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U.S. Soldiers Hate New High-Tech Gear
mattnyc99 writes "Land Warrior, the Army's wireless equipment package featuring helmet cams, GPS, laser range-finders and a host of other state-of-the-art electronics, is finally ready for deployment on a global battlefield network in Iraq after 15 years of R&D at the Pentagon. But in a report for Popular Mechanics, Noah Shachtman not only tries on the new digital armor—he talks to troops who don't like it at all. As if that wasn't disheartening enough for the future of tech at war, the real Land Warrior system doesn't even match up to its copycat gear in Ghost Recon 2."
the real Land Warrior system doesn't even match up to its copycat gear in Ghost Recon 2
Well, duh. Otherwise I'd start bitching that my crossbow isn't as accurate at 500 yards as its Half-Life copycat.
Bitching about newly issued equipment is army tradition.
And what the hell does Ghost Recon 2 have to do with anything?
Real life isnt the same as a video game? Then why did I feel so huge after I ate those mushrooms?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of _the_AK-47_and_M16.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So, what happens when
the smart other side captures
one of our soldiers?
Reminds me of Batman Begins quote about the high tech body armor... you know the one.
I sit here racking my brain for why the soldiers are wrong. I think to myself, "hmm, they just aren't used to it. they need to get us3ed to the new equipment."
But then I read that the tracking capabilities can lag up to a minute behind: I certainly couldn't play a first person shooter with a 60,000ms ping - how could this be any less of a problem in real life?
Despite my vehement tecnophillia, I too wonder if this gear is really a benefit.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
This article reminds me of two things:
"It is a hard heart that kills!" - Full Metal Jacket
Hiro turns off all the techno-bullshit. The statistics about his impending death distract him... - Snow Crash
What happens to this whole thing when the batteries die? Or when they have to jump in the water and it shorts out? Or when it just, you know, breaks? Soldiering is soldiering, no matter what technologies you equip your soldiers with. It's about being adaptable, flexible, and enduring. This techno crap isn't really any of those things.
You raise a good point. The enemy could then don the helmet and immediately find out troop positions and other intel. So what are the possible countermeasures to prevent this from happening?
Warface intel is great, but the more widely you make it available, the harder it becomes to contain, pretty much like any other piece of information in society.
"An M4 (I can never figure out the sequence of these numbers) is a good deal tougher long-term than the antique M16."
1 - The numbers are always in order, but every type of object has it's own series. The M16 is the sixteenth rifle adopted by the Army and the M4 is the fourth in a different series. It's a carbine or SMG or something like that.
2 - The M4 is just a shorter version of the M16. The only differences are the buttstock assembly and the barrel/handguard assembly and with the proper tools it takes about 15 minutes to convert an M16 into an M4 or vice versa. If you don't care about swapping the buttstock you can do the conversion by simply swappinng the upper receiver which takes less than a minute and requries no tools. There has been evolution in some design elements but these are also included in the M16s, either when they are purchased new or when they go to an armory for refitting. A current M4/M16 is tougher than a Viet Nam era M16, but there are many current M16s and M4s in use that were originalyl purchased 40 years ago and have simply been upgraded over the years.
3 - Even the original M16 doesn't lack much in durability or reliability. It takes a little more maintenance and is can be more finicky about the quality of the ammunition but when taken care of it is very reliable and those tighter tolerances make for a much more accurate weapon. If I were selecting a weapon to issue to poorly trained conscripts then I'd choose the AK, but for professional soldiers who know how to take care of their equipment the M16/M4 family is the better option.
Who modded that funny? It's NOT funny. It's sad, that all the great volunteer work that went into Linux helps the military. I only hope that what these military in the article say is true: that it will actually hinder them more than help them.
Why, so more soldiers can get killed? And this crap about "great volunteer work" helping the military. Hell, you're using technology that the military helped to create to post your silly rant. Why be a hypocrite, stop using the internet if you think it's a moral issue to mix the civilian and military worlds. What, the internet has gone beyond it's simple DOD beginnings, well the same can be said about Linux as well. The maker of any tool has to be aware that their tool can be used for negative things. Given that, if they still decide to create the tool then they are in no moral position to complain about it.
