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The future face of war
Rumsfeld plans battlefield revolution
By RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - A few Memorial Days from now, veterans will hardly recognize their armed services, if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has his way.
Rumsfeld's transformation drive at the Pentagon stresses brains, speed and high-tech over brawn.
New versions of the Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles of the Air Force will be matched by unmanned ground and underwater vehicles for the Army and Navy.
The Massachussetts Institute of Technology already has a prototype underwater drone called "Robo-Tuna."
Two contracts put out last week by the Pentagon for Army Future Combat Systems summed up the transformation.
A $15 billion contract called on Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp. to begin the development phase for a lighter and more lethal force that could deploy anywhere in the world within 48 hours.
The Army that would take the field after 2010 would have new tanks that are one-third lighter than the 70-ton M1A1 Abrams and 30-ton Bradley armored personnel carriers.
Unlike the Abrams and Bradley, the new tanks and personnel carriers could be deployed aboard C-130 Hercules cargo planes.
The new land combat vehicles would be linked by computers to helicopters, jets and ground drones to give troops total awareness.
Massive bill
Soldiers in the future could also be wearing uniforms that today's G.I.s would not recognize. Under a second, $50 million contract last week, MIT will set up an Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies run by Prof. Edwin Thomas to develop a lightweight "battlesuit."
Thomas said the goal is to have sensors woven into textiles that "would provide chemical protection, ballistic protection, sensing - it could change from a soft fabric to a hard shell for protection."
The futuristic concepts are just that - concepts - and not even Rumsfeld can predict whether they will work or whether Congress will foot the massive bill.
Transformation also has its doubters in the ranks and among the military theorists.
A recent Rand Corp. study said that an enemy taking care with cover, concealment and camouflage could avoid being spotted by the drones.
Army hard-liners also doubt lighter is necessarily better. In a video briefing to the Pentagon from Iraq, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division that led the drive on Baghdad, said his Abrams tanks and Bradleys worked just fine.
"We're very, very pleased with the performance of our equipment," Blount said. "It really worked well. It clearly showed that the heavy force has a place in an urban fight."
Then there are things on the drawing board that would make a Hollywood scriptwriter hesitate.
Among the exotic plans being dreamed up by Defense Advanced Reseach Projects Agency - known as DARPA - are performance enhancers that would allow commandos to stay awake for a week.
Also on DARPA's wish list are pen-sized devices to disinfect water or one that would allow commandos to survive in deserts by extracting water from air.
The Navy is experimenting with electromagnets that would replace a carrier's deck arresting gear - the tailhook landing - with beams that would create invisible tailhooks to stop a landing plane.
Aboard the carrier Truman late last year, just before heading for Iraq, Capt. Jack (Slapshot) Carter, commander of the air group, grinned as he told a reporter, "I wonder who's gonna be the first guy to try that. Ain't gonna be me."
"Retreat, hell! We just got here!"-Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Marine Division, Belleau Wood, France, WWI
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