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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."
But can it play networked Pong?
to the phrase "Blue Screen of Death" doesn't it?
I'm glad to see they are going to get rid of the M16. Hopefully they'll replace it with something that's a bit more reliable. Having your rifle jam after a swim is not a feature.
It does sound like a video game.
I wonder if the "network" keeps track of Frags?
How Now Brown Cow
Maybe now we won't be firing at ourselves the majority of the time. ... unmanned drones and vehicles will be?
CE
Sarge: "Dang, that remote works well."
My blog
They may finally be able to avoid too many civilian casualties and "friendly fire", wouldn't they ?
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
This seems to be just your average pork barrel gee whiz military contracting.
suddenly I feel very tired
Definitely too many things to go wrong! GPS and heartbeat maybe, so they know where to collect the bodies?? But relying on all that electronics makes grunts too vulnerable to EMP. There's no substitute for a reliable weapon in the hands of a well trained soldier.
...Dolph Lundgren and Claude Van Damme.
IPv6, once known as "Toaster Net", has officially been renamed "Bullet Net". Every Bullet will have it's own IPv6 address, built in webcam, Fly by Wireless, and will automatically check to see if there is any beverage left in the coffee pot / coke machine.
"Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their fingers" (non-mutant, non-mutilatated, human computer scientists)
If I was a soldier, with the current state of technology, I wouldn't want any sort of automatic tourniquet built into my clothes. I'd rather bleed and wait for the medic.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
Woefully under equipped tatty soldiers in 3rd world countries with 40 year old weaponary in 2011 ?
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
It freaks me out a little bit, why should a country that is allready so powerful still invest so heavyly in arms. who needs these arms? what for? There is nobody strong enough to challenge the US and nobody will be in the foreseeable future.
As a non american i feel threatened.
Am i to be 'liberated' next?
US forces are starting to look like Imperial Storm Troopers? Well, they already aim pretty lousy... That was a start, this is just the finishing touch I guess.
Hate me!
I seem to remember seeing this hashed over various times in the past. It sounds great and all, but when you give all this crazy crap to a marine and ask him what he thinks, he says "This is 27 pounds I *don't* need." (Well, he may not say that if his CO is around, but that's what he's thinking.)
Technology is great and all, but until they can pack it all down to a few ounces, I really don't see it taking off. Every soldier knows how much burden something like just an extra pound adds to a pack. It can really make a difference. In the end it seems to always come down to the battery. They can shrink LCD screens, keyboards, earpieces, whatever. But to have a useful lifetime they still need a heavy battery pack and I think that's what's really holding this back.
The military is all about "total information access" or whatever they call it. But in fact, sheer information alone is useless. I was at Quantico a few years ago presenting a research project and during a presentation, the director of this program emphasized that current technology gives them boatloads of data, the rub is in making sense of it and presenting in a useful way -- both to the soldier and to the people at base camp (or whatever.) So just strapping a GPS module, encrypted digital radio, digicam, etc. on a soldier's back isn't neccessarily useful for anyone involved. Somehow you've got to figure out how to make it all useful.
Imagine half the US army's uniforms activating their automated tourniqets at once, whilst it would no doubt be hilarious to watch it probably wouldn't do them much good
Extended Warranty? How can I lose!
...None of this is going to do much against terrorist attacks.
The most high-tech component will be the helmet, with tiny, built-in cameras to spot enemies lurking in the dark or concealed by bushes. The cameras' images will appear on semitransparent screens attached to their helmets.
Sweet! Wall hacks for US soldiers. What else will we learn from counterstrike and quake 3 kids?
Then comes a uniform with built-in tourniquets that one day might be tightened and loosened remotely.
Bored Soldier: Base I'm bleeding bad, I need my "arm" tightened.
Base: Our sensors show that isn't your arm.
Why is there no SEP(Somebody Elses Problem)-field included in this nice suit?
ouch - this is really bad for the eyes.. Zaphod
But still, they all died. Except for Ripley of course ;-)
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.
As mentioned in "Encounter at Farpoint". If the uniforms can monitor health and apply tourniqets, it is only a small step to being able to administer pain relief medication and then go even further and supply a surge of adrenalin immediately prior to battle, followed by a sedative once fighting has ceased.
What's your rank and unit soldier?
Corporal, 1055 Berserker Division Sir.
============
Political Correctness is doubleplusungood.
DO you think it would allow the soldier to put their own skins on the enemy. Make them look like they are wearing a purple pokka dot bikini or something...
but seriously how about not putting the money into armies and not having wars.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Welcome to two new high level members of the Army:
General Protection Fault
and
Major Error!
And good luck to their subordinates.
Yes, you are right there. -- Another glass of champagne?
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.
I think you're trolling but I'll respond. A bullet is a bullet is a bullet. In 2011, 40 year old weaponry will be an M-16 / M-60 / AK-47 / AK-74. Last time I check those weapons fire projectiles that will kill a human being. I'm pretty sure the same results will happen 8 years from now too.
The point is not to worry about future opponents, the point is to be modular, to quick deploy and to be tactical - all at the same time. Send soldiers to police a public demonstration in NYC, equip them with body armor, gas mask and non-lethal projecticles. Send soldiers to police Baghdad, same equipment as above but include lethal projecticles, GPS with maps and translation software.
Rangers Lead the Way!
America's Army home page.
Rangers Lead the Way!
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
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.
