E-Mail 'VR headsets can help tank drivers' To A Friend

4 Comments

1. 

   This is probably fun and even (maybe) useful in peace time, but for a hardened situation it is probably close to useless where the enemy could use very sophisticated jamming equipment like the Russians have used in Syria that completely disables all electronic equipment in a whole area.

   1. 

      I remember riding inside a tank once on the Tajik border with Afghanistan along a road on the edge of a cliff. The dirt road had been bombed — up ahead, there was a big bite taken out of it, about half the width of the road, on the right-hand side.

      The driver, a teenage boy, was inside the tank, with a small sliver of view. Another soldier, also a teenage boy, was standing up, so he could see out, telling the first guy where to go. He saw the giant hole in the road and warned the driver about it, so the driver started turning to the right. Into the hole. “Go right, right!” the spotter yelled, panicking. The driver turned further to the right, and the tank was at nearly a 45-degree angle, ready to roll off the road and down the cliff.

      Finally, the kid on the roof figured out what the problem was. “No, I mean left, left!”

      And, since I’m still here, we were able to recover and continue on.

      My point: adding a little bit more electronics to an already heavily-computerized military is not going to add a great deal more of incremental risk. Worst case, if all systems go down, they can send that kid to peer out of the hatch again.

      But providing drivers with 360-degree situational awareness will reduce risks dramatically. And you can reduce jamming risks by running cables, instead of relying on local wireless networks.

      1. 

         There is absolutely no doubt that such systems can be of great value and aid, but there is a tendency in the West to over-engineer and put too much reliance on digital components of equipment, and under-engineer failsafe operation of the same when the electronics for whatever reason fails to work / communicate.

         We have seen it here where branches of civil service have switched to digital emergency communication system where the result have been completed loss of communication at times because they rely too much on other infrastructure to always be operational, in combination with shutting down / removing land lines, the fact that most digital communications systems are more susceptible to noise and have poorer propagation in the terrain and therefore less coverage, etc, etc.

         The same has been the case with the F-35 aircraft where they have had to do major redesign of the electronics as they failed to operate in arctic conditions. Meaning the airforce has yet to receive the first craft that works.

         For historical reasons the Russians were forced to rely less on electronics, but that has in the long run turned out to be an advantage both because their equipment, including the rockets that service the ISS, works over a wider operating range and is more resilient to failure, electronic attacks and hacking, and makes it easier to EMP harden. It also is significantly cheaper.

      2. 

         Maria, that experience must have been tense. Yes, in that way, VR can supplement the current tech being used.