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."

Comments

Just Like The M16

[CastrTroy]

This sounds just like the story of the M16 vs. the AK47. The M16 is a much better gun, designed to be much more sophisitcated. But in the end, it ends up being worse because tight tolerances cause it to jam up, and require cleaning all the time, where-as the AK47 will fire under just about any conditions. The AK47 is also heavier which is really nice when you get into hand-to-hand combat and you can just whack the other guy with it.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it kind of scare you how much people on Slashdot know about assault weapons?

Re:Just Like The M16

[arachnoprobe]

The AK47 is also heavier...

I suppose you never carried a weapon around for more than 200feet, right? Nobody would choose the AK over the M16 for any foot-based combat.

And lets not forget that you can't fire the AK47 from prone position cause the mag is too long (Soviet doctrine didn't include that, only storming against your enemy...). Also the AK47 is not the same caliber (7.62 short instead of 5.56), therefore the better comparison would have been to the Heckler & Koch G36 - which is, in fact, superior to the M16.

Re:Just Like The M16

[JumboMessiah]

True the AK47 is more reliable, it's loose tolerances will make it fire after being dipped in mud. Being heavier is irrelevant, overall weight savings means a soldier can carry more ammo. In the art of killing humans, I'd take the accuracy of the M-16 anyday.

Or, just check this out and make your own conclusion...

Re:Just Like The M16

[Anonymous Coward]

Tools are tools and what geek doesn't like playing with hardware?

What scares me is irrational people who ascribe human traits to inanimate objects. There's no such thing as an "assault rifle", just assault humans. A rifle without a human can do nothing but collect dust. A human without a rifle can find other tools to accomplish their goals, anything from a primitive club to a hijacked airliner.

Re:Just Like The M16

[shawn443]

I have never fired an AK-47 but I have certainly heard of its merits. The M16 however is an awesome weapon. The sighting mechanism allows me to reliably hit a man size target from 500 yards away. As far as jamming, it rarely happens and they are easily cleared. I have had a sand fucked chamber and it still fired true. As long as you have your handy scrub brush and some CLP, there is no excuse for a jam unless your in the middle of the perfect sandstorm. Maybe I am partial, but if the apocalypse comes and I find a stash of AK's and a stash of M16's, I am grabbing all the M16's I can. I want one shot one kill not spray and pray.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Oktober Sunset]

Yea, but it's all thru counter strike, if they actually saw a real one, they would cry.

Re:Just Like The M16

[UseTheSource]

An M4 (I can never figure out the sequence of these numbers) is a good deal tougher long-term than the antique M16.

Says who? They're basically the same rifle. They have pretty much the same exact receiver assemblies, bolt carrier group and internal parts. All's an M4 is, is an M16 with a 14.5" barrel and a tele-stock (which basically has the same recoil buffer tube as the M16, but without the extra plastic around it to protect it).

Re:Just Like The M16

[UnknowingFool]

The M16 is a much better gun, designed to be much more sophisitcated. But in the end, it ends up being worse because tight tolerances cause it to jam up, and require cleaning all the time, where-as the AK47 will fire under just about any conditions.

That would depend on how you define "better". The M16 is more accurate than the AK-47 but costs more to make. The AK-47 was designed with wider tolerances because the designer felt that most gun battles were at close ranges and thus more rapid fire and better reliability were more important than accuracy. Being from the Soviet doctrine, low cost was almost essential as the Soviet Army could not afford more expensive guns.

Part of the early M16 jamming problem went back to initial manufacturing decisions by the Pentagon. Although the decision to use ball powder instead of stick powder was blamed, many felt that the real culprit was the decision of McNamara and his group not to line the barrel and chamber with chrome. It was a cost cutting decision but by not using a chrome lining, corrosion would occur and would cause jams.

Re:Just Like The M16

[phasm42]

And lets not forget that you can't fire the AK47 from prone position cause the mag is too long

You could try firing it gangsta style.

Re:Just Like The M16

[couchslug]

"One of the bulldozers uncovered the decomposing body of an enemy soldier, complete with AK47. I happened to be standing right there, looking down into the hole and pulled the AK out of the bog. "Watch this, guys," I said, "and I'll show you how a real infantry weapon works." I pulled the bolt back and fired 30 rounds -- the AK could have been cleaned that day rather than buried in glug for a year or so. That was the kind of weapon our soldiers needed, not the confidence-sapping M16."
                                                                  Col.David hackworth

Re:Just Like The M16

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Frymaster]

I suppose you never carried a weapon around for more than 200feet, right? Nobody would choose the AK over the M16 for any foot-based combat.

to be fair, the ak is 9.5lb to the m16's 7.8lb. not a massive difference, and the ak's shorter length compensates for its weight in fast-aim situations.

now, having said that, the m16 has gotten an unfair reputation as a reliability disaster. much of this rep comes from vietnam-era experiences that are 40 years old. the problems with the m16 during vietnam were basically caused by manufacturer's lies and the army's inability to actually read the manual. notably:

• the m-16 was billed as being 'self-cleaning'. sounds patently ridiculous today, but that was the advertising buzz at the time.
• as a result, the army did not issue cleaning kits to ground troops and provided little or no cleaning instruction. this, of course, resulted in total disaster.
• the m16 was tested and spec'd for ammunition made with a particular clean-burning powder (manufactured by dupont i think). production ammunition for vietnam did not meet this spec and was, in fact, significantly more dirty.
• the original m16 spec called for chrome lining of the barrel. production m16's in vietnam didn't have this resulting in some pretty spectacular corrosion

add to this the fact that the finniky m16 was being used in an environment that was humid, hot and dirty and... well, failure was inevitable.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Hijacked Public]

The better comparison would have been the AK74. Almost identical mechanically to the AK47 but in a closer caliber.

Most of the serious consideration the US armed forces have given to replacing the M16 and its variants have been along the lines of what is essentially the same rifle but with a gas piston driven recoil system (HK 416), instead of dumping combustion gas directly into the receiver. That indicates the general design of the thing can still compete with stuff rolling off of drawing boards today.

The G36 may look cool, but it has definite drawbacks, not the least of which is a relatively unproven polymer receiver. It isn't common but sustained fire, particularly with a suppressor attached, can damage it. The zero of the weapon will shift, or it can melt enough to render the thing useless. That and no one trusts polymer magazines in a rifle yet.

Re:Just Like The M16

[arachnoprobe]

Ummmm...quite a few organizations have chosen AKs over M-16s. Not just communist countries either. The AKs (there are several different models) are far superior to MacNamara's camel.

Sure - because you can buy the AK47 everybody can buy from his Uncle's cousin Oleg Gregorianovich and where he would not get the M16 from Uncle SAM.

That is actually another aspect of the AKs that make them superior. The 7.62 millimeter round is slightly larger and heavier than the 5.56 millimeter M-16 round, but this is good. The 7.62 millimeter round is the old "NATO" round from the Korean conflict. There's a LOT of ammunition floating around in that size. Try finding suitable quantities of 5.56 millimeter ammunition if you have an AR-16.

Wrong. The AK47 uses a special "short" version of the 7.62, so you can NOT your your standard machinegun ammo like with the H&K G3. And every single one of the newer NATO-Country rifles (Steyr, Enfield, H&K) are using 5.65 now.

Re:Just Like The M16

[eodtech]

The M-16 family of weapons is far superior to the AK-47 family in just about every way. The M-16 is modular in design, much better ergonomics, longer ranged, leaps & bounds more accurate. The M-16 initially had issues with reliability when it was first fielded due to DoD being cheap, they didn't chrome-line the chamber and the propellant used in the ammunition had Calcium Carbonate in it.

