The Soldier is the Network

Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from InfoWorld says that "in the battle of the future, the helmet becomes a data retrieval device." It describes a scenario where soldiers are equipped with sensors and other networking equipment. "Each person is a network with routing capability to everyone else," says Peter Marcotullio, director of development at SRI International. This technology should be available in five years for the military, which probably means that we'll become networks ourselves ten years from now. Check this column for a summary. Please note that this article is part of a special report called "From the battlefield to the enterprise" which looks at why some key technologies -- deployed on a massive scale in Afghanistan and Iraq -- may hold promise for corporate IT."

Comments

soldier network

[loveandpeace]

we are becoming Ender's Hive Queen. Does this mean i'll have a job before the unemployment runs out?

Mesh Networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain how this differs from mesh networking?

Re:Mesh Networking

[Mafiew]

I think the point of the article is that this technology already exists and it's the implementation that's really innovative. The challenge is making such a system practical for use on the battlefield so that a soldier isn't lugging around a couple of car batteries, a PC, bulky wireless equipment etc...

Other tech from the battlefield to the enterprise.

[IvyMike]

I can think of some other technologies that I would have liked to have available at work, some days.

This will be the end of a long tradition

[IainMH]

of soilders taking Playboy into battle. Why bother when you can get thehun on your HUD?

Re:This will be the end of a long tradition

[martin-boundary]

And also the start of a whole new type of battlefield tactic: porn popup attacks. If you think grunts who patrol urban settings are twitchy now, just wait until they start being assaulted by WiFi delivered enemy porn popups. The damn things cover the HUD faster than they can be whack-a-mole'd.

Helmet...?!!

[Paddyish]

the helmet becomes a data retrieval device

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to see scenes from 'Spaceballs'...

Health concerns

[rxed]

Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."

Re:Health concerns

[WIAKywbfatw]

Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."

You bring up a very good point. But, when has any military (US or otherwise) really cared about the long-term welfare of its soldiers?

Look at the evidence over the years: soldiers acting as guinea pigs during the post World War II atomic bomb tests, chemical stimulants used on US soldiers in Vietnam (and bromide tea given to troops in World War I), antitodes that have lead to serious side-effects being administered during the first Gulf War, who knows how many instances of post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.

It has been said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Politicians aren't exactly reknowned for looking beyond the short-term, and the use (or, more accurately, misuse) of soldiers throughout the ages is fact, not fiction.

Re:Health concerns

[Imperator]

Though I'm lucky enough to have never had this experience, I'm imagine that when people are shooting at you, a little bit of RF energy is the least of your worries.

Also, why not put the antenna on top of the helmet? The helmet than then incorporate a layer of RF shielding. (It's already got layers of protection against shrapnel.

Re:Health concerns

[SharpFang]

Do you really believe, that if US military tested nuclear bomb radiation effects on their soldiers, they really care about soldiers being exposed to RF energy?

Re:Health concerns

[the eric conspiracy]

Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time?

This is the same sort of question as "Do cell-phones cause brain cancer". We have a lot of experimental data on this, with few answers.

The impact of RF on biological systems has been controversial for a very long time. Some studies have shown that there is an effect, however reproducability is very poor, and the issue is still under study with no clear-cut answer available. Surely any logical person may draw the conclusion that an unknown risk, even if it is small, of this sort should be avoided.

On the other and the essential purpose of these devices is to reduce the likelihood of being killed in battle by conventional weapons. The impact of bullets, explosive devices and so on on the human body in NOT controversial, and is very reproducable.

It seems to me that the tradeoff of some potential, unproven effect of dubious statistical significance vs. significant reduction of the likelihood of taking a rockect propelled grenade in your lap is pretty clear-cut.

Re:Health concerns

[Fluid Truth]

It can't be all that different than the use of hand-held radios. In fact, I'd bet that they use less power then most hand-helds. And if the antenna is built into their armor, etc. then it can be placed even more optimally than a hand-held. Getting the radiation in your body isn't just bad for the body, it's bad for the signal, too. So, you'd have to figure that they'd be placed for optimal use (which just happens to coincide with minimal abosorbion into the body).

Yes, they could just up the power, but then you start killing your batteries faster.

Re:Ip Addresses

[the_2nd_coming]

I doubt that the millitary will allow access to the internet or even have a connection to the internet available anywhere on this network.

I see some problems with this

[nemaispuke]

With DARPA and DoD's never ending penchant for technology to solve every problem, I see potential for numerous problems with the "wired soldier". DoD has a bandwidth problem now trying to control and get imagery from airborne Predator UAV's, what happens when you wire the individual soldier? Where is this bandwidth going to come from? Can this be subject to monitoring and how is it going to be secured? For that matter can it withstand an EMP pulse? If I wanted to take out communicating enemy forces using modern comm gear that is not hardened, a small tactical nuke would do just fine. And what about the possibility of interception even if it is secure? What if a unit that has a base unit to receive updates is captured, then parts of the system (or the whole system) is compromized. This will take years of testing before it ever becomes reality, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:I see some problems with this

[malakai]

DoD has a bandwidth problem now trying to control and get imagery from airborne Predator UAV's, what happens when you wire the individual soldier?

They don't have a bandwidth problem, CNN, FOX.. et. al have a bandwidth problem. The Military bought all the commercial sat times for the war. It was very cost effective. They have enough bandwidth using commercial sats, and that will last them until the new comm constellation goes online in 2010. Not to mention, their stake in Global Crossing keeps their terrestial bandwidth in huge supply.

Where is this bandwidth going to come from?

When all your soldiers are routers and are sharing spectrum, the aggregate of them ADDS to your bandwidth, not subtracts. You no longer have just one path (humvee->sattelite->another humvee) you now could possible relay over a 'human' network. The more nodes, the more possible paths. Setup a fixed node with some high long range emf link back to home base, or bounce it off a sat.

Can this be subject to monitoring and how is it going to be secured?

I laugh everytime I see a statement like this on slashdot. I sometime forget everyone on slashdot believes they are somehow unique and think of things noone else could. Gee, do you think they should encrypt the network? Gee can it be monitored? The fact you even thought of this should tell you the military has thought of it as well.

For that matter can it withstand an EMP pulse?

Probably not. But just because their is some way for the enemy to take away your advantage doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. If they EMP you, it won't be a big area. A few units in close proximity to each other could all go down at once, but again, so what. They are trained to use the advantage when they have it. When they don't, they issue orders using vocal resonance called SHOUTING.

If I wanted to take out communicating enemy forces using modern comm gear that is not hardened, a small tactical nuke would do just fine

Umm, a small tactical nuke will kill them. Lack of communication at that point is moot. See above comment.

And what about the possibility of interception even if it is secure?

Well then it wouldn't be secure would it.

What if a unit that has a base unit to receive updates is captured, then parts of the system (or the whole system) is compromized

What if you capture and torture a prisoner for the information? Is the war lost? No, you expect and antcipate your enemys move. You anticipate that they may get to a Humvee which the engine is still running (the keys reset when the engine is turned off, and after a idle timeout). You are vulnerable while that stolen humvee goes unreported. But your troops should never be out of contact. At worse, you enemy has a few hours of information to the whereabouts of some of your troops. At best, you know they stole the humvee, you know they are using it, and you feed them false data. So the enemy knows your location, again, you lost an advantge, not the war. They still have to act on that information, and in the end, some grunt with a finger on the trigger can save the day by killing before being killed.

This will take years of testing before it ever becomes reality, I wouldn't hold my breath.

It was used in Iraq. So you could have held your breath. Not the full power of it, and not as many sensors, but Captains in the field had realtime data and video communication via a distributed wirless net. The net had to be setup by grunts, and pushed forward with the troops, but it was done. There's lots of space the EM world. Especially when you dont have to care about the FCC.

I know slashdot is home of the cynics, but for once, i'd like to see comments about "wow, this is cool technology, i wonder how we could find out more about it, i wonder if we could get an interview with people making this stuff, talk to the geeks, discuss their routing choices...etc". Instead of all this "this is dumb, some script kiddie is going to DDOS our soldier, as they look up porn on their embedded internet connections.

-malakai

Re:I see some problems with this

[SphynxSR]

As I sure you are aware EMP enters into every conversation when dealing with electronics in the battle field. I think main objective to get the bandwidth first them adapt some form of emp sheilding around it. They are working on lock a device in case a node such as a mobile router gets captured. As for the dirty bomb early detection is the only real defense. But the point is they need bigger pipes. I have a bigger concern about the military is doing, which is moving away from unix and heading to Windows.

Re:I see some problems with this

[Christopher Thomas]

As I sure you are aware EMP enters into every conversation when dealing with electronics in the battle field. I think main objective to get the bandwidth first them adapt some form of emp sheilding around it.

Shielding against EMP prevents the device from working (it's an EM transceiver, remember). What they'd actually do is harden the receiver so that it can survive EMP-induced currents, and make contingency plans for the situations where it is destroyed.

Re:I see some problems with this

[SphynxSR]

amen

Re:I see some problems with this

[nemaispuke]

I am a twenty year veteran and I will give you an example of this "they have thought of this". In 1987 a certain aircraft carrier was participating in an operation called Earnest Will (reflagged Kuwaiti tankers). We had people from various Intelligence commands onboard and one of them forgot to mention the film one of these assets was going to be shooting. Since photo intelligence was a critical part of this operation don't you think it would be important to pass on pertinent information to those concerned?! The Photo Labs on an aircraft carrier have certain capabilities, and the people responsible for thinking these things up don't always know everything (or are told everything). That is usually the result of a four star Admiral to Captain conversation "Captain, get this done", response "Yes sir". Don't tell me "they have thought of everything" from personal experience I can tell you they haven't! So it's cool, so what. This isn't no Linux laptop we are talking about. Actual people are going to using this equipment to stay alive, I sure as Hell hope it works!

