which would make people know that we mean business' lead me to believe that this is not a deployable vehicle. Even if it was, why use a commercial pick-up platform? The military has several wheeled, all-terrain platforms that are suitable to this job (armored personel carriers spring to mind).
So, I at least think that its just more standard auto-show fluff.
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Phil
Of course, a superior Top Secret heavy-duty vehicle with interchangeable mission 'nodules' has already been developed.
One of the big issues facing the U.S. military is it doesn't have a clue where the next battle will be. Three years ago would anybody have predicted that we would go to war in Afghanistan? Consequently, the military has to have a capability to fight anywhere, and certainly having a capability to fight in an urban environment makes sense. And for those following the news, the military's big concern in Iraq is not desert fighting, but urban warfare. Why do you think the Marines and the Army have been training heavily in their urban warfare training centers. I'm not saying the military should buy this thing, but I am glad that they're thinking about what to do and how to do it. The alternative being, "if something happens, I sure hope we have the right weapons..."
i'll try not to be a troll here, i'm really trying.
umm what the fuck? we went from a $500 40 hp, 4wd jeep that seemed to do a pretty damn good job of transporting 4 humans up a 40 degree incline with no problem. they are inherently simple, and weigh nothing. with today's design/production technology, they'd weigh less and cary more, and probably be stackable.
enter the 1980's. we get $100,000 hummers. they hold exactly the same number of people, don't accelerate any faster, and aren't any better at navigating the offroad. they also weigh two tons.
i like the idea of mass producing an F-250/350 for certian needs, like a portable rocket launcher, but you do not need 6-10 wheeled F-550's that cost 100,000 a piece. there's no reason the truck needs more than 200 hp, and there's no reason why you can't use slightly beefed up suspension parts for this sort of job out of the ford/chevy/dodge parts box to cut prices down to the 12,000-20,000 price range. i can understand the price inflating with a bed-mounted rocket launcher, but the initial cost of the chassis is unbelivably absurd. what ever happened tt back to basics?
moox. for a new generation.
I doubt you would laugh if you thought of the US military as your enemy, because you'd likely be dead or captive soon.
And why wouldn't it be cost effective? It's considerably cheaper than the $4.3 million for an M1A1 Abrams Battle Tank.
..hate to be a spoilsport but a huge amount of the latest military training and equipment developed and deployed is intended for domestic use. This is an involved topic not readily addressed in a few posts, but doing some research it becomes *fairly* apparent.
Part of my own personal research is talking to active or retired or semi recently quit members of various US "forces". I have heard some rather disturbing *things* along these lines. Very disturbing. Here's one just at random, a lot of training now revolves around indoctrination that US civilians have no constitutional "right" to bear arms. Another is training for manning roadblocks and for doing house to house searches in regards firearms confiscation.
The model states health emergency act is an eye opener as well. You can see/guess what's coming and it ain't nice. Forced... everything. Reading on "less than lethal" weaponry you can find out more, microwave beam weapons, sonic weapons, various gasses, etc, all designed for mass riot control, and to deflect any immediate criticism that it's only for "foreigners" overseas someplace in some war, these weapons are being provided to US police forces as well. Another clue is the intense militarization of US police forces, emphasizing military styled training and hiring ex military personnel over traditional policing and maintaining that police are civilians. Nowadays police refer to non police as "civilians", noting therefore they are "not". It's a mindset and series of occurrences that should be setting off a lot of alarm bells in people's minds now.
It's also a big clue why the army has started on adopting a lot more wheeled armor over tracked, much easier to use in cities and on roads. Yes, easier to transport as well, but still...
Personally, I think the regular army is full of cowardly, fat-assed pussys. Everytime something dangerous comes up, such as the war with Afghanistan and the ever-pending war with Iraq, the Army calls up reserves and National Guard to do the real fighting. There are 1.4 million people in the regular armed forces, but when they need a force of 20,000 on the ground in Afghanistan, they call up the reserves. Most of the people in the reserves and National Guard are married with kids, etc. What's up with that?
Speaking as an active duty soldier, I can tell you that you're full of crap. The "real fighting" is over with before the reserves and national guard are done palletizing their gear. 90% of the deployments that the AR and NG gets sent out on, are "peace-keeping missions" ie a show of force so that we maintain a presence in those countries, without having to lose our fighting force and momentum. you honestly think that the army chief of staff would rather send out a group of weekend warriors that has fired their weapons maybe 4 times in the past year than the several divisions of troops that are training on a constant basis? shinseki's dumb, but he's not that stupid.
and before you rear up on your high horse about the AR and NG being married with kids, you're going to have to realize that the vast majority of the regular army, is married with kids, too. in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find an sergeant or captain or above that's *not* married.
back on topic, I have no idea what the hell they were thinking of when they built that thing. it's not like we couldn't retrofit the stuff we've already got.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
My company is the one that the govt. contracted to build this vehicle.
Yes, I did work on it.
Yes it is very impressive.
If you have any questions, reply to this.