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While I see the positives, I see one GIANT negative to this type of tech. How much scrutiny is going into each engagement right now to see whether the soldier acted appropriately? How many troops have been crucified for something that was done in the heat of battle and later second-guessed by the command with all the benefit of hindsight? Do we really want a streaming, first person video of each warfighter's actions? I'm not concerned so much about the additional prosecutions for violations of ROE and such. The question that I have is "How will the fighters react knowing that every single action may be scrutinized by the command?". Regardless of whether the command actively monitors and enforces the ROE and regs on every aspect of the engagement, some soldiers will be second guessing themselves before they pull the trigger. That's going to result in casualties caused by indecision. He who hesitates is lost.
Do the benefits of this kind of tech outweigh the potential human cost and reduction in combat effectiveness?
Beyond that, tech fails. Think about the dependency on technology that soldiers have today. Take GPS. How many times have we seen soldiers that are completely incapable of using a map and compass? Land nav was a primary skill taught in Basic training when I went through. If you didn't pass the land nav course (which was very simple), you had to go back through remedial training. It wouldn't keep you from graduating, but it was certainly emphasized. Now if their batteries fail and they don't have a spare, they're done. I'm talking about the 80% of the Army that isn't combat arms. I'm sure the Infantry still does land nav and I know that SF does. What's going to happen when troops build a dependency on the tech to support their decision making and then have to work without it? Will their decisions get even slower?
I don't know the answers, but I have reservations with relying too much on tech on the battlefield. There's always a tradeoff and it's very rarely thought all the way through. I saw a drawing that one of our JAG officers had on their wall. It has a US soldier standing next to an AFG insurgent fighter and pointed out the difference in their equipment (and the costs of the equipment) and had a caption, paraphrased, We've been here for how many years and they are still fighting? Tech superiority helps, but fundamentals win the fight. If we keep sacrificing fundamentals to gain tech proficiency, can we keep winning the fights?
Last edited by (1VB)compforce; 06-15-2014 at 19:14.
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