More on Next-Generation Army Gear

An anonymous reader writes "The Army is funding development of new super suits. From the article: 'The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie'. 'The new system has the ability for each soldier to be tied into tactical local and wide-area networks with an onboard computer that sits at the base of the soldier's back' and 'The helmet has sensors that register vibrations of the cranial cavity so [soldiers] don't have to have a microphone'. The article features several photos of the suits."

yeah

[Tumbleweed]

"Rico's Roughnecks, hooaahhh!"

Re:yeah

[Captain Salty Pete]

I don't think a single one of us who's read the book thought differently when they saw this article.

Re:yeah

[Tumbleweed]

I think the worst thing about the movie they made is that it'll almost certainly prevent an accurate movie translation of the novel from ever being made, and that's quite sad - there are some powerful messages in the novel. *sigh*

Re:yeah

[Tumbleweed]

The Paul Verhoeven (sp?) movie 'Starship Troopers' was based on the Robert Heinlein novel of the same name. The movie is basically a satire of very serious concepts presented in the novel, which mightily offends many of us who are Robert Heinlein fans. It's rather like the only movie version of, say, Moby Dick, being a Ben Stiller farce of the novel. It's very, very offensive, really.

There is an animated TV show (Roughnecks? Something like that) also based on the story, but is (I'm told) a bit more true to

Mobile Infantry

[Hellburner]

"To the everlasting glory of the infantry
shines the name
shines the name
of Rodger Young!"

Re:yeah

[CreatureComfort]

With the history of most government and military contracts to go by, I bet they solve the even more trivial problem of making it not work even for its intended wearer.

Re:yeah

[Minna Kirai]

or allowing anyone to snoop,

Military snooping comes in two forms: COMINT and ELINT. Avoiding COMINT observation might be easy, as all authorized users can synch-up encryption keys ahead of time (which only works until an enemy mugs one of your guys- but that's close enough).

But avoiding ELINT surveillance is a different matter. The more you rely on infantry reporting their actions on radio, the more likely the opposition will be to use radios to guess your position and evade the assault.

thus not broadcasting any false information to others,

Actually, if the enemy captured a fancy-suit and tried to use it, you'd want him to continue broadcasting. Of course, the data should be flagged so your own troops know not to rely on it, but the commander will like to know where the suit goes, so he can direct a retrieval mission. Or simply put a JDAM on it.

Trivial problems, I would think.

No, they're quite important. Combat is fast and chaotic. Any mechanism meant to keep the device out of enemy hands runs the risk of hitting a false-positive and denying itself to a legitimate US soldier, who might not have time to re-enter a password when taking fire.

And then just TRY to match the biometric voice-recognizer when sucking out from a pierced lung...

(On a related note, tanks don't have ignition keys.)

Bleex?

[CommanderData]

From the Article:
The uniform from the waist down will have a robotic-powered system that is connected directly to the soldier. This system could use pistons to actually replicate the lower body, giving the soldier "upwards of about 300 percent greater lifting and load-carriage capability," DeGay said. "We are looking at potentially mounting a weapon directly to the uniform system and now the soldier becomes a walking gun platform."

I suspect that they may be calling on Berkeley for their Bleex [berkeley.edu] project on this one. The Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton exists now, and I'd imagine with 10 or 15 years to work on it they could easily meet the 300% lifting and load carrying requirements. Of course the Japanese have envisioned soldiers as walking gun platforms for years. I wonder how long it'll be before we see Mecha Warriors in real life...

Re:Bleex?

[strictnein]

How about the nano-fibers they're going to produce to increase strength by 25-30%? I'm assuming they'll actually figure that one out at about the same time we get our flying cars.

Ok, some of this stuff would be pretty damn rad. And the idea that the combat gear that will be available in 2020 will "absorb unlimited numbers of machine-gun rounds" is all nice and everything (although, the fact that Jean-Louis "Dutch" DeGay keeps dropping the word "nanotechnology" makes me hesitant). But how the hell is this all going to be powered? Health monitors, WAN, radio, fancy optical display, etc, plus all of the other gear they need (lights, night-vision, etc), plus a power supply of some sort (battery/solar?) all super rugid and topping out at 50 pounds (~23 KG). I wish them the best, but right now, I don't think so.

Re:Bleex?

[Short Circuit]

Well, you'll need a battery that won't be damaged by impacts. Then I'd probably go with a piezoelectric power source in the shoes. I remember hearing about a guy who recharged NiCads that way.

