Army's Cut of 'Future Soldier' May Impact Med-Tech

docinthemachine writes "The U.S. Army has decided to axe its $500 Million 'Land Warrior Soldier of the Future' program. If this goes through, the loss of future medical technology will be enormous. Many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that trickles down from the military. The program was working on develops new HUDs, 3D vision systems, and bioarmor. Surgeons today are using this technology (via DARPA) to develop new robotic surgery, bioimplants, intelligent prosthetics and more." That's the downside. The reason for the program's cutting is fairly obvious: "Unfortunately, land Warrior is part of the Army's Future Combat System (FCS) Initiative. This is the roadmap for an unprecedented hi-tech modernization of the Army. What new? How about an air force of completely unmanned remote controlled fighters- it's in the budget! Unfortunately, the entire project is so far over budget it becomes a target for cuts. Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost (yes that's billion with a B) and some are calling it the biggest military boondoggle ever."

Re:It make no sense, sènior

[sporkme]

have we ACCEPTED this state of affairs?

Yep! Actually, worse!

If the US didn't go into UNJUSTIFIED wars...

[FatSean]

We wouldn't have failed patheitcally at 'managing communism' in Korea.

We wouldn't have had an enourmous display of incompetance and uneffectiveness in Vietnam.

We wouldn't have attacked Saddam in 93...our ally a few years previous...because he invaded Kuwait who were friends of our NEW ally Saudi Arabia which oppresses women and backed the 9/11 terrorists.

We wouldn't have lost 3k people, wounded 40k and blown $400Billion chains WMDs,,,no wait, stopping Saddam from getting Yellow Cake for nukes, no wait to stop Saddam from supporting Al-Quieda...no wait...to Free the oppressed Iraqi people....who actually had it pretty good compared to many places in Africa which were unfortunately oil-less.

Re:FUD

[ImpTech]

I work for a company that is involved in several military contracts, including FCS, though we have nothing to do with Land Warrior. From some conversations I've had with vendors we work with, the Land Warrior system is being cut because it doesn't work, and because the company developing it is apparently incompetent. As a result, FCS is moving to the Future Force Warrior system as a replacement.

This is much ado about nothing. One system sucked, so the Army is dumping it in favor of a better one.

Re:not quite..

[Dread_ed]

And the key mistake you are making in the argument is that you are confusing a military operation with political problem. Even with post-invasion losses included, this has been one of the least bloody operations in US history.

The military has done and is doing a fantastic job. The political ramifications of the invasion and subsequent nation building haven't been managed well. No this isn't Bush bashing exclusively, it a general condemnation of all of our elected federal officials and the way they navigated the post-invasion political minefield.