But as Alpha kicks in doors, rounds up terror suspects and peals off automatic fire in deafening six-shot bursts, not one of the soldiers bothers to check his radio or look into the eyepiece to find his buddies on the electronic maps. "It's just a bunch of stuff we don't use, taking the place of useful stuff like guns," says Sgt. James Young, who leads a team of four M-240 machine-gunners perched on a balcony during this training exercise at Fort Lewis, Wash. "It makes you a slower, heavier target."
It may be that only platoon and company commanders, and maybe squad leaders will be able to make use of this equipment. And I imagine the high end special forces types could use it on an individual basis.
But right now the blue force tracker takes too long to update to be of much use for anything other than getting troops into the proper position for an assault. Once the troops jump off and start moving, information even seconds old is less than worthless.
I imagine that some of the gear will turn out to be good for all, some good for selected leaders or elite troops, some worthless, and some just not ready yet. And since some troops with this gear are heading to Iraq, all theory will be tested quite hard.
And remember that technology is just a bonus built on a solid foundation of high quality and well-trained soldiers. Put expensive high tech equipment in the hands of inferior troops and you just get piles of expensive junk littering a battlefield that your enemy controls.
Oh, and Strategypage has a good post on this issue. (I wrote this a couple days ago and just saw the new Strategypage post. I usually write posts up as drafts and don't post them for hours, days, or weeks. And sometimes never as somebody else covers what I've written about and I don't want to seem derivative. Work and life really interfere with prompt posting.)