Re:I see some problems with this

[SphynxSR]

so do you work at monmouth? I know FBCB2 is looking at Linux, but I think that is because they are running Solaris x86. But try and get MCS Light, ASAS Light and the others to see that. And by the way, we are on the same team. I hope they do go with linux.

Re:I see some problems with this

[foog]

I worked on Land Warrior .5 and .6, and briefly on 1.0 from 1999-2001.

None of these systems used Solaris; they used Windows 2000 on the computer and Windows CE on the radio. There was lots of talk about using CE on the computer for 1.0 but I don't think anything ever came of it.

I was told that the previous Raytheon versions had run LynxOS.

Re:I see some problems with this

[foog]

That said, I think I know who you are from your other comment.

Version numbers got changed around a lot in retrospect on Land Warrior; I sort of remember ".6" being called ".9" early on. I heard both the Exponent version with the VIA wearable as well as the prototypes produced by Pacific and GD for the bid called "0.5".

If you are who I think you are, you didn't stick around long enough to see the Pacific Consultants version go to Fort Polk.

And you're probably talking about Solaris on whatever the Army was using for battlefield situational awareness on the other end of the SINCGARS link from Land Warrior.

Re:I see some problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Reread the reports from early in the war. The military had trouble buying satellite access because the media and telecom companies had already bought it due to the increasing crisis.

Re:I see some problems with this

[Dun Malg]

That is usually the result of a four star Admiral to Captain conversation "Captain, get this done", response "Yes sir". Don't tell me "they have thought of everything" from personal experience I can tell you they haven't!

Large electronic warfare systems aren't developed on the basis of one Admiral/General saying something and everyone just hopping to it. I've worked both with defense R&D as a civilian and with the US Army as an NCO in signal intelligence. Little things don't get overlooked on the R&D side: big things do. Little things like encryption will be designed in from the start. It's big things (like where's the power gonna come from) that they overlook. Besides, your example was a simple problem in implementation. One guy forgetting to mention to another that the film cameras will be rolling is a minor operational fuckup, not a design flaw.

Re:I see some problems with this

[Minna Kirai]

They don't have a bandwidth problem

The limiting factor to the number of Predators that can be airborne at once is not available drones, but bandwidth contention.

Gee, do you think they should encrypt the network? Gee can it be monitored? The fact you even thought of this should tell you the military has thought of it as well.

Yes, it sounds obvious and logical. But yet, the military only noticed this after UK satellite-dish hobbyists started recording unencrypted Predator feeds from the Middle East.

If they EMP you, it won't be a big area.

EMPs have been known to have a diamter greater than 2000 miles. Refer to Test Shot Starfish for background. Creating an EMP that is controlled (directional) and yet still powerful is actually more technologically challenging than firing a large one.

Umm, a small tactical nuke will kill them. Lack of communication at that point is moot. See above comment.

A nuke explosion at a high altitude is the easiest way to create a widespread EMP blast. Electronics will be damaged at a distance 100s of times greater than the human-lethal blast range.

There are obvious reasons why a nation with atomic weapons might be more willing to employ them for EMP against equipment, rather than targeting troops on the ground.

Russia still maintains a capability to fire a large nuke into the upper atmosphere, which would blackout London and Berlin in a single shot. The US State Department claims that North Korea has a system with similar power.

Scenario

[Anonymous Coward]

The date is 2199. A unit of the Fourth French Resistence, a ragtag bunch, hide in a canyon. The commander listens into his radio for a minute

[commander [in french]] the americans are coming. we should shortly be attacked by a robotic flying drone capable of dropping bombs sucking all air out of a 500 foot radius, followed by a mopup crew of several hundred armored networked hive soldiers. everyone put on your air mask.

the commander begins to get a piece of equipment out of a duffel bag. he hovers intently over a red button on it, watching.

[recruit] What's that?
[commander] EMP blast. It's the only weapon we have against them.

Re:Scenario

[Cappy Red]

Yup, DDoSing, hacking, EMP blasting, or just staticing it all to hell.

"Walking internet cafes with laser blasters brought down by ragtag group with sticks and stones, and a freak electrical storm"

*honk*

Re:Scenario

[Malcontent]

"The date is 2199"

You think it will take that long for us to invade the french?

P2P Soldier?

[fonetik]

Sounds like these guys are going to want to put a check in the box for "Do not function as a Supernode". =)

Re:Scary

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

FYI, being a pacifist doesnt make you immune to violence from others.

Inter-Battle LinkUp

[Arc04]

Wow! This has so much potential!
The soldiers could install CS or UT2003 on their HUDs, and then play with other soldiers over the net who are githing in different battles, or just training at HQ - ultimate VR!!!!

They could then pretend to kill people on the game, whilst killing people in real life!

(Did I use too many exclamation marks???)

Re:Inter-Battle LinkUp

[AndroidCat]

Did I use too many exclamation marks???

No, according to pterry (Terry Pratchett, Discworld) five is the over the edge. Switch to decaf and you should be fine. Deep blue ocean, deep blue ocean... :^)

Re:Inter-Battle LinkUp

[AndroidCat]

Enemy? What about the spammers?

Re:Inter-Battle LinkUp

[Minna Kirai]

Here's a link to a serious government web site:

• The Training Superiority Program seeks to transform military training by providing continuously-available, on-demand mission-level training for all forces at all echelons.

Military uses an airgap, not a firewall

[MyNameIsFred]

The military does not connect secure networks to the public Internet. I.E., they use an airgap, not a firewall.

A day, when...

[SharpFang]

...each platoon has a cracker or a few, who is able to jam the opponent's displays temporarily, hack into older models to confuse the enemy's friend-or-foe identification, protect his own people from such attacks, snoop on enemy data transfers, fry their heads or change the intelligent helmet into guided missile attractor beacon...

Future? Maybe not, but certainly a good idea for a computer game.

Re:A day, when...

[AndroidCat]

And agents/special services teams sent in ahead of time to "war-chalk" the enemy command and control? (Even GPS co-ords for cruise strike would work, of course.)

Re:A day, when...

[SharpFang]

The fact that the army recruits nerds amongst others means nothing yet. For example, nerds make superb "live shields" to attract enemy fire, thus protecting more valuable soldiers...

Re:A day, when...

[razvedchik]

They do. Special Forces do reconnaisance missions, and there is such a large capability developed for electronic warfare that almost all of the command and control centers are known well in advance. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game trying to destroy the alternates that aren't in use at the beginning of hostilities but pop up when you destroy the primaries.

P2P?

[Eminence]

"Each person is a network with routing capability to everyone else"

Looks like P2P networking to me (Person-To-Person of course). [Obvious RIAA reference deleted]

Re:P2P?

[SEWilco]

"As usual, the Grunt Rash Band will host the Saturday Virtual Party on channel 82 at 7 PM. Appear as you are, dance wherever you are."

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

It's true. Just try to protect yourself against aggression without hurting anyone or anything.

Just what I need...

[big_groo]

"the helmet...may hold promise for corporate IT."

For those instances when we *all* want to just bang our heads into the wall - eg. 'My internet is broken.' or 'The laptop won't turn on!' etc.

Re:Just what I need...

[SEWilco]

"My head is broken!"

Re:Ip Addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, imagine if a script kiddie got hold of a soldier's IP and began DDOSing him, and making him unable to report back, or sending him bogus information that could kill him.

Okay. First off, i cannot imagine that this would be on the public internet at all. That would be stupid. I'm guessing that the soldier 'network', such as it is, will by and large be limited to the geographic area where the soldiers are. I doubt they'd have public access, though whoever is commander of the block or whatever probably has a private uplink.

A "script kiddie", if you really want to use those words (how about "enemy combatant"?), would somehow have to get into the local network of soldiers, which would mean being there physically. Since i'd imagine this network is using wireless of some sort (well, i mean unless all the soldiers helmets drag ethernet cables), this means that the script kiddy in question would be broadcasting. IP addresses can be forged, but broadcast signals can be traced to their source. If someone is interfering with their network of soldiers, the military can and *will* simply locate and drop bombs on this person, as they are 1) in a war zone 2) attempting to sabotage military defense lines.

I'd imagine that inputting false information, rather than just DOSing, would require the keys to whatever cryptography the military is using. The U.S. military probably has the best cryptography in the world, and if you can get hold of the u.s. military's cryptographic methods and keys, you sure as hell are NOT going to do anything as blatant with this knowledge as interfere with small-time military skirmishes; that would alert the u.s. military that you've broken their code, which would be bad. Rather, you are going to sit there and quietly soak up all the information you can while those keys are still valid.

However, from a military standpoint, attempting to take individual soldiers and hijack their helmets, or something, and pump back false information, would be a very good idea, and much easier. Likewise, i would suspect the chinese military will soon be developing as many ways as possible to jam local wireless networks.

-- super ugly ultraman

A fat lot of good..

[AndroidCat]

.. all that fancy equipment will do if the enemy has some of those EMP bombs that they were itching to try out in Iraq. (Did they ever use one, or is that classified?)

Re:A fat lot of good..