Or you could put a reciprocol moter powerd by air pressure generated from flexing of the gloves. Or even a simple hand crank+dynamo that you sit down and wind whenever you have the time.

Re:Bleex?

[RetroGeek]

But how the hell is this all going to be powered?

It is obvious. By the two wheeled battery cart the soldier pulls behind him/her.

Re:Bleex?

[ePhil_One]

...all super rugid and topping out at 50 pounds (~23 KG).

Hence the need for a powered exoskeleton that increases carrying capacity 300%. 50% of the increase will be devoted to carrying the power/battery system.

I'm curious about this personal armor that can take a machine gun round in stride, simple momentum tells me that isn't really possible. And speaking of momentum, I'm imagining these super soldiers having all sorts of maneuverability issues, encumbered by armor, exoskeletons, and all manner of electronics. Maybe you equip one squad as these human tanks, but you still need normal soldiers for walking to the second floor of shoddy third worls construction, entering buildings/tunnels stealthily, etc.

Useful cool tech:

Better/fuller armor. We don't lose as many lives, but soldiers are losing a lot of hands/feet/arms/etc. Folks are going to realize this soon.

Video gun sights. Stay behind that wall and just stick you gun into the line of fire.

Better communications. Securely relay each soldiers location back to tactical command so reinforcments/flanking actions/artilery hits the right spot.

Anti-Sniper systems. Radar systems track bullets back to the sniper location and fire a response within 3 seconds of first shot. Bring a new meaning to "one shot one kill" to enemy snipers.

Remote mini guns. Why send humans into an enemy held building. Send a team of remote controlled armored Uzi's into a the bulding.

Re:Bleex?

[Rich0]

Simple momentum? Just how heavy do you think those bullets are?

m1v1 = m2v2
m1 = 20g
v1 = 1400 mph (mach 2 - unrealisticly fast)
m2 = 200lbs (light guy with equipment)

v2 = 0.3 mph

0.3 mph isn't much of a hit. And of course, the numbers are way high - if the bullet goes any distance it is probably going far slower.

Granted, I still wouldn't want to be shot, but if the force were spread out over your entire body, you'd have no problem taking the hit at all - and of course that is all that body armor does - that and spread the impulse over more time, reducing the force.

Re:Bleex?

[Thangodin]

Remote mini guns. Why send humans into an enemy held building. Send a team of remote controlled armored Uzi's into a the bulding.

In which case, why send the soldier at all? Just imagine the horror of all those first person shooter afficienados, finally unleashed to control remote drones on the other side of the world.

The ultimate low-ping bastard!

And if you get hit, well, the respawn point is just back at the machine carrier.

Re:Bleex?

[ePhil_One]

the video gun sites thing already exists, at least in a prototype form. kapow!

Yes, unfortunately the last incarnation I saw added some serious weight to the gun, which is really a bad thing. I'm not sure if the problem is old tech or lack of milspec tech. Gun sights have to take a fair bit of abuse, and big, heavy, unbalanced games are a problem in combat. I suspect the best option would be a custom gun made for the role, with better recoil absorbtion, integrated electronics housing, and purpose built grips so the whole hand stays protected.

Re:Bleex?

[tgd]

I can see into the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology out my cube window... we joke about the damn gnats in the office being nano-soldier transports.

When they opened the ISN, they had a big shindig in the courtyard, and they were showing off some of this stuff. Its not a matter of "I'm assuming they'll actually figure that one out at about the same time we get our flying cars." its a matter of "I'm assuming they'll actually figure out how to manufacture these at a reasonable cost by 2020."

These are plans for technologies they're already fairly along with, not pie-in-the-sky stuff.

More importantly, how will it be cooled?

[Moderation abuser]

It's "easy" to kill a tank. 10 inches of armour and a 20kg shoulder fired missile can still kill it.

You can power an exoskeleton suit with batteries, fuel cell, gas turbine, whatever but all that energy you are using ends up as heat anyway, wearing it you are going to be lit up like a christmas tree in the infrared. The number of machine gun rounds it can absorb will be near irrelevant because the opposition are going to be raining anti-tank armaments down on you.

Why have soldiers?

[grahamsz]

If you've got a robotic exoskeleton and a wide area network, why not just pilot the soldier remotely?

Seems to make a lot more sense than still sending a real person in... plus the army would have no trouble getting recruits to play counterstrike.

Re:Why have soldiers?

[PantsWearer]

If you've got a robotic exoskeleton and a wide area network, why not just pilot the soldier remotely?

