U.S Army prepares to equip first several hundred Land Warrior systems

All I can say is finally! The 21st century has arrived for the foot soldier. And these are pictures of the new Land Warrior, which is a little lighter and a little more compact.

external source
Original news source

The US Army is preparing to field several hundred Land Warrior infantry ensembles, which recently went through a Master Training Course, for the first battalion-level ...

What the Land Warrior has

Close-up

mod edit: Quote Reference (review link)
Posting work written by others. **ALL MEMBERS READ** (review link)


[edit on 13-2-2006 by UK Wizard]

Looks good , i dont really know much about this system , more about the UKs FIST, I did hear some where that it is estimated that the potential market for theese systems as well as Germanys project may be worth up to 10 billion dollars in the future as other countries become interested in aquiring this type of product.looks like ther could be some fierce competition to get as much of a slice of that as possible.

Originally posted by buckaroo
i dont really know much about this system ,

Here is some info on the Land Warrior system.

Land Warrior

Looks good , i dont really know much about this system ,

Well for a quick idea of what this system is just picture the US Army slogan “An Army of One” being put into actually practice.

ugh...you need a subscription to view.

How many of the systems (exactly)? When? & Where?

and it is definiatly about time.

Is that an old picture of it? I would assume that the uniform would be the newer digitized ones...with a lot of squares (pixels).

[edit on 14-2-2006 by Murcielago]

Originally posted by WestPoint23

[Well for a quick idea of what this system is just picture the US Army slogan “An Army of One” being put into actually practice.

Thats a good way of suming it up , BTW I didn't want to sound ignorant in my first post like I said i am just more aware of FIST, I didn't phrase it very well, still I am here to learn.

This system is sure to have a big impact on the capabilities of the US ground forces, my only concern is land warrior and systems like it ,when it really comes down to your squad being pinned down under heavy fire in terrible conditions for prolonged periods add to the battle field stress levels, in so much as a soldier may become overloaded with information?

I know that theese systems give their users greater tactical awareness and link them better in to the command and control structure,but do you possibly think that soldiers may become distracted or even overwhelmed at times of high drama? especially if the system suffers some sort of a failure at an inopourtune moment .

Im sure that greater minds than me have looked in to this in great depth , but it was the first thing that sprang in to my mind.

And to counter balance my own point I suppose there is no greater cause of battle stress than having a poor situational awareness or to feel cut off from ones comrades , I suppose this is where programes like Land warrior come in to there own think about the torrrid times Russian soldiers had/still have? in Chechnya due to the ability of the Chehcens to listen in on there communications, and predict Russian tactics not for one minute am I suggesting that land warrior would have solved all there problems they ran much deeper, but if you see my point such a system would surely have aided them in that particular theatre with of course proper training , morale and logictics etc in allowing them to adapt more rapidly and "soak up" more information.

I just thought Id raise my concern is all , Im by no means having a go at land warrior im all for it and FIST, merely speculating on one point that i can see that may warrant further scrutiny. I might have even answered my own question but it would be interesting to find out if any one had the same thought that I did.

[edit on 13-2-2006 by buckaroo]

i thought something similar to this was already being used? i remember one of my army buddies telling me about some sort of sighting unit mounted to the helmet ? the way he described it seems similar to what is pictured there... Any info on that?

Originally posted by McGuirk
i thought something similar to this was already being used? i remember one of my army buddies telling me about some sort of sighting unit mounted to the helmet ? the way he described it seems similar to what is pictured there... Any info on that?

No, what your referring to is just night vision.

Originally posted by Murcielago
Is that an old picture of it? I would assume that the uniform would be the newer digitized ones...with a lot of squares (pixels).

The uniform is old, but those pictures are fairly new.

The older bulky Land Warrior system

I assume that all the electrics in the land warrior system is run from a battery that the soldier carriers. What happens if said soldier is a special forces soldier deep behind enemy lines and he's just used up his last battery? if a resupply or air drop is impossible does he ditch all the suit? the electronic part of the suit? or is there some for of rechaging for the battery?

Justin

Originally posted by Murcielago

Originally posted by McGuirk
i thought something similar to this was already being used? i remember one of my army buddies telling me about some sort of sighting unit mounted to the helmet ? the way he described it seems similar to what is pictured there... Any info on that?

No, what your referring to is just night vision.

no no not night vision, it was something similar to what you are talking about here.

Originally posted by McGuirk
no no not night vision, it was something similar to what you are talking about here.

It was either night vision, or a thermal imager...but either way, it wasn't this.

I heard by far the soldiers favorite feature of the LW is the ability to accurately shoot around corners without exposing any vital areas. At most your going to expose your hands and if you do it right you dont even have to expose them.

Shooting accurately behind full cover has been a dream since people likely started shooting at each other.