...is that expensive military gadgets are big business. Spending money on training a soldier, providing good veterans benefits are all right out because this doesn't make anyone any money, but attaching a playstation 3 to a soldier's helmet is a huge contract that someone could make a huge profit off of (and not just in this administration; this has been true since the start of the cold war).
We should be spending money on training and intelligence gathering. The military is suffering from the same tech envy as the rest of the population is suffering, and yet they have no one to be envious of. The enemy can blow up your $100,000 humvee with $5 worth of materials available in a third world country corner store. They don't care how big your guns or computers are. Spend some goddamn money on real intelligence gathering and building knowledge and experience of your troops.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Isn't it sad that people can somehow rationalize that a weapon that was built specifically for killing humans should not be classified as an assault rifle. Even if it was designed to be used while assaulting an enemy. Yeah that's right, you don't need a 600 cyclic rounds per minute rifle to kill a deer. Not unless you are shitty shot or have mental problems where you get your jollies making hamburger while it is still on the hoof.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
From a design perspective, killing a person is not very different from killing a deer.
So, apart from the fact that some guns look scarier than others, their dangerousness has much more to do with the shooter (and the cartridge) than with the furniture on the weapon.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The problem with this system is that it just plain misses the point.
Let's start off with the interface. Why is it hanging in front of half your face? If I'm being shot at, my first concern is going to be shooting back accurately, and if that damn thing gets in my way it's going off and not coming back till after everything is done.
The preferred option should have been a full width half-visor, similar to a hockey visor. See-through (probably slightly tinted), non shiny, not-in-the-way, but if you want data displayed on it, you can use it as a projection surface. Build the projection hardware into the helmet. You don't need much, because really, you don't need full-colour 30FPS.
Now, I do believe everyone should have an earpiece and short-range transmitting microphone built into the helmet as well. That just makes sense.
Video... yes, let's wirelessly link video from your gun into a projection on your helmet. But let's not go adding stuff just for fun. Change up the scope, take it from optical to digital, and in filters for night-scope, infra, etc, display it on a nice small TFT at the back of the scope, and wirelessly send it to the helmet. Now your gun is still mostly the same, but you have this extra functionality without more shit hanging from your kit.
Wires... why the hell does this thing have wires everywhere? They're a hazard waiting for an excuse to fuck you up. The only possible visible wire should be power from the body-mounted battery pack to the helmet. Everything else should be built in surface connections on your armour. A full-function controller on your forearm, powered by a surface pad connection on your jacket, is really the only other thing that should be out.
And while we're at it... is the M16 really the gun of choice for urban combat? The feedback I've had from people who've been over there has been that it's simply too big, too long, for the majority of what they do. It's great to be able to sniper some sucker from 500ft, but when all you want to do is crawl under the jeep, shoot the guy on the corner, then sneak around the corner and shoot the other guys, it's just too long. Let's switch up to a shorter, stockier gun (but with the same ammo, otherwise it's a nightmare). That guy in Israel demo'd the Amazing Folding Gun last year, that's a perfect bet. No need to expose yourself, you can do new and nifty things with it, and having the screen on the back end of the gun means that can be your one main place for information. Power it with contact pads on your gloves, so no wires between you and the gun.
And speaking of information... this is the one part that worries me. You're taking these soldiers, who have to keep their location 100% secret or they die, and sticking a transmitter on them. It doesn't matter if it's encrypted, or if it goes up to a satellite or connects to AOL and uses a Buddy List to update everyone on where you are... it's still putting out power, and it's not gonna take long before someone goes "Hey, I don't need to know what is being sent out, I just have to get a scanner to see if there's any signals being radiated, and from where". Broadcasting your location probably isn't the best idea, it's just a matter of time until it gets you killed.
So what extra EQ do we have here? A visor, small LED projection system, and a mike... maybe an extra kilo? Probably not even. Weight penalties from changes to the gunsight are offset by the new model. Extra weight for the folding stock and screen. 2 kilos, max, but worth it for the functionality. Running all this shouldn't take much, hell, the new Palms have enough processing power. And with such little equipment, batteries suddenly became a whole lot lighter. Now you have a much more effective soldier, in audio communication on demand, and he isn't burdened by 17 pounds of crap that looked cool in 1999.