Electro-magnetic emissions. A human soldier can turn off his WAN/LAN if he doesn't want to be detected. A remote controlled robot becomes about as useful as a boulder when this happens.

Unless you want to use trailing cables of course...

Re:Why have soldiers?

[GuyFawkes]

grunts are cheaper than licenced copies of windows ce and a wireless card.

Re:Why have soldiers?

[WarMonkey]

Sure, you can go that route -- provided you're okay with waking up one day to find a script kiddie in command of the 82nd Airborne or whatever.

Re:Why have soldiers?

[Schemat1c]

The problem I see with that is signal jamming. The exoskeletons would just fall down like rag dolls...

Or if they reached their preset kill limit, they would just shut down.

Exoskeletons and the central nervous system

[GuyMannDude]

I remember at one point the military was looking for a full robotic exoskeleton that went above and below the waist. I believe that they gave up and decided to persue lower-body-only technology because they were running into problems with the exoskeleton ripping the tendons and ligaments of those who wore the suit prototypes. The human stretch reflex is a function of the central nervous system and is designed to prevent limbs from being placed into positions that stress the connective tissues. Obviously,

Psssst!

[Audacious]

The uniform from the waist down will have a robotic-powered system that is connected directly to the soldier.

Psssst! Wanna see my gun? ;-)

This just really does beg to be joked about. And as for the nano-technology; I see lots of problems. For instance - how does the nanobots know the difference between the person and the clothing? Will they accidentally convert the person's skin from one thing to another? Think about it - one of the reasons crimes get solved is because all things leave traces of them

Re:Nano-brained designers

[Tassach]

Who can tell what power a machine gun will develop in 2020

Not much more than current models. The technology is pretty mature, considering that machine guns are over a century old.

Actually the trend in small arms for the past 50 years has been steadily downward -- shorter range and less powerful rounds. There are two interrelated reasons for this.

First, outside of the sniper role, a high-power round like .30-06 (or even 7.62 NATO) is overkill; in most situations an infantryman isn't going to be doing aimed fire past 200 - 300 meters, so small arms that are effective out to 600 - 1000 meters just aren't needed. Current doctrine says that anything more than 200 meters away is engaged with heavy weapons (heavy machine gun, rocket launcher, artillery, air strike, etc). If you have soldiers with exoskeletons, this will let you take your heavy weapons off of the HMMV and have them hand-carried by your exos instead. Other than that, tactical doctrine doesn't change much if at all.

Second, if each round is smaller and weighs less, the soldier can either carry more ammo for his weapon or can carry parts & ammo for a squad-level heavy weapon. Having exos doesn't change this -- you're still going to want to keep pretty much the same distribution of weapons in a squad as you have now. The only difference will be that your troops will be able to carry a lot more equipment -- more ammo for their personal weapon and the squad weapon, more food & water, heavier armor, etc.

It's important to remember that infantry combat is a team sport. Each soldier's gear is tailored to maximize the entier team's effectiveness, not necessarily his individual effectiveness. This means that the gear which is appropriate for a member of an infantry squad in a combined arms unit isn't necessarily going to be ideal for individual survival or for use by irregular forces (partisans/militia).

Heinlein

[w1r3sp33d]

Too bad the designers watched the movie instead of reading the book!

Re:Heinlein

[magefile]

For those who haven't read the book, or haven't seen the movie, the parent is not saying that watching the movie kept the designers from seeing the suits (which I understand were removed from the movie(, but that the book emphasized repeatedly the fact that a soldier is a soldier. That the armor is nice, but the real power is the mind inside it. There's a scene where one recruit asks (during boot camp) why they're learning to throw knives when they have rifles, machine guns, tac nukes, ad infinitum. The drill seargant's response is that an army can't let a temporary malfunction or lack of tech stop them from achieving their objective - and further, that massive tech is not always the best solution.

Parse Error

[cft_128]

Syntax error at #9871289 line 2 at or near '(which', missing ')'
Syntax error at #9871289 line 2 at or near '(, but', missing ')'
Comprehension of post aborted due to compilation errors.

Re:Heinlein

[Snocone]

I heard it was due to budget constraints.

Yep, I know someone in the animation side of things that worked on it.

Basically, they screwed up the budget completely, and eventually had to decide: Suits, or Bugs?

Bugs won :)

Suit Hacking

[Klar]

Great.. now we can look-forward to our individual soldiers suits being hacked and controled by the enemy.

