I thought the top inventions would be related to renewable energy...just think of how many lives would be saved!

johnnyabnormal

The only way to win a war of fundamentalists and/or terrorists is with technology innovation. Although this is very simple, it's good to see the military moving in this direction.

altus

what's the point to have multiply armour for the humvee, it is not that you can say on the field yeah i want the humvee with that kind of armour with those options and a cd player to entertain....

but the excalibur is very powerfull artillery round, @ least @ demos but it has to be very accurate

TBM-Fan

@TBM-Fan: The purpose of having multiple layers of armor for the humvee is to protect the soldiers from shrapnels and bullets that are flying at em. Yea, given the humvee has had multiple armor upgrades, its because its the mostly used and reliable all terrain vehicle that is cheaply purchased by the army. unless someone can invent a multipurpose vehicle that can take the hit of multiple IED's (not a direct hit of course) and that is cost effective to make.

reiyaku

In the host of Future Weapons whisper: No one is left standing a chance after the Excalibur locks on.....boom

I like propaganda as the next citizen, but can we get a guy who doesn't speak in the "I'm in a meeting, can I call you back" whisper whenever he talks about ANYTHING?!

Chester_Copperpot

Another great invention that would save soldier's lives:

Mandatory IQ test scores for eligibility to hold any higher office in the US government. President & his administration, Congress, etc.

johnnyabnormal

@reiyaku: but that was not my point

multiple armour upgrades are good but my point was several types of armour sounds strange unless you change them quite easy
if it is several hours of work cause a new armour has to be on for a new mission is not easy to do when you are in Iraq and it forces the army to have less humvee to go on a mission

TBM-Fan

The Excalibur looks like the explosive that screwed over Tony Stark in the first few minutes of Iron Man.

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

@altus: no, actually technology just makes the fundamentalists/terrorists (let's call them zealots) turn to ever more brutal tactics (like using children). you can't win a shooting war against zealots. look at the germans against the russians in ww2. the russians were willing (at least the commanders anyway) to make whatever sacrifices were necessary including massive loss of life. look at the north and south vietnamese. look at the soviets and afghanis. there are countless examples. the only way to win a war against zealots is to undermine their base of support and make them irrelevant. the way to do that is to eliminate the wealth-gap among middle eastern countries and the colonial attitude in the west toward the middle east. i'm not saying "oh it's all our fault, america is so evil" or any of that shit. i'm saying that until we create economic opportunities for *everyone* in the middle east (like we have in the us and in europe for the most part) people in that region of the world are going to seek to destroy what they view as the source of their hardship. until then every time we come up with a new technology, these zealots will find a counter for it. and unless we want to completely give up on the idea of free speech, expression and human rights and just start killing indiscriminately just like the people we are fighting against (which would make us exactly as bad as them), there is simply no way around it.

oldmanstan

@oldmanstan: @xoforoct:

I half agree with both of you. People turn to religion because they have need it to sustain them through times of hardship. The middle east is pretty much locked in the dark ages as far as religion is concerned. However the first step in stabilizing an area racked by civil unrest is to give the ordinary people a sense of security that they can go buy groceries and walk home from school without fear of being shot or blown to pieces. Without a sense of security there will be no economic growth. Would you want to start a business in a place where you and your customers all had to fear constant explosions and death?

pevans34

@xoforoct:

i couldn't disagree more...!

what went wrong in the middle east started with WWI...

watch lawrence of arabia, then you know more...

oil made some of the elite in the middle east very rich, but the majority is still very poor.
people need education. once they get education they can make their own destiny, right now their desitnies are being made for them, that's why religious hatred catches on easily... just look @ american prisons... gangs are the religion for those uneducated...

instead of pooring billions into high tech for the army there should be help in getting rid of the dictators and building school systems... without interfering with politics there, and everything will come around...

lastly there has to be a solution to the israel/palestinian situation... they have to share the land as equals, plaestinians need to be trated as equals, not 2nd class...

smokeonit

@TBM-Fan: Its not like the vehicles get fitted per mission after each mission. Different units have different missions. This heavier style of Armoring is most likely going to be used on the convoy routes. Once its put on they are not taking it off. This heavier armoring is going to require a newer vehicle with a newer engine, not one of the many worn out M998s that have been used and abused and probably have the lower armoring sets.

beetlebailey

The HMMWV Egress Assistance Trainer looks like fun!

