Army, Lockheed Martin team up for DisOPS 'battlefield PDAs'
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted November 18th 2009 5:07PM
posted November 18th 2009 5:07PM
Remember the Land Warrior program, which only took 15 years and half a billion dollars outfit our troops with high-tech battlefield uniforms? With DisOPS ("distributed operations") Lockheed Martin is taking a different tack. Deployed to Special Forces in Afghanistan, the system is comprised of the Connect software which runs on ruggedized laptop computers, allowing squad leaders to plan missions on a map, and View PDAs that receive info over tactical radio, cellphone, or even WiFi networks. The PDAs provide "friendly force tracking of other team and squad leaders, land navigation tools, photo capture and transmission, and the ability to annotate and share maps in real time with other leaders." In addition to all that, the handhelds include a sniper detection system for locating the origin of enemy fire and distributing it to other units in the area. Reportedly the system is working quite well -- which means that, barring any further obstacles, DisOPS might see widespread use before 2030.
View PDAs?
my bad. thought it was meant to say PDFs. Ah well.
Why don't we just invest money on pulling our troops out of countries we shouldn't be in in the first place?
Our Army doesn't need any more "toys."
valid point. I wonder when we'll be out of Vietna-I mean Iraq.
Maybe so, but any device that improves the effectiveness and survival rate of our soldiers sounds like a good idea to me.
I agree with Wired Knight. And Latin. Let's just wait for that big EMP the British are going to launch on Washington D.C.
Whether or not we should have invaded Iraq became irrelevant as soon as it happened. Stability in the region is vital to security.
Regardless of where our troops should or should not be, I don't have any qualms with our military staying up on top of research. Usually this type of stuff trickles down into every day tech...not to mention it keeps our military on top of technology.
Let's just hope the Taliban doesn't read about these on the internet some......where....... :(
Anyway, I like how Latin Trident calls them "toys" like half the electronics (and the internet) didn't come from military contracts.
I should have said "half the electronics we use" :(
A cardboard cutout of a head works much better as a sniper detector :P
Good luck with sniper detection in the Hindu-Kush. Sound reflection off the awesome terrain there makes it more art than science.
I dunno about this. While I think tech on the battlefield is cool and can be used well, it requires a bit of learning and is more difficult to completely master (down to muscle-memory level) than tried and true methods of OPORD/FRAGOs, proper radio procedures, and training your junior leaders prior to contact so you don't have to direct as much.
Has anyone thought about bandwidth concerns with these things? I would guess not since the current stuff tends not to be used to it's full potential due to bandwidth or other systems technology limitations.
I like the idea of real-time coordination of teams through visual images... but again, typically the bandwidth will not be there, and if you have sufficient radio TTPs already in place, you're already set.
The premise sounds an awful lot like the original TF2 concept that Valve had shortly after the original HL was released...at least for the 'commander class'. I dunno why, but this posting made me think about that.
By 2030, shouldn't all of this stuff be implemented into your brain as a child? Wifi, mobile network, radio, and GPS?
Either that, or a headset.
This is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10
They should just give them all Palm Pixi's. They are only $25 @ Best Buy.
I think the quote about maps vs computers comes in here:
"A Map with a bullet hole in it is still a map. A GPS with a bullet hole in it is a paperweight"
"which only took 15 years and half a billion dollars outfit our troops with high-tech "
I demand an editor!!!!!
They should just change the site to a wiki. Wikigadget. Then we can fix it for them. ; p
lol agreed!
all of these articles about military tech never mention anything about security. what sort of systems are in place to keep this from being usable by enemies?
I'm sure they'll wait until a number of service members are killed because of it before they worry about that.
I'm sure this will be an amazingly useful tool for the enemy lucky enough to kill the guy holding it. Then they can see where our guys are and what our guys know about them. Awesome idea! I hope they add a self destruct function that will cause it to explode if it is in the hands of an 'unauthorized user'. By the time this is available all the soldiers will probably have RFID tags injected into their arm anyway.
Ha, resistive touch screen! Where are the Apple Fanboys now!
Any way to change your password to post?
But do they play Solitaire?
oh look! Resistive screens! And here I thought everyone was saying resistive was dead, non-functional and less useful than capacitive!
OMG now soldiers can have REAL minimaps! :D
These battlefield PDAs don't appear to be anything more than a Trimble Nomad painted green:
http://www.trimble.com/ps_nomad.shtml
I hope we're not paying more than the $2k sticker price.