Re: Tank vision systems

On  3-Feb-00 at 16:17, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
> In a message dated 2/3/00 8:18:26 AM Central Standard Time, 
> books@mail.state.fl.us writes:
> 
> << 
>  Get out and look?  Why, when your tank is not only feeding you
>  the world enhanced but the sattelite imagery is feeding you 
>  realtime pictures at .5 meter resolution and you have copies
>  of a full scan when the satellite is "unavailable"?
>   >>
> 
> Yes! Get out and look - but besides that - even if they do look at a
360
> scan	down to the smallest ant on the battlefield: 1)Human beings will
> still want  to observe with their EYES

That's just it, if you have ever played with a decent VR system you
already feel like you are looking with your EYES with the added bonus
that you don't have to worry (much) about that guy with the sniper 
rifle.

> 3) Crewed weapopns are more efficient killing
> machines from the point  of view of human psychology and one man doth
not a
> crew make

horse drawn cannnons are more efficient killing machines therefore we
will never do away with the horse.

> 4) Outside  sensors are easily foxable or knocked askew or out of
> operation in the  artillery barrage that precedes an attack or
> counter-attack.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.	Human sensors
are trivially foxable by any number of things, hell, what is the 
biblical story about the soldiers with the polished shields?  You
aren't going to do this to multi-wavelength solid state sensors.
Sure, you might take out 15% of them with an artillery barrage.
So what?  I have 5K of the things in the side of the tank, which
gives me eyes which are the size of the tank.  I can zoom in on
that ant if necessary, and the pattern recognition in the computer
will even highlight that tripwire that no human could pick out or
the difference in dirt color and heat radiation pattern that signals
a mine.  That guy with the RPG in the ghillie suit will be highlighted 
in bright orange.  Want to know if you can make it between those
buildings?  The optical systems will tell you how far apart they
are.  Want to know if you can drive through the wall?  A single
"ping" from your radar will give you complete info.

> The Human Eye  will still be the primary sensor of any human
> operated or human moderated  system in the forseeable future - even
when you
> turn the battle over to the  computer (al a Aegis system) their is
human
> moderation of the event - at	least as soon as the magazines are dry.

The human will make the decision, but he is going to be much more
"intelligent" in the military sense of the word.  Much more information
presented in a manner which is quick and easy to understand (we're
learning from too much info in combat planes.)	It's going to make
the guy who gets out of his tank to look at the ground a complete
idiot.	You don't risk the tank driver for this, the soldiers on
the ground look, that's their job.  Because that is their job
they do a far better job of it than the tank driver.

Roger