The Chrome-lined chamber had been a mandatory requirement as it was learned during WWII in the Pacific theater that ammunition left in chamber for extended period of time would get stuck in a non chrome-lined chamber, the McNamara crew thought this was needless waste of money. Until chrome-lined barrels came to replace them, it became Standard Operating Procedure to discard the chambered round on a daily basis.

The Calcium Carbonate was added to reclaimed propellant by Olin (recycled propellant from older ammo), again a "cost saving" program from the McNamara crew. Calcium Carbonate very rapidly would foul the M-16's gas system, it should be noted if the AK used ammo with the Calcium Carbonate in the propellant it to would jam the AK's gas system.

As far as cleaning the weapon wether it is an AK or an M-16, the user needs to keep it clean and that is done daily or more so depending on the conditions. The AK will jam just as easy if it has been neglected. Also other things can lead to "Jamming"; bad magazines, bad lot of ammunition, etc.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Hijacked Public]

More recently a lot of troops are being issued M4s. Its shorter gas system appears to be less reliable, in large part because combustion gases have to much less distance to travel before being dumped into the receiver.

Much of the work to replace the weapon revolves around a minor change to the receiver. Making the combustion gases drive a piston that unlocks the bolt. Sealing the gases out of the relatively delicate internal goings on helps a lot, especially on full auto and burst fire weapons.

The other end of why people think the platform is unreliable is because the M4's rail foreend allows a person to defile an otherwise light and quick handling rifle by clamping lasers and lights and night vision and cameras and scopes and pinball machines to it. Now, instead of a properly balanced 8 lb rifle you have an 8 lb rifle with 30 lbs of gear hanging off the end of it.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Hijacked Public]

Thats AR-15.

And while ammunition prices have skyrocketed recently, mostly because the US military has purchased the entire output of most of the major manufacturers 5.56, it isn't hard to come by. Ammoman has been able to keep a steady supply of Wolf, usually has various Lake City products, SS109, etc etc.

Also, most US brick and mortar shops (Wal-Marts even) will have larger stocks of 5.56x45 than 7.62x54R.

Re:Just Like The M16

[theshowmecanuck]

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.

Re:Just Like The M16

[jandrese]

I've often thought that Gangsta Rap singers have done the inner cities load of good by teaching urban punks that holding the gun sideways is "cool". That has to have gone a long way in reducing shooting fatalities in the hood by making it impossible to aim the gun properly. Plus, it should increase the number of incapacitating but non-fatal arm/shoulder wounds and save lives.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Moofie]

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.

Re:Just Like The M16

[XenoRyet]

I think the point was that assault requires intent. The intent lies within the person, not the rifle.

A person with no intent to assault anyone isn't going to do any harm to humans simply because they possess a weapon that can fire 600 rounds per minute. True, they don't technically need it either, but simply having it does no harm.

Re:Just Like The M16

[hayden_l]

While I technically don't need 600 cyclic rounds per minute to kill a human either, the extra firepower would come in handy when I need to stop a rampaging herd of deer.

Re:Just Like The M16

[chuckymonkey]

Two pounds is significant. Have you ever cleared a building with one? Why do you think we all went to the M4? It's smaller lighter and much better for urban combat due to its weight than the M16. I have carried both and even though the M4 is just a shorter lighter version of the M16 with a stock that collapses I still prefer it in the urban environment because of the weight. Also desert dust is ugly to firearms like both of them, that's why I had a can of WD40 with me, best thing for cleaning them that I ever found.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Matt Perry]

You could try firing it gangsta style.

Is that with your hands in the air like you just don't care?

Re:Just Like The M16

[theshowmecanuck]

I think the point was that assault requires intent.

I agree with that. But I think it is fair to say that the intent of the makers of the weapon was for it to be used in military assaults. The AK-47 and the M16 were made specifically for the armed forces of their countries and for export to the armed forces of other countries. So calling them assault rifles is justifiable. Just because a person doesn't want to use them in an assault doesn't mean they weren't made for that purpose. BTW I spent 5 years in the armed forces (infantry), and believe in the mission in Afghanistan. Iraq is another matter entirely... I back the troops 110% (they are allied brothers in arms). It doesn't mean I have to back the politics behind their deployment.

As a note, I find target shooting enjoyable, but don't own a weapon (I really have no need for one). I don't hunt, but don't have a problem with hunters... as long as they use as much of the animal they kill as possible. Just taking a head or the skin if B.S. if you ask me. It's also OK if there is a need to manage populations that might be getting out of control due to man's influence. As a matter of fact, I think it is probably a good thing for all meat eaters to either go hunting at least once (where a kill is made), or work at an abattoir for a day. I think that people are too disconnected from reality of where our food comes from and that *really* understanding that we eat other (formerly) living things makes us a bit more human. Just my view... and I used to maintain the computer systems at a place that killed 3500 head of cattle per day for about a year. I still eat meat!

Re:Just Like The M16

[iamwahoo2]

I hear that the AK47 is the absolute best for firing bullets straight up in the air during celebrations and protests.

Re:Just Like The M16

[norton_I]

The design considerations for a gun to be used in hunting, military action, and law enforcement are all considerably different. It isn't so much a difference in the target (medium sized mammals are all the same), but the goal, the environment, and the acceptable side effects.

For instance, the AK47 and M16 would make poor deer hunting weapons because they have low stopping power (your deer is likely to run off out of sight before dying) in burst fire mode, multiple hits are likely, which is bad if you actually want the meat or hide, as well as making it somewhat more dangerous to fellow hunters.

Regardless of the technical definition of an assault weapon, the guns most often labeled as such were clearly designed for attacking groups of human targets. It isn't always cut and dry, since as you say the round makes a considerable difference in the performance of a weapons. That doesn't mean there is no distinction.

Whether or how to regulate weapons of all types is a much more complicated question, but to argue that there is no distinction between handguns, hunting rifles, and assault weapons is simply ignoring the truth.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Moofie]

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.

Re:Just Like The M16

[archen]

Well I wouldn't say the M16 exactly qualifies as "awesome" but it is adiquate. Well the starting with the A2, the A1 while fun on full auto was hard to keep from lifting. But if you read the other posts there is a common theme with reliability. As you say CLP does wonders but what happens when you run out? The AK47 has practically no limits to what it can take. The M16 is a weapon that is set up much like the modern U.S. army : an armed force that expects that it's supply chain will always be there, and will always be able to get required goods eventually. If we ever get into a REAL war again and things really go in the crapper, an M16 would become much more of a liability.

Re:Just Like The M16

[theshowmecanuck]

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

Re:Just Like The M16

[hayden_l]

I've never trusted those deer. They're always twitching their heads around and looking over their shoulders all paranoid like. If they weren't up to something, why are they so nervous? Just never sat right with me.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Tickletaint]

Hahaha, yeah! Because the targets of violence are criminals too!

Except they aren't. Your comment only makes sense, even tongue-in-cheek, if you consider those who live and work in close physical proximity to these "urban criminals" of yours, criminal themselves. And what could be behind such an attitude, I wonder? Hmm?

Good grief, you're disgusting.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Walt Dismal]

Not just Slashdot -- Fry's salemen, too! From the article: "Land Warrior was saved only by a crash 12-week program to replace military-spec equipment with commercially available technologies, including parts bought off the shelf from Fry's Electronics, the big California consumer retailer. That lowered the price and weight dramatically..."

