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Future Army Battle Uniforms - Wired, Lethal
ssyladin writes "CNN is running an article about the future US army battle dress, code-named 'Scorpion'. It says that "..soldiers of 2011 will step into wired uniforms that incorporate all the equipment they need. The uniforms will monitor vital signs and plug them into a massive network of satellites, unmanned planes and robotic vehicles the military has planned." There will be sensors to monitor heartrate and blood-pressure, built-in tourniquets, a HUD to connect to GPS info, overhead maps, infrared and starlight cameras, and even the venerable M16 rifles are slated for an overhaul."
The army's supposedly coming out with the OICW in 2004, which has a bunch of new features, including a range of up to 1000 meters (the M16 has a max. range of 400, and thats with really good training)
Not exactly true.
5 626a8525628100676e0c/6a60172b3db3d5ce8525627b0062d 928
Maximum effective range:
Area target: 2,624.8 feet (800 meters)
Point target: 1,804.5 feet (550 meters)
Source: http://www.hqmc.usmc.mil/factfile.nsf/7e931335d51
If I was a soldier I wouldn't want to have to packaround an OICW. They are significantly heavier than the M16A2 and the last thing our soldiers need at this point is more weight to pack around.
And of course, what we should all do is wait around until that battery is designed...
Really, though, this stuff is much simpler. The last time they tried this you needed a desktop to do what they wanted to do, which was make a gun that shot mini-cruise missiles in the dark around corners, making each U.S. soldier invincible. Very Cold War holdout thinking, pre-Rumsfeld shakeout. Remember the scene in Spiderman where the Green Goblin blows up the Exo-Suit? The Exo-Suit is the kind of thing the old guard liked.
Now many normal Americans have a 200 Mhz processor in a suit pocket all day running off 2 AA batteries or a little lithium one. Power consumption goes down as technology develops too. More and more functions are put on one chip.
All this project is talking about is a GPS, a screen, a cell-phone, some biometric monitors, night-goggles, and a fancy gun. It's the gun you've got to watch out for, but it's scaled way back from the 27-pound project they rejected for the very reasons you're listing.
Our latest operations in Afghanistan displayed one startling weakness for a uniform like this - not enough satellites. Unless the Scorpion program launches a ton of orbiting equipment in support of the program, I don't see it going very far.
The army's supposedly coming out with the OICW in 2004, which has a bunch of new features, including a range of up to 1000 meters (the M16 has a max. range of 400, and thats with really good training)
.223/5.56NATO, there's no way it's going to be good for 1000 meters, as that's a limitation of the cartridge design not the gun. The OICW is also a bullpup design, but still has a short barrel, decreasing maximum effective lethal range. The OICW uses the same magazines as the M16. Even .308/7.62NATO isn't really good to 1000 meters because of it's vulnerability to wind interference.
.50 BMG (BMG = Browning Machine Gun) guns you saw mounted on those armored vehicles in Iraq were a Browning design. And it was Gene Stoner who developed the original AR-10 machine gun, which was redesigned into the M16. Now the US has outlawed the kind of work Browning and Stoner did, and given the excessive excise tax required to become a Class II manufacturer, it's unlikely that you'll ever have that kind of innovation again. Trying to build a machine gun makes you a federal felon with an instant 10 years at Club Fed, and we're talking the pound you in the butt prison, not some country club.
Given that the M16 and the OICW are both chambered in
The OICW is a waste. Give any soldier the choice between a set of combat gear or the scorpion suit, and he'll choose the combat gear. Give him a choice between the OICW or an M16, and he'll choose the M16. Why? Because when your life is on the line complex systems fail more often than simple systems and they can also get in the way. When you're on the battlefield and people are shooting at you, you want to be able to shoot back. When you have to reboot your gun or your combat helmet is on the frits, these are bad things. Moving to the latest new fangled gadgets does not make a successful armed force.
This is why smart guns will be a flop. The Glock firearm design is currently the most popular modern design on the market because it is a simple design that works. It has very few moving parts compared to other semi-auto pistols, and that means it tends to be much more reliable than other designs. When you start introducing computer controls, fingerprint scanners, and the like things get much more complicated much quicker and I personally would hate to lose my life because my smartgun crashed while someone was kicking down my door.