Re:Suit Hacking

[strike2867]

Imagine a battlefield full of these guys all on the ground hitting themselves. A single North Korean nerd on the other side of the field. Laughing hysterically while muttering "Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself..."

And the nice "hi, i'm over here" of wireless...

[raygundan]

I'd be curious to know how they're going to maintain the WAN without it being a radio beacon for the enemy to spot. Frequency hopping would help a little, but I'm sure a creative engineer could work around that.

It's like a portable target beacon for missiles!

Re:Suit Hacking Gator

[smittyman]

Your suit's Clock may be incorrect. Blink once to install Gator Suit Commander or Blink twice to trust our software.

Imagine yourself in the battlefield and suddenly a red blinking popup in your eye. Is it an enemy alert, battery low maby? No, your one of the 500 lucky people, Blink once to receive....wtf?

Re:Suit Hacking

[p4ul13]

Looking at the top-left corner, it is a java based app, so there's *some* hope yet.

One Question:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Who are we going to be fighting with this stuff? Terrorists? Belgium?

Re:One Question:

[NanoGator]

"Who are we going to be fighting with this stuff? Terrorists? Belgium?"

Notice this is defense spending instead of offense spending. Build these things, train our soldiers on them, and nobody's gonna wanna fight us.

(That's the theory anyway.)

Re:One Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, the problem is that we cannot keep this technology exclusive forever. China is using a lot of US money to modernize it's military, and after the US pissed off a lot of countries in Europe, they want to lift the ban on trade of weapons to China.
Nothing stays exclusive for long(unless of course it is never deployed!), from defectors to captured/dead soldiers, abandoned gear for reverse engineering, keeping military technology a secret is very difficult. Why do you think the engineers for defense contr

Asymmetric warfare, anyone?

[Engineer-Poet]

Build these things, train our soldiers on them, and nobody's gonna wanna fight us.

... on the conventional battlefield. Truck bombs in financial districts, airliners into skyscrapers and anthrax through the mail will be quite viable weapons no matter how much better our infantry gets.

Re:Ah, you'd play into their hands.

[susano_otter]

Note that "best intel apparatus currently available" is not nearly the same thing as "best intel apparatus currently possible", "best intel apparatus currently affordable", or "best intel apparatus currently cost-effective".

Nor does your objection take into account factors like political will and competence.

9/11 didn't happen because it just wasn't possible to get the necessary intel. 9/11 happened because of 20+ years of just not caring enough to look into it.

Re:One Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey Wayne, what a bummer, who's James Bond gonna fight now, man, the Guatemalans?"

-Waynes World on SNL, around the end of the Cold War, roughly paraphrased because I was a little young at the time;)

Don't worry...

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

The government will always make sure that we have someone to fight.

Re:Don't worry...

[rvega]

It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous ... In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact. (George Orwell, 1984)

Re:One Question:

[DAldredge]

China

Re:One Question:

[Blacklantern]

Who are we going to be fighting with this stuff? Terrorists? Belgium?

Nope we will be fighting giant squid-like robots that fly in spiral patterns.

Re:One Question:

[Walt Dismal]

He's right. So what if a suited soldier can leap tall buildings with a single bound, if his batteries just died he's SOL.

Plus, the higher the tech, the worse the reliability all too often.

"Sarge, my CPU died. All my displays are down. I can't target. Wait, there's a guy with a ROCK crawling up to me.... ARRRGGGHHHHH! (transmission lost)"

Disappointed

[dancingmad]

Man, they look just like normal suits with some extra crap on the front.

I was hoping for some anime utility suit or Gundam mech you climb inside of or something.

What does this matter

[Frothy Walrus]

When wars are fought from 15 miles up now anyway?

Re:What does this matter

[grub]

It's the classic trickle-down military economy at work. Dump billions into military development and eventually the discoveries find their way into society. Not much more than corporate welfare but it starts a few levels higher.

Re:What does this matter

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

You mean people are going to be robbing banks with this stuff? Then the police will have to have it as well.

Happy days are coming.

Re:What does this matter

[Moofie]

Aircraft cannot take and hold territory. They can only deny it to the enemy.

Read Clausewicz, then get back to me.

Re:What does this matter

[YrWrstNtmr]

A victory doesn't count until you have a 19 year old with a rifle standing on that bit of ground.

Re:What does this matter

[demachina]

"A victory doesn't count until you have a 19 year old with a rifle standing on that bit of ground."