Top Five Best Things About Buying Military Supplies at Fry's:

5. It's fun to ask new hires who don't speak English, so you have to explain with sign language that you want some grenades.

4. The MREs are in the grocery section next to the chocolate candy.

3. Asking the TV department clerk "Is this thing bulletproof?"

2. The clerks will always try to sell you an extended warranty on your amphibious assault vehicle

1. Fry's will always refund your returned goods with no argument even if there are body parts inside the box, and they NEVER check before they reshelf the item. And that is how I came about to own this Nvidia card, and a human liver...

Re:Just Like The M16

[funkdancer]

Great post, very insightful. Thanks for taking the time!

Re:Just Like The M16

[norton_I]

The 2nd Amendment in the US Constitution is not there to protect the rights of deer hunters.

Agreed. And I never even implied it was. The discussion was on whether categories of firearms are sufficiently different that we might make a legal distinction in how they are treated. The answer to that question is unequivocally yes. Whether we need or want to make those distinctions is up for debate. My feeling is we should.

Incidentally, in my opinion, the discussion about whether or not the populace should be armed or not was resolved to my satisfaction more than 200 years ago, and it's been downhill since then.

Luckily nothing has changed in 200 years.

People going on shooting rampages is terrible, but a statistically insignificant effect. However gun crime on the whole is absolutely relevent to the discussion of whether and how the populace should be armed. It is not the whole story, but if you insist it is not part of the story, you are a moron. Self defense is another important issue, and protection from tyrannical regimes is a factor, if somewhat theoretical in modern America. Protection from invaiding forces, as in a well regulated militia, is a nice idea, though I think we have that covered pretty well. The practicality of trying to get guns away from would-be criminals rather than merely taking them from honest civillians is another thing we have to deal with. Gun safety and training. The list goes on.

Re:Just Like The M16

[Reziac]

While I'm all for meat hunting, do remember that even if the hunter wastes most of the kill by leaving it lie in the field, there are a whole bunch of critters who'll come along afterward and think, "Cool, free lunch!"

Speaking of disconnected, I've met two people here in SoCal who did not grok that beef comes from cows!!

Re:Just Like The M16

[mlush]

What an excellent way to boost moral

Re:Just Like The M16

[westyx]

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?

Shock! Horror!

[FuckTheModerators]

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.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually.... yes, it does run Linux.

Huh?

[stratjakt]

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?

Re:Huh?

[TubeSteak]

Bitching about newly issued equipment is army tradition.

That's true, but here's the basic question being asked FTFA:

"Army program managers are questioning Land Warrior's most basic premise: Does every soldier need to be wired?"

And if you get to the second page of TFA, it seems like the answer is "no".

Re:Huh?

[couchslug]

"Bitching about newly issued equipment is army tradition."

As is issuing bitchworthy new equipment!

Inexperienced Users + High Tech =

[AbsoluteXyro]

Pissing and moaning. This isn't even remotely surprising. I don't believe Land Warrior is the holy grail of high tech combat in the digital age, but I believe it will prove itself a great asset when troops know how to use it, and use it well.

Re:Yeah...

[seriv]

Look at the first picture in the pics section in the first article listed. Tux sits proud in the top left corner of the boot up screen. So I believe the answer is in fact yes. I suppose the BSOD is even worse when you can actually die as a result....

Get the basics right first

[EmbeddedJanitor]

All this money/effort going into high tech ignores the most basic points: soldiers would rather have a reliable rifle and body armor than all the geek toys in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of _the_AK-47_and_M16.

Re:Get the basics right first

[lordholm]

I have served in the Swedish army, and what you say is not related to the position that I was in, e.g. a lot of night operations in small teams. While there are a lot of situations where the land warrior is virtually useless, there is a ton of them that are extremely useful.

I would take the situational awareness factor from the land-warrior system over better body armour and a more reliable rifle. Firstly, our rifles are already reliable, and secondly the plates in the body armour stops armour breaking rounds. The SA bonus from the land warrior system would be an extremely valuable asset.

From your comment I doubt that you have ever served in any armed force unit.

Re:Get the basics right first

[c6gunner]

Nonsense. We DO have a reliable rifle and body armour - better than any army in history. Do you have ANY idea how much more effective a basic rifleman is when you give him a bore-aiming ability? Ask anyone pinned down in a firefight, and they'll gladly give you their right nut for the ability to aim around corners. And don't even get me started on the advantages of accurate IFF devices, encrypted communications, and easy navigation. We've been looking forward to this technology for a LONG time.

Re:Get the basics right first

[timeOday]

soldiers would rather have a reliable rifle and body armor than all the geek toys in the world.

Better go back and take away all their radios, GPS, and night vision goggles then.

On the inevitability of this being used against us

[Haiku 4 U]

So, what happens when
the smart other side captures
one of our soldiers?

Much worse than Ghost Recon 2

[Anonymous Coward]

And what's worse is the Land Warrior system uses the system BF 2142 added to deliver in-battle ads even during firefights! No wonder the grunts hate it.

Geek fashion?

[Kelbear]

I want that eye monitor thingie so I can pretend to be borg. Please?

Re:Geek fashion?

[plasmacutter]

it definitely goes with the US's militaristic style... "we are the united states, you shall be assimilated, resistance is futile"

Murphy's Laws of Combat

[rsmoody]

20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
...
35. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
...
37. Interchangeable parts aren't.
...
43. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.

My own: Any unneeded component of a weapon will be quickly removed and thrown in the nearest ditch.

Re:Murphy's Laws of Combat

[CowTipperGore]

20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder. Perhaps that was true in a bygone era. Today's version would be:

20. Never forget that your weapon is made by little kids in China contracted by a subcontractor of the highest campaign contributer.

You were using what for a can opener?

[Luteus]

As my old man (US Army retired) would say about any new military infantry technology more complex than a rock, "Give it to the average grunt and he'll find some way to break it."

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're at it, let's get all the other obligitory comments out of the way:

I for one welcome our new fighting cyborg overloards

-and-

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
It would be like an army!

Does this equipment stop IEDs?

[arcite]

Economies of scale? In Iraq the insurgents can use a weapon that cost maybe $100 to destroy equipment worth a few million.

Reminds me of Batman Begins quote about the high tech body armor... you know the one.

Re:Does this equipment stop IEDs?

[NeutronCowboy]

[blockquote]We could have won already if the rules of restraint weren't there.[/blockquote]

What you, and everyone who thinks along these lines, don't understand is that all military conflicts are by definition political. Not only that, but you also fail to define "won". In military terms, we already won. We just failed to keep the peace in Iraq.

Re:Does this equipment stop IEDs?

[Chris Burke]

What you, and everyone who thinks along these lines, don't understand is that all military conflicts are by definition political. Not only that, but you also fail to define "won". In military terms, we already won. We just failed to keep the peace in Iraq.

Yes, exactly. Especially in a conflict like this the goals are political and you cannot separate the military methods used from those goals.

I have no doubt that the rules of engagement hamstring soldiers in life-and-death situations, and result in insurgents escaping. The thing is, in any situation where the soldier actually has a potential target, they're already way ahead of the game. When the IED goes off under the HUMMWV, when the suicide bomber in the buick blows up the car at the checkpoint, who exactly is the soldier supposed to shoot at? The guy looking around the corner? He could be the trigger man, or he could be an innocent bystander, or he could be a lookout working for the insurgents. You can't figure that out after the fact.