The most venerable machine gun designs were from guys who weren't working for the government. Guys like John Moses Browning who designed the majority of the military machine guns in US history and many still in use today. The
Today's combat weapons are made by large military contractors who move at a snails pace. Browning was turning out multiple designs per year. You'd think with all the backing these big defense contractors have, they could at least keep up.
There will be a rude awakening for people of your kind - self-righteous and nationalistic. You got a rude awakening with Vietnam and Watergate. Sadly, people so blinded by dogma rarely remember the lessons learned. So there will be another one coming in the next few years. Bush will not be remembered as a great president. He will be remembered as one of the greatest fuckups in power of all time.
What are his achievements? Look at what he has promised, and what he has achieved. The economy is dragging, the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan is being lost. He most likely lied to you about the urgency of action in Iraq. Saddam and bin Laden both live, and are not in US custody. I'm just amazed at how blind you get when someone waves the star-spangled banner in front of you while saying something to the effect of "the us is great. i lead america, so i must be great too". It's like all chains of logic disappear in the face of patriotism and pride.
Stop the brainwash
Wrong. It was Soviets who defeated Germany. Anyone who claims otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about. Even after Normandy, about 70% of German troops were fighting the Soviets, and Soviets fought them ALOT longer than Americans did.
Germanys fate was sealed at Stalingrad. After that, it was all downhill for them. And that took place long before Normandy or tangible US involvement in the war.
Now, war in Pacific was mostly american show with some Commonwealth troops thrown in.
This might come as a shock to you, but the training of US troops is not superior to training of other armies. No, your training doesn't suck as such, but it's not that great either. That hes been demonstrated in missions where US Troops have worked with troops from other countries. In Bosnia for example US Troops did many stupid things (built bridges on the worst possible locations, had unsuitable equipment for the terrain etc. etc.). And the core training isn't superior either. They held a sharpshooting-competition in Kosovo. Teams were formed based on nationality. Finnish army took the #1 and #2 spots (they had two teams), Swedes were third and Germans (if I remember correctly) were fourth. Americans didn't do that good.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Send soldiers to police a public demonstration in NYC, equip them with body armor, gas mask and non-lethal projecticles.
No, you don't send soldiers to a public demonstration in NYC.
You send the police, and maybe the National Guard in really, really extreme cases.
Posse Comitatus prohibits the US military from performing general police functions within the borders of the US.
There are some things they can do, but mostly just assistance and transport.
Which is exactly the problem: the M16 wasn't designed to be used in battlefield conditions. A little sand here, or lack of lube there, and you've got a glorified bayonet.
The M16 is a classic example of textbook engineering - it is a very well designed, very accurate rifle. But unlike the soviet and chinese counterparts, it has no tolerance for dirt; without proper lubrication, it jams. Compound this with the fact that the Army doesn't issue field cleaning kits, and that CLP (lube) is distributed at the platoon level (if at all), and you've got a recipe for battlefield failure. Granted, the AK47 and Kalishnikov rifles aren't accurate past 400 meters, but the average soldier couldn't hit anything beyond 150 meters with any appreciable accuracy anyway. Contrary to popular belief, firefights don't consist of a bunch of soldiers picking off the enemy from 1000 meters. In short, having a reliable, albeit inaccurate weapon is much more useful than having an accurate weapon that jams at the wrong time.
Unless you are incompetent, *never* cleaned your rifle, or are incapable of grasping the concept of proper lubrication, M16s just work
Unless, of course, you get a magazine that's been used as a hammer, beat up, dropped, or kicked around a few times. Believe me, this happens more often than armorers would like to admit. And the real problem is that the magazines just wear out, and you can never tell which ones are bad until you take them out and shoot a full magazine of ammo - try getting that one past your platoon seargent.