A victory doesn't count until you win the hearts and minds, one way or another, of the people who live on the ground where the 19 year old is standing. As long as there are people with weapons, and the will to resist, who see the 19 year old as a target you haven't really won anything.

"For, although one may be very strong in armed
forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives"

Machiavelli, "The Prince"

Not sure the doctrine that you have victory when you have a guy with a rifle standing on captured ground has worked since World War I and it didn't really work then either.

Re:What does this matter

[gurps_npc]

It helps the soldiers occupy the territory, preventing the 900+ dead we got from "insurgent" attacks in our latest war.

Whatever

[propellerhead_prime]

Remember when the Army made the big announcement about everyone wearing black berets? That took damn near 18 months to implement and no batteries were required. If this happens anytime during our generation I will be stunned. What they really need are a better pair of standard issue boots...that would be money well spent for the soldiers.

Re:Whatever

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

They're already getting them. Much like the Marine Corps' new boots. And new cammies. Google a bit, me lad.

Re:Whatever

[YrWrstNtmr]

Look at the speed in which UCAV's are being introduced. They're now looking at hunter/killer teams of UCAV's, not merely recon drones.

lots of choice quotes

[kisrael]

It's worth RTFA, because of some absolutely choice quotes:

"the 2020 model will remind you of an ominous creature out of a science fiction movie"

I love the use of "ominous"

"When you have a uniform with this new nanotechnology, it can absorb unlimited numbers of machine-gun rounds,"

Wouldn't that get kind of heavy?

"We are looking at potentially mounting a weapon directly to the uniform system and now the soldier becomes a walking gun platform."

Now THAT sounds like fun...

Re:lots of choice quotes

[drinkypoo]

They [presumably] don't mean absorb as in the lead will become embedded in or otherwise part of the armor, they mean it can absorb whatever impact the round itself doesn't absorb, which means the round doesn't penetrate though it may deform. I'd like to know what kind and what caliber of machine gun rounds we're talking about, though. If they're big enough you're going to be knocking people over if nothing else, then while they're on their back maybe you can drop a bomb on them :) Mounting a weapon directly

No really?

[barcodez]

The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie.

And here is my thinking they would look like something out of a period drama.

Linux?

[dinosaurJoe]

Does it run Linux?

Full Control?

[zalas]

Given the amount of electronics and sensors the soldier is wearing, would the army also incorporate "feedback units" like adrenaline injectors and tranquilizers or would it be too prone to hacking?

Re:Full Control?

[drinkypoo]

They'd probably do it the way it was done in Steakley's Armor (and many others, but that's the only one that comes to mind) - through physical switches only locally accessible, presumably in a totally separated system. This lets someone else in your squad come up and hit you with a painkiller or a tranq if need be.

Stormtroopers...

[avalys]

The guy on the left in this [defenselink.mil] photo looks like a black stormtrooper.

I know

[joggle]

The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie

So are they the good guys are the bad guys?

They ought to make the suits look blue or pink or put one of those Walmart smiley faces on them :P.

Target wi-fi

[grunt107]

A counter measure to this would be 'sniffers' looking for these signals. Program guided warheads/projectiles and you could have a relatively easy kill.

Wonder if these suits will come with an excessive moisture sensor? ("I think Johnson has just entered combat - or is incontinent").

George Lucas's Dream - A Reality

[Skim123]

Look at the solider in the black [defenselink.mil]. Make it white and we're pretty damn close to having our boys overseas looking like Storm Troopers. All that remains is for Bush to claim himself Emporer, and Chaney to learn the secrets of the Dark Side and become horribly disfigured in some sort of Volcano-related accident.

Re:George Lucas's Dream - A Reality

[Ignignot]

Chaney to learn the secrets of the Dark Side and become horribly disfigured...

Ok one down, two to go.

Re:George Lucas's Dream - A Reality

[grunt107]

"Mary Cheney - I am your father; Quit doing that with other women"

Announcer: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Re:George Lucas's Dream - A Reality

[Omerna]

Didn't Cheney get a pacemaker already? He's already part machine.

We're Doomed

[AcidFnTonic]

Judging by the screenshots, they are using Windows.

Re:We're Doomed

[avalys]

Worse, if you look closer you'll see that they're using Windows to run Java applets!

Re:We're Doomed

[NinjaPablo]

"It looks like you're trying to fire your gun. Would you:

* Like help aiming?
* Change the type of gun?
* Use a template battle situation?"

or, in a Robocop-esque way:

Directive 4: Armed assault against any member of Microsoft management will result in the suit BSOD'ing.