two cans tied together and thrown down the street to wake up the surrounding neighbors with a loud annoying noise

@oldmanstan:

110% agreement!

smokeonit

@altus:

you haven't learned a thing...!

smokeonit

@johnnyabnormal: An ethics test would complement the IQ test nicely, as long as it was subtle.

hooked-on-tronics

@oldmanstan: well, honestly, the middle east could use better economic opportunities, but the fighting over there isnt money based (at least, not directly). its a religious system that has been around for thousands of years, and while the religion itself is not violent, it can be interpreted to be violent. economics are not going to make a peaceful middle east. in my opinion, nothing is. ever.

xoforoct

@TBM-Fan: If I recall correctly, at one time they prototyped a laser guided arty round called the copperhead, and they could drop it into the open hatch of a moving tank.

"excuse me, but can I order this tank with up-armored cupholders please?"

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@smokeonit: But how do you get rid of the dictators without getting into politics? Figure that one out and you can just print your own money, cause it aint happenin... least not in this lifetime.

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@two cans tied: I know the guy who designed that thing!!!!! He is an army safety officer, used to ride a harley and fly oh-58's and blackhawks. His name is Rik! I just talked with him about that thing 6-8 months ago. Said it was really kinda cool to see a dash 10 on something he created. Great guy too,

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@johnnyabnormal: That would work, but the smart people end up being the ones that shoot their foot just to get out of the war and earn a Purple Heart.

Of course, I'm not against the soldiers, I'm against the war.

Besides, the smarter you are, the more devious plans you can arrange. The dumb ones just get told what to do by the smart ones anyhoo.

Metkis

@oldmanstan: Most of the terrorists suchs as Bin Ladin are people with good education and have trained and worked in the United States. One of the attempted attacks in London involved doctors. --- It's ideology for the most part. What we're doing in Iraq is military, social, and economic. The Sunnis have already turned against Al Qaida, the Shiite dominant goverment turned agaisnt Al Sadre's army and are winning, bribery came into play, increased number of troops help support the Iraqi's, and the Shiite and Sunnis are more united than ever. E.g. their recent victories in soccer matches. I think it's a combination of everything. You need to attack the terrorists at all fronts.

theeraserhead

Anyone ever see the movie Red Dawn?

The only reason these people are fighting us is because we're occupying THEIR land.

Unknown2U

@theeraserhead: Religion!!!

johnnyabnormal

@xoforoct: Islam is only about 1400 years old. @smokeonit: If Palestinians would only behave like anything BUT 2nd class citizens, (and stop voting Hamas by popular vote into ruling office) they'd be successful humans. They've been offered many opportunities to rise above the violence, but they always tend to get back to old habits. Not that Israelis are so peaceful, but they're not instigating the violence, only dealing with it. Remember, most of the world hates the Jews. Always been oppressed and always been discriminated. Yet somehow, we've managed to become and maintain the success we've gained in this world.

As for the post... I'm all for getting defensive weapons to our boys there (although the best solution is to never have gone, and still to turn the weapons on those pulling the strings in this war), but talking about them and saying their available, and actually deploying them to the troops are VERY different. Like everything with this administration, it's too little, too late.

qbrad

Yes, it's unfortunate we had to go to War in Iraq and occupy the land. Wish we never had to but I see many reasons why we had to. Looks like Iraq is on it's way to recovery, their oil is generating profits for their country to flourish, and the terrorists are being shot at by the Iraqi's themselves. This is in contrast to when Saddam Hussein was in power with 800,000 dead under his reign and 10,000+ more on the kudish side and torture that makes Abu Grahib a frat fest. The UN oil for food program did nothing but starve the children to death and made Saddam and his family richer. Recent polls show most Iraq's don't like us to occupying Iraq, but they also don't want us to leave - just yet. Yes,their economy is up, Saudi Arabia just remove billions of Iraqi debt, cell phone and satellite usage is up, real estate market is up, and even Disney is considering setting up a theme park over there. Occupation isn't right for any country, but I also see alot of good it's doing especially in Iraq. Hopefully, Iraq will cause a dimino effect to the rest of the region (I have my doubts) but it's a risk we had to take instead of nuking and invading every corner of that region. It already forced Lybia to give up its WMD program (after Saddam's capture)and made the Lebanese chase their Syrian occupiers.