The real problem in Iraq is a failure of intelligence. We have no insight into the workings of the insurgents, we have no ability to infiltrate them without the explicit help of the local population, and they simply are not helping us. The local population, even the ones who are glad we invaded and took out Saddam, even the ones who look forward to a stable democratic government, are not truly on our side. They don't see us as helping, and so they aren't helping us. Does anyone think that showing less restraint, being less selective about who we shoot at, is going to convince them to aid us?

You see the same thinking -- that having less restraint would have turned a loss into a Victory -- about Vietnam. But really the fundamental problem was the same -- when it came down to it, the people did not support us, they undermined us. We won every battle, but lost the war, simply because it wasn't the battles that were important. We could have "won" if we wiped out every village the VC had ever been seen near, just like we could "win" in Iraq if every time an IED blew up in a neighborhood and nobody told us who set it off we leveled the entire town. We'd absolutely never have the people's support, but we could "win" according to a goal post that has nothing to do with the reason our troops were there in the first place.

I think the key learning here is that there are types of conflicts where our military and our political reality make victory nigh impossible. We are not willing to wipe out whole populations in the name of "freeing" them, ergo we will fail in the face of any long-term insurgency that has a substantial degree of support among the populace. People who want to "win" by reducing restraint want to "win" by changing the name of the game from "free" to "wipe out". You could do that just to claim a victory, but that's like changing a losing game of Hearts into 52 Card Pickup -- you "win" by losing the real game even worse.

Lag kills.

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

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.

Techno-bullshit

[igotmybfg]

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.

Re:Techno-bullshit

[vertinox]

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.

I think you might miss the point. Technology is made to expand fire power or force extension.

A soldier who relies on good soldiering by poor technology will still be defeated by a bad soldier with exponentially better technology.

Even if the bad soldier's technology of breaks and the low tech soldier kills him, there will be another bad soldier with good technology to replace him. (ie... Soldier with AK47 kills soldier whose GPS has failed, but other solider aware of battle calls in air strike from a warship 150 miles away killing the AK47 soldier)

Rate of failure is consider part of the casualties which is actually the deciding factor in warfare more so than good soldiering and good technology.

Example: German soldiers in WWII did not loose because they were not as good soldiers or had bad gear (which in reality they were often better soldiers and had better technology than their counter parts) but rather they were simply unable to replace their losses both in manpower and their gear.

Hence, which is why the Pentagon is trying to come up with autonomous solutions as quickly as possible. I suspect by 2020 we will have Bolos running around on the battlefield and talking about "what the grunts" want will be a moot point because if you simply can replace your casualties with an assembly line... Well you can simply out build the enemy regardless of how many casualties they inflict.

Imagine if you will an Iraq war in which the insurgents could not kill a single American soldier because they were simply all in bunkers somewhere controlling their military units. A bloodless war (at least for us) in which the politicians wouldn't have to worry about people voting out of office for too many casualties.

Re:Techno-bullshit

[timeOday]

Soldiering is soldiering, no matter what technologies you equip your soldiers with.

No. If that were true, there would be no radios or rifles, much less airplanes, tanks, bombs... Either you really think gung-ho soldiers with nothing but pointy sticks can win, or what you really meant was "good tech is good, useless tech is useless," which I certainly agree with. Native Americans (at least some of them) were plenty adaptible, flexible, enduring, hard-hearted, whatever. There's a limit to the odds you can overcome with true grit alone.

William Lind Article

[sesshomaru]

William Lind had an article on this just today:

On foot, American soldiers are loaded down with everything except the kitchen sink, and they will probably be required to carry that too as soon as it is digitized. To use tactics of encirclement, you need to be at least as mobile as your enemy and preferably more so. The kind of light infantry fighters we find ourselves up against in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan are just that, light. They can move much faster on their feet than can our overburdened infantry. The result is that they ambush us, then escape to do it again, over and over. Flip-flops in the alley beat boots on the ground. -- A Tactics Primer, by William S. Lind

Basically, the kind of gear a soldier carries affects the kind of small unit tactics that can be used, and in this situation mobility is the most important thing. Unfortunately, the army is currently stuck on Second Generation tactics rather than Third Generation tactics.

Re:William Lind Article

[glwtta]

What they need to do is develop phasers and matching skintight pajamas, so they can go directly to Next Generation tactics.

WiFi!

[ShorePiper82]

So what happens when the insurgents are in a building with a high power antenna and net stumbler and pick up 16 access point SSIDs named "Linksys Soldier"?

Re:WiFi!

[zymurgyboy]

If they were wandering through my neighborhood, I'd log into them with the default admin password and do them them kind favor of putting them all on separate channels so they don't step on each others' signals. SOP, right?

Not Suprising

[ObiWanStevobi]

It's change. No one likes drastic change. When we turn filing cabinets full of paperwork into databases, people complain, even though it is much faster, and should make their job much easier, they don't like it and complain that it makes everything more complicated. To the point where you make a dumbed down interface for it, they will still complain. After several months of being forced to use it, they start to love it. It just takes a while to get over change.

Although I'm not sure the same will apply with the Land Warrior System. It's more gear to lug around, and it adds more complexity and responsibility to individual soldiers, rather than making things simpler for them. But seeing how it can give them alot more info that will help them survive, I still think it will catch on fairly quickly.

Training Gadgets

[Oktober Sunset]

The US army should spend less money on gadgets and more money on training their troops for longer rather than sending barely trained recruits straight into battle zones.

War games vs. Video games

[vivaoporto]

War, since the first Gulf one, is becoming a big Live Action video game. Us vs. them, real time coverage, lots of gadgets, wireless, unmanned, "intelligent" weapons. That helps a lot to detach people from the reality of the war, canceling the natural effect that would naturally arise, now that it is possible to show the war in all its ugliness, all its gore.

People, including we tech people, should not fall for the siren song that is military technology. It is all advanced, "cool", state of the art but, no matter what is the justification (or rationalization), killing people is never beautiful, and, as opposed to video games, real people have families, sometimes are innocent and never respawn.

Now, when governments begin to create super-cool gadgets that actively save lives, it is something worth. Better body armor, a force shield, not getting involved with foreign countries for fun and profit, etc. And by "actively", I mean something different than saving lives by getting enemies to be identified and "neutralized" before they can act. Because, as most occupations in the past and present centuries shows, sometimes the simpler and less detectable device (be it a grenade bobby trap in the jungle or a roadside bomb on Iraq) can be the deadliest.

I was part of Landwarrior Development

[dptalia]

And that thing is heavy! Add to that 70 pounds of body armor and you can barely move. And it's slow and distracting. You can't go into a firefight while wearing one easily, and sending messages - one of its most powerful features - is clunky.
That being said, it's still pretty darn cool and I've met several soldiers who love it. It's not perfect and I think it still needs a generation of two before it's really combat ready. But the Striker Brigade that took them to Iraq is generally positive.

Re:I was part of Landwarrior Development

[dptalia]

How is it this Land Warrior has gone so far backwards?
Unfortunately, the Army has a LOT of hardiness requirements that slowed Landwarrior down. Mind you, if you want to swim in a swamp for five hours while using your computer, you can do it. But... That adds a lot to the system's weight and size.
I agree, the eye piece is one of the weakest components of the system - not just because it obstructs you vision but the extra unbalanced weight on your helmet causes discomfort and poor fit. Why we're using that over anything else, I don't know. The contracts had already been awarded by the time I joined up.
Wireless is out due to security/hardiness requirements. It actually took several years to engineer those cables. The connectors have to handle water, sand, and all sorts of much. The cables are shielded to prevent EM leakage. And theoretically (I left before any testing) the whole setup is EM hardened.
All this adds up to something bulky and heavy. And, because the specs are defined when the request for proposals is sent out, by the time the actual system is implemented everything is out of date.
On the good side, this iteration of Landwarrior is WAAAAY better than the previous one. Another couple of iterations and it should be really usable.