[SharpFang]

Nowadays EMP protection is not a big problem in military environment - the "faraday's cage" is simple and effective enough. (Put an electronic watch ON TOP of a working microwave oven. Nothing happens. Now put it inside.) so either the pulse would have to be VERY strong or the equipment would have to be "civil grade" (unprotected) or quite old (pre-EMP-threat). I guess such a helmet would be quite easy to protect. Maybe except the antenna.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[AndroidCat]

You can't really keep an infantry unit in a Faraday cage. And those helmets do need antennas to stay networked, GPS, etc. I imagine vehicles will be fairly hardened (previous design against tactical nuke EMP). Ah well, without specs on the helmets and the EMP bombs, it's useless to speculate.

Oh wait! This is Slashdot, of course we can speculate!

I would have figured the metal shell of a car as a good shield, but apparently anything made after 1985 or so can have it's electronic ignition or CPU fried. (Note to self: In event of nuclear war, locate and steal Hyundai Pony.)

Re:A fat lot of good..

[Christopher Thomas]

Nowadays EMP protection is not a big problem in military environment - the "faraday's cage" is simple and effective enough.

A faraday cage around a radio is pretty pointless, as it prevents your radio from transmitting or receiving.

Any break in the shield allows leaks. Any antenna penetrating the shield acts as a waveguide - you might as well not have the shield in the first place if you do this.

EMP hardening for transceivers is done by making them able to tolerate large induced currents in the antennas. There will always be a point at which this ceases to work well (you try to make it past the point where it's no longer worth lobbing EMP bombs around).

Re:A fat lot of good..

[rtaylor]

Yes, but that is a protected part of the microwave. Send a large spike down the power lines and it'll become useless very quickly. Sure, you can save the parts inside, but at very least a breaker in the device needs to go off.

Now consider the final stage of the tranmitter and initial stage of the receiver would be (mostly) unprotected. The device might be fine, but it's no longer able to communicate with external sources.

Plug the antenna of your wireless lan system into a wall socket and see what happens...

Re:A fat lot of good..

[AndroidCat]

making them able to tolerate large induced currents in the antennas

It's a real bitch when you have MOSFET's on your receiver front-end looking for micro-volt signals, and they suddenly get spark-gap voltages. I'm sure that there's a real art to building hardened electronics.

Spin-offs: This sort of knowledge is also useful for satellites and space probes. Sol, during a solar storm, puts out a pretty hefty EMP -- even against ground systems shielded by Earth's magnetic field.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[rtaylor]

Note I've assummed your faraday cage is properly grounded on this mobile device -- which will rarely be true.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[SharpFang]

...That's why I imagine these parts would be KISS and easily replaceable (possibly even automatically). I may put my cellular phone antenna into the wall socket and as long as it's not connected with the phone itself (or connected through a sophisticated and durable enough protection circuit), it's safe.

Besides, Radio is not the only means of transmission... What about ultrasounds, infrared, laser, and quite a lot of EMP-proof media? With p2p-style network, if your radio is broken, you can try to reach the first soldier with a working one easily.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[Christopher Thomas]

It's a real bitch when you have MOSFET's on your receiver front-end looking for micro-volt signals, and they suddenly get spark-gap voltages. I'm sure that there's a real art to building hardened electronics.

This is typically handled by putting some kind of shunt across the signal lines that activates when voltage or current exceeds a threshold. This can be active (a sensor and shunt transistors) or passive (a Zener diode pair). I'm afraid it isn't my area of expertise, so I can't give more detail.

The signal is swamped, of course, but at least your radio survives.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[SharpFang]

I don't know how they manage to get the proper grounding on fighter planes, but they do...

Re:A fat lot of good..

[Unregistered]

Plug the antenna of your wireless lan system into a wall socket and see what happens...

ASSHOLE! it blew up. i bet you knew that was going to happen and didn't wanr everyone. Those things cost money you know.

Re:A fat lot of good..

[Eyston]

What about stuff such as UWB? Wouldn't the massive SS aspect, which helps with making it very jamm-resistant, help make it EMP resistant?

I don't have a real firm grasp of EMP stuff. I can understand that a huge EM wave could screw with electronics, but that is easy to defend against. Is EMP in the same vein as jamming something, but instead sending enough energy to just destroy the object, or is EMP pretty frequency independant of the listening device and just attacks everything?

-Eyston

Re:A fat lot of good..

[Christopher Thomas]

What about stuff such as UWB? Wouldn't the massive SS aspect, which helps with making it very jamm-resistant, help make it EMP resistant?

These are different effects. Jamming works by swamping the airwaves with noise; UWB is resistant to some forms of jamming because it's less sensitive to the types of noise used to jam normal signals. EMP, however, works by sending strong enough RF to the receiver to induce currents large enough to destroy the device. This is independent of the type of data processing used.

I don't have a real firm grasp of EMP stuff. I can understand that a huge EM wave could screw with electronics, but that is easy to defend against.

It turns out to be a mixed bag. Shunting works (as described in my previous message) if the antenna is the main source of coupling, but passive shunts sometimes aren't fast enough to prevent damage, and active shunts can be tricky to build. You can also get damage to the antenna, the housing, and so forth if you're close enough or using a big enough antenna to get arcing (which you normall aren't).

Re:A fat lot of good..

[AndroidCat]

Of course, they could just use tubes. :^P

Re:This has already been done.

[Peterus7]

The potential for this would be good for sports too, and quite possibly paintball...

So maybe this could make it possible for uber Tribes/Counter strike/quake/other fps junkies to have a chance?

Re:Scary

[Doom Ihl' Varia]

Easy. Just use a picture of my history professor's ex-mother-in-law. They'll run screaming and never come back. No need to kill them.

Re:Scary

[CausticWindow]

The trick is to not make people aggressive towards you. I guess you guys have a problem with that too??

Also, I know non lethal Kung Fu, so if I ever have to defend myself, I can disable my opponent with a few quick blows. Without hurting them in a serious manner, of course.

Take out the entire force...

[slasher999]

I wonder how they'll handle DoS, SPAM, virii, etc.

Seriously though, seems like a big security issue that could be exploited, although not easily.

Re:Scary

[jericho4.0]

This has nothing to do with 'AI' or 'computer controlled'. It simply extends the amount of information available to individual soldiers and C&C units for better descision making and comunication.

Admitedly, many present and future systems do contain a fair amount of autonomous behaviour, including aircraft control, targeting, and even expert systems aplied to target selection. These seem to work pretty well, and I'm sure we'll see more of them. I would imagine that millitary tradition will keep important descions in the hands of humans for a long time, though.

Bah!

[Greyfox]

Train your soldiers to rely on their eqipment and you'll end up with a bunch of soldiers who are useless when the eqipment fails. I'm not saying technology on the battlefield is bad, but your guys better have a back-up plan in case the enemy happens to have a HERF gun handy.

This is also why I'm against putting additional electronics in guns. Sure, a gun that self destructs if an identity check fails seems like a good idea, right up until someone loses an arm because the mechanism malfunctioned. Sometimes keeping it simple is still the best policy.

Re:Bah!

[razvedchik]

Agreed. We're seeing this in land navigation, where some of the younger soldiers are more reliant on GPS than they are on a map. The "crufty old ones" (I'm about halfway there) rely on a map rather than something that needs batteries. I've seen guys who were totally lost once their GPS battery died and they couldn't get another one. I ended up giving them mine, and working solely on my map.

There are places where GPS is really handy, don't get me wrong, though. It's just that it's a tool to help you, to make your life easier, but at the end of the day, it's on you as to whether you have to walk 500 meters or 5 kilometers home.

Re:Bah!

[SharpFang]

You're not the only one who thought of that - the military experts did too.
That's why the soldiers are still taught how to kill the enemy with a shovel, how to make fire without matches or any other equipment, and a lot of stuff none of them will ever need in a war, because they have some superior equipment. But ther MUST know how to handle the situation without that equipment and that doctrine of the army is not going to change anytime soon.

Re:Bah!

[Imperator]

Sure, but if a piece of equipment will save a thousand lives in battle at the cost of a couple accidents in training, the military will take it. That's just the calculus of war. Why do we have planes? They put pilots in danger, after all. But they save more friendly lives than they take, so they're worth it.

Re:Bah!

[appleprophet]

Guns sometimes jam. The military uses guns.

Re:Bah!

[Jedi Alec]

ehmm, saving lifes is usually left to choppers. Planes are better suited to take more enemy lifes than friendly ones.

Re:Bah!

[Some Bitch]

Didn't the H&K G-11 have a microprocessor controlling things because that was the only way to deal with the firing speeds of caseless ammunition?

I seem to recall that being one of the problems with it, potential EMP vulnerability.

Re:Bah!

[JohnnyCannuk]

My brother is a Sgt. in the Canadian Forces, in an Armoured Unit. From what he tells me, the problem is not over-reliance on technology or "gadgets" but the over-reliance on soldiers with highly specialized job functions. Too specialized, especially in the US armed forces.

Case in point.

A few years ago, he joined in some desert warfare training and war games against a Marine Armoured unit in Arizona. Despite being quite technologically out-classed by the Marines (our army has a few old tanks that are no match for an M1 Abrahms and none of the modern computer equipment) my brother reports that on this and other ocassions (mostly in Wainwright Alberta), his unit matched and defeated the Marines, despite their better equipment.

Why?

