Comment Re:Technology? TECHNOLOGY?? (Score 1) 942
First of all, our conversion to wizbang technology (in the Army) was fractured and sped up to forcibly come into use before it should have been implemented. When 4th ID was the experimental Division (see Task Force XXI), capitalism reared its worst face, we had separate contractors building separate non-compatible Operating Systems, data formats, programs and features. All contracts for products that not only failed to communicate with each other, but failed to even do their own job individually.
Why? (trying not to laugh at the sickness), because these businesses made more money recreating the wheel, deploying more techs to fix the problems, building inter-operability software, dragging out testing phases, making new versions, doing revamps, upgrades, and deploying new gimmicks to squeeze yet another cash loaf out of uncle sam while Joe Intel Soldier tries to place a (insert expletive) unit on a digi-map that his buddy in the next brigade headquarters can see on his screen. Not to mention the fact that keeping these systems running and networked was so insanely comical (and mysterious) that it became common knowledge that well-paid civilian tech support would be put on the plans as deploying with these systems into combat zones. The growing pains of just getting one unit icon on another system was enough to make any operator sick to his/her stomach.
Don't even get me started (too late) on how insanely foul it is that these systems were created mostly linearly in the unit structure, and the data that trickled down to smaller operational units had to either be transferred into paper, read over the radio or sent in a data format with the result of duplicate units on maps, malconfigured message formats, and the like. The bottom line is, my ASAS system couldn't effectively give the battle commanders the picture of the battlefield. Ok, now add onto that the fact that no one (outside of pentagon think-tanks and contractor money-grubbers) trusts these systems, so we -also- had to do the paper, ink, and marker jobs and resort to the faithful radio to transfer the same exact information. Add onto it the need for line-of-sight for comms in order for any of this to be worth taking up precious space and time.
Eventually the systems were built to be somewhat interoperable, and later new and smaller contracts were made to build all-in-one package deals that did almost everything, only at a nearly worthless level task-wise, yet the original systems continued to be the norm. The wheels keep on spinning but the ground is nowhere in sight.
Things have changed a little since I left active duty in 2000, but my buddy who went to Iraq with 4th ID said for the most part, that his unit didn't even use the majority of the systems they had, and I don't blame them. He said many of the problems have yet to be ironed out, for the same old reasons.
Oh, one more thing, we have all these nifty systems.. but try finding any of them in the National Guard. Nill, my friends. We're still banging rocks together and hoping Private Duff learns morse code soon (I exaggerate but you get my point).
Why? (trying not to laugh at the sickness), because these businesses made more money recreating the wheel, deploying more techs to fix the problems, building inter-operability software, dragging out testing phases, making new versions, doing revamps, upgrades, and deploying new gimmicks to squeeze yet another cash loaf out of uncle sam while Joe Intel Soldier tries to place a (insert expletive) unit on a digi-map that his buddy in the next brigade headquarters can see on his screen. Not to mention the fact that keeping these systems running and networked was so insanely comical (and mysterious) that it became common knowledge that well-paid civilian tech support would be put on the plans as deploying with these systems into combat zones. The growing pains of just getting one unit icon on another system was enough to make any operator sick to his/her stomach.
Don't even get me started (too late) on how insanely foul it is that these systems were created mostly linearly in the unit structure, and the data that trickled down to smaller operational units had to either be transferred into paper, read over the radio or sent in a data format with the result of duplicate units on maps, malconfigured message formats, and the like. The bottom line is, my ASAS system couldn't effectively give the battle commanders the picture of the battlefield. Ok, now add onto that the fact that no one (outside of pentagon think-tanks and contractor money-grubbers) trusts these systems, so we -also- had to do the paper, ink, and marker jobs and resort to the faithful radio to transfer the same exact information. Add onto it the need for line-of-sight for comms in order for any of this to be worth taking up precious space and time.
Eventually the systems were built to be somewhat interoperable, and later new and smaller contracts were made to build all-in-one package deals that did almost everything, only at a nearly worthless level task-wise, yet the original systems continued to be the norm. The wheels keep on spinning but the ground is nowhere in sight.
Things have changed a little since I left active duty in 2000, but my buddy who went to Iraq with 4th ID said for the most part, that his unit didn't even use the majority of the systems they had, and I don't blame them. He said many of the problems have yet to be ironed out, for the same old reasons.
Oh, one more thing, we have all these nifty systems.. but try finding any of them in the National Guard. Nill, my friends. We're still banging rocks together and hoping Private Duff learns morse code soon (I exaggerate but you get my point).