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[Radon360]

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?

1. Integrated biometrics so the system only works with the soldier to which the system was issued? Sounds good, but probably buggy and adds weight/expense. What would prevent the captor from detaining a soldier and coercing them to tell them information? I suppose they could be trained to give spurious responses.
2. Soldier login and quick disable feature? Might work if the soldier is able to deactivate the system (i.e. still alive, ambulatory). Requires the soldier to remember to deactivate in the heat of the moment.
3. Remote disable? This would rely upon an effective means of determining that an authorized user is in possession of the equipment.

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.

Re:money

[Archangel Michael]

You obviously don't know the proper role of the Military, which is the KILL people and BREAK things. Quite frankly, I want them to be the most efficient in these tasks.

On the other hand, they should be last resort ...

Profit!

[mgemmons]

1. Shoot US soldier
2. Don his high-tech gear
3. Turn on map locator showing his whole squad
4. Profit!

Heavier? No, thanks.

[Kadin2048]

The AK47 is also heavier which is really nice when you get into hand-to-hand combat and you can just whack the other guy with it.

No, no it's not. Heavier = bad. An infantryman can only carry so much shit around, and we've pretty much hit that maximum right now. Any weight you add in a personal weapon is going to have to be cut somewhere else, or else you're going to affect the speed and mobility (not to mention comfort) of the soldier carrying it around.

You're going to make a trade-off somewhere. If you can make the rifle lighter, speaking as someone who has carried one (along with an additional 75 pounds of crap), make it lighter. If I wanted to beat someone in the head with something, I'd use an entrenching tool, or some other more appropriately club-shaped and -weighted object. They're not exactly in short supply.

And I don't have any statistics, but I'll bet that the number of times that rifles are used as clubs in modern combat is pretty low. I don't think it's really an important design criterion. I think most soldiers would rather have the additional weight in ammunition, rather than just in simple mass that's only useful if the enemy is a few feet away.

Re:Heavier? No, thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had this discussion with a serving soldier. He told me, "look - every 60g extra you make this thing is another Mars bar I can't carry". He wasn't joking.

Re:Sweet! No depth perception!

[zymurgyboy]

Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer! Is everything okay?

From the soldier's mouth:

[Digital Dharma]

I'm a soldier. 25B, to be exact. Those of you serving will instantly recognize that nomenclature as an MOS designator. In sum: my job. I run networks and computer systems for the Army. Being a soldier means that sometimes I get to maintain networks and networked systems while being shot at or blown up. I use the same equipment you use, I just use it a little harder than you do. Dell, Cisco, Windows XP, Sandisk, etc. Yes, we even use Solaris (and yes, it still sucks. 6 minutes to boot a combat system that soldier's lives' depend on is, how should I put it, a really *BAD* design). No, this isn't an endorsement. My feelings towards the brands are irrelevant. If I get back from a convoy or a patrol alive (and I've done plenty of both in Iraq), then my gear did it's job. If my gear keeps me from maintaining control of a situation, I die. You might get a reprimand at your job for failing, I get shot full of holes in mine. I can tell you that the Army did the same thing with the FCS program as it did with other, equally worthless combat systems: Spent years catering to and blowing defense contractors, who are all too happy to hoover up every dollar they can get their filthy hands on. With projects running 5-10 years, it's not hard to see why the top-of-the-line solution (you reading this, BFT programmer? I will CHOKE YOU OUT you if I ever see you in RL) becomes a flaming sack of crap by the time it gets to the soldiers. Seen it quite a few times, and I'm not looking forward to all the hand-jobs my chain of command will be giving the embedded defense contractors when they finally come to my unit with all that shiny new junk. Just give me my M4 with an M203 (oh, by the way, can I PLEASE get some rounds for that 203? It's eight pounds of deadweight without them) and a PLGR and I am good. I've been in some very, very tight spots on the streets of Baghdad, and I can tell you firsthand that the *LAST* thing you will do when you are getting shot at is looking at a Gameboy-sized screen to see where your buddies are. You'll have eyes on them, believe me. You won't let them out of your sight.

The Armed Forces don't need all this gadetry. If they really want to attract the Nintendo generation soldiers we have these days (while getting, ahem, the most bang for their buck), they'll build Robotech style Mechs and a bunch of remote controlled dronebots and send them in to the slaughter. The days of the individual soldier are coming to an end. Too bad the "romance" of Point Du Hoc and Hamburger Hill combined with squad-based infantry tactics (everybody loved Saving Private Ryan, right? Right!) keeps the old men who run the whole thing from just accepting reality, getting an AOL account so they can see what the world is really like these days and cutting off the leeching defense contractors who take a million bucks to duct tape a thirty dollar Logitech webcam to the front of an outdated semi-automatic rifle. Iron Thunder.

Re:From the soldier's mouth:

[c6gunner]

Hello 25B. 031 here. If you don't want your "gadetry", I'll take it off your hands any day.

No offence, but if I want an opinion on combat tactics and equipment, I don't go asking network administrators. I'd come to you if my e-mail wasn't working, but otherwise....

Re:From the soldier's mouth:

[iamwahoo2]

The Leaching Defense Contractor?

I think that you mean "the customer". You see, a lot of defense appropriations is not intended to buy stuff that the warfighter wants. It is to buy stuff that the senator/representative wants, and the reason that he wants it is because the contractor that makes the particular part happens to reside in his voting district.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one...

In Soviet Russia, high tech gear hates YOU!!!

16 POUNDS!

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, even with a day pack, if you're carrying full ammo load, some extra frags and a pop-top launcher, plus the usual gigo stuff they load you with, you'll be sweating to the moldies with that much extra weight.

I used to hump 70 kg (that's 150 pounds, boys and girls) as a combat FN C2 gunner in a combat engineer unit, and we were insane. In the heat, the kind of extra weight that 16 pounds adds is enough to get you killed.

That plus you're already in full record mode in battle, with too much info to figure out.

The only thing that even makes sense is a very light optical cam on the helmet (built-in) and mike, feeding in to a microradio and with a mini earpiece so you can hear (and promptly ignore) the CP orders that have zilch to do with the situation on the ground.

Some CQ REMFs must have thought this payload up, cause it's only going to get more of us killed and feather the retirement nests of the upper brass that have us in an unwinnable war.

Nuff said.

SNAFU.

Re:16 POUNDS!

[shadowspar]

Your microcam/mike/earpiece setup idea is bang on. Ten years ago (ten years!) when I was in, a few arty batteries tried the microradio thing. They picked up a bunch of cheap-ass headset radios from Radio Shack, and used it for passing bearings, communicating during firefights...all the kind of stuff we'd usually be yelling back and forth for. The things weren't high-tech, weren't encrypted, in fact they weren't even waterproof as shipped, but almost everybody still thought they were the best things since sliced bread. They weighed next to nothing, were easy to use, and didn't require taking your hands or eyes off anything. That's what you call "appropriate technology".

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yeah...

[Frostalicious]

I only hope that what these military in the article say is true: that it will actually hinder them more than help them.

What the hell? Do you want to disband your military or something? Where does this come from?

Re:Linux? Are they daft? No, they be smart.

[WillAffleckUW]

Damn stright they run Linux. I can see it now:

Load weapon. Do you want to permit or deny this application? Yes, YES!

