OMG! I literally just emailed the MOD via their website to suggest just such a system then I log onto the reg a couple of hours later and I saw this article?! Is it really likely that my idea got suggested and bought in less then 3 hours?!

make sure there are no Americans around?

Why mince words? Why not just say "The Yanks"...?

£3m? For a Google Maps mash-up and XML feed?

The thing about combat is that conditions, positions, etc. are so fluid that near-real-time is not anywhere near enough. Hard real-time requirements are what this situation calls for, added to the need for absolute confidence in ones intelligence (where are they now?). I think that a lot more friendly-fire incidents will occur due to misplaced confidence in one's equipment and databases. That is one of the advantages of the use of laser indicators used by ground troups - that there is probably a human intelligence pointing the laser and they should hopefully know who they want to shoot (back) at.

I was thinking the opposite actually... a *mere* 3m for equipment to coordinate data from a vast range of awful military electronics, each with their own baroque protocols and quirks? Like that will ever stay in budget.

In a recent incident a UKLF Westland WAH-64 Apache almost opened fire on a fire section of Royal Marines, thankfully because of the new helmet markers the crew realised that they were friendlies. Enemy engagements on the ground can be very fluid and the UK's forces are trained to work to their own initiative within the mission briefing, you simply tell them what the patrol hopes to achieve and they do it without further instruction. The reason the Apache crew almost engaged the marines was that the Apache crew did not realise the marines could have moved so far from one fire position to another so quickly and without having been told to do so.

So will 'almost real time' be almost enough? The fog of war can get very, very thick at times and accidents will always happen.

Surely you mean red and -blue-!

"Somebody get our flag back!"

Reading some history books? The most important thing has always been "Identify your target"! This can be done by actually looking at close range, either from the air or from the ground. What exactly was the function of those forward artillery observers and cab-rank controllers?

There seems to be too much reliance on computers these days (remember when computers were called the dumbest of dumb clerks, they do exactly what they are told and nothing else). This leads to stupid and final results. Think Iranian Airbus, think A10 Warthogs at 10,000 ft instead of 50 ft and destroyed Challengers with dead UK soldiers.

Warfare is unfortunately not machine verses machine, but man verses man. Don't forget the man and let him make the reasoned decision.

I'm in battle and my radio breaks/ battery goes flat/ water gets in . So now I'm a target?

Daft idea will never work.

Anybody else here think War is a Dumb Losers Game? How about Junk all the Arms and Ammo and Start Building New Worlds Providing New Skills to Learn and Perfect.

Join the Army and become a Psychotic Wreck and/or Sociopath Pariah is a Hard Sell in these Hardened Times and Tempestuous Days.

Oh ... Sorry, does that not suit the hunter/killer element of dumb fellow animals. ZHeroes of the Plain.

* Depending on whether your Supplying or Dying

Putting bloody great big white sheets and chevrons on top of sand-yellow Warrior APCs didn't help during GW1, and we've had similar "incidents" where Amer^H^H^H "friendly" forces have shot up British forces despite obvious Ident markings even a blind wlarus with sunburn could hardly miss.

Why should a new "near-realtime" system help? All that will do is tell the flyboys where we *were* last time the system updated itself.

"near real time" locations of friendly units

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How "near real time" ?

Is: "They were somewhere over thatawy last month" realtime enough?

Its been around for years.

I even made a simple demo using regular wifi and wimax, hand-held units running windows mobile, COTS mapping software and encrypting p2p software. Cost would be way < 1000 UPK per unit but couldn't even get in the door to demo it :-0