They got a "kill" on the guy who drives the tank. No-one else could drive the tank. Or get a "kill" on the guy who can fire the gun. No-one else could fire the gun. Knock out the track. No-one in the tank was also a trained infantry soldier so they could not abandon their tank to fight. Meanwhile, my brother and everyone in his unit are highly trained infrantry soldiers and can do any other soldiers job in the tank. My brother can fire the gun, drive the tank, load the ammo, fire the machine guns. The tank can be operational with only two crew remaining. The tank crew can also act as an infantry unit if their tank is knocked out. Loose one crew member and somebody else can take over immediately.

In the Canadian Forces, this kind of training takes place not because are generals are brilliant, but because we just don't have the manpower to be so specialized. It certainly appears to have worked out well for us.

So I guess instead of thinking up these (albeit cool) high-tech solutions, perhaps the US military should worry about an enemy's ability to render an entire artillary piece useless by shooting the guy who carries the shell from the back of the truck.

Re:Bah!

[.milfox]

Sounds like your brother is telling stories again, man. :P

All the folks in a M1 tank (in the Army, I believe the marines are similar) are crosstrained. Why?

Well, we've got 4 man crews. Loader, Driver, Gunner, and Commander.

You report to a tank, you're usually a buck private who's assigned as a loader. There, you learn the driver skills, then the gunner skills, and when you make SSG or so you command the tank.

Take out the driver? The gunner or commander can take over, or the loader who's half-trained can prolly take over if he's not too new. Gunner? The commander can take over, if neccessary. And so on.

Take out a track? Yes, the tank's a mobility kill, until the repair folks come up. But if you're running around without infantry support in the first place, you're prolly in a situation where you don't *need* that infantry support. (ie, highly mobile warfare). If you've got infantry with you, but *still* need that disabled tank's crew to come out to play infantry, you've got bigger problems thank lack of cross-training. (Although every US soldier and marine can function as basic infantry).

Re:Bah!

[Imperator]

Oh, I didn't mean it that way. I meant planes can save friendly lives by killing enemies that would attack friendlies. Not a very friendly business, war...

Re:Bah!

[JohnnyCannuk]

If that's the case I stand corrected.

Perhaps he was refering to Artillary....

Oh well, live and learn.

Re:Bah!

[JacobKreutzfeld]

Perhaps the point is not so much to "enhance" the soldier. Who needs living humans when you've deployed tens of thousands of meat puppets who are not only quite capable of gatherering information electronically after death, but also routing it over their borg-like network to the DoD mothership. And do you really believe these e-uniforms won't also be fitted with a remotely-controlled suicide mode, with enough blast to take out a nearby target?

A layman's question

[vlad_petric]

I'm pretty sure the problem should be solved by now, but I was just wondering, with so many soldiers having RF equipment on them, how do you "fight" against triangulation ? (why you'd do that is kinda' obvious)

Re:A layman's question

[SharpFang]

I imagine the planes drop a few thousands of tiny "dummy emiters" over the whole area, so the enemy can't distinguish a soldier from a small harmless device. Besides that - beam antennas, screened equipment, etc... but I agree, locating electronic circuits may be the future and the bane of future military.

Hmm... When Einstein said the WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones... did he mean stealth assassin teams, who carry no metal nor electronics so they can't be tracked?

Re:A layman's question

[jericho4.0]

You could use directional/LOS signals where possible. Phased array devices can do some pretty tricky things. Our you could make every node a router, and dynamicly adjust siganal strength so that any signal only goes as far as the next node.
Still, I could see this being hard to totaly combat. Even a simple device that could detect any leakage from aproaching soldiers would be a usefull countermeasure.

Poor soldiers

[NoOneInParticular]

the helmet becomes a data retrieval device

I sure hope for these guys that the helmet will still be effective to stop bullets (at the appropriate angle), shrapnel and the like. Otherwise their heads will be filled with metal before they'll get their next command from doctor Strangelove.

Re:Poor soldiers

[razvedchik]

Helmets don't really stop bullets when they hit straight-on. They're more to stop fragments of exploding stuff. I'm just hoping that we can figure out a way to make them lighter, thinner, and more comfortable.

In Soviet Russia

[panxerox]

The network pings you.

And the beta tester are...

[jabbadabbadoo]

...Dolph Lundegren and Claude Van Damme. If they can sober up the latter one, that is.

Top five problems... with the OS's involved

[baloogan]

Windows:

1. BSOD really is BSOD
2. WarriorNT crashes more often than crack addicts
3. Before going into conflict all soldiers must hum the windows start up tune
4. ... and the intel inside tune
5. finally:

Linux:

1. ITS GNU/FIGHTIX not just FIGHTIX
2. Think free ammo not free beer
3. Eventually some kernal hacker will make soldiers invinseble
4. KDEKILL vs GNUKE
5. linux-targeting-with-caffeen-HOWTO

any other suggrestions?

Re:Top five problems... with the OS's involved

[SharpFang]

Win:

6. The HUD will display uphgrade commercials in the middle of the battle.
7. Targetting... Please insert WinMilitary installation CD into drive E:
8. The enemy may pay M$ to put evil stuff in the source.
9. The exploits will be fixed within 1 year since found.
10. It's not really you who controls the soldiers. It's Microsoft...

Linux:

6. If you get root, you may kill -9 the enemy.
7. The enemy must have access to your source code.
8. Poor entertainment software support.
9. Dictators won't agree to support FREE software.
10. Too steep learning curve for the brave american boiz.

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

People fight religious wars. If someone decides to wage war on you over your religion, if you don't fight back they will completely desecrate you. And oh ya remember that religious wars always start over envy of one society having more monetary goods and freedoms than another. Try to stop people from hating you for having more, without giving it all to them so they can be irresponsible with it.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Realistic_Dragon]

Designed especially for the American Law Enforcement user

providing the operator with sixty rounds of available firepower right on the weapon.

So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.

Rumsfeld Doctrine

[razvedchik]

Before everybody starts thinking that the generals at the top of the DoD will have real-time information on what the individual soldier is doing, it's a misinterpretation of what the military is trying to do with their technology.

Basically, the first tenet of war has been "massing of firepower at critical locations," which has been said very inelegantly as "get there the fastest with the mostest." This has been a strength of units such as calvary, who rely on strong reconnaisance to defeat a stronger enemy with a smaller force by being smarter and faster. What the systems that are being developed bring to the battlefield is better communications to mass at decisive places. We aren't to the point where every soldier has a network sensor system on their bodies, because we really don't need that.

It's called the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" and it's a doctrine that uses our technological advantage to do more with less manpower because we can mass faster and better when we know the situation.

What's happening is that from the commander level up to the higher commanders, there is a very good information flow. That has always existed, in reports sent in by radio, such as a situation report (sitrep), mainenance report, or kia report. The only changes are that it's now faster because of the technology, and that we're starting to see information being collected at the higher levels then pushed down to the lower commanders in the field.

This helps the decision-makers because they have better situational awareness. If you've never been on the ground looking for stuff to kill, you'd be amazed at how easy it is to focus on your little part of the war, and then get surprised when you forget that you're one little piece of what's going on.

Re:Rumsfeld Doctrine

[Mr_Icon]

This has been a strength of units such as calvary...

Mm.... Calvary units... Do they summon the name of Jesus while turning the other cheek? :)

(I think you meant cavalry)

Re:Rumsfeld Doctrine

[razvedchik]

right-O. Thanks.

Please, stop it.

[WetCat]

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
No more arm races and unnecessary wars!
Killing people in wars is a crime.

Re:Please, stop it.

[RyatNrrd]

With glorious new technology like this around the place, how can we possibly give peace a chance? Everyone's itching to see the new smart-bombs/dumb-soldiers/whatever at work.

Blood and guts, cool new machines, women crying, high-brow political debate...

War: It's got something for everyone.

Re:Please, stop it.

[Rubbersoul]

I am more then willing to give peace a chance, and as soon as you talk the middle eastern counties (among others) supporting terrorists groups and religious nuts in to giving it a chance too I will join you on stopping the arms race. Seems how I do not think you have much of a chance in succeeding at that I am going to go ahead and support my military so they can protect my civilian ass.

I say thank you to those men and women, I do not yell at them to stop protecting me!

Re:Please, stop it.

[DigitalGlass]

I know im gonna get modded down quite low for this.... but oh well.... sure middle eastern countries do cause a lot of problems... but the "military" you support is only the outer layer, i can say probably with 95 percent certantiy that the US government has carried out black opps that have been far more viscious than the average terroist cell.

just my thoughts, take them as you will.

Re:Scary

[CausticWindow]

Don't you think religion might have something to do with religious wars?

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Hanji]

Nah ... they're just REALLY inaccurate.

America's Army

[notestein]

When can I get one of these as an add-on for my copy of America's Army?

Maybe they can give them away for free to kids to get an early start on training.

Heinlein would be proud.

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

Amen.

Re:Scary

[Sepherus]

Have you ever read the warnings that come with the x86 assembly books from Intel? "Do not use for lifesupport systems" etc I expect they just don't want to be taken to court when a system fails and someone dies.

So essentially

[BlueTooth]

I strap a wireless access point to my back and run WASTE?