I'm sorry, I can't permit you to load your weapon if you don't answer properly ...

*SMASH*

works fine now.

Fundamental problem with Military and business

[hellfire]

...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.

Wow. Just wow.

[Xthlc]

Check out the screenshots. A GUI? A fricking email application with drafts, multiple mailboxes and priorities? A fully editable map?

This is a classic example of badly conceived and designed IT implemented by indifferent lifer government contractors working off of ridiculous 2000-page requirement docs instead of, you know, what troopers actually need. They spend all their time on jamming in 800 features that will never be used, and let the fundamentals (battery life and system responsiveness) go to pot because they don't show up in the demos.

Map with location icons. Gun camera. Simple broadcast texting. That's all you need. Instead some clueless program manager decided it was critically important for a tactical rig to have all the features of his darling Outlook.

Re:Wow. Just wow.

[Jesus_666]

Hey, mission goals are way out, man. Nowadays you send a meeting request, touch base at the checkpoint and discuss the milestones and deliverables for the mission, then you get everyone on the same page regarding the proactive go-forward approach to leveraging the squad's synergies in order to own the challenge in a results-driven and success-oriented way. And when taking action, don't forget to keep each other up-to-date with the occasional memo.

Really, the only thing this lacks is Web 2.0 features like gradients, rounded corners, flashy JavaScript effects and a blog.

Unsurprising

[DerekLyons]

Having actually served in the military (unlike many Slashdotters), bitching about your gear is an old and honorable prequisite of the soldier, sailor, and airman. (That is bitching among yourselves or your bretheren. Outsiders and those senior to you get, unless the seniors ask specifically, the standard "works fine, lasts a long time, drains to the aft missle compartment bilge" routine.)
 
From TFA
 

"It's just a bunch of stuff we don't use, taking the place of useful stuff like guns,"

 
I heard this pretty much every time new gear came to the boat. It was never as useful as the old stuff, and breaks more often too. (Sometimes, _very_ rarely, it's actually true.) Sounds like a Seargeant that needs to be busted and someone who will do the job put in his place. The job of a Sgt. is to teach people how to use and integrate the gear into their tactics. If his people don't or won't use the gear - it's his job to find out why, and report the same up the chain.

Re:Unsurprising

[El_Oscuro]

How true, even for 74 Foxtrot (Computer Programmer/Analyst). In basic, my contraband Walkman held up quite well (Sony actually made good products then). My POS M-16 didn't. The frickin lower receiver broke, and since it was all one piece, they had to get me an entirely new weapon. At least the new one didn't jam all the time. In AIT (computer school), I bitched all the time about having to program in COBOL and JCL. At my first duty assignment, I bitched about having to use an Apple II instead of a C-64, which could render the radar images a lot better, and so on throughout my time of service. Now, as a civilian, I bitch about having to use Windows. Some things never change.

from my personal experience...

[rmac1813]

the 'bluefor tracker' (blue-force tracking) system works well when it works. however in a fast paced environment most units in the army don't have time to make it work correctly 100% of the time. this being said i cant see a more advanced system even remotely being useful on the battlefield. from the 15 months i was on the ground in iraq we used blufor tracking maybe 4/5 months for missions. the other 10/11 months it was either not working correctly or wasnt working at all. i can totally relate to having extra and seemingly useless equipment to carry. i dont think "land warrior" will be any better.

Noise canceling headphones

[protolith]

Noise canceling headphones rock!

I have a set, they amplify ambient sounds (crunch of gravel under foot, whispers, vehicle engines in the distance)and clip the amplitude peaks of loud or sudden sounds.

You can hear whispered sighting instructions yet protect your hearing when you squeeze the trigger (muffled boom) and right back to whispered conversation.

Re:you don't say?

[PygmySurfer]

So, they should use Macs? :)

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[vertinox]

So, what happens when the smart other side captures one of our soldiers?

1. Someone in a bunker monitoring the soldiers head cam pushes a button.
2. Solider explodes.
3. Word 2007 automatically prints a mail merge form to soldier's family expressing condolences.

I was Infantry

[s2jcpete]

I was an 11B. I humped 80+ pounds whenever we went to the field. We would carry 3+ days worth of MRE's, personal ammo, water. We would split up the radio operator's spare batteries. The spare ammo for the 2 M-60's our platoon would carry. We would carry IV bags, medical supplies, spare clothes. Demolitions, Rope.... the list goes ON AND ON. Point being, when all this crap added up you barely had enough room for spare socks.. forget a sleeping bag, even in 32 degree weather. Now... on top of all that, they want you to hump a helmet camera? a small back mounted pc? They better include a powered exoskeleton because there is no way that is going to happen in any realistic combat scenario.

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[c6gunner]

You're an asshole, but I couldn't help laughing :)

Oh, just wonderfull....

[bryan1945]

I did a small part of the reqs for the network-centric part of the system. Without more detailed info, I can't tell if they took all of my team's recommendations or not. It seems like it does what it is supposed to do, but really badly. This is sad, because we were excited that we could really help "the grunts", as an ex-tanker put it. We really tried to make a good system, and it looks like the implementation got blown.

Makes me embarrassed.

Maybe they should get Apple design the UI

[arcite]

They could call it iKill. It would be functionable and lickable too!

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[timeOday]

So, what happens when the smart other side captures one of our soldiers?

How does that not apply to every other weapon/intel in existence?

Missing the point....

[Cervantes]

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,

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[darkwhite]

How about: the system turns off if any component is disconnected or removed from the body, and requires a code to log in when turned on? Sounds easy enough to me...

Re:Unsurprising, but not as you would think

[WillAffleckUW]

Well, I served as a Sergeant (Army). The job of the Sergeant, at least in my units, was to make sure everyone was effective and on-mission. Gear that gets in the way is useless. Ditch it until you need it for another mission, back with the ruck.

I heard this pretty much every time new gear came to the boat. It was never as useful as the old stuff, and breaks more often too. (Sometimes, _very_ rarely, it's actually true.) Sounds like a Seargeant that needs to be busted and someone who will do the job put in his place. The job of a Sgt. is to teach people how to use and integrate the gear into their tactics. If his people don't or won't use the gear - it's his job to find out why, and report the same up the chain.

Wrong. The problem is it gets into the way of doing the job. You already have an extra load for the body armor, the ambient heat is off the scale (Iraq), and they want you to carry more that gets in the way of doing the job? Just look at the flip visor - can't be flipped up, makes you sweat more, makes it hard to use your rifle (unless you fire mid-waist and miss most of the time), and it adds more info than you can handle.

Minimal feedback - think like the mini-map in WoW - something small and unobtrusive out of the main field of vision, in case you get lost or turned around. Same for the camera - downsize so it's a mini-cam like in your cell. Same for the headset - all you need is a micro bud that hangs off your earlobe. That would cut the weight - plus the weight of the batteries - way way way down.

Eugene Stoner designed M16

[charnov]

Eugene Stoner designed the M16 and saw service with the Marines during WWII. He was a professional design engineer with Colt and also designed the current Marine Sniper rifle, the Mk 11 Mod 0, through Knights Armament.

The M-16/M4 vs AK-47/74 pissing contest...

[Savage-Rabbit]

You'd be surprised how much a few oz feels like it weighs after 20 or so miles through brush. The M16 is a decent weapon today.