At first the military would teach soldiers to be soldiers, and the gear would be supplementary, but it would most likely end up like every other technological advance. One day our soldiers are almost 100% reliant on the gadgets, at which point we are almost completely vulnerable to some sort of electronic attack that leaves us with a battlefield full of soldiers getting picked off like fish in a barrel because they have lost their technological crutch.
I am wondering if having everyone and everything automated and wirelessly networked is a hot idea. A technologically adept adversary could take advantage of this fact and, say, feed false info into the system, or order an air strike, remote acivation of the automatic tourniquit(sp?) system, what have you. Even if they didn't hack the system a captured unit might be just as good.
The reason that Baghdad isn't a parking lot, like Grozny, is that the US military "spending every now and then billions of $ for developing new army technology." Ask the Chechens which enemy they'd rather have, the Americans, or the Russians. I'll guarantee they'll pick Americans. We spend billions so we don't HAVE to flatten cities to achieve victory. That "helps people" not get killed.
Derek
In a press release... Microsoft Corp announced today its DirectX 12 MilSpec API renamed DirectWarfare including the new
DirectFCS (fire control system) and
ActiveWarhead
seamlessly integrated in the new Microsoft LookOut Below communications software.
Where do you want the bombs to fall today
Finally we figure out how darth vader chokes one of the commanders.
"donÂt underestimate the powers of the force"
While pressing the neck tourniquette of one of the commanders with his remote.
In fact, power storage is really what is hampering any major advances into the portable, semi-autonomous electronics. Wireless phones, laptops, robotic flies, cybersoldiers, etc. -- we need some sort of a major breaktrhough in power storage until we can produce actual designs as opposed to mockups that you need to plug into the wall socket.
>|<*:=
I do worry that these new computer-enabled combat suits would fail in a spectacular fashion if methods of generating a strong electromagnetic pulse is factored into the equation.
For example, a bomb with a big capacitor inside surrounded by a jacket of carbon filaments could send a shockwave of EMP that will disable any electronics within a couple of hundred meters of the explosion point. And of course we know what happens when you detonate a nuclear warhead at high altitude; I believe that one Soviet tactic during the initial phases of a nuclear war was to use obselete but still large SS-9 rockets that would detonate their 25 megaton warheads about 200 to 400 kilometers off the ground over enemy territory, which would create such a strong EMP shock it would wipe out everything electrical underneath the explosion point.
It's simple, but nobody wants to believe it: War is the health of the state. War is the single most effective way to increase the power and scope of government. History has proven it time and time again. The government which can successfully make a business out of war is the government which enjoys nearly unlimited power over its people.
We need to realize that government is a business. Like any business, government's objective is to serve its own interests: to profit. The main difference between government and private business, which most people don't realize, is that government is the only business that may "legally" initiate force as a business model. This is exactly why government MUST be strictly limited in power -- abuse of power is not just possible, it is inevitable. As the saying goes -- power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The only solution to this problem is to apply strict limits on the scope and power of government (as the founders proposed) -- a solution which directly conflicts with the objectives of those in power.
Speaking for the Marine Corps... Shit breaks. A lot. A common joke in the Corps is if you put a couple marines, naked, in an empty room with three steel balls, one ball will be eaten, another broken, and the third lost. STuff like this... bad news.
Give these systems to Marines at CAX, and give them an order to see how easy it is to break. I guarantee you the failure rate will be astronomical. Don't field it to regular forces until the Marine Corps cannot break it any more regularly than they can the current gear, AND don't field it until the weight is brought down.
The article mentioned lower weight... Quite a bit of a combat load is things like tents, shovels, extra uniforms, socks, another pair of boots, food, water, how does this system propose to deal with that? Especially with the requirement to carry spare batteries. What I read of the article, the equipment this stuff replaces is not any heavier- the gear involved in this is a fraction of a real combat load. IT might be significantly lighter for a heavily armed sentry, but for an infantryman in the field, any gain would be marginal, and not worth the greater potential for failure. The OICW is about twice the weight of an M-16... Even if the overall system weight is less, thats still double the weight on the arms in combat. Anyone who has used the M-16 in rifle PT knows how quickly even a lightweight rifle can become extremely heavy.
Military forces do best when they stick to simple gear that gets the job done. Aviation and naval forces may be able to get away with more complexity by the nature of their jobs, but the basic infantryman doesn't have time to worry about all that crap. Field simple to use, lightweight, and reliable gear and go out and raise hell. Thats how the infantry wins.
When I was a grad student, I did some work for an Army project on building some of the biosensors that would be included in future uniforms. The organization I did the research for was working on biosensors to measure heartbeat (I did some work on the microcode) and was attempting to build a hypothermia/shiver detector (that I was doing most of my work on).
:)
We were experimenting with placing small devices that measure acceleration in various places and attempting to determine from a frequency-time analysis (i.e. imagine a frequency spectrum vs time) using neural networks and wavelet analysis to try and differentiate between the acceleration profiles caused by walking, running, moving, etc vs shivering....
The alternative was to stick a small thermometer up the soldier's "rear" which I don't think anyone wanted
Evolution: love it or leave it
An AC wrote:
You, and all those like you, are wrong. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights enshrine free speech and dissent as the right of every US citizen, and the basis of freedom. Without free speech, there can be no free country. And don't give me this "wartime" idiocy. If dissent during wartime was unAmerican, then sign Abraham Lincoln up as unAmerican. He dissented during a war, from the Senate floor.
You might want to do some reading to brush up on what is and isn't "American". I would suggest the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, president John Quincy Adams' speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, and Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus" (Lady Liberty).
I don't know about the other poster, but I will only be happy:
From someone with a better grasp of what America is all about:
John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821