You would have thought..

[Osrin]

...that with the billions of dollars invested in this project that they would have chosen a manakin that still had it's nose intact.

Self fulfilling prophecy

[onyxruby]

I have often wondered how much of such technology is developed from self fulfilling prophecies. Science fiction writers look at present technology and wonder what it could be. Years later people influenced by said science fiction writings eventually go through school and get jobs designing such technology and wonder how they could make it work in the real world. It's a loop of sorts, creating ever higher expectations.

Medical Monitoring?

[Wizzy Wig]

From the article: "A medic, who can be miles away, will now be able to diagnose and treat a soldier who is about to have sunstroke, without even physically seeing the soldier.

Radio traffic: "Alpha Bravo Charlie appears to be out of action! Doctor, can you give us a report on his telemetry?

Doctor: "Is he wearing that black, 50 pound Darth Vader suit?"

Radio traffic: "Yes!"

Doctor: "It's probably sun stroke."

Vision not required in 2020

[amichalo]

From the hi-res looks of things [defenselink.mil], the year 2020 soldier (on the left in black) is gonna promote friendly fire casualties with his mask all fogged up.

Vacuous statement

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

For all X, the future X will resemble something out of a science fiction movie. So trivially it's true for X=soldiers.

What about EMP weapons...

[sanermind]

If the soldiers on the ground are going to be so completely dependent on electrical equipment? These things don't have to be a giant explosion any more, either. I believe there has been progress in directional, possibly portable, EM-disabling weapons. I know. Let's put all the soldiers in faraday cages! Mosquito netting for the 22nd century!

Reducing soldier costs

[LowBrow]

The Army has is all wrong. Instead of spending money and the U.S. soldier, they should just outsource the soldiers and have other nations fight for us. It works for corporations, why not the Army...

Re:Reducing soldier costs

[Feyr]

actually the romans tried that one, it didn't work

Private armies already happening in Iraq

[Ars-Fartsica]

Private security firms are operating as de facto soldiers in Iraq. Bet it makes the ground troops feel good to know the people work for Blackwater Security are earning 5x what they are.

I like the fine staff these firms bring to the operation - like Apartheid-era South Africans with warrants in their own country for crimes against humanity.

Re:Reducing soldier costs

[jgardn]

Why did you get marked funny? This has been a critical point in Bush's plan.

The Iraq war and the Afghanistan conflict are a training arena for the world's army for when we storm North Korea. Did you notice the second largest army in Iraq is now South Korea and no longer Britain? Humm... 1 + 1 = ?

Imagine a large, well-trained, peaceful army in Iraq. That would be two large, well-trained peaceful armies in the area. Imagine how much effect they will have, even with no American soldiers within 2,000 miles!

W

Another obligatory Slashdot joke...

[WD_40]

"In Soviet Russia, suit wears you!"

Somebody put me out of my misery.

Not a great place for the computer

[Daedalus_]

"...an onboard computer that sits at the base of the soldier's back"

People into concealed-carry handguns have been warning each other about carrying anything hard against the small of your back for quite a while. The thought is that a backwards fall could damage your spine quite nicely.

So now....

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Terrorists will concentrate on building EMP bombs.

Lets hope they include

[hackstraw]

stealth velcro [google.com].

Yes, thats right. Back in the late 80s or early 90s the US military wanted to use velcro for pockets and whatnot on military uniforms. Unfortunately, none of the higher ups had ever used velcro, nor knew that velcro made a swwwissh ripping noise when opened, so when they arrived, the soldiers thought they might get shot if they opened their pocket for a condom or something. So they spent many more millions of dollars to invent stealth velcro.

Today they use snaps and zippers.

Really don't see this happening

[slusich]

The infantry already carries a huge amount of weight with them at this point. All of this stuff is really cool from a tech standpoint, but the last thing a soldier really needs is more wieght.

Quotable

[shut_up_man]

I love this quote (emphasis mine):

"The Future Force Warrior will be a responsive and formidable member of an invincible battle space team," DeGay explained, describing the system scheduled to be fielded by 2010."

Invincible eh? That's some pretty neat gear... does it include a quick dipping in the River Styx?

Dressed to die

[demo9orgon]

Politicians, bullshit artists, college kids, and people who don't have to wear/live with the bullshit can't possibly appreciate just how stupid the "future warrior" plan is.