theeraserhead

Most of the intelligence was based on the Clinton years. The UN, the Russians, and even the French believed Saddam possesed weapons of mass destruction. In 1998, Bill Clinton signed a bill into law for regime change in Iraq by helping to fund the Iraqi resistance. This is due to Clinton's, Tony Blair's, and believe of not John F. Kerry's belief that Saddam possesed and had and will use WMD. Bush was simply following on where Clinton left off by keeping George Tenet in the CIA cause it was Tenet who helped support the fact that Iraq had WMD. After 911, we simply had no choice, and stated that Saddam posses WMD and that Saddam "sought" to obtain nuclear material - which Saddam did. Just a few days ago, Iraq sold the uranium yellow cakes that Saddam possesed to the Canadian to be processed and enriched. After the cole bombing, John F. Kerry made a speech pushing for a regime change in Iraq and blamed the attacks on Saddam. Boy do we change just for politics.

theeraserhead

@johnnyabnormal: Really ideology not just relgion. Commnism didn't believe in religion and work to suppress and control the varios religious institutes in their country. Commnism believes in heaven on Earth, not the spiritual kind of heaven. But it was the same ideology that has killed more people than what Nazi's did. By the way, the Nazi's weren't too different from Commnism - they were both socialists and believe in state control except the Germans were more nationalistic.

theeraserhead

@Metkis: Uck, I meant "unlike" not just as.

Metkis

@Metkis: - just as other non-Marxist forms of communism.

Metkis

@theeraserhead: Communism isn't bound by a belief necissarily, it's a classless, stateless structure of a government. In a Marxist view it was simply believed that religion was a way to get others to complain about their problems to someone other than the government that was causing them. There are Christian communists just as there are atheist ones.

The true idea of Karl Marx's communism has never been established (in part because it is largely considered impossible). Stalinism, Trotskyism, Leninism, and many more are all simply based on the idea.

Metkis

@theeraserhead: That's one perspective of communism. There are many. To say "their" you refer to a specific portion and ambiguity is important in this case.

Metkis

@Metkis: Read the commnist manifesto and you'll know what their thoughts are about religion. Really, all the killings and stuff, it based on peoples ideas relgious or not, the real reason for war is us.

theeraserhead

@Metkis: Gah, dang posts not showing until after I repost!

Metkis

@Metkis: add isn't after communism.

Metkis

@theeraserhead: Just imagine what the world would be like without religion.

johnnyabnormal

Where there is commnism, alot of people have died Cuba, China, Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma (after the Americans left). You're right - they take many forms. E.g. some of the environmental movements. There are commnist movements in the past and even now who believe that Jesus is a commnist. They've even made their way into Islamic beliefs like Wahabism. They all have one thing in common, state control and reallocation of wealth. Most of them never really achieve the true communism so all generally socialists. True Christianity, Buddhism and even other religions don't condone such idea since they believe God or something else greater should govern on a man's soul or action, not goverment, not another man. Sometimes, it's really hard to distinguish and it just comes back in circles. This is why hardcore communists have trouble with religion.

theeraserhead

The extra armor on the humvee is definitely nice, but it is a serious pain when you get into soft patches, like sand. lol

MelL

I like the up-armor on the M-1114 HMMV but it STILL leaves serious gaps and when that golden BB makes it through that gap people, all that extra armor is just a bumper for it to bounce off of and hit you. Lets work on that CROWS system!!

Oh, and BTW, terrorism, communism, and islam, are all ideas and no matter the bullets fires or the body count, at the end of the day you just cannot kill an idea. This and many other American enacted, proactive wars is like having sex to promote population control.

Kevin

@qbrad: These weapons are being deployed to the troops. You have bad information if you are being told otherwise. Furthermore people need to stop getting so bent out of shape about the troops lacking some supplies. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it would be nice if we deployed with all kinds of amazing items that we needed because we had an ability to see into the future. But it just doesn't work that way. In reality the military procurement process has moved light years faster during our current wars on terror than it has in any past wars. Whether it moves slower or faster has nothing to do with "this administration." Sure, they got us in the war, but Bush and his cronies are far from the people deciding on what armor the guys on the ground wear. You need to grasp the amount of testing that goes into these pieces. Think for a moment about the uproar there would be if NATICK fielded a new piece of gear and then it failed in the desert environment? Or if it simply didn't perform as advertised and it cost a few lives? Then you would want to lynch people by saying "Damnit they didnt do their jobs and get the best gear out!" So make a decision, do you want good gear or fast gear?