Whoop dee doo

[MrBigInThePants]

So you mean you will have a hat that is WAP enabled??? So what? The only thing stopping more technologies like this reaching the "home" are telcos who charge like a wounded bull for mobile services. Until this stumbling block is overcome, then these technologies will not come to fruition. (for the mainstream - of course the fat cats will have it as soon as it comes out) It is not that we have not the technology, but that our teleco infrastructure has been hijacked by private institutions. Almost as bad as the Internet toilet. i.e. A toilet with a computer and an internet connection in it. Big deal??!! I could make one tommorrow myself. Nobody would want to use the keys.....:o) (yes I know it was a prank, but I am commenting on the media's interest in such a unrevolutionary concept - a simple sticking of two old concepts together does not make a ground breaking technology) If that was the case I will be a millionare with: The WAP enable potatoe peeler. Surf while you peel!!!! The I-Suck!! Get the latest weather while you vacuum your house. The I-Blow. Never be lonely again......;o)

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

No, all religious wars are wars fought because of greed and envy, in the name of religion. This cannot be proven wrong. There will always be evidence to support it, as well as common sense to show us it is true.

US fascination with military

[m0rph3us0]

What is with the US fascination with military hardware? The world doesn't need more storm troopers.

Re:US fascination with military

[razvedchik]

The United States is a nation of inventors. We've got a long history of innovations. It's that whenever there's government funding for a project, there are tons of new technologies that surface. Thanks to the events of the past 2 years (5 actually, going back to several bombings,) military technology is on the mind of industry and the technologists who design this stuff.

Re:US fascination with military

[the eric conspiracy]

What is with the US fascination with military hardware?

The US economy has benefited tremendously from money sunk into military R&D. Since WWII many if not most of the technological innovations (such as the Internet) that have propelled US economic growth have origins in military R&D programs. The migration of battlefield techonogies such as described by this article into commercial applications is something that has great precedence.

The world doesn't need more storm troopers.

US military power has come from information management and rapid movement. Not increased numbers of 'storm troopers'. In fact the current doctrine is that increased military power comes from improved knowledge of the battlefield and reducing the number of troops to a minimum to allow the most rapid movement possible.

Re:US fascination with military

[the eric conspiracy]

but America's Army are cowards

You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win by making the other guy die for his country. (To paraphrase George Patton). Heros don't win wars.

If the US military leadership wasn't using whatever means was available to give their troops an edge, they would certainly would not be doing their jobs. Any criticism of military for using the tools available to it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the mission of a military organization.

Times in the past when the military pulled its punch led to Vietnam, and the second Gulf War (because George Herbert Walker Bush didn't finish the job the first time).

Re:US fascination with military

[Eyston]

I'd rather be a live coward than a dead hero.

-Eyston

Re:US fascination with military

[superyooser]

Technology allows targets to be... well, targeted. It reduces the amount of fighting, because it's more efficient. Here's an excerpt from an interview with military historian Dr. Hanson.

Rush: We heard they marked targets for precision-guided bombs. You mentioned that they organized Kurds. But what else would Special Ops do, and how do they get away with doing what they do without being spotted and captured?

Hanson: Some wear uniforms, some wear Westernized civilian clothes. Some wear traditional Arab dress. They've been in places like Baghdad and Basra and sort of blended in. Some have probably been Western photographers, would-be journalists. What they do is get the GPS coordinates of particular houses, particular Ba'athist headquarters, particular people. And then a person who rented an apartment in Baghdad or is staying with a friend in Baghdad might be looking out the window, get the GPS coordinates and get a cell phone and say, "So-and-so is at this location." So they sort of helped to destroy the fabric of the regime from the inside out.

Every once in a while somebody in a moment of incaution said something like, "Well, we're doing it from the inside out." What I think they meant is that we destroyed with precision weapons individual houses. That has a powerful psychological effect. Machiavelli said if you want to get a man mad at you, don't kill his father; destroy his patrimony. When we destroyed a home, that left a message for other people, who said, "Look, his house is gone and mine's not, why is that?" Then they said, "Oh, yes, he's a Ba'athist." So it was very multi-layered approach to war.

and

[vinylat33]

every soldier is connected to a mainframe which is connected to the president equiped with a joy-stick, because he is the one we chose and he can make all decisions.

Structures like that do not change theme, like thinking about war itself.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Anonymous Coward]

So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.

You misunderstand the special and dramatic needs of Drug law enforcement officers. It isn't a matter of 60 people, it's just a matter of sometimes, they really need to shoot one person 60 times very quickly. After all, think of the horrors that could happen if they only shot them 30 times; some of the people these brave officers are up against are armed with wallets. God knows what the druggies could do if they were only shot 10 or 20 times in quick succession by an unmarked officer busting into their house in the middle of the night with no explanation. They could retaliate. Do you want to put policemen in the line of danger like that?

IPv6 spinoffs

[stanwirth]

To address the number of devices they'll need, I'd bet on their making the transition to ipv6, which has been, unfortunately, stymied and postponed for years now.

Just demonstrating the transition in a rather large real-world application would be one of the more useful spinoffs. At the very least, it will help keep ipv6 efforts alive.

Re:Scary

[secolactico]

Also, I know non lethal Kung Fu

Show me...

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Cyberdyne]

So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload?

60 people? No. Try to stop a car by shooting out the tires/engine? Yes. Also, remember "law enforcement" covers SWAT teams; using 3-round bursts, this will give you 20 pulls of the trigger before it needs to be reloaded. Still a bit excessive for most situations - but better to have too many rounds than to be first into a drug den, and be up against 11 people with only enough to take out 10...

Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.

Not from what I've seen - and no, the police don't carry these things on patrol! They just have a lot of stuff "just in case", for dealing with really serious problems. Everything from adapted tanks for breaking down doors, to helicopters for chasing getaway cars without endangering other traffic.

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

By making that step you just made half the world hate your guts with a deadly passion.

If one side is religious and the other isnt, im sure it is still a religious war if the religious side claims it is.

Swedish army network project

[Kakis]

The swedish army has something like that in development, they call it "Network Based Defence". For information about it check on their homepage www.mil.se, it's on swedish but there is an english section as well. Dunno if the english parts covers this project though.

There project adress is http://www.mil.se/nbf/ for the swedish version at least. There are a few demonstration movies and quite some information, haven't really read it all though, but if you want to learn more about this tecnology I think it's worth the read.

Re:Battlefield LAN

[dark-br]

And it would be hole new meaning for ping of death :)

Lol what's new then?

[pavese]

Why would future generations even need such a helmet considering every child I know is more or less clearvoyant already without extra extensions?
Just surfing along on the fucking wireless networks, mobile networks and blahdiebladiebladieblah fucking zionists...

Instrumentalism has happened already considering how fucking bored almost everyone is knowing too much to have a real confined sense of ego. :/

Re:Lol what's new then?

[LilGuy]

Dont worry many will wake up in the near future.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[IvyMike]

Here in the US, we're pretty generous with our "bullet to person" ratio, so 60 bullets does not imply anywhere close to 60 people. I mean, seriously, even when running with the counterstrike cheats, nobody's that good.

P.S. Last time I was in England, we couldn't find a trash can anywhere. They had mostly been removed because of the possiblity that someone would leave a bomb in one. How's that war zone thing going with you guys?

Re:Scary

[Christopher Thomas]

Don't you think religion might have something to do with religious wars?

You miss the point.

Your religion or lack thereof is irrelevant to the person trying to kill you because their god told them to.

Your philosophy and outlook are similarly irrelevant to the person who wants something you posess (be it on an individual level or a national level) and decides to take it by force.

The upshot of this is that you can't make *all* people "not aggressive towards you".

Your non-lethal kung fu doesn't help if they're smart and armed. Or if they decide to come back with friends and baseball bats.

I do not advocate a philosophy of proactive violence. However, I do not feel that a philosophy of absolute non-violence (or minimum-at-all-costs violence) is practical either, for reasons outlined above.

Picture / Alternate Story

[Stone Rhino]

Hmm, seems FARK had slashdot scooped here. This story has a picture and some more information:
http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/3/2003/06/01/s tory001.html

...and now a word from our sponsors ...

[mechaZardoz]

A fine opportunity for our soldiers to be reminded of just what they're fighting for.

And think of the possibilities... outright corporate sponsorship. Advertising.

"This battle brought to by ... Burger King. Have it your Way."

Re:...and now a word from our sponsors ...

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Shouldn't it be something like "This kill was brought to you by Target(c)" ?

=P

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Wyatt Earp]

"Series production of the MP5/10 is slated to begin in mid-1991. A .40 S&W caliber MP5, termed MP5/40, is undergoing development and testing and is expected to enter series production in late 1991"

Thats an outdated website

Tech Overkill

[crmsndude]

This is ridiculous. Why an individual soldier would need that much information in the middle of combat is beyond me, and probably all of these gee-whiz wonks who've never even served. Case in point, when it came down to Infantry fighting in Iraq all of the personal technology, the GPS and whatnot meant nothing when the troops were concerned with keeping themselves from getting killed. When it comes to actual combat situations, anything that isn't going to immediately serve as a weapon is worthless. Look at the prep the soldiers in Black Hawk Down went through (At least, the book. I refuse to see the movie). They grabbed as much ammo as possible and left everything that wasn't a weapon behind because it was DEAD WEIGHT!

The utility of this technology is for a unit leader, with an obvious hierarchy of technological burden/C4I access and control. Officers at the platoon level and up would benefit greatly from this technology so that they could keep track of all of their units and support elements. Likewise, a lesser amount of access and interface for squad leaders to keep track of individual soldiers in an urban or similar combat zone. There's no need for anyone below E-5 to need to know the status of the damn UCAVs because they don't, and shouldn't, have the authority to command them anyway.