This whole "future" warrior schtick will complicate soldier's life (hauling 150lbs of crap everywhere you go, being accountable for it and its condition, and having to haul your wounded buddies ass out of 'the shit'), which is hard enough as it is. The Pentagon needs to leave the toys in the locker and make better decisions. The things I always thought about when I was 'humpin' around with my lpc's and m16 with alice on my back were something like this...

Light, effective weapons (caseless ammo, call-home capability, lightweight/composite tech, and imprinting to the soldier are do-able)

Miniturized/ruggedized commo which works with implanted chips (if you're a soldier, your ass is 0wn3d anyway) which give biotelemetry without bullshit readouts. Only the medic/commanders need to see what condition a soldier is in. They could even aggregate the data.

Limb-replacement tech...yes, regrow your amputated bits. Rehabilitiation tech needs to pull its sorry butt into the new century.

Immune system amping (be able to eat/drink just about anything), better treatments for bacterial infections and 'derm' tech which would give the soldier a patch that would help sustain their opitate/endorphin/adrenaline balances...combat the stress of combat. When people aren't going apeshit in-ranks casualties are significantly reduced (yes, a chemical-control cocktail). Got a buddy who has crapped himself after that last RPG took out the track behind yours? Just step on his neck and slap one of these patches on his ass and don't worry about him hosing everyone in a panic.

Good food.

The ability to eat anything would be helpful too.

Oh, and having the soldiers adapt to and understand the culture they're going to be fighting with/in. There's more than one way to win a war.

Yeah, as usual, compared to what would really make a difference (don't even go towards the "not fight in the first place" argument--humanity sucks) a bunch of neato armor bits and some computer stuff is really a very easy way out.

Cheers.

Re:Dressed to die

[deebaine]

I'm afraid you need to do some more research on these issues. There's a kernel of truth to what you say, but I don't think, in general, that you are correct.

Human intelligence is not really the purview of the US military. Their intelligence arm, mostly integrated with individual units, is primarily tasked with synthesis, that is, gleaning the operational meaning from existing information. Not to undercut the DIA, but intelligence gathering has been primarily the domain of the CIA. Perhaps a subtle diff

Useless...

[hey]

Money would be better spent teaching the solders the local langauge, customs and religion. Have you seen those videos of US solders busting into Iraq homes and yelling in English?! Gee I wonder why they hate us. If they are wearing silly hi-tech suits they'll be even more alien.

PR disaster waiting to happen

[Hortensia Patel]

There are several Funny-modded posts pointing out that the 2020 suit looks like a Darth Vader costume. Hell, even the mil spokesman describes it as "ominous". Nobody seems to see this as a drawback. The damn things look evil.

A lot of planning nowadays assumes that the most likely conflict scenarios involving US forces are so-called "fourth-generation wars", where cultural perceptions and media strategy are as important as hardware. The intifada is still the textbook example. Those kids weren't throwing stones because they didn't have access to guns. They were throwing stones because stones against tanks makes a great video-bite for the media.

So: on the "imperial" side we have legions of anonymous mooks in hulking black armour and face-concealing visors. Backed up by horrifying robotic killing machines. On the "rebel" side we have rag-tag, lightly-armed folk in nice earth-hued organic-looking clothing. Got that? Now put it on a TV screen. Regardless of your political views on a given conflict, there is a huge amount of cultural programming that leads Western viewers to root for the rebels. (Non-Western viewers generally don't need much convincing.)

Another, more worrying aspect: there is a lot of experimental and real-world evidence to show that the willingness of troops, police etc to commit atrocities is strongly correlated with their anonymity. Visors and even sunglasses increase the likelihood; big bold nametags reduce it. Anything that makes eye-contact difficult also makes it harder to win the trust of any locals you have to deal with.

And haven't these people even read the Evil Overlord List [eviloverlord.com]? It's item #1 for crying out loud!

Still fighting the Korean War

[charvolant]

I know that armies always prepare for the last war, but this is getting faintly ridiculous.

Large quantities of heavy metal doesn't always achieve the objective. And the US has a consitent record of losing the lot by calling in an airstrike when a cup of tea would have done a better job. This is just more of the same.

If you have a look at what nations with a successful peacekeeping and low intensity warfare record (eg. Finland, the UK and Australia) do, they make sure that they don't look like robocop. They take their helmets off, so that they are regarded as human beings. They're polite (well, politeish). They don't rely on sensor systems; they talk to people.

All the technology in the world won't overcome cluelessness and myopia.