The focus of this project should have been "Improving the soldier", not "Improving the middle-level managers ability to micromanage". Give the soldier more info, easy communications, better visuals (night,
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I don't see a moral problem with a tool I created being used for war. Everything can be subverted for use in war; what would you do, condemn farmers for making grains that is turned into bread which is used to feed the soldiers which are an integral part of the horrible war machine? War happens, war must be fought effectively, and frankly given that I'm not going to sweat a soldier using Linux in a weapon system any more than a farmer should sweat a soldier having a sandwich for lunch.
I do have a problem, though, with war profiteering. War is horrible, and profiting directly from the terrible suffering caused does create a moral conflict in my mind, especially because it creates the incentive to create more war and suffering. If our government wasn't packed to the gills with former defense contractors, would we be involved in fewer conflicts? I believe so.
From that standpoint, using Linux in a weapon system is a good thing. Some defense contractor didn't get paid billions of dollars to develop an embedded OS for that system. Oh sure they got paid billions for doing all the other parts of the contract, but that's one less way in which people profited directly from war. That's a long way from taking the profit out of the war, but since that wasn't the goal of Linux to begin with, I think all Linux developers can look at this as an unintended positive outcome.
The enemies of Democracy are
Real world use seems to indicate the M16 is better for the grunt on the ground. Look at the videos coming out of Iraq and Afganistan. Listen to the documentaries; there are lots of them. You'll see AK shots landing all around solders, often missing by inches to feet...including from scope based, carifully aimed shots. Meanwhile, the guys with M16's and ACOG are making kills as they return fire with single shots. In closer combat but still not CQC, the kill ratios are still much, much, much higher for the M16. Lastly, in CQC, around tight corners, you'll find grenades have effectively nuked the only serious advantage the AK had. Long story short, the M16 has proven it self to be a better, real world weapon than the AK.
Put your self in a soldier's boot for a minute. Which is more important to you? Hit the threat when you fire, CQC to 400+ yards? Or to kick your rusty weapon and still be able to fire...but not hit anything? The first is what soldiers demand. The second is strictly for bragging rights. At the end of the day, it's the M16 that brings soldiers home and makes for high enemy body counts.
Now then, if you are not part of an organized army and you need your weapon to sit in a cache for months at a time without needing to clean it...suddenly the AK is a better option...but still not a better weapon. For real soldiers in real armies in real combat situations, the M16 is hard to beat. Now then, if you want to talk about modern replacements for the M16, the field is pretty wide.
So, by your argument, we should be regulating deer rifles, not "assault weapons", because deer rifles are more deadly.
My argument is not that one or another type of rifle is more or less suited for one or another task. My argument is that the furor over assault weapons is a manufactured hysteria. One can change an assault weapon into a perfectly legal one by changing the furniture on the weapon, which has little or nothing to do with its deadliness. and much to do with its scariness.
Again: The most dangerous component of a firearm is the person wielding it.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You ask for something that doesn't have a short answer:
I agree, mass killing humans for profit and power is a bad thing. But on the other hand it is human nature. It is an extension of our older instincts to protect and expand our territory. More territory, more food, better chance for survival. The problem is, we don't really need to fight to expand anything any more. We're not likely to starve to death any more. So it is best that we try hard to keep this in check. However, going to war to defend ourselves is perfectly justifiable.
