Today's military is full of technology, and that requires intelligent men and women to use this technology. Before transferring over to infantry, I was a tank turret repairer working on the computers of the M-1 Abrams and M-2/M-3 Bradley. These are very complex systems that have a lot of electronics running the entire vehicle - from how much fuel to send to the power plant, regulating speed, monitoring all systems, telling the gun how much super elevation and how much to lead the target in order to hit it. When the gunner of an M-1 hits the laser button, the distance to target, humidity, barometric pressure, air temperature and speed of the vehicle are all entered into the computer in less than a second. These are all factors that affect the accuracy of the round. The M-1 can travel cross country at 30 MPH and hit the target with over a 90% accuracy rate. Most vehicles running around Iraq have a system called the Blue Force Tracker. It is a Unix based Sun system that includes map overlays of the AO, shows where all the friendly assets are (air and ground), shows enemy locations if they are spotted, allows the soldier to call for fire, send situation reports, request medical evacuation and supplies as well as email to other BFT systems. Howitzers are now completely digitized. They can receive coordinates from the people requesting fire, everything goes through the ballistic computer and the gun is automatically set to the right elevation and azimuth. Even the soldier on the ground has an array of digital equipment to use in order to fight more effectively. So no, we are not mindless drones sitting around awaiting orders to go kill something. We are intelligent thinking men and women and education is highly recommended for all service members.
Bruce On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 6:00 AM, Vivec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Does a soldier that can think benefit the Army? > Isn't a Soldier's job not to question why, but just to do and die? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:260838 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