Re:Lynndie England's panties with an RFID tag

[avalys]

Lynndie England's panties...

Why, oh why did you have to bring up that up? Now I have to add that to the long list of mental images I never want to see again...

Re:Lynndie England's panties with an RFID tag

[CrowScape]

It should be noted that those 2000 pound bombs dropped in residential areas are normally 2000 pounds of concrete. It's all kinetic energy, not explosive ordinance, designed to keep collateral damage down. Your IEDs, on the other hand, are designed to inflict as much collateral damage as possible, which is why Americans gawk in horror at them.

Re:Lynndie England's panties with an RFID tag

[Qrlx]

I did a little more research and I can't find a reference to dropping concrete more recent that 1999, in reference to the No-Fly Zones (AKA the Protection Zone For Al-Qaeda Terrorists In Northern Iraq).

Anyway, not saying that we are or are not dropping concrete these days, but I would be a little surprised if we prefaced the invasion and occupation with anything less than the most lethal air power. If you know otherwise, though, by all means school me.

I don't see how you can say roadside IEDs are designe

detecting signals

[HarveyBirdman]

Look up "spread spectrum".

Re:Nervous?

[Shihar]

The US is a super power, and super powers will always fuck it up. During the Cold War, I think the US had the best intentions and in the end the world was a better place because the US was there, but they certainly fucked up from time to time. The US is run by humans. The system might do a pretty solid job at weeding out truly corrupt and stupid people, but like with any human institution, they tend to creep in no matter how hard you try. I guess my point is that you can never expect the US to be perfect because it never was and never will be. I do think that on the whole though the US has good intentions and generally decent implementation. Just look at the conflicts the US has been in for the past 20 years and the record speaks of generally decent intentions with a couple of horrible mistakes.

To name a few:
Somalia - Best of intentions, feed a starving nation. I have yet to hear a good conspiracy theory as to how this was a plot for US domination. The result though was a cluster fuck that lead to a handful of US and other nationalities getting killed. In the end no one ended up fed (for very long at least) and only more carnage was achieved.

Hattie - Good intentions, restore a democracy. Result? Restored a guy who everyone thought was a saint who (arguably) turned into villain who snatch away democracy. Now there is Hattie 2 where an attempt was made to fix the mistake. If it was worth anyone's time is still yet to be seen.

Serbia - Good intentions, stop a mass genocide. The operation was preformed despite widespread protest both in the US and abroad. After the fact though, you don't hear anyone complaining about the outcome these days. The genocide is over and Serbia is well on its way towards democracy.

Iraq - At the risk of -1 flamebait, I'll just say that in my opinion, it was done with the best intentions. I think the US was genuinely surprised when no chemical weapons were used and the people didn't come out in the street with flowers. Offing an evil dictator isn't a bad thing in it of itself. It is the fact that you need to kill a pile of other people in the process is what makes it bad. I think the jury is still out on this. I look at Iraq like Serbia. At the time it seemed like a dumb idea to a lot of people, but today we recognize it as the right move that ended a genocide. If 10 years from now Iraq looks like Iran, it was probably a failure. If 10 years from now Iraq looks Japan, I think history will forgive the US.

The US is aggressive at time, but I think the world needs a little bit of that. Some times a nation is needed that will crack a few skulls to do what is right. Personally, I like the balance we have today. Europe does an excellent job offering restraint and diplomacy, while the US is generally willing to jump the gun if it thinks those things are taking too long. Diplomacy is not always the answer. I think Rwanda makes it pretty clear that you can't always give the other side more time before you take action. Europe restrains the US from crusading any time they see something wrong, and the US keeps Europe from sitting on its haunches while evil people do their work.

Re:Nervous?

[RobinH]

The American culture is very well-balanced between personal moral values (religious and/or idealistic), and secular governmental structures. No other country that I am aware of is balanced in quite this way (I was born and have lived outside of the US).

Excuse me for a minute... there are over 260 countries in the world. You are not an expert. I've been to about 13 countries, and to about 70% of the U.S. states, and I am certainly no expert.

Anyway, the U.S. is far from the most secular. [bbc.co.uk] The separation

Re:Making Deadlier Soldiers Makes Job More Dangero

[Qrlx]

Right, we've created our own asymmetric threat.

Consider that the cost of the 9/11 operation was about a half a million dollars over five years. In response, we've spent about 150 billion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in just two years.

We are outspending the enemy 300,000 to 1. This takes pyrrhic victory to a whole new level!