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Military Tech: GPS and Networking
king of birds writes "The New York Times has an interesting article on the present military use of GPS. While some units have rather modern system that can graphically display locations of other troops, others rely on 10-year-old 5 channel receivers. Kind of odd when I can 12 channels on my civilian model (with admittedly lower spatial accuracy)." aaronvegh writes "From the Canadian Press, a story about how a US infantry division uses a system of transponders and servers to track friendly and enemy units, from the headquarters to inside individual tanks. Talk about total information awareness! No friendlies were harmed in the making of this story."
My personal goal: A poor man's Land Warrior system for paintball scenario games. =]
Link it to a 3-D sim, and you can "play" the war in real-time.
Add a joystick and some electric "prods" in the soldiers' uniforms, and you can literally play the war.
--Ender
The advantages of this type of system go above and beyond actual battlefield situational awareness -- this type of system dramatically improves the ability of the forces to train for battle too.
... I imagine in the old days it was a lot more macro-level simulations ("Sir, our forces our meeting resistance in the North, what would you like to do?").
;)
I'd always wondered how exactly the military "war games"
With a system like this, commanders are able to train on the same hardware and UI as they would in a real battle -- all they need to do is replace the live feed with a simulated feed, and bingo -- instant low-level war-game.
With our infantry training on how to aim and shoot and our commanders using a system like this to command them, it's no wonder we have the best-prepared military in the world.
Cooooool.
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
Just recently I had to give a presentation on Garmin, a GPS manufacturer. I mentioned that they don't really make military grade GPS's. But an individual in the class, who was in the military, said that many officers actually carry civilian GPS's in addition to the military ones. They're less accurate, but they're much faster than many of the military grade ones.
That they don't call out "Smoke 'em if you got 'em" anymore.
Actually, they do. I've taken smoke breaks in the middle of MILES firefights (while in good cover, of course), and after having my hip crushed in a training accident the first thing I asked the medic for (and got) was a smoke.
I think you may find smoking is more common/acceptable in combat units than in REMFs. I don't know for sure about that, though, since I've been a Cavalry Scout for my whole career.
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
While some units have rather modern system that can graphically display locations of other troops, others rely on 10-year-old 5 channel receivers. Kind of odd when I can 12 channels on my civilian model (with admittedly lower spatial accuracy).
The fact that some units are using a "10-year-old 5 channel receiver" does not surprise or concern me in the least. The military has prerogatives other than "latest and greatest nifty stuff" when procuring equipment.
Those old units probably contain custom hardware to cope with un-obfuscating GPS signals for back when the signal was still (and could again) being obfuscated. Those devices survive generation after generation of soldiers who are expected to use the things in all combat environments. In other words, this is not some plastic Taiwanese el-cheapo GPS receiver you paid $300 for at wiggliesneatshit.com. Do you have any clue how much time and money it takes to build one-off mil-spec equipment in low volumes that the military routinely requires?
I've actually found detailed technical information about the unit you're talking about. It's here and it's a damned interesting read. For instance, does your spiffy little 12 channel unit happen to have any anti-jamming/spoofing features? Exactly how many artillery shell concussion shock waves will your unit survive while your crew is firing the ol' 155mm? The DoD is so happy with the things they are trying to extend the warranty!
The fact that some units have more modern equipment than others is a perfectly normal, healthy way to run a military. Some of you paying attention to our recent deployment to Iraq have learned that the Army's 4th Infantry Division has only just now arrived in theater. This happens to be the Army's "showcase" Division. If it's the latest, the 4th ID has got it. It's not that our government didn't want to deploy the 4th, but Turkey didn't cooperate and the whole outfit had to be floated around the Mediterranean. Basically, the most advanced ground force on Earth arrived just in time to become traffic cops. Meanwhile, the old fashioned 10-year-old PLGR units are probably exactly what the 3rd ID used to actually get the job done.
You show me someone astonished by military procurement practices and I'll show you an ignorant fool. The next time you have the urge to compare your knowledge of equipment/technology to that of a military, just assume your wrong and shut up.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
So I've little doubt that it's pretty common in the actual military as well.
I doubt it strongly. If you worked for a defense contractor long, you know there is a HUGE difference between the equipment used in stateside research labs and what is deployable in the field.
Software thats going to be run in actual military combat should always be compact, embedded systems code. We all know the story of the battleship running Windows NT, which only demonstrates why this is a bad idea- and the military is usually completely aware of this.
As described in the story, FCB2B is run on armored vehicles on a real battlefield. And as I said in my post, it is insane to think that the designers of a vehicle like that would pack on 2 separate computers to run separate client and server. It's just as crazy to imagine that they would run a remote X11 application from a moving tank (secure bandwidth is very, very scarce), or that they would emulate Unix inside an emulated session on Windows.
Slightly more probablye is that they're running a ported Unix program which still displays over a TCP (loopback) connection to an Xserver. The DoD has done this for some R&D applications (like older versions of EADSIM), but it still seems unlikely for something that'll be carried into battle.
Besides, the icon on the bottom of the screenshot is a red X. Isn't Exceed's logo a green bird?
Obviously, we needed a Unix environment to program computers that would be rinning Unix in the field.
Even Unix is normally considered too newflangled and unpredictable to run in "the field".
I can't even BEGIN to imagine just HOW many windows PCs are out there,
Microsoft can give you some info if you really want the painful details.
I've discovered that this is stupidly common within other government contractors as well, and not uncommon outside.
Take heart, the goverment may be learning a lesson. Someday they may pull the defense contractors along with them. Until then, Lockheed and the rest will remain big Microsoft VARs.