What, no Battlemechs, lasers, shields (although the anti-missle defense was cool), phasers, tri-corders, transporter beams, or orbital insertion marines?

We want better value for our tax dollars!

That’s why SkyNet is on my Xmas card list. You just never know who you might need in your back pocket.

A rifleman stands on a ridge….overlooking the Peach Orchard…..He has what…a long steel tube, a 1/2 wide ball of lead…..a pinch of black powder…and a long sharp bayonet..why, he is well equipped and ready!

Wonder if he even thought of a MaximMG, a PZVI, a walkie talkie, air support, cruise missles, or MRV’s…..let alone MP3 players and Tivo….

I agree it will be awhile before it all works. But it will….someday. Technology will only stop when we do.

Every day is yet more and more horrible news.

Cant arrest a terrorist cleric when we knew he was threat then

Cant communicate any leadership to the people

Allow the Media to completely control the message

Who cares about this crap… we’re wont be here to use it.

It’s awesome, in a perfect scenario like this. But, in reality, I think this is a problem. Casualty aversion has been our problem in Iraq. You cannot go into something with minimal troops and expect technology to win it for you. You are gonna have to go door to door, kicking heads in to win.

Bingo! The only way to defeat an enemy is to defeat him. He can’t be reasoned with, he can’t be occupied. He has to be beat so bad he knows he lost.

A great example is after WWII both Germany and Japan knew they got their asses kicked and lost. Also refer to the Jews and the Diaspora in AD 70. Rome kicked their asses so hard they didn’t make a come back for just under 1900 years.

Every parent I know who has a son has trouble getting the boys away from video games. There will be no shortage of troops who will have years of experience operating the types of interfaces needed to control these weapons. Funny how that works out.

If we assume that one squad gets all of this support, will all the other squads get the same level of support? I don’t think so.

I just can’t see that. Let’s just assume that we have 250 squads in Iraq right now. Do we really think all 250 squads will get this level of support?

Conceptually, with tech like this the number of ground bodies goes down, and more people are trained as the network ops/tech support folks. There’s so much more to say, that can’t be said. Some of the robotics has already been in use in various forms with SWAT teams.

As for hacking ala the Chinese, our military has placed a serious focus on what is called “network-centric warfare”, and everything that implies.

As has already been commented, we can win everything we engage in with the toys we own NOW, if our only enemy were the foes in the field.

About METAL STORM, the original Aussie developers were shunned by the U.S. for good cause. There were a pile of flaws in the production components, in spite of the concept being very slick. The million rounds per minute 36-barrel video has been around since mid-2001, and in that time they haven’t produced a newer bullet-firing video, just a variety of 40mm grenade, flare, and miscellaneous large-bore stuff. Oh, the grenade pods make terrific fireworks launching sequencers, too…

I’ll trust DARPA to create functional war-tech long before anyone off-shore.

But I don’t think that the level of personel support that you see in this video will ever make it down to the squad level.

Anyway, it was a cool video.

ONE MILLION ROUNDS PER MINUTE

Ah yes, metal storm. The Aussie guy who put this together was derided by reps of the US Military who said something along the lines of ‘isn’t it amazing what they can do with special effects these days’ during the presentation

5 odd years later and they’re actually taking him seriously now, it would seem. Only took China offering $100million for him to work for them..

There are a number of compelling aspects of the FCS program, and it is hard to argue with the program’s goals. However, the elements of a sound business case for such an acquisition program – firm requirements, mature technologies, a knowledge-based acquisition strategy, a realistic cost estimate and sufficient funding – are not yet present. FCS began product development prematurely in 2003. Since then, the Army has made several changes to improve its approach for acquiring FCS. Yet, today, the program remains a long way from having the level of knowledge it should have had before starting product development. FCS has all the markers for risks that would be difficult to accept for any single system, much less a complex, multi-system effort. These challenges are even more daunting in the case of FCS not only because there are so many of them but because FCS represents a new concept of operations that is predicated on technological breakthroughs. Thus, technical problems, which accompany immaturity, not only pose traditional risks to cost, schedule, and performance; they pose risks to the new fighting concepts envisioned by the Army.

So they should remake the video and show us fighting the Chinese in 2028, which is probably when we’ll have the FCS.

Re, video #2: nice production values, but someone clearly has way too much time on their hands.

/sarcasm

ONE MILLION ROUNDS PER MINUTE

- The Cat

P.S. For all your Fan Film and Saber Fight needs. Clicky

Awesome indeed!

Our enemies technology is to throw people at us.

Kini on January 5, 2007 at 8:31 PM

Yeah, I think I agree with you. While the technology demonstrated in the videos is cool, we should assume that maybe, just maybe our future enemies will evolve themselves and carry more than AK-47s and RPGs.

Also, IF we ever go against China, it’s my understanding that their computer hacking capabilities is extensive to say the least. We’re talking abouta large computer network it seems here. Who’s to say they can’t just flip a switch in a way and shut us down like the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica did to the military forces of humanity?