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back to article Summer debut for Judge Dredd computer smart-rifle

US Army officials have announced that the high-tech XM-25 computer smartgun, intended to let soldiers shoot at and hit enemies hiding around corners, will enter field trials this summer. The "counter defilade" gun, similar in size to existing infantry weapons, is expected to reduce the number of controversial airstrikes used in …

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  1. fajensen

    Afghanistan, a water-mark!

    """

    Perhaps Afghanistan will be a tougher nut to crack. It is, after all, known as "The Graveyard of Empires".

    """

    Afghanistan is not so tough IMO - It's more like litmus test, ala:

    *Any* empire stupid enough to care enough about that piece of god-forsaken, worthless, if not the arse of the world then firmly within farting distance of it ... err ... land is so far over the hill that it is irrecoverable. Invaders of Afghanistan are past sustainable stupidity.

    Certainly there are terr-ist bent on destroying the West in Afghanistan/Pakistan. That is easily solved by not allowing anyone from the entire region into western territory to begin with and not employing people with islamist affiliation. Like we openly did with the citizens of the USSR and DDR - with no whining from the UN too ;-)=.

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  2. Muscleguy
    Boffin

    Stereotypes not helpful

    While it is true that the Mongol use of the stirrup and the recurve horse bow and associated tactics was characteristic the Mongol empire that invaded China was not homogenious as it involved troops and tech from conquered territories. The Mongols were very good siege engineers or had access to very good siege engineers as at that time most of conquering a territory involved knocking over the cities and replacing the rulers.

    So it is true that a pile of horse archers are not much use in siege warfare against a fortified town, unless said horse archers are the vanguard and the army of which they are part has a history of killing/enslaving any and all who oppose them in which case a wise ruler opens the gates to them and does due obeisance to his new overlords. Once they had built their reputation they had to do very little in the way of actual siege work . . .

    Be very glad that as Attila and his Huns found, Western Europe is a crap place for a horse army, not enough fodder. Why for European armies the infantryman was always the bulk with the cavalry a small elite.

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  3. Greg Trocchia

    @AC (I repeat,it is just a toy)

    As Muscleguy pointed out, the Mongols were no slouches when it came to the technology of warfare (which is what we are talking about). The Chinese may have out done them in other forms of technology, but in war making tech they did not notably outclass the Mongols.

    As to the Japanese, their planes may have been somewhat superior at the outset of WW 2, but there is a difference between a slight edge and massive superiority. The American fighters of the day (the P-40 and F4F), for example, had advantages in particular areas like like durability and speed in a dive that they could and did use to counter the advantages of the Zero quite handily when used correctly (as the kill ratio of the Flying Tigers illustrates).

    That is part of the point, an edge in tech is nice to have, but the kind of technical advantage I am talking about is more of a night-and-day type thing. Consider, for example, what happened to Confederate units armed with muzzle loaders faced when they encountered one of the (relatively rare) Union detachments armed with repeating rifles during the American Civil War. The reason for that rarity, BTW, is the decision by some functionary in the War Department, with a mindset similar to yours, not to officially adopt repeating rifles because they would "encourage soldiers to waste ammunition".

    As to your arguments that US soldiers are poorly trained, there is nothing to refute, you just made a flat assertion with nothing to back it up. Anecdotally, I would point out that the video clips that I have seen from Iraq and Afghanistan did not show any instances of panic fire, specifically, nor much in the way of apparent inadequate training, in general.

    Your whole assumption seems to be that spending on new weapon tech is done to the exclusion of money for training. With a military budget of US$651.2 billion(!), I think there's room for spending on tech like the XM 25 without shortchanging training.

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  4. Dave
    Flame

    @Craster

    Half - correct.

    Where there is a massive difference, technology usually wins - but not always.

    Rorke's Drift, anyone? A pirhic victory at best, and the battle of Isindlwala (sp?) a day or two before was a complete loss to the British, due to overwhelming numbers, and greater self-belief. It would be more factually correct to say that the braver side always wins - the man who remains calm retains his skills better, and both negative and positive-reinforcement starts to occur then, depending on which side you are on.

    @Mark

    AA-12 has its uses, so do sniper-rifles, area-suppression machine guns, mortars, RPGs etc etc.

    That