Most of the high tech crap is just one more thing that breaks when it counts though. One could turn that argument around couldn't one? You'd be surprised how little you mind a few extra grams when it means your AK-47 bullet can shoot through things an that will stop an M16 bullet. Comparing the AK and the M16 is really a bit like comparing a lynx with a dog, they are both predators but fit into somewhat different niches. The M16 has more accuracy, is more ergonomic, it's slightly lighter and kicks less. The AK has more penetrating power due to it's larger bullet, it's harder to fire from a prone position and it's less accurate but it will fire after you have filled it with mudy water and driven a truck over it (i've seen that done). Out in the open the M16 is better due to being more effective at long range, in any other situation I would pick the AK and there are AK variants with considerably better accuracy than the mass made early Soviet stuff (let's not even get into the frighteningly badly made Chinese knockoffs). I have read a number of AK-47 vs. M16 pissing contests. M16 fans argue it's lack of power doesn't matter because that's what squad machine guns and vehicle mounted .50 cals are for. Well, you could make the same argument about the AK, squad guns and opposing vehicle mounted guns (14.5 mm KPV?) although the AK's inferior long range performance is obviously goning to hurt you in non CQC situations. One final advantage of carrying an AK-47 is that you can get them very easily on the black market and you are much more likely to run into an opponent that also uses the AK than you are to run into an opponent that carries the M16 so using the AK increases the odds of you being able to recycle captured ammunition and even captured weapons. That may not matter the the US Army which sometimes seems to have unlimited financial resources but it matters to many other armies. I do agree with your opinion of high tech crap even if it can be useful when it's working properly which is not as often as the Pentagon would have us believe.

Re:The M-16/M4 vs AK-47/74 pissing contest...

[GooberToo]

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.

Re:The M-16/M4 vs AK-47/74 pissing contest...

[exi1ed0ne]

I have read a number of AK-47 vs. M16 pissing contests.

I really wasn't trying to turn it into one. The M16 is a decent weapon, so is the AK47. Which is "better" will depend entirely on the mission. We would actually dismount our M2s sometimes. Now that's a heavy pig to carry, even with three guys. (barrel, ammo, housing/tripod) Although I've toted some heavier firepower.

It's all about what you are trying to accomplish.

Re:The M-16/M4 vs AK-47/74 pissing contest...

[bossesjoe]

Keep in mind that when you're comparing AK-47s, you need to think about the country of manufacture. A Soviet built AK-47 is going to be a much more accurate weapon then one put together in a sweatshop in the middle of south Asia. Then you have to think about the fact that US trained soldiers are quite possibly the most accurately trained soldiers in the world compared to many home trained insurgents who receive little to none firearms training. Where I grew up we used .22s to kill rabbits. Now I know the difference between a rimfire cartridge and a .223 Remington but you're going to get very frustrated the first time you shoot somebody and they don't go down, or the next time four times after that. The nice thing about the 7.62 Soviet cartridge is that if you hit a dude in the leg chances are that you're not just going to get some muscle damage (as you might with a smaller cartridge) but you're going to shatter his bones which means he can't move. Nobody complains about the accuracy of the 5.56 NATO but what the problem is stems from variable terminal ballistics, particularly at ranges under 200m, where the round is unlikely to fragment. The 7.62 Soviet bullet on the other hand won't have the terminal velocity that you would want for longer range combat such as over 600M. But we all agree the perfect round would be the 6.8SPC.

Re:The M-16/M4 vs AK-47/74 pissing contest...

[dbIII]

Then you have to think about the fact that US trained soldiers are quite possibly the most accurately trained soldiers in the world compared to many home trained insurgents who receive little to none firearms training.

The Russians said that about Afganistan too - and found the enemy had both more weapons training and more combat experience. Also consider that the broad focus of training over a fairly short time in the US military is likely to mean that guys that only drilled a lot to shoot things are going to be more accurate with the same sorts of weapons. The thing that makes the Taliban frightening is they have spent their entire lives at war and they ran an entire country along the lines they had learned in the brutal refugee camps where they grew up.

Re:Yeah...

[Chris Burke]

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.

Re:That's disappointing?

[LinuxDon]

I know that comparing paintball with real combat might be way off, although it made me realize how much war would suck.
One thing I really missed during the game was oversight, not knowing the position of my teammates and the current status. Only turning your head to check could get you shot.

I believe the high-tech equipment would solve that, I can imagine this would save a lot of lives. As for the weight issues, I assume it will be solved in later versions.

I still can't say anything good about the American system of forcing civilians to fight a political war in a foreign country. Considering the amount of soldiers dying there I am extremely glad to live in a country where there is a volunteer army.

Soldiers' actual comments

[commodoresloat]

One soldier picked up the helmet cam and said "What? No wireless?" Another said "this thing has less space than a nomad!"

In combat, every piece you carry has to serve YOU

[Opportunist]

The average soldier carries not just his gun and a helmet. There's food, medical equipment, ammo, more ammo, even more ammo, some grenades, spare parts for your technical equipment (like batteries for your radio junkie or another barrel for an MG), the list goes on. You haul around a few pounds and usually you already wonder where to put it, not to mention where the jeep is waiting to haul that junk around.

Every single piece, though, is there because YOU will need it. It will serve you to stay alive. It will kill your enemy, it will give you a chance to survive 'til help comes around in case you get shot, it enables you to call for help in the first place. Every piece has to be "worth" its weight.

8 pounds doesn't sound like a lot (hey, my laptop weighs more with ist case), but you don't just carry 8 pounds around. You carry that on top of the other stuff. As everyone who's into hiking will tell you, 8 pounds more or less carried over 30 miles means a sizable difference. Don't believe me? Try it. Take your laptop to work with you and walk that last mile. Then do it without. You WILL notice a difference, trust me!

So that equipment has to be "worth" those 8 pounds. Its value comes supposedly from additional information. Like what? Position of your buddies? You better know that anyway or what the hell are you doing there without proper training? A map? Nice to have, but useless in a firefight when you have better things to do than looking at a map. And maps weigh less. What's worse, either feature would distract you from what's happening right in front of you.

Even those amongst you who never had any military training will know that when they've been playing some shooter game with a built in map. Do you have time to ponder the directions on the on screen map when people are shooting at you?

What COULD be a leap ahead would be some kind of "target marker" that designates an identified hostile, not on some map but right on your visual arc. This in turn is near impossible.

So I can well see why soldiers aren't too happy with it. It means that they either have to leave 8 pounds of equipment they need behind or haul around 8 pounds more. And for what it seems, it's 8 pounds that don't really add to their efficiency in combat.

Possible solution?

[Darthmalt]

Sensor that triggers if helmet is removed that performs a quick lock. Entering the correct password returns to normal function. Entering anything else sends out a notification to command that the equipment has been captured. Command can then send false information to it.

assault rifles are a compromise

[Anonymous Coward]

Assault rifles came about as a compromise with cartridges, logistics (how many rounds can you hump and keep supplied to the front). The military wanted something with the firepower of a subgun, which typically used pistol caliber cartridges (typically 9mm or .45 for small example), but they needed it to be controllable and powerful enough to use out to 300 meters or even better, and full sized battle rifle cartridges (typical ww2, 30-06, .303, 8mm, etc) that had that range and a lot more were found to be not very good in full auto in a hand held weapon, at least to issue to your general grunt as the basic infantry weapon. Hence the compromise cartridge, then they designed guns around that concept. Nowadays they are even thinking of going smaller, to 17 caliber to replace the .223 or to something around 7mm to replace the .308 for the squad autos)(BTW, the ak with the 7.62x39 is plenty good enough for whitetails, it has more or less the same ballistics as the classic "deer harvester" 30-30). Of the two I would say I prefer the ak over the 16, all things considered.

