The future face of war - Rumsfeld plans battlefield revolution

New York Daily News ^ | 5/26/03 | RICHARD SISK

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON - A few Memorial Days from now, veterans will hardly recognize their armed services, if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has his way.

Rumsfeld's transformation drive at the Pentagon stresses brains, speed and high-tech over brawn.

New versions of the Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles of the Air Force will be matched by unmanned ground and underwater vehicles for the Army and Navy.

The Massachussetts Institute of Technology already has a prototype underwater drone called "Robo-Tuna."

Two contracts put out last week by the Pentagon for Army Future Combat Systems summed up the transformation.

A $15 billion contract called on Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp. to begin the development phase for a lighter and more lethal force that could deploy anywhere in the world within 48 hours.

The Army that would take the field after 2010 would have new tanks that are one-third lighter than the 70-ton M1A1 Abrams and 30-ton Bradley armored personnel carriers.

Unlike the Abrams and Bradley, the new tanks and personnel carriers could be deployed aboard C-130 Hercules cargo planes.

The new land combat vehicles would be linked by computers to helicopters, jets and ground drones to give troops total awareness.

Massive bill

Soldiers in the future could also be wearing uniforms that today's G.I.s would not recognize. Under a second, $50 million contract last week, MIT will set up an Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies run by Prof. Edwin Thomas to develop a lightweight "battlesuit."

Thomas said the goal is to have sensors woven into textiles that "would provide chemical protection, ballistic protection, sensing - it could change from a soft fabric to a hard shell for protection."

The futuristic concepts are just that - concepts - and not even Rumsfeld can predict whether they will work or whether Congress will foot the massive bill.

Transformation also has its doubters in the ranks and among the military theorists.

A recent Rand Corp. study said that an enemy taking care with cover, concealment and camouflage could avoid being spotted by the drones.

Army hard-liners also doubt lighter is necessarily better. In a video briefing to the Pentagon from Iraq, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division that led the drive on Baghdad, said his Abrams tanks and Bradleys worked just fine.

"We're very, very pleased with the performance of our equipment," Blount said. "It really worked well. It clearly showed that the heavy force has a place in an urban fight."

Then there are things on the drawing board that would make a Hollywood scriptwriter hesitate.

Among the exotic plans being dreamed up by Defense Advanced Reseach Projects Agency - known as DARPA - are performance enhancers that would allow commandos to stay awake for a week.

Also on DARPA's wish list are pen-sized devices to disinfect water or one that would allow commandos to survive in deserts by extracting water from air.

The Navy is experimenting with electromagnets that would replace a carrier's deck arresting gear - the tailhook landing - with beams that would create invisible tailhooks to stop a landing plane.

Aboard the carrier Truman late last year, just before heading for Iraq, Capt. Jack (Slapshot) Carter, commander of the air group, grinned as he told a reporter, "I wonder who's gonna be the first guy to try that. Ain't gonna be me."

Originally published on May 26, 2003

[David Isaac]

I hope the common defense can live through the assault, first Clinton and now Rumsfeld, who's only word that I can hear clearly is "smaller". How much smaller, one wonders.

[kattracks]

I think you may be confused. clinton wanted to (and did) weaken the military. Rumsfeld is seeking to make the military stronger and more effective.

I don't know if his plans will succeed, or even if they're practical, but there is a hugh difference in what both men (and in clinton's case, I use the word loosely) were/are trying to achieve.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Bring on the drones.

[section9]

I would hate to have seen the casualty count of our armor and mech troops in Iraq had we had to go in there in wheeled Strykers. They would have been KORNET bait.

Instead of battlefield survivability, people are worried about how many of these rolling coffins they can stuff into a Hercules.

Make mine an Abrams.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[David Isaac]

This is a case where I would much rather be wrong than right, but cannot with absolute certainty, trust anyone of high postition in the federal government.

Perhaps through morbibity or even borderline paranoia, I have not been able to discern any noticible change in the direction this nation is taking, when the power shifts from party to party. The only change is in the rhetoric, with half of voters totally believing in one and half in the other.

I am well aware of the perfidy, downright foolishness, and/or total ignorance of those who espouse liberalism. What could possibly explain why the GOP and conservatives have not been able to thoroughly trounce these charlatans on the battlefield of public opinion? Their excesses, not to mention depravity, is out in the open for all to see, if it were only pressed forward by the GOP leadership. But that group seems to be unwilling to fight.

Why should I assume that they have my best interest at heart, when they can't even defend their own professed goals?

[FreedomPoster]

>>Instead of battlefield survivability, people are worried about how many of these rolling coffins they can stuff into a Hercules.

What kills me about the whole concept is that even light armored forces aren't being deployed via airlift. The Air Force chews up pretty much all of the available airlift deploying and supporting their own forward bases.