So Afghanistan is an easy one to address. From a 'noble' point of view, we know that their government didn't respect basic human decency and freedoms for one. They sanctioned killing women for things like trying to get an education, reading books, or showing their face in public. From a defensive point of view, the Taliban (the ruling government of Afghanistan at the time) also didn't respect international protocols and basic understandings in that they sheltered a terrorist group (Al Quaida) even after that group admitted to the terrorist attacks against the United States which killed close to 3000 civilians (including other foreign nationals... about 200 Canadians among them). Not only did the Taliban refuse to give up the culprits, they refused to take any actions to punish or even curb their activities. This in itself can be seen as an implicit declaration of war. Limiting the ability of a foreign rogue nation to perpetrate or allow to perpetrate mass killing is a very valid reason for being there. At the same time, schools (real schools not fanatic religious schools for boys only) are now operating again, and basic human rights are returning in a limited way. Maybe not what you want, but certainly better then they were under the Taliban. You might also note, that some of the most active elements fighting NATO in Afghanistan are Arabs, not Afghanis. This is because the Arabs that are there (and not all Arabs in general) are mostly members of Al Quaida who want a return to Afghanistan of a system that allowed them to practise and organize their terrorist activities unchecked. You are very naive if you think dialogue would have changed anything in Afghanistan. Mind you, politicians are naive if they think it will be easy to effect any permanent change there. How do you get rid of a couple millennia worth of warlord mentality?
On the other hand, I already said I didn't agree with the Iraq campaign. It was not really necessary at the time (Hussein's posturing was not really a threat), and draws too many resources away from Afghanistan which was really justifiable. And to top it, they did a piss poor job executing the invasion. Instead of the surge now, they should have had two or three times the troops in the first place; to replace the police that would go missing after an invasion, to guard the weapons/ammunition dumps of the former Iraqi army (which weren't guarded... hence all of the dumps' contents disappeared thus the amount of IEDs), to make sure militias and civil war didn't happen (Saddam was the only reason they didn't have a civil ware before... just like Tito in Yugoslavia... once he was gone, unless there was another iron fist, boom, the country goes up in smoke). Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld really did run the war like a business process. The bare minimum to do the job to keep costs down. Then crow about how successful they were while neglecting the fact that the after implementation support issues were never really thought out since most busines managers all seem to have a 'Pollyanna' attitude. This doesn't mean I don't feel for the troops on the ground who have to deal with the bad decisions of their leaders. And I don't expect them all to agree with me about their leaders either BTW.
On the other hand, Hussein really was a bloody tyrant and his sons were just animals, pure and simple. But maybe that is what it took to maintain the peace there. Anyway, I'm never really sorry to see these kinds of people done in. Personall
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
From a grunt-
I agree wholeheartedly. If we put one quarter as much money towards obtaining better (i.e. lighter, flexible) body armor, boots, and rifles, not to mention nods (the PVS-14's are what, 10 years old?), we'd be in much better shape.
I already hump 65 lbs or so before I even put my ruck on; don't give me even more crap to carry that isn't going to help in 95% of the situations I will face. Seeing around corners with my weaponsight is cool, but it's not cool when the weaponsight is bigger than a thermal scope and heavier to boot. Not to mention the ridiculous wire connecting me to my weapon. I'd rather carry a thermal scope, at least they can see through walls.
Not to mention the fact that any current model of heads up display will get guys killed. Try doing any kind of CQB with that ridiculous stuff on your head. If you have live opponents you'll find yourself dead pretty quickly. It gets in the way and distracts you. Not to mention the fact that the real threats we face on a day to day basis are from things that require our complete attention to detect: IEDs, snipers, and suicide bombers. I don't want to be distracted by the view from my gun's sight or my buddy's heart rate when I'm scanning. Scanning is how a soldier survives. If you're looking for the guy who's on mid-cycle leave from Iraq or Afghanistan, just find the guy who's moving his head and eyes constantly scanning and who gets tense and stops talking in large crowds. We don't need this crap distracting us from our jobs.
Give me the stuff that will actually help. Why does the 5.56 coming out of my personal weapon punch little tiny holes in people at 150 meters when it should make great big ones? Maybe we should fix that instead of spending umpteen billion dollars in order to attach a video camera to my helmet, which is already too freaking heavy. Why does my rifle malfunction if I don't treat it like a beloved little sister and baby it every 6 hours or so? Better rifle technology has been available for a decade at least. why don't I have it? Because we are spending our money jacking off the military contractors.
Hear hear.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Boston was a major source of funds for the IRA, an organisation that went so far as to mortar the then Prime Minister of england Margaret Thatcher.
The united states didn't care when britain came calling. Come 911, suddenly things tightened up.
Does this mean that the united states implicitly declared war on england, only to renounce it after 911?