Video Camera Mounted On Gun. Soldier groans at extra weight and needless bulk.

IHADSS like monocle mounted in front of soldier's eye desroying depth of field combat vision and generally putting him in a 'face first, I crushed my soldieronics' position of having to guard where he looks, dives for cover and moves through.

Monocle takes video feed from relay on gun (wired and wireless were both tried as I recall). Soldier wastes valuable time putting bulky, heavy, gun around corner. More valuable time trying to work gun-as-camera-bore while 'looking the other way'.

Enemy fires full auto burst at corner 'just because' (that's how suppression fire works, see BHD with the technical vs. M203 duel) while enemy's friends toss or fire grenade/RCL or LAW around it.

Gun is blown out of soldier's shattered hands about 2 seconds before he is cooked and eviscerated by blast from grenade.

I /swear/ these people get dumber and dumber all the time, you only need look at your average photo-capable CELL PHONE to see how dated this crap is.

The REAL key to firing from under cover is to be able to either drill an FO microcam type mount THROUGH the wall (Nailgun) or toss a minicam ball/disk WELL OUT INTO the field of fire (pushing the LOS beyond what the enemy expects the Soldier to be at and thus protecting the sensor even as you can look deeper into the threat's field of fire).

So that said sensors independent sensors can establish Q-pulse or muzzleblast IR signature points _independent_ of soldier presence.

If you are really gonna put your people at risk to LAN locateable RF signature bloom, you might as well let them all see what /throwaway/ cameras (offmount) do since now the weight goes down (more video grenades per unit) and an infinite number of people can participate in "You take that point source, you two on that one, you standby with the LAW for that heavy MG in the window" delegation of fires.

All while neither costing nor exposing individuals with heavy sights on each weapon.

If you absolutely must put major sensors on a rifle, use an autopedestal sentry-gun type system and place it on an armored golfcart with an erectable mast and preferably a caliber that significantly outranges all personal weapons. Shoot over fencelines, rooftops and vehicle/obstacle concentrations to protect troops to considerable depth of field.

Alternately, (in buildings) make you sensor/gun combo look like a cross between a smoke alarm and a frisbee and let it HOLD THE LINEAR FIRE ZONE (hallways or stairs) by simple virtue of toss or stick emplacement so that, again, humans don't need to expose themselves like morons to enemy fire. The caliber can be as little as .22LR or as large as 9mm.

But for pity's sake, don't value-soak your infantry just so they can send bloody EML to each other. "Look, an IED!" Snort.

It's not like humans can carry much more than they already do (or run fast enough, naked to maintain the pace of manuver and contact). Or that any halfway sane enemy is going to give them a target to visibly detect with soldieronics.

Just more toys for big boys BS.


KPl.

Well yes ch but the big boys should be eminently satisfied with this set of toys... Heres Why:

SO you now have soldiers lit up like a radio direction finding christmas tree right? the big government solution is this...

Let 20 or 30 die to radio shack reinforced insurgents in pincer engagements where they know exactly where the whole platoon is. Then while expressing your horror on the senate floor suggest a countermeasure study of 6 months at 200 million dollars total cost among the tronics manufacturers... as another 90 grunts get picked off by the radio shack jihad the oh so valiant raytheon boys and girls (snort) come up with a variant of their cluster bomb that sprays thousands of dummy transvievers over a square kilometer. And at only 25 dollars per 10 hour lithium ion spoof device times 5000 per cluster bomb the congress and senate will tout their unprecedented effort to save soldiers lives and gloriously accept reelection while taking time out to go on a bermuda fact finding junket sponsored by raytheon to discuss the mark two system.

The real-world 'Land Warrior' scenario:

GI: "Sarge...Enemy combatants sighted...500yards"

Sgt: "Engage and destroy target!"

GI: "Sir, Yes Sir!"

GI: "CTRL+F....Fire!"

LW *click*

GI: "CTRL+F...FIRE!!!!!!"

LW: *click*

LW: 'TWAIN driver for gun-device cannot be found'

GI: "Dammit! CONTROL+EFFFF....FIIIIRE!!!"

LW: *click*

LW: 'Gun is not a valid WIN32 application, please insert the installation disk that came with your weapon'

GI: "Sarge, what's the number for the helpdesk?"

Sgt: "Have you tried turning your gun off and then re-booting?"
....

^^

But that gives the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" a much more realistic touch ...

well how much does this cost?

i can see the soldier of the future now

lamellor armour which is resistant to mwave , laser , bullet and shells and is powered

fully slaved 3d mapping gps naviagtion with wink down menu for fire support options

onboard shoulder mounted laser , under arm grenade launcher and flame thrower and 25mm automatic assault system

and its so expensive that only 1 soldier gets deployed


to face 4000 stone throwing fanatics = who then bury him in 2 tons of rocks