The military can’t beat IEDs. For every way we have of jamming or avoiding them, militants find another crafty way to blow people up. So why not just give and sacrifice remote controlled vehicles? That might be the plan.
National Defense reports the US Army is training with unmanned humvees and MRAPs (giant military trucks armoured against explosions) near the Mexican border. The idea? Deploy them in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they can lead the charge in a convoy, setting off all the traps along the way. If one of them happens to get blown to hell, it’s dollars down the toilet, not lives lost. In a way, it’s a clever solution — and in another, a brute strength, inelegant solution. But it could be a solution, and for the guys in the back of that convoy, that’s all that matters. I do wonder how well a radio operator would be able to control the drone humvee ahead of him if, say, his own vehicle was under attack? That’s some nasty multitasking. [National Defense]