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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."
I've been seeing a _lot_ of articles and "special features" lately about The Weapon and The Soldier of The Future. I can't help but be reminded of the pro-army propaganda in Starship Troopers (the antiwar movie, not the conservative novel). The Future Soldier that CNN is featuring somehow reminds me of a wimped-down version of Heinlein's powered armor suits.
There have been many instances of media covering the weapons of the future (I submitted a story on future robots a couple of weeks ago); what I'm worried about is why that focus is there. Are we getting ready for a long series of wars, ones that we expect to last until at least 2011, when these super-wired Counterstrike uniforms will come into service? That's kind of scary.
(sorry for the blatant US-centrism)
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
I can't see how using an arcade joystick with big blastic ball on the top would be helpful in any way in the operation of the joystick of the F-14's HOTAS. Moving an arcade joystick teaches as much about a flying an aircraft with its joystick about as much as moving the stick shift in your car. It'll teach you how change direction, but not what the castle button on the top of the F-14's stick does when pushed in the N direction, or even the fact that pushing the stick forward makes the aircraft pitch down and side motion controls roll.
As for the connection between AWACS and sonar operators learning how to read their screen by arcade games, I'd say that you're vastly underestimating the complexity of said military applications. Since when do arcade games use the same symbology, labeling conventions and settings as radars? How could staring at a bunch of pixelated space ships help in reading a waterfall display on a sub?
The Quake thing is kind of true- a modified version of Doom was used for reaction training, and now a system based off Operation Flashpoint is in development. Based off of it, but still heavily modified.
Might I ask whether you have any references for your other claims?
The only games I've found to be similar to military activities are the ones that actually try to portray it realistically. Even with those there are significant sacrifices made for gameplay or development reasons.
The last (almost) global empire, the Roman one, did think the same thing. They thought their legions were unbeatable by anyone in the world, so they just didn't care about improving it, and the number of logionaires was at an all time law by the end of the 5th century. They were still the greatest army in the known world, and unbeatable by any other army.
Then in the winter of around 495 the legions of the Rhine and Danube fronteers just saw something strange. Hundreds of thousands of people were camping in the borders of the rivers. But not Soldiers. Not young and strong man. But Old men and women and children...
As soon as the rivers got frozen by the lower winter temperatures, they just crossed it. Thousands of people, unarmed, weak, starving. And the legions could do nothing, even with better equipment and better training and all the money Rome spent with them. There were simply not enough of them to stop thousands of "civilians" to invade the empire.
I guess the US are just not willing to incur in the same mistakes as the romans did.