Defense & Security Technology

Thats all and good, but

and even call in air strikes.

you'll see in influx of computer science majors being recuited as hacks.

The Marines back in the 90s were using off the shelf laptops for their urban warfare exercises and if you remember the Grenada invasion, in one case a phone call was sent via civilian phone lines in order to get close support and a ground strike. Much of the specs that are touted are not really needed as much as our military leaders and contractors would lead you to believe. It is better to have everyone have a weapon that works than one person in the squad having a super weapon. As a Viet Nam vet I can attest to the confidence of the M-14 and AK-47 over the M-16. The former would not fire as fast but you could depend on them working when you needed them and doing the job when you hit what you were shooting at. The lessons of WWII have been lost with our military. Numbers and dependability trumps single ability any time. The nickname for the American Sherman tank was the Ronson Lighter. You only had to strike it once to light it on fire. But we had 100 of them for every Tiger tank made, and ours were very easy to repair and maintain. One tank can't be in more than one place at a time and even the Tiger could be defeated. A McDonald's Happy Meal every day is more than steak every 3 days. There is less profit but more survivability for the man on the ground that way.

Rich Hurd

Saigon University, Class of 1971

Sorry about post #5. I was going through CR4, and was copy clip. but I must not have copied, I mean't this

in one case a phone call was sent via civilian phone lines in order to get close support and a ground strike.

improvising

As a Viet Nam vet I can attest to the confidence of the M-14 and AK-47 over the M-16. The earlier M16 were junk, when they got to the actually field test. (test by live fire. )

They finally got it right. Not a very large caliber though. I feel better

Welcome home brother.

Don't worry, we are now old enough to be allowed the senior moment exemption.

They say that the second sign of old age is memory loss, and I can't remember what the first sign is.

Rich Hurd

I have to apoligize, that was a copy clip from the statement that I forgot to highlight. I'm not a vietnam vet....senior moments. :/

This article is waaaaay behind the times. I worked on military programs 15 years ago and the buzzword COTS was everywhere, and there was a lot of pressure to put it into practice as much as possible. Just look at the disappearance of MIL specs along with the disappearance of ceramic ICs except for a few isolated cases. Nowadays 'industrial' grade components are fine and commercial is OK when there is no better grade equivalent.