The Soldier of the Future

An anonymous reader writes "Land Warrior, the Army's wearable electronics package, was panned earlier this year by the troops who were testing it out. They were forced to take the collection of digital maps and next-gen radios to war, anyway. Now, Wired's Noah Shachtman reports from Iraq, those same soldiers are starting to warm up to their soldier suits of the future."

Re:A bit misleading

[budgenator]

Don't worry any weight saved by new gear is automaticaly consumed by either more new gear, or ammo, grunts have carried the same load since Christ was a corporal.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

[SatanicPuppy]

It's not a new idea. When the Germans were making their last big push into Russia near the end of WWII, they brought forward their newest toughest tanks; near indestructable even to the venerable T-34's that were winning the war for the Soviets.

You know how the russian soldiers defeated them? They poured gasoline on them and set them on fire. They didn't have any anti-tank weapons that were effective, but the gas did the trick fine.

It's easy to get sucked in by wanting the "best" but the best is expensive, and expensive is always in short supply. Get functional and available first, before you try the sexy crap.

Excess Crap

[Irvu]

You aren't the first one to make that comment. Bill Mauldin the World War II cartoonist commented about the "efficient dime-store salesmen" who sold all the crap to the army that the grunts were supposed to lug around, crap that the grunts often shed as they walked simply because there was too much to carry and walk let alone fight.

One of his cartoons depicts two grunts walking down a road littered with discarded gas masks with one saying to the other "I see that C company got the new type gas masks."

He noted that the Brits were much leaner in part because they issued less and in part because they punished company CO's for "waste".

It's always been easy to agree to an extra 6 ounces of gear while sitting at a desk eating lunch. Carrying it and the other 50 6 ounces, now that's a bitch.

Re:As Einstein said,,,

[megaditto]

I'll all rust in a couple of decades [slashdot.org]. Even in your example, the cavemen would need to find some wires and a lightbulb, plus know how to hook all that up and rotate the alternator at the same time. Plus, they would need to have a use for it (check out a story about the steam turbine remaining just a toy to the people that lived 2000 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile [wikipedia.org] ) And so your alternator will remain a neat toy until the lightbulb burns out.

For any artifact to generate progress, the people that find it would need the tools to take that thing apart, understand it, and replicate it. Can you, right now, go out there, make your own shopping list, and make an alternator? In theory you could, but in reality you probably can't. I am not even going to ask you to go out there and make your own 8088 chip or even a damn transistor for that matter!

Re:Advance of Ignorance

[TimSSG]

So you think people wishing to replace the Iraq government with religious government should not be considered a problem.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism [wikipedia.org]
"Islamism is a term used to denote a set of political ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system and its teachings should be preeminent in all facets of society. "

Tim S

Re:Pacifism leads to death ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're talking about the Maoris and the Maruris in the South Pacific - both descended from the same group who migrated south-east through Asia. They split a few hundred years ago, the Maoris colonised New Zealand, developed high-level agriculture and hierarchy, warrior castes, etc; the Maruri settled more inhospitable islands and necessarily moved towards a pacific, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Then the Maoris came their way, killed and enslaved them all. it's in Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond if you want the ref.