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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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?

[couchslug]

"Bitching about newly issued equipment is army tradition."

As is issuing bitchworthy new equipment!

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.

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.

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.

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?

[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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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: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.

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,

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: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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.