    Part of it also was they (they being most militaries) stopped emphasizing marksmanship as much (plus none of them get raw recruits in huge who had already accrued rifle training and experience coming in like they used to in the olden days), they wanted something they could issue to pretty raw recruits that would be effective enough for the situation even with just an hour's indoctrination into basic handling. Either of those two rifles fit the bill in that respect, the ak or m16, they are designed to be more or less idiot proof given at least marginally consistent ammunition.

    Interesting little point, the soviet rifle before the ak was the sks, which is a greatly scaled down anti aircraft weapon.

With that said, and given I own or have owned "all of the above" and more, I would prefer a semi auto shotgun for close range, and a heavy bolt gun for most other situations when it came to self defense. I like to shoot the "assault" guns, but seeing as how I have no helicopters airdropping me the ammo, I prefer the bolt gun with very expensive glass and actual thought about placed shots. To each their own, all these various guns have a purpose, and self defense against badguys of any kind is as legit as any other.

Re:Yeah...

[couchslug]

Theo de Raadt:

"But software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia."

        * cvs@openbsd.org mailing list, May 29, 2001

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt

Future weapon...

[Sol31337]

A transmitter for a wireless network is on the soldier's body armor, broadcasting encrypted signals for up to a kilometer.

I'd like to introduce my new antipersonnel rocket, with a targeting range of up to a kilometer.

Re:From the developer's mouth:

[Anonymous Coward]

>(you reading this, BFT programmer? I will CHOKE YOU OUT you if I ever see you in RL)

Yeah, I'm reading this.

I didn't work on BFT directly, but did write a lot of the code for the system it's built on (FBCB2). We saw the Land Warrior system in the early days and we knew it wouldn't fly. Nobody was really listening to us back then either.

Before you start your bad-ass kung fu shit choke move on me, let me point out a few things:

1. We (developers) don't get much of a choice *most* of the time on some of these projects. PHB's exist in the defense world just like they do in the Real World [tm].

2. We KNOW some of these systems are huge steaming turds. We don't like them either but we do what we can to make sure they work and are as useful and reliable as we can make them. You can afford to not sweat the details writing a game. You can't in real life.

3. We also operate under a fog of war. Information doesn't flow down to us most of the time. Decisions get made by higher ups and we hear about them sometimes days before we have to ship. We do a LOT of guessing on what YOU need and how YOU will use the system. It sucks but think about how bad they would be if we didn't.

4. We realize that lives depend on them working properly. I personally have had to work on code for fixes that were needed immediately out in the field (Afghanistan, initial Iraq invasion). We've pulled all nighters to get the patches out that were urgently needed for a mission.

For the rest of the slashdot crowd:

Yes, we run linux. Be grateful. We used to run SCO.

Re:Just Like The *Flush!!*

[theshowmecanuck]

Soylent Green anybody? :-P

US Army: I disagree

[Gregoyle]

I'm in the US Army, and I agree. I'd like to have *lighter* body armor with flexible plates that cover more of my body, a more reliable rifle, and better issued boots.

As far as night operations go, the only thing I wish we could get is a set of nods that aren't as long as a toilet paper tube and don't look like you're looking through one. If we could have nods that covered both eyes like a pair of PVS-15's and were only 0.5-1 inch long I would be ecstatic.

Soldiers don't like the Land Warrior setup because it sucks. It's big, heavy, unreliable, battery powered (which means you need to carry spares) and distracts from the real threats to our soldiers, i.e. suicide bombers, snipers, and IED's. You need all your senses to find these before they find you, and having a display in your eye telling you where your buddies are and what the ambient temperature is just distracts you from the things that are actually important.

Situational awareness is exactly what suffers here. You may know where people are and what their heart rate is, but you don't realize that the guy over there isn't holding a video camera, he's holding an rpg.

Hear hear!

[Gregoyle]

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.

Re:you don't say?

[McFadden]

It seems to me that some of the ideas are just fundamentally flawed and not based on everyday experience. I know for a fact that when I'm walking down the street, listening to my i-Pod, I'm less attentive to what's around me. Even crossing a busy road requires a certain amount of extra care because I don't have the aural feedback to help me position the approaching traffic, that my ears would normally provide. And that's in a civilian setting with nothing other than speeding cars to threaten my existence.

If I was ever to find myself in close-combat where I was engaging a bunch of enemy combatants in a kill-or-be-killed situation, I'd want full possession of ALL my senses. Having my buddies voices buzzing away in my ears would be the first thing I'd want to shut off.

The human body and it's capabilities are the products of millions of years of evolution and refinement. This kit is just a few years old. Personally I'd rather trust what nature gave me.

I've used this: you're wrong.

[Gregoyle]

I LOVE new pieces of gear. I'm willing to accept a few flaws and glitches to get a better set of nods, and I love finding new gadgets to try on my rifle. I've switched weapon sights many times as new technology came out and loved each new one.

I have also used the Land Warrior system. It just plain sucks. You can see some of my other posts in this topic if you want more detail but the short list is: it's too heavy, it's unreliable, it attaches your weapon to you, it's WAY too complicated for the average soldier (it's too complicated for me, and I run OpenBSD on my home system, imagine what it's like for the guy whose only email account is his AKO and he has only accessed it once when someone walked him through it), and it distracts you from the things that will get you killed.

I'm not your regular technophobe soldier, but I want a piece of gear that I know will work and won't distract me from the fight.

This isn't just bitching about new gear; this is stuff that will sit at the back of the supply cage and be brought out only for command inventory.

Re:On the inevitability of this being used against

[radtea]

How about: the system turns off if any component is disconnected or removed from the body, and requires a code to log in when turned on? Sounds easy enough to me...

Sure, because additional systems designed to lock out users never cause actual problems in the field...

Re:Yeah...

[jhol13]

Soldiers??? Do you have any clue who gets killed in modern wars?

Re:Yeah...

[MrNaz]

I always knew Theo had it in for us!
- Concerned Australian

This is gonna suck.

[Bucky340]

Oh Dear GOD this is gonna suck. Don't get me wrong, I love gadgets and new tech, but the battlefield is not a place I want it. But I guess if I'd had mp3's and a digital player in 1990, the first gulf war wouldn't have sucked quite so much! But seriously, I can't believe the ever increasing demands place upon the common grunt. When I talk to my friends still in service, it seems like they're constantly having new crap to tote and maintain and not lose, because goddammit, you signed for it! ughh. But I'm a luddite when it comes to soldiers gear. I don't even like optics on a rifle. Plenty of range time is all you need to be familiar with your weapon. Iron sights just kind of sit there small like in your view of the world--they don't force you to see it spearately. Just my two cents. I know range time is expensive. I was a driver for my first sargeant for a couple of months before I got out, and he was amazed and somewhat troubled by my preference to not use night vision when there was a good moon. I just liked having a little bit of depth perception. I do like GPS--it's a freaking miracle tool, for soldiers and farmers and surveyors and every joe on the planet! I like modern textiles that keep you warm or cool, dry and windproofed--i kile it when your crotch doesn't rot away! And I damn sure like the new body armor. Now that's a place where R&D could pay off even more. Keep making it lighter without lessening protection. And for God's agnostic sake, don't make the next rifle heavier and bulkier! Sorry for the rant...

Re:Yeah...

[bkr1_2k]

"Force-on-force the US Army is incredibly effective, but playing insurgent-bait sucks."

A lesson most of us with military backgrounds learned from Vietnam. Somehow the current administration didn't get the memo though.