Rumsfield once got fried for saying, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the one you wish you had." Well, newsflash: He's totally right. Go back and look at WWII or Vietnam, things were much worse then. DoD actually is doing decently well in a lot of areas these days. So again, turn off the freaking talking heads on tv and go get some real info. Read some blogs from on the ground. Talk to a Soldier..and not just the pissed off ones. There are plenty out there who have willingly gone back to Iraq 3 and 4 times because they believe in what they are doing.

Rant over.

noroadtrippin

@Unknown2U: Yeah, good plan. Base your thoughts on the current conflict in Southwest Asia on a b-level film made in the 80's. That'll probably give you a real accurate portrayal of what is happening.

If you truly think that is why these people are fighting us, you need to turn off CNN, turn off MSNBC, turn off Fox News and start reading. Freaking educate yourself before you speak up on something complex again. A few of you could take that advice to heart. E-mails welcome.

LT Barron, out.

noroadtrippin

plain and simple... war sells.

The news teams love to say that Americans are being killed because it will get the people to watch.

If they can inflame someone, pass some outlandish inflammitory view onto the sheep that watch, then these sheep will come right back for more.

They are not going to talk to the fathers and mothers that have had their daughters pulled off the street and raped, only to have them thrown back into the dirt and stoned for "forcing these 'good' men to commit such terrible crimes." How many interviews do you see where the local Iraqi feels safe to go to the market now? No, you just get the teenagers out burning flags, or the parents of the dirtbags who strap bombs to their chests and head for the local daycare. All to get a little of that promised virgin ass designated for the martyrs. Of course their parents are upset, but instead of blaming the dumbass punk who blew himself up, they blame the people he was trying to kill. Quite honestly, I would have no problems with packing each and every weapon's magazine with a little pork fat letting everyone know. But what about their religious rights? What about the rights of the innocents that die in the bomb blasts? What about their rights to keep breathing? No, make sure that every single extremist knows that cross that line, you go straight to hell. No free pass for the people that bring the war to uninvolved civillians. Fuck them, and fuck them hard... matter of fact, throw a handful of sand in there, just for good measure.

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@xoforoct: "its a religious system that has been around for thousands of years, and while the religion itself is not violent, it can be interpreted to be violent"

FYI:
From the Koran/Quran:
Sura 8:39: "And fight them until there is no more disbelief in Islam and the religion will all be for Allâh Alone..."
9:29: "Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allâh, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allâh and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not Islam as the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture, until they pay the Jizyah [religious tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.".

There is nothing peaceful about being Islamic as Islamic theology requires that any one who turns from Islam should be killed.

icegnome

@johnnyabnormal: "...just think of how many lives would be saved!"

I know you're dying to tell us. How lives would be saved?

@johnnyabnormal: "Mandatory IQ test scores for eligibility to hold any higher office in the US government. President & his administration, Congress, etc."

What do you have against Democrats?

@xoforoct: "the middle east could use better economic opportunities"

Floating on a sea of oil isn't enough?

@hooked-on-tronics: "An ethics test would complement the IQ test nicely, as long as it was subtle."

What's with all the Liberal bashing?

@Unknown2U: "The only reason these people are fighting us is because we're occupying THEIR land."

No we're not. We're not fighting Iraqis, we're fighting terrorists from Iran and Syria to name a couple. If we fight an Iraqi, it is at the behest of the democratic and legal Iraqi government. Did Mother Jones not cover that?

@theeraserhead: "Looks like Iraq is on it's way to recovery, their oil is generating profits for their country to flourish, and the terrorists are being shot at by the Iraqi's themselves."

Whoa there fella! You get a BIG DEMERIT for bringing facts (especially pro-american facts) into the argument. Consider yourself warned.

"This is due to Clinton's, Tony Blair's, and believe of not John F. Kerry's belief that Saddam possesed and had and will use WMD."

You're in for it now. I tried.

GadgetPlay

@GadgetPlay: Ah, but the Democrats...love 'em or hate 'em...can speak in complete sentences. AND the number saved? I'm thinking it's in the millions.

johnnyabnormal

@GadgetPlay: Sir, you slay me. Bravo.

dave-o

I feel dumber for having read these comments. Take your stupid politics crap to daily kos and freep, you losers. This is a blog about cool gadgets.

BLOW STUFF UP!!! WOOOO!!!

mullingitover