Moreover, I really wonder if these people actually expect soldiers to basically compromise their line of sight in the middle of combat. Even if they do, those HUDS are never going to be used in the middle of a firefight because there isn't anything remotely useful for a soldier to utilize that can't be done with an order over the radio from someone who DOES have sufficient overwatch capability and necessity to do so. When the U.S. Army or Marine Corps sets up sniper/countersniper positions relatively afar from enemy forces, what difference does it make that each soldier have a map or any other nonsense? They need to be able to shoot and have unit coordination, which is better accomplished by limiting this much technology and information to platoon headquarters units and above, and possibly much less information to squad leaders.

Which brings me to my next point: INFOSEC.
God forbid a soldier or Marine gets killed while wearing all of the crap necessary to operate this farce of a wannabe battlesuit. How do they presume to them eliminate the potential for hostile agents to access and compromise U.S. forces by using all of this information against them when they are in the middle of combat and can't quickly strip the dead soldier (which I'm sure their recently-close friends would enjoy in the middle of combat) and destroy (to prevent immediate threat of compromise) all of this equipment.

All of this equipment has its place, mainly with vehicles (the first place this type of technology was introduced and where it is most advanced) for a reason. It's mainly utility and scope of combat, as well as the amount of data relevant to those forces as opposed to Infantry. Infantry doesn't need this. The officer corps would benefit from it, but the individual soldier or Marine would find it useless, distracting, and quite simply and unnecessary burden. This could easily add 10-20lbs. to their ensemble, and for units in Airborne, Special Operations, and even most Infantry that is heaping crap on top of gear that already weighs almost as much as they do (i.e., the 100+lbs. of gear Airborne soldiers carry in airborne insertions). As we saw in Afghanistan during Operation: Anaconda, depending on the locale the gear was already too much for them to carry, especially as they are moving out in the middle of a firefight, with soldiers actually falling over backwards and struggling to get into helicopters because the weight of the gear and exhaustion (due to fatigue and the thin air at the altitudes of the combat zones in Afghanistan) just got the best of them. So these geniuses want to ADD MORE WEIGHT? Good luck.

Re:Tech Overkill

[SharpFang]

1. "Retreat NOW, they try to surround us".
2. "Red markers on your HUD are the enemy positions. Blue are ours."
3. With current wind and angle, your grenade launcher will reach THIS point."
4."Friendly fireline comes through here. Stay cautious"
5. "A friendly soldier wants to walk past your fireline. Cease fire for 10 seconds"
6. "Red marks enemy positions behind the wall as seen from friendly camera"
(think WallCheat in counterstrike)
7. "Nearest medic: 300m North ( --->that direction)"
8. Map with all positions marked.
9. "SOS, they are two steps away from my foxhole and my gun has jammed, but they don't see me yet!"
10. "The 2000 pound bomb will fall here: X"

Aww, that sight "+300" rising over enemy's corpse and score counter running up by 300, what could possibly encourage you to fight more effectively?!

Re:Tech Overkill

[.milfox]

And one of the *problems* with our tactics in Somalia was that the rangers *DID* leave behind all their gear, like their NODs and didn't bother to fill their canteens because they thought it was going to be a short day battle.

Read blackhawk down again. :P

Re:Tech Overkill

[dlb]

No, the biggest problem with our tactics in Somalia is that we insisted on policing the place.

The rangers and delta force got what they deserved there.

Re:Tech Overkill

[crmsndude]

I was just trying to illustrate the kind of response that items like this would be likely to receive from the soldiers on the ground.

Re:Tech Overkill

[ronfar]

For information on what you are talking about, I give you the War Nerd on an over-hyped product of the current war in Iraq (which so far hasn't been used, but the war is young):

MOAB: the Monster Truck of American Ordnance

Of course, I can't think of a single contingency where it would be sane or smart to use the MOAB, either. Even if we had a real war with real American interests (as opposed to Brown & Root interests) at stake rather than a neoimperial war to recolonize a former British colony (with American masters now, of course), I can't think of a good reason to use it. If we ever had a real war, tac nukes make more sense.

It's the same thing with these super teched out uniforms. We are fighting colonial wars in impoverished Third World countries that have no hope of actually beating the U.S. in conventional warfare. The big scary villains right now are Iran and North Korea, and the only reason they are "scary" is because if they kill too many of our soldiers it will look bad in the polls, but these teched out uniforms won't help with that. Good body armor, good vehicle armor, and lots of air support is what is needed. Iran and North Korea have no hope of beating the U. S., which spends more on its military than the next 14 nations combined, even if they use a couple of nukes.

Asymmetrical warfare is based on the idea that the enemy (assuming you are in the position of a guerilla/terrorist) is patient, hides well, and constantly scans the enemy for weak points. In the case of terrorists, there will always be a huge number of targets as long as the U.S. is at all a nice place to live, and even if it turns into East Berlin I don't think they can completely shut down terrorism. (A guy in South Korea recently showed what could be done with ordinary gasoline and a subway, for example. He did much better than those Japanese fanatics with their Sarin gas bags.) In our colonies, like Iraq, it will be guerilla warfare. They'll keep testing the defenses, and I suspect they will find weaknesses. (This is why up until recently U. S. wars were supposed to have something called an exit strategy. In other words, the war ends, the troops come home, rather than being permanently deployed to foriegn combat zones.)

So why spend money on all this high-tech but useless and detrimental gear? Well, war is a racket, as Major General Smedley Butler said, and a big part of the racket is bilking the American taxpayer out of billions of dollars to buy weapons that the military should neither need nor want.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Wyatt Earp]

If a unit is in a situation where the opposition is under cover, Police and military doctrine calls for covering fire.

Covering fire is basicly firing off rounds to create noise, to get the badguys heads down to allow other friendlies into a position with better shots.

Suppressing fire is higher volume and more accurate fire to get the badguys into a situation where they can't fire or can't fire accurately so you can move into better positions or overrun thier position.

Most American cops aren't trained with MP-5s or M-4s and do everything with thier pistols, and pistols don't hold 60 rounds.

**boooinnngg**

[Anonymous Coward]

HELLO!! it looks like you're trying to kill some evil-doers...

would you like some help with that!?!?!?!

A whole new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death"

[SmoothTom]

Seriously, though, this sounds very much like the comm units described by Robert Anson Heinlein in Starship Troopers (the BOOK not the movie!).

Properly designed and used this sort of communication capability can greatly expand effectiveness and survivability.

Just don't let Microsoft do the software ...

--
Tomas

Scary

[gallir]

I wouldn't like to know how a DoS, or ping-of-death attack will be. A remote exploit?
Too scary....

Re:Cases

[davidsturnbull]

Your religion or lack thereof is irrelevant to the person trying to kill you because their god told them to.

In an interesting twist, it is precisely this moral crutch used by soldiers of countries who kill you because their president told them to.
So, a soldier of the west kills because the enemy is commie/arab scum, with the real reason being the obtainment of strategic resources, while the enemy basically has no problem with you, he just wants your money?

Next comes the Smarter Bullet

[Nom du Keyboard]

And just how long before someone creates a smart bullet to home in on the EM emissions of this helmet -- and at a whole lot lower cost than the helmet itself?

Re:Next comes the Smarter Bullet

[praksys]

And just how long before someone creates a smart bullet to home in on the EM emissions of this helmet ...

Anti-radiation missiles are actually pretty expensive, and if they could make them sensitive enough to home in on such low levels of EM-radiation then they would already be using them as anti-tank weapons.

Even when transmiting military radio communications gear is already very stealthy. It uses packets sent on varying frequencies, so there is no constant signal to lock on to.

Borglike

[Muttonhead]

We are the Borg. The Borg is your future. Resistance is futile.

Another Stupid Idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

This perceived soldier of the future is gonna get wacked pretty easily. Being a former airborne veteran and now engineer, I'm glad that I'm not going to be wearing one of these things. Let's just see...the average pack weighs ~60lbs. Add ~20 for body armor and you get ~80 lbs of gear the average joe has to hump.

Let's see now...we want to stick another 20 lbs of crap on. The makes the average weight for a solder over 100 lbs. And that doesn't take into account the friggin batteries or the fact that the helmet is now going to weigh 10+ lbs (Kevlar helmets are pretty heavy). Talk about neck sprain.

And the idea of having a tactical HUD in front of the soldiers face is just another brilliantly stupid idea...I'm sure the soldier will love it when they're taking fire and sees stupid markers/graphics jumping across his cornea. Screw night vision also...oh wait, they have a AN-PVS8 which attaches to the helmet...whoopie my helm now weighs upwards of friggin FIFTEEN lbs.

Getting past all that...how the hell is the average soldier going to contribute to overall battlefield planning? Does he really need to know where the company commander is during a firefight? That's why we have NCOs...

Hope our new Army is rife with Arnold type bodies and Einstein brains...

Re:Another Stupid Idea...

[martissimo]

You have it all backwards though it seems.

Their goal is to lighten the load soldiers carry

When dressing for battle in the so-called "Scorpion ensemble," soldiers will don no more than 50 pounds, making them much more mobile than today's troops, who carry up to 120 pounds of gear, Birch said.

Don't know how well all of the ideas they have will actually work, but finding a way to halve the weight a soldier packs is certainly appealling.

Re:Scary

[I(rispee_I(reme]

I've read that Ghandi actually criticized the Jews of Nazi Germany for remaining (relatively) silent for so long. As I recall, he said something to the effect that if they'd held a peaceful protest, and forced the Nazis to kill a lot of them, then the public outcry would've been sufficient to prevent later atrocities.

