Slashdot Mirror
Navy Unveils Polyglot Chat For Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "According to ScienceBlog, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, trying to keep friendly armies in Iraq from accidentally blowing each other to smithereens, is helping create software that connects instant messaging (IM) with machine translation (MT). The result: Chat software to be used in Iraq that automatically translates your messages into the correct language of the reader, called the the Coalition Chat Line - it's 'getting rave reviews from U.S. and allied-coalition personnel.'"
Here I found the link to the slashdot story.
Well I translated it to German using the fish and out came "unsere Truppen sind Ihr links, das Feldubungen 24 bis 48 Stunden lang tut, missachten bitte feindliche klingende Gerausche waehrend dieser Zeit" (umlauts adjusted), which, some broken grammar aside, describes completedly what the english writing sender intends to do and what he is asking from his hypothetical German colleagues.
Translating it back returns "our troops are it left, which do field exercises 24 to 48 hours long, ignore please hostile sounding noises during this time"
Instant messaging was a vital communication method during the Iraq war. I was recently involved in a privately-funded study and interview series on the Iraq war.
Ground-based voice communications were poor during the war because forces moved too fast and were too spread out for the out-dated ground-based voice network to catch up. One of the most vital communication links then became the satellite based instant messaging feature of the vehicle-mounted Blue Force Tracking system, which tracked force locations with a GPS and satellite uplink, and provided unit location mapping.
There were many stories of guys in tanks who's only communication link with command at times were their Blue Force Tracking instant messaging system. IM isn't just for 16 year old girls anymore.
Blue Force Tracking, though not widely enough deployed, was one of the biggest technological successes of the war, and was directly responsible for the almost perfect friendly-fire record in the war. The instant messaging feature was practically an after-thought, but we were very lucky we had it, even in limited deployment, and it proved itself as a mature war-time tool.
Conversely, the 507th Maintenance Company incident, where Jessica Lynch was captured, could have been prevented if they had the Blue Force Tracking system. They were last in a convoy and fell behind their convoy a couple miles, at which point they lost radio contact, and didn't know the exact convoy route without the convoy realizing they had fell behind. Now the first and last vehicle in an Iraq convoy is almost always equipped with a Blue Force Tracking unit so that the convoy leader immediately knows of a straggler and is always in communication with them via instant messaging.
Braddock Gaskill
someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls
I know it's hip to denigrate the education levels of the US military, but you couldn't be more wrong.
DoD has established a floor of 90% of recruits have HS diplomas.
The Army and Navy meet that 90%, the Marines at 95%, and the Air Force at 99%.
The military takes in very, very few Tier II (GED) or Tier III (non GED or non diploma) recruits. And those people must score at least in the top 1/2 (Army & Navy) or top 1/3 (USAF) on the ASVAB entrance exam.
And the typical 18 year old (brand new E-1 or E-2) is not at the controls of that thing by himself, if at all.
Two harriers and at least one helicopter
Got any further info on that? Because no, there was no British helo shot down in OIF by a Patriot.
March 23 - Tornado
April 2 - Possible F-18 Hornet
Patriot destroyed by F-16 after it locked on to the Viper