The Army Wants It but Do Soldiers? – IOTW Report

The Army Wants It but Do Soldiers?

The Integrated Visual Augmented System (IVAS) is a piece of gear the US Army has been working on with Microsoft. Think virtual reality for the ground pounding soldier in the field. Of course, VR glasses are supposed to transport the wearer to a computer-generated environment where the user can interact with an artificial landscape in three dimensions. How the IVAS system navigates these polar opposites seems to be the limiting factor to the system. At $60,000 a pair and an objective to field 120,000 of these units, the Army had better get it right before risking soldier’s lives on this futuristic equipment.

The Army has stayed committed, putting another $5.9 million into developing the prototype yesterday. Here

A review of IVAS Watch

Summary of an Inspector General report on IVAS Here

14 Comments on The Army Wants It but Do Soldiers?

  1. With technology being so secure and the absolute inability for nefarious adversaries being unable to hack in and cause chaos to existing capabilities, what could possibly go wrong? SMDH.

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  2. yeah, the army. way back in 1978 I was part of a team doing the testing on the Carl Gustaf 84mm recoilless rocket launcher.
    it was hands down way better than anything we had. we all loved it. test day, 3 army generals and 2 Marine one where there to watch.
    army guys could not have cared less. the Marine generals? got down and fired it. asked questions and took NOTES ?
    all in all , they spent a good hour asking and trying it out.
    we where impressed to say the least. we didn’t get it. we got the Dragon instead. some over priced one shot POS. now image how I felt watching the “news” in 2004-5 and seeing SF troops using the Carl G 84mm and saying how wonderful it was. that is how fucked up the army is.

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  3. When I worked for a defense contractor, our clients would often require a specific piece of equipment be used in accomplishing a task order, that equipment to be turned over to the client on completion. The client was able to get up to date computers and other equipment, when, if going through normal channels, were often years in process before final delivery.

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  4. Brad,

    It happened. It was a simple workaround. It was 25 to 30 years ago (everyone involved is either retired or dead), so your mileage may vary.

    It could take weeks, sometimes months, for an item to get from the base receiving warehouse to who ordered it. Similar delays occurred at various points along the way.

    The standard computer on base at that time was a 20 year old monochrome Wang terminal hooked into a mainframe. Because of the type of work being done there, there was a need for considerably more advanced computers, peripherals and other equipment. It was difficult to get them in a timely manner.

    For example, if a Sun workstation was ordered through regular channels, it would be obsolete before it could be used…and the needs would have changed as well.

    I remember similar reports about the use of contractors to facilitate difficult acquisitions during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

    I would hope things have been streamlined in the intervening decades.

    (One thing that was changed at the end of the company’s contract was the base would no longer pay commuting time for contractors. It was a bit over 90 miles one way from our office, so a day trip to the base could be charged four additional hours per person. A technician that was needed almost every day nearly doubled his hours with commute time. The company lost the contract.)

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  5. Nothing to worry about – this is nothing more than a laundering scheme to pour tax dollars into Microsoft’s pockets through some bullshit, unnecessary AI, Kool-sounding useless shit.

    And, as usual, there’s the skim.
    We’ve seen it all before; we’ll see it all again.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

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  6. “0bama fired all the flag officers that were loyal to their oaths.”

    It actually began in the jumior officers and enlisted under Daddy Bush.

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  7. Boots on the ground with physically challenging, live, changing scenarios as happens in reality is far better that tethered to a computer.
    Training without the rigors of physical combat situations and real stress is not in the best interest of Squad, Platoon, Company or Battalion commanders.

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