What is the first use of any new medium?

[the eric conspiracy]

I can just see it now. pr0n and spam delivered right to my helmet.

Re:Scary

[devilspgd]

More then that, life support systems have to be certified, and Intel likely hasn't shelled out for certification.

Steam tactics

[ironduke-particle]

What is being proposed has been tried before.

The Royal Navy led the world in the mid-19th century in adopting steam propulsion, with ships proceeding in formation at constant speed, with evolutions being carried out as per flag signals from the flagship. Signal books became more complicated; signalling became a job for the brightest and best, among both officers and seamen. New signalling mechanisms such as Morse code over wireless, or Morse over signal lamp, were adopted with alacrity. People sent signals because they could, and having sent signals to the commander, whose orders they were supposed to follow, they expected replies.

Consequently, after a couple of decades of this, the Royal Navy couldn't fight worth shit.

There are two anecdotes involving Nelson and signalling -- the "blind eye" at Copenhagen, and the "England expects" before Trafalgar. These weren't tactical signals. These were Nelson having a laugh. Nelson had no truck with centralised command and this signalling malarkey; he trained his commanders as he was trained, to understand their job and to get on with it as they saw fit. Nelson and his like put the fear of God (or rather, the fear of the Royal Navy) so thoroughly that it lasted a century.

This "the soldier is the network" business means that a soldier is going to get flooded with urgent requests for tax records at a moment when he might expect to be being given information about at which window to point his grenade launcher. But then, that information would probably be coming from a major in a bunker in the Pentagon who's never handled a grenade launcher, and whose orders are going to be at best meaningless and at worst horribly counterproductive.

Maybe the DoD should consult at the militaries of other nations, that have efficient armed forces and smaller budgets, and see what'd spend the money on, given the choice. Wouldn't be this. But it might be a smaller, lighter, more reliable, more powerful, strongly-encrypted radio comms system with extensions for a whiteboard mode.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Anonymous Coward]

Police and military doctrine calls for covering fire

Well, that's military doctrine. Police doctrine varies by department but generally involves hitting your target, so the rounds don't go downrange and hit innocent bystanders. In the event of a well-prepared and determined group of bad guys, the police way is to send in sufficiently overwhelming force so you don't have to use military tactics to win. "Covering fire" in a law-enforcement scenario would be grossly irresponsible, imho, if you're not way out in the middle of nowhere. (Not saying it never happens.)

Agreed.

[antdude]

Soldier still need to be trained for events when you have no technologies to use. Like batteries run out, none of them are with you, etc.

Re:Scary

[hazem]

Easy. Just use a picture of my history professor's ex-mother-in-law. They'll run screaming and never come back. No need to kill them.

But I think there is something in the Geneva Convention against such cruel and unusual punishment!

Re:Scary

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Right... Tell that to the weapons pointed at you. Unless of course, your Kung Fu is the same as the Matrix and you can dodge bullets.

Tin Foil Foils the plan......

[reality-bytes]

So dropping thousands of shards of extremely fine foil strip on top of advancing American soldiers seems like a good bet.

I seem to remember this stuff plays havoc with just about all radio signals :)

Re:Tin Foil Foils the plan......

[Dun Malg]

So dropping thousands of shards of extremely fine foil strip on top of advancing American soldiers seems like a good bet.

nah, no good. Chaff is only REALLY effective against radar, and then only while it's drifting down through the air. Once it hits the ground it's just litter.

Re:Scary

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

How is that snide? It's the truth. By the way, don't forget to get in a quick insult even though I didn't insult you. Even if you don't have your facts straight about my job.

What I'd like to know.....

[reality-bytes]

Will soldiers be able to complain in real-time when somebody starts Team Killing?

And I presume that the court-martial procedure will be simplified with a KICK followed by a BAN.

Re:Scary

[timeOday]

The trick is to not make people aggressive towards you.

Okay, tell us how the Jews provoked Hitler.

(And yes, I am fully aware of Godwin's "Law," and it's garbage if it's interpreted to preclude meaningful discussion on the topic).

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Malcontent]

You make a very good point. One thing we know about our law enforment officers is that they tend to fall down when shooting at unarmed people and are prone to uncontrolled exclamations of "he's gut a gun!" when people pull out their wallets.

Spaceballs? Try Star Wars...

[User 956]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to see scenes from 'Spaceballs'...

Is it just me being paranoid, or does the "soldier of the future" in this picture look like an Imperial stormtrooper?

What's next, Dick Cheney on a respirator with a black helmet?

Re:Spaceballs? Try Star Wars...

[seanthenerd]

"Future Soldier to have Massive Network"

Hmm. They better have their 'Massive Network' pretty well secured. (Think about this article.) Would it be protected against, say, electronic jamming?

Or... Cheney: "The al-Qaida operatives have slashdotted our soldier network! Gasp!"

Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[Thing 1]

I have two thoughts on this technology. The first is that there need to be safeguards against enemy troops stripping dead soldiers and either gaining access to our information, or corrupting it.

The second is that I see this as another step on the way toward a completely human-less battlefield. Which is a great thing; let the robots fight it out. The engineer in me loves it (I drive an automatic because I feel the tool should do the work. ;-)

Re:Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[gerardrj]

The day we allow robots to fight our battles is the day there will be no end to war.
IF you wany peace, then you have to make those responsible for the induction of it responsible for it's enactment. How? All the heads of the government and their immediate familes must serve in the war on "front-line" combat situations. None of this rear suppoert unit, or carrier duty. Every Senator, Representative, President and the Cabinet, along with their spouses and children must take up arms and fight for the cause.

This centuries old system of old men sending young men to thier deaths, for the benefit of the old men has just got to stop.

Re:Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[mcg1969]

The second is that I see this as another step on the way toward a completely human-less battlefield.

Never happen. Oh yeah, sure, we might have robots duke it out, but if nobody dies, then all we're basically fighting is an economic battle---and we already do that all the time. And when one is faced with the possible loss of a robbot battle, a most sensible tactic (from the standpoint of winning the war) will be to start going after "soft targets"---i.e., people.

War will always be bloody.

Re:Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[IICV]

So you're saying we ought to have all the world's leaders mud wrestle? Cool.

Re:Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[gerardrj]

I was thinking more along the lines of Jelo-O, but yea.

Re:Two thoughts: enemies and robots

[Lord_Dweomer]

I have had a couple dreams that I was playing BF1942 and when I finished playing, I got to watch my battle on the news on TV......because we were controlling robots in an actual real world battle. Kinda like in the movie Toys. Creepy stuff, but god i'd get such a kick out of knowing that I was affecting the real world.

smart mobs swarming

[Bogatyr]

Brings an interesting variation on smart mobs and swarm concepts.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Wyatt Earp]

"Police doctrine varies by department but generally involves hitting your target, so the rounds don't go downrange and hit innocent bystanders."

If you look at the shootouts between Police and criminals when there have been officers or civilians down between the criminals and the police, the police will use high volumes of fire with semi-auto or burst weapons.

Usually the Police use shotguns or 9mm submachine guns in urban settings since they lose energy quickly and don't penetrate walls/cars/doors well. The danger is since the North Hollywood shootout and the loss of officers in Portland and Waco to high power pistols and 5.56 and 5.45mm assault rifles, the police are going to M-4s and M-16s whose rounds will go a long ways and go through houses.

historical footnote

[Bogatyr]

"getting there fastest with the mostest" is a quote most often attributed to Nathan Bedford Forrest (US, American Civil War, Confederacy side).

Re:Scary

[Blind Linux]

That he did. He additionally opposed Allied intervention against Hitler. That article, which summarizes Gandhi's beliefs with regard to the Jews, is comprised of quotations from articles Gandhi wrote in 1938, all of which can be readily found through search engines.

A couple of relevant articles...

[AceMarkE]

Steven den Beste, who blogs at USS Clueless, wrote a couple of related posts in the last couple of months, one on information-age military logistics and a somewhat more technical post on how a battlefield network would work.

Mark Erikson

civilians

[Espen]

As it stands, civilians, necessarily mostly unprotected from the benefits of technology, are going to represent the majority of casualties in 'armed conflict'. I'm the only one to think that this is perverse?

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Sycraft-fu]

SWAT teams do, yes. Most cops carry only a pistol with them, but speical units like SWAT teams need more firepower. PArt of it is simply the threat of overwhelming force can often difuse a situation. If a gunman is faced with 10 heavily armed SWAT members, they are much mroe likely to give up than if they are faced with one normal officer. However, part of having that threat is the need to be ready if you get called out on it. It wouldn't do any good to have guns that just LOOK scary, they need to be powerful as well.

personal networks!

[bonezed]

I like the idea of personal networks, being online 24x7.

but i think its a bad idea for your average foot soldier (3 years experience talking here)

Re:Scary

[thebigmacd]

You missed the point. The point is that no matter what you chose, someone will hate you for it. Which means that you, too have the same problem as everyone else...people who hate you. It's unavoidable. And it's not necessarily your problem.

Re:Ip Addresses

[Vengie]

Likewise, i would suspect the chinese military will soon be developing as many ways as possible to jam local wireless networks.

Jamming local wireless networks is _reaaaallllyyy_ easy......[lookup the aloha protocol....]

shut the fuck up if you don't understand the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Can this be subject to monitoring and how is it going to be secured?

I laugh everytime I see a statement like this on slashdot. I sometime forget everyone on slashdot believes they are somehow unique and think of things noone else could.

