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Watched a PBS special last night: hi-tech war. Many new hi-tech gadgets & weapons were used for the first time in the war with Iraq, in what the government calls network-centric warfare. I tuned in midway through, and, at first, thought I was watching a documentary about video games. Everybody had a laptop. A map of the battlefield was displayed on screen, complete with grid coordinates. Different battalions were identified with/by different colors. GPS data updated everyone's position real-time (!). So everybody knew where everybody else was located .. so we wouldn't shoot our own guys .. like we did in the first Gulf war. I was drooling, in geek heaven, watching this technology work. Almost made me want to re-enlist. (Almost.) They went into some detail about the new software used to create a "digital battle command system" called FBCB2 [Force XXI Battle Command Brigade-and-Below 2 (thx John)]. Sounds like something created for a Digital Warrior. ••• continued ••• Technology doesn't come as easy to older folks (like generals) as it does to younger kids, who grew up with it. You know the new adage: If you have a computer problem, find a 14-year-old. I've found that kids posses an intuitive understanding of computers, whereas older folks often find their use mechanical. So it surprised me to see these gray-headed guys playing (what looked like) video games, and looking comfortable discussing bleeding-edge technology. I knew warfare was headed in that direction (toward network-centric operations), but this was the first time it has been implemented on such a grande scale. And it seems that the systems really work. You can imagine the headaches they must've had getting everything to work. I mean, I had trouble networking one computer to another, located in the next room. Not once did I hear a single soldier use the term crash, lock-up, reboot, or blue-screen-of-death. When it works right (politics aside), technology can be a beautiful thing. Seems like much of the technology used in their new network-centric system could've easily been ported directly from online video games currently being used. More info here. |
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