I, for one, will be glad to see the M16 go. While it performs well under 'ideal' conditions, its performance under real-world conditions (inadequate lubrication, dust and sand in the magazines, etc...) leaves much to be desired.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Uh, the Glock has mostly replaced revolvers in police inventories. The Beretta 92F (which we renamed the M9) replaced the 1911 as our standard military sidearm.
And there is a trend back to the 1911. FBI HRT uses custom Springfields. LAPD SWAT went with a Kimber Custom. And I hear they were still quite popular with our guys in the Gulf.
The manual of arms for a 1911 (cocked and locked, hooyah!) is a bit more complicated than a revolver or a glock, but it's the choice of the many highly trained professionals.
I must respectfully disagree with my Marine Corps fellow traveller here. As a former U.S. Army officer, I wielded an M-16A1 in the first Persian Gulf War. I found my M-16 was okay during peacetime, but had some doubts about it for wartime, due to my copious research beforehand. When the more senior officers traded in their M1911A1 Colt .45 ACP pistols for M-16A1's, I acquired one of those pistols as an addition to my personal armoury. I wanted the .45 with me on the off chance that I got into a firefight and the M-16 jammed.
The M-16 spokesman here says that it works fine if kept properly lubricated. I NEVER lubricated my M-16 during PGWI because I couldn't. The first (and last) time I did, it became utterly encrusted with sand. There was no escaping the sand in the Arabian deserts as it is a fine powder easily blown into the air or stirred into the air by vehicles and troops moving about. I wiped it down to a "near dry" condition and it was still caked in sand. It was only after a few more days and wipedowns that it finally dried out and quit being covered in sand. From then on, I just wiped it down with a dry cloth every day. Assuming the Marine above is correct, my M-16 was rendered just about useless. Basically, I would have had to begin dousing it in lubricant right when I actually needed it. Hopefully, that would not have been during one of the frequent "shamals" (sandstorms) we endured.
The most egregious design flaw of the M-16 is the reloading arrangement to support semi-automatic fire. A small gas tube taps the barrel near the front sight and carries some of the hot gas from the cartidge's detonation back to a very short tube or "catcher" just above the rotary bolt that houses the firing pin. This means you have crappy, government gunpowder blowing crap right into the most critical part of the weapon. This residue rapidly gums up the area where bullet meets bolt and firing pin. (This area is called the firing chamber.) This problem calls for either frequent lubrication to loosen the deposits or a tolerance for the occasional jam. An old neighbour of mine was fortunate enough to not have his M-16 jam when he found himself three feet from a Viet Cong in the jungles of Viet Nam. In that case, the M-16 beat the Kalashnikov.
Another M-16 design flaw is the weak recoil spring that pushes the bolt back into place to chamber the next round after one is fired. This spring and the earlier-mentioned fouling problem caused the addition of the "forward assist" for the M-16A1. Inevitably, experienced shooters will forget that forward assist at the wrong moment because no other weapon I know of has such a jury-rigged loading process as the M-16. Talk about cruft... The operator's manual for an M-16A1 or the current M-16A2 recommends the forward assist be pushed forward with the heel of the hand following each loading of a fresh magazine's first round. The M-16's predecessors; M-14, M-1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, the Krag- Jorgensen and "Trapdoor Springfields" had no need for such a procedure to be followed in the middle of a firefight.
The Kalashnikov designs use a metal rod to collect the gas from a bullet's detonation to push the bolt back. This small but significant difference from the M-16 means the vast majority of the gunpowder residue never reaches the firing chamber of an AK. This is a huge help in not gumming up a Kalashnikov when it is being used. Another tremendous advantage of the Kalashnikovs on campaign is the small number of parts they have. Having field stripped AK's and M-16's many, many times, an M-16 has about three times as many parts. These parts are typically much smaller and more prone to breakage on the lighter M-16. Some of those parts are not "idiot proofed" either. When it's 3 am and you are running on six hours sleep in the last three nights, the last thing you need is to be sure to put some cotter pin in only from the right as the weapon won't fire if that pin was inserted from the lef
In principio erat Verbum.
Blowing up a cocaine factory in Columbia, for example, is a form of self-defense as the drug industry negatively impacts our people, both the users and the dealers. People die and go to jail, in no small numbers, because of the drug trade.