Radio-equipped soldiers are given special tactical status because of the ease with which any useful spectrum of radio waves can be triangulated. The equipment to do so has come down from a few thousand and a truck to a few dozen dollars and a half-pound gadget the size of a sandwitch.

And now someone wants to put an always-on packet transponder on each soldier?!? Why not put them in flourecent pink instead of camo and put "mortar me" signs with bulls-eyes on top of each tent?

Spread spectrum and encryption will keep you from being jammed, overheard, spoofed, etc., but only radio silence can keep you from being spotted. Laugh all you want, just keep your fucking toys away from my troops.

Re:historical footnote (Now 100% O.T.!)

[NecrosisLabs]

And founder of the Klan.

Respan

[macdaddy]

Boy I'd hate to see a network like that respan. :-)

Those who know Ethernet know what I'm talking about. Nothing like 45 seconds of downtime (unless you're implementing the newer 802.1w standard or one of its many variants, such as the half a dozen proprietary Cisco methods).

Man-in-the-middle Attack

[macdaddy]

This gives an entirely new meaning to the legendary "Man-In-The-Middle Attack."

Re:historical footnote (Now 100% O.T.!)

[yellowjacket03]

What does that have to do with his competence as a military commander? Your ass-backwards politics do not automatically color your performance at your job. (Pardon the pun.) You can be a skilled laborer, such as a carpenter, electrician, or a CEO for that matter, and also be a racist.(See Republican party) Also, Forrest renounced the Klan and his past behavior several years before he died.

Dear Mr. Roland 'Karma-Whoring' Piquepaille ...

[HardcoreGamer]

Check this column for a summary.

I'm curious why (with one exception) you never seem to point out that ''this column'' is YOUR BLOG?

If you want to be a karma-whore then that's your business. And that's the only conclusion we can reach considering the sheer number of submissions (33 as of this one, not counting however many were rejected) in the 2 months since you set up your account, and the frequency with which you discourage people from reading the original articles (always pointing them to your blog).

I find some of the articles you post interesting so by all means continue to contribute. But please don't pretend that you aren't pointing people to your blog.

Presumably you're trying to turn yourself into another Internet pundit or get the traffic on your site up high enough so that you can charge big bucks for advertising. That's cool too if you want to do that.

But please ... just stop pretending that you're directing people somewhere other than your own blog.

Sincerely,
HardcoreGamer

nothing compared to the might of the spiders

[nounderscores]

The Spiders

Highly recommended. Innovative take on the changing face of war.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[sheriff_p]

You mean you couldn't find a trash can on the underground, because, unlike certain countries who have only found out that terrorism is real in the last couple of years, we've been dealing with it for decades.

Funny, I never heard Americans make snide comments about people in New York over-reacting - maybe it's not terrorism unless it happens to America?

End phenomena

[mcrbids]

First we had print publications. Then phones. Then cell phones. Then the Internet. Now we have soldiers living half their battles in a video game.

Watching Star Trek, you see battles of individualists vs the Borg Collective.

But, with all this emphasis on connections and "the network" - has it occurred to anybody that by 2500 AD we will be the borg?

We will be the "collective", we'll be the ones with networking hardware sticking out the sides of our faces, though maybe we won't have such a schtik for "assimilating" other races...

One of those weird thoughts that may partly come from the beer I'm almost done with...

-Ben

Radio direction finding is going to kill this

[child_of_mercy]

A committed intelligent enemy is going to have radio direction finders in simple munitions and will make mincemeat of any army deploying this stuff seriously.

great for beating up spear-chuckers, not much else.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[IvyMike]

unlike certain countries who have only found out that terrorism is real in the last couple of years, we've been dealing with it for decades.

Sure. But the whole "America must be a war zone" comment seemed like an unecessary snide comment coming from someone in a country that has arguably been a "war zone" as well.

Funny, I never heard Americans make snide comments about people in New York over-reacting - maybe it's not terrorism unless it happens to America?

First: we made much fun of the people buying gas masks, I'm surprised you missed it. Perhaps you have poor listening skills. Second: where's the whole "it's not terrorism unless it happens to America" thing coming from? I thought I was sort of saying, "England has terrorism problems too, you snide 'America is a war zone' comment making limey." That's pretty much the exact opposite. Perhaps you have poor listening skills.

Re:Scary

[maxpublic]

Are you freakin' serious? The primary goal in any violent situation is to avoid confrontation; but if you can't avoid confrontation then the second goal is to use *whatever means are necessary* to preserve your own life. If that means killing the other guy, then so be it. If the asshole wanted to live, he should've left you alone to begin with.

This 'nonviolent' crap is a fast and easy way to get yourself killed by someone who doesn't give a damn whether you live or die, or who might even kill you just for the amusement factor, or because they felt like it. Only fools take chances of this nature, fools who're bucking for a Darwin award.

Trying growing up in a poor neighborhood with lots of crime. Your view of self-defense will be radically different than some naive college boy from Suburbia, USA, whose only violent encounters consist of getting his ass kicked by the local bully.

Max

Check out "The Unwired Soldier"

[jg21]

An article in Wireless Business & Technology gives chapter and verse on this...it's written by the founder of 4Gwireless.org, who is also one of the prime movers behind a pioneering mesh-networking company.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[torpor]

Remember, it's a deterrent, not a solution. Americans in some States can have *big* weapons around - this thing is designed to deter in those situations.

Cops have firepower like this to deter the guy with a 6-shooter from trying to 'take one out before they get me'.

There is little arguing with someone capable of safely spraying 30 rounds at you. Well, that is, unless your gun is bigger.

That a Node inyer helmet, orarya just glad to...

[Zhe Mappel]

It describes a scenario where soldiers are equipped with sensors and other networking equipment.

Weapons of mass instruction.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Cyberdyne]

Hold it, Arnold... I'm sure a regular SWAT guy can gun down 10 armed guys...

Only if he has enough ammunition to do the job! That regular SWAT guy will look very silly - and very dead - when he aims at the 11th armed bad guy, pulls the trigger, and hears a 'click'...

The SAS, incidentally, use the regular MP5 (or MP5-K), and use pairs of 30 round magazines, taped back-to-back. Changing magazine is, with a bit of practice, incredibly quick and easy. That gives them the same 60 rounds as this gun holds. They seem to think this is useful, and they've been doing the whole counter-terrorism thing for quite a long time...

I can see it now...

[landrocker]

Can you just imagine being in the middle of battle, killing an enemy soldier and having the HUD flash and an ominous, echoing voice in your ear announcing that 'You are in the lead'.

Not to mention the scrolling display up the top saying how many frags are left...

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[boicy]

Hmm, glad to see that the "Special Relationship" is still very much alive and kicking then. On a serious note though. In the UK our incidences of domestic terrorism have fallen greatly mainly due to the fact that people bothered to sit down and discuss the issues. They may not have liked it but both the incumbent government and the previous government made it their priority to tackle the diffcult issue of Northern Ireland through peaceful and meaningful democratic debate, although many in NI would no doubt disagree. Sure there are still terrible tensions in the six counties and a lot of work remains to be done but we live in hope of a lasting peace in the UK. Once again I would like to reiterate that this was achieved by "talking" and not by bombing the country back into the stone age. Valuable lessons maybe.

Microsoft patches

[GQuon]

The uniforms of the Microsoft soldiers have patches, and more patches, and even more layers of patches... and you can still see their underwear through the holes left behind. -- Paul Mischler

(Lifted from the bottom of the slashdot page.)

tracert

[vinlud]

tracert commander.3rdinfantry.dod.mil

1 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms router.whitehosue.gov
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 81.23.243.16
3 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms centcom.iraq.dod.mil
6 37 ms 32 ms 35 ms battlefield.iraq.dod.mil
7 * * *
8 * * *

Sir? I think we have a problem...

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[jdray]

That's what this gun does as well. Sixty rounds is from three 20-round magazines held together by integrated interlocks, the "technology" they were touting. No tape required. I'm not even sure you'd have to stop at three, other than the fact that it would get unwieldly when you were using one on the end and had (10?) 20-round magazines hanging out one side. That's a lot of weight.

Re:Scary

[UnknowingFool]

I know non lethal Kung Fu

Hand and feet vs. Uzi: not good odds. In some situations, it may be possible to disarm a person using martials arts, but there's no guarantee that every situation will be that ideal. If an armed attacker is at a distance with a gun and is intent on doing you harm, there's no amount of martial arts that will save you.

The trick is to not make people aggressive towards you.

People get shot everyday without provoking others. For example, the Washington D.C. sniper. Sometimes it doesn't matter what good will you have. Shit does happen and aggression makes no difference.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[dvk]

Go google for more detailed description of the story of a couple of heavily-armed bastards who shot-up several much-lighter-armed cops during a robbery in LA. One link is:
http://theoutrage.com/library/000303.html

No go back under your bridge troll.

-DVK

Re:Scary

[solarmist]

Have you ever read the warnings that come with the x86 assembly books from Intel?

That's because x86 chips aren't designed run real time. You need a chip that was designed for real time so that it doesn't hit an interupt and do that while the person is dying.

Re:Other tech from the battlefield to the enterpri

[Ozymandias_KoK]

5.56mm has less penetration through walls, in addition to less wounding potential "post-wall" due to it's lighter projectile that sheds mass and velocity that much quicker than 9mm rounds and up.

That said, the maximum effective range for the rifle round IS a lot higher.