Techcentricity and todays Armed Forces

[Ken White]

shown by my suggestion of alternate technology centered alternatives to Co/Bat UAVs. Training and unit structure are the other two big alternatives to the UAV answer. Infantry spends a lot of time on "move into contact" drills, "react to ambush" drills and defensive positions (i.e. range cards and clear fire zones) and very little on how to gather and process information. The infantry is a great tool for intelligence gathering and the skill should not be limited to "scouts". Hopefully somebody else on this board understands what I am trying to say and can write it more coherently.
Reed

Can't do it more coherently, that's more than coherent enough -- but I can add that the Grunt and front line Tanker and FO/FIST are the best combat intel tools around -- yet, people nowadays are almost universally ignored for a technological solution.

Years ago, my son was in a LRS unit in Germany; on a Reforger exercise he and his team spotted a bunch of OpFor Leopards and reported them. The Corps G2 said "Nay, not so -- the satellite doesn't show them." Heated argument ensued. Fred Franks opted to go with the grunts (over many objections) and plopped a Lance in on the tracks. Umpires called it a major kill. So the Good guys won -- but it could just as easily have gone the other way. Tech is good. Absolute faith in it is bad.

Grunts can provide more and better info than any satellite -- or UAV/UGV.

You're correct in that we do not train that aspect nearly as well as we should (and that we waste a lot of time teaching esoteric BS...). Nor do we train the Officers and the Intel types on the value that 11B can offer...

[reed11b]

,as shown by your reforger example, the over reliance on centralized command limits the ability to look to soldiers for combat intel and initiative. A sad example of this gone wrong was the A-10 attack on the British armour column during OIF-I. If you listen to the pilot tapes you can hear them describing the VS-17 panels and hear the uncertainty in the pilot’s voice until given the "green light" from command. If those pilots had been trained to use there own judgment and act independently, I feel strongly they would not have fired on those soldiers.
Reed

[Ken White]

Couldn't agree more. Thank god for switches on radios.

'Nother LRS tale. They decided to issue digital cameras so that the guys could take pictures while on missions and uplink them to the CP. Amazing how many of those things got damaged on parachute jumps until they decided to not pursue the idea...

[ODB]

A few years ago I was at Ft. Benning for a conference, during my stay I was introduced to the Land Warrior system. At that point in time the system ran off two 5590 batteries (the big radio batteries). I immediately started thinking the logistical nightmare. Three squads x nine men each = 27, add seven man weapons squad 27+7=34, plus PL, PSG, and RTO 34+3=37. 37 personnel times 2 batteries each 74 batteries for one platoon. How in the world would we support these things logistically? I told the proponent immediately it wasn't going to work, who thought of this thing? I got some seriously evil looks but my point was made. What truely saddens me about this is a couple of months ago watching a show about the latest and greatest with all the little robots and UAVs I wonder when are we going to learn our lesson. If I was still in the Infantry I would now be losing shooters to be robot operators, UAV operators and who knows what else.

Instead of making soldiers physically stronger we look to technology for answers. Can anyone say exoskeleton?

I have to wonder if those much higher up have become such arm chair quaterbacks that they no longer trust those on the ground. Treat someone a certain way long enough and they start to become that. If soldiers are taught from the beginning to make the right decisions, think through things, and give the ability to do so, they will be prepared to make decisions on the ground. Many of you who have read my posts before know I am a strong advocate of the basics. If I can do it with nothing then when I have technology to assist me I can do it that much better.

Finally we have to come up with a way to recycle (for lack of a better word) our technology. As smaller, better equipment replace generation 1, 2 or whatever we have to have a system in place to turn in the older equipment. Prime example is the PVS-4, I tried for years to get them turned in and off the books, in order to do this we had to have every single component, but the components were no longer in the system for us to order, more red tape.

[Entropy]

The biggest problem I've had personally with technology in the military is training and a general lack of standardization and intuitive design that makes training even tougher. When overtasked as it is, I can't afford the time to learn every new whiz-band system or piece of software that comes along and neither can anyone else. Here's a typical scenario:

We hear about "system X" which sounds like a really cool capability to have. System X is paid for and the contractor arrives at the unit for the install and initial training. We find out that System X requires a unique hardware configuration and won't run on our laptops so we can't deploy with it - therefore System X is useless.

Jump to next FY:

After getting more development money, contractor is able to get the System X 2.0 to run on a ruggedized laptop. System X 1.0 is sent to DRMO having never been used. We get 8 hours of initial training from the contractor which is enough to only cover the bare essentials. System X 2.0 is clunky, slow and a bandwith hog, but works...for about a month. System X 2.0 crashes and the computer folks can't fix it because they only got 8 hours of training too. System X 2.0 is sent back to contractor for repair. We deploy without System X 2.0. Newly fixed System X 2.2 is waiting for us upon return from deployment. No one remembers much from the training some months ago so System X 2.2 collects dust. Unit briefing laptop dies - someone puts Powerpoint on System X 2.2 laptop and it becomes the new briefing laptop.

[BayonetBrant]

The fact that there's a "unit briefing laptop" is just compounding the problem. eesh.