Then there’s the matter of the Built-in Visible Augmentation System (IVAS), the Military’s futuristic “good” goggles. At the moment primarily based on a ruggedized model of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented actuality headset, the IVAS is each evening imaginative and prescient goggles and futuristic heads-up show, able to feeding sensor inputs right into a soldier’s line of sight. The Military has lengthy experimented with helmet-mounted shows for many years as a part of numerous “future warrior” applications, and the IVAS hasn’t been proof against the pitfalls of earlier efforts—specifically, complaints from troopers about “mission-affecting bodily impairments” like headache, nausea, and discomfort related to extended use. And the way forward for the long-delayed headset now seems unsure anyway: In line with Breaking Protection, the service might find yourself going again to the drafting board with a new major contractor for the delicate system as a part of its IVAS Subsequent initiative after auditing its present evening imaginative and prescient goggle capabilities. Nonetheless, between the ENVG-B and IVAS, helmet-mounted evening imaginative and prescient gadgets have progressed far past something Sawicki’s chain of command had beforehand imagined.
Armor Up
The bulletproof vest and camouflage go well with mixture that Sawicki donned for his AUSA debut, referred to in contemporaneous publications as “layered nylon armor” and “layered nylon vest,” is definitely a bit nearer to trendy Military private protecting gear than the flak jackets that had been accompanying troopers downrange in the course of the Vietnam Struggle. At the moment beneath improvement, the Soldier Safety System (SPS) presents trendy troopers a “light-weight modular, scalable and tailorable suite of protecting gear,” in line with the Military’s description. What this actually means is that the protecting ensemble is available in a number of totally different items that work collectively to maximise soldier survivability with out impairing mobility; when it comes to physique armor, this refers primarily to the mushy armor Torso and Extremity Safety subsystem and the arduous armor Very important Torso Safety subsystem that, utilizing strengthened ceramic plates, provide improved ballistic safety towards small arms hearth.
Defending troopers from bullets is one factor, however defending them from the consequences of nuclear explosions, as Military leaders instructed The New York Occasions Sawicki’s go well with would, is one other factor totally—no less than, when it comes to gear. Whereas the well-worn Mission Oriented Protecting Posture (MOPP) ensemble has been safeguarding Individuals service members towards chemical, organic, radiological, and nuclear threats for years, it’s a completely separate system of non-public protecting gear quite than one built-in into the SPS or the standard-issue Military Fight Uniform. And whereas the 1959 design requires specifically designed “‘welded’ fight boots” and “molded plastic gloves” to assist shield troopers on an irradiated battlefield, trendy troops should, sadly, go into battle with their Military Regulation 670-1-authorized boots and tactical gloves, other than what’s of their MOPP package. Then once more, if the nukes do begin flying, no person will survive lengthy sufficient for floor fight anyway.
Bullet Time
Whereas the 1959 “soldier of tomorrow” seems armed with an M14, advances in firearms know-how have lengthy since left the beloved battle rifle within the mud. The Military started changing the M14 with the lighter-weight 5.56-mm M16 assault rifle within the late Nineteen Sixties, which was itself changed by the shorter-barreled M4 carbine in the course of the World Struggle on Terror within the 2000s. Changing the M16 and M4 household of rifles has confirmed tough previously, but it surely’s protected to say that the guarantees from Military brass in 1959 of a lighter standard-issue rifle for troopers have, for essentially the most half, come true within the intervening a long time—even when the brand new XM7 rifle, just lately adopted beneath the service’s Subsequent Technology Squad Weapon (NGSW) program, is definitely noticeably heavier than the M4.
So, too, has the promise of “new high-velocity bullets.” Whereas the Military within the early 2000s fielded the 5.56-mm M855A1 Enhanced Efficiency Spherical for improved efficiency over the usual M855 ammo beforehand adopted within the Nineteen Eighties, the service undertook a significant small arms research in 2017 to find out whether or not troopers required a distinct caliber ammunition to take care of the sudden proliferation of physique armor amongst adversaries. The research decided that the Military’s subsequent rifle ought to come chambered in 6.8 mm, which might purportedly provide considerably improved efficiency at vary in comparison with each 5.56-mm and seven.62-mm rounds. From there, the Military ended up deciding on Sig Sauer to provide its two 6.8mm NGSW methods in 2022, weapons the service started formally fielding earlier this yr. It might have taken a number of a long time, however the Military’s new high-velocity spherical is lastly right here.
Rocket Man
Whereas sure parts of Sawicki’s fight package are clearly represented in current navy improvements, others merely by no means got here to fruition. The automated foxhole-digging costs, for instance, by no means materialized as an efficient substitute for the beloved handheld entrenching software, regardless of their prevalence amongst navy futurists on the time. But when there’s one imaginative and prescient that has endured in navy and protection circles, it’s that of jetpack-equipped troops.
The Protection Division has pursued the militarized jetpack for many years, beginning with analysis and improvement within the Fifties and culminating in October 1961 with the profitable demonstration of Bell Aerosystems’s Small Rocket Elevate Gadget (or, colloquially, the “Bell Rocket Belt”) for President John F. Kennedy at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Military ended up abandoning improvement of the Rocket Belt over gas constraints that restricted its potential tactical purposes, however US navy planners would revisit the idea again and again in subsequent a long time.
