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A Marine's-Eye View of the Networked Battlefield
Ian Lamont writes "Tyler Boudreau, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq and a blogger, has written an interesting analysis of the impact of email, IM, and other digital devices upon 'ground-pounders' and their commanders in the field. These innovations were introduced in hopes of increasing situational awareness, rapidly gathering data, analyzing it, organizing it, and then pushing it back out to operators as actionable intelligence. They also provide commanders with the freshest possible information and aid them in their moment-to-moment decision-making. However, Boudreau found that the technologies can lead to micromanagement and deep frustration, trends that he illustrates by describing a shooting incident in al Anbar and its aftermath. He also warns that soldiers can become too dependent upon headquarters for critical decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations when communications get cut off."
I have an idea, lets put nano machines in all of our soldiers so we can control them even further and make them even better! Squads can work more as a team because they see the same things and if one is hurt that all feel it to lessen the pain. Also, lets repress the acts of violence they commit with these nano machines. Just don't turn them off. I hear war weighs heavily on soldiers hearts.
NO WAY!
My experience with StarCraft, a 'real-time strategy' simulator, taught me that micromanagement was the KEY to winning!!
E-mail? Text messages? Anyone running a raid knows that everyone has to install ventrilo.
An old joke from my Navy days might help illustrate what you're talking about:
One day, a CAPT was walking across a parade ground, when he noticed that a flag had wrapped itself around a flagpole. Spotting a nearby LCDR, he called out, "Commander! Get that flag fixed!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the LCDR. Looking at hte flag, he couldn't figure out to accomplish the task. Spotting a nearby ENS, he called out, "Ensign! Get that flag fixed!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the ENS. Likewise, when he looked at the pole he could no way to safely climb up and fix the flag. Spotting a nearby Chief, he called out "Chief, I need your help getting that flag fixed."
The salty Chief looked up at the flag, saw the problem, and told a nearby Seaman to get a ladder, climb up and fix the flag.
Later, the original CAPT saw the flag flying proudly once again. When he ran into the LCDR in the officer's club that night, he said "Thanks for getting that flag problem fixed, Commander. I knew I could count on you."
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
All we need is an aimbot, a wallhack, and some sort of enemy radar device.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Yeah, sometimes it's pretty funny what it comes up with for directions.
:)
You are off route
Please turn around
Turn left at the next intersection, then turn left
Do you wish to recalcuate your route [Y/N]
GPS devices should have the following phase added:
Clearly you're not following my directions, so you're on your fscking own
...ha
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
Schizophrenia?