To quote Bill Maher - "We can't stop doing coke, so you have to die."
You have no idea what you're talking about. Our foreign policy is largely responsible for farmers in places like Columbia resorting to coca farming in the first place. Columbia was a wheat-producer forty years ago, but wheat production was undermined by the US under the Food for Peace program in the 50s, which flooded Columbia with subsidized agricultural products. Of course, regardless of the name of the program, it is clear we were not really after peace in Columbia. Take one look at our history in the region, including the various banana republics of South America. The U.S. has been a huge force of opposition against democracy. By propping up and supported corrupt dictators, and by giving them immense military aid (Columbia was the largest receiver of US military aid) to fight pro-democracy rebels, many of these countries have been at war for decades. Out of desperation, these farmers plant the one crop that will guarantee food on their tables - and you want to kill them for it.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Hate to say this, but I've seen some of the proposals for FCS, and yes, they do plan on at least partially using Microsoft OS's. (Think CE and 2K)
The script said this wouldn't happen, so the referees allowed the game to continue as if the landing was successful.
That's probably not quite how the matter was dealt with.
When the military, or at least the US military, does one of these exercises, there is a list of training objectives for that exercise that participating units need to meet. During the flow of the exercise, if the BLUFOR (training units) gets creamed unexpectedly by the OPFOR (bad guys) or else something else goes badly, it is noted, and then the exercise moves on so that the units can train the other tasks they have to do. At the end of the exercise, an After-Action Review (AAR) is conducted, where all flaws, failures and mistakes come out in the wash, often brutally so. At the end of all this, the units are sent home with a package of training objectives for the coming year or 6 months, with recommendations on what to correct and what to reinforce.
In all the wargames I've participated in, I can't remember "winning" a single one. They are designed specifically so that a BLUFOR win is very rare, because you learn more by losing.
I have no idea what exercise you are referring to, but in US-run exercises that's how it goes.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Given your unneeded insults, I am hardly surprised to see you post as "Anonymous Coward".
I stand by my earlier contention regarding the designs of the M-16 and the AK. The M-16 is designed to foul the firing chamber. The "gas" you described in lieu of the propellant is produced by the rapid burning of the propellant. Your description reads as if all the gas (and propellant) follow the bullet out of the muzzle. Obviously, a little of it must be tapped off to cause the next round to be chambered. Inevitably, some of the unburnt propellant will even "turn the corner" and come back down the gas tube right along with all that hot gas headed for the bolt carrier key. Yes, any rifle will foul quickly when using blank ammunition, but the M-16 fouls more quickly than the AK because as soon as the rotary bolt rotates and begins to retract, the gas pushing it has an opening to vent downwards into the firing chamber. You seem to think the gas disappears somehow once the bolt begins to retract. As for the Kalashnikovs, I have had a few at different times and have disassembled and cleaned them many times. They definitely have FEWER moving parts than an M-16 and those parts are sturdier and less prone to breakage. I just spoke recently with a former Israeli tanker who said most of his fellow troopers preferred the M-4's because they are lighter and handier than the Galil, but they aren't as reliable- his words. Some troops can live with the occasional jam if it saves them from lugging around an extra two pounds everywhere they go. The thing I don't understand about the M-16 design's lack of a gas piston rod is that we used them on the M-1 and M-14. Hardly anyone complains of their reliability.
Actually, my final qualification on active duty was fired using the same Colt-manufactured M-16A1 I carried to Saudi and Iraq, not an ink pen. BTW, I was picky about getting an actual Colt M-16 when I first reported to my unit.
I only implied that the M-16 had not been copied because I was unaware of any other nation having copied it or produced it under licence. Surely you understand that the ones produced under licence overseas may have been produced for other than strictly military reasons. Politicians and businessmen don't necessarily produce ideal military weapons, especially when their nations are not in immediate peril. Apparently, you are much more of the military firearms expert and I respect that. Just because you are anonymous (for now) does not mean you should be so insulting. Perhaps you view these "anti-M-16 posts" as endangering your livelihood?
In principio erat Verbum.