Great news for American snipers came in February of this year when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) successfully tested a course-correcting rifle round. The Defense Department research agency on Monday released video of the test, which shows a .50-caliber rifle round deviating from its predicted path in order to hit a moving target.
The round, called the Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance, or EXACTO, is designed to be employed in combat operations in rural battlefields. The round’s capabilities are not likely to affect snipers, however. But the Defense Department wants the round in cases where hitting a moving target would be more difficult.
Honestly this is an absolutely a stupid idea that is a waste of money. In the magic of Hollywood this bullet will work every time and in the cold harsh reality of war, it will be another waste of money. In my opinion. The army is complaining about being at 30% effective? Stop a 100% of wasted money on dumb ideas and the army will be back on track.
The only thing to do with a smaller army is to make it more lethal, and I think that’s what they’re going for here. Within my lifetime, we’ll see the first Terminator Battalion of machine-warriors. Entire wars will be fought with relatively few human casualties, but battlefields will be littered with steel and oil, instead of iron and blood. That’s the future, but I can’t say whether it’s 20 or 50 years off. I feel good about it being somewhere within that range.
So I’d have to disagree that this is a waste of money. Is it money that we have to spend? Probably not, but increasing the lethality of the small force we have is our only option. As for field testing versus operational deployment, who knows? But this technology will improve and eventually be employed by machines.
Hello,
Decreasing the training cycle for snipers can be a force multiplier and it can save money if you can take a person with less of an aptitude and make them as good as person with natural ability or years of target or hunting practice. But when you have a smaller army you also can pick and choose the best people to be in it. Doing more with less is about being cost effective, not doing more with less capable people.
Artificial intelligence wars, or transhuman wars may be marked by high civilian casualties and zero military human casualties. It may indeed be within twenty to fifty years that we see the dawn of these types of war. There are however moral and ethical concerns about that technology as well as a fear that an army of a million real people is hard to subvert, but an army of a million robots can be subverted with the push of a button. So it may never be allowed to materialize. I think robots have a place in our lives, but when they are given the power to exterminate all life on earth it’s a little too risky in my books.
They have decreased the training for Snipers. The stalk has been removed or augmented, the training has been updated to produce Snipers, not weed out those who lacked training prior to the school that was supposed to teach them. There have been leaps and bounds in the school house. So, the move toward what you’re both talking about is happening.
A 30% increase in accuracy is monumental. Especially with the 107. Despite it’s cool capabilities, the M107 isn’t that accurate. It is also a giant pain in the butt to haul around. Does anyone want to hump about 60 pounds of rifle and ancillary gear? No hands?
As for Terminators and robots of that nature. My opinion is two fold: Society needs to be brought around to the idea first. So when we have Roomba’s that do dishes, run errands, and do household maintenance. Then we’ll have Terminators. Or, they’ll be tested in the military application first then move to households. Depends on who is behind it.
Still waiting for my Starship Trooper suit though.
Now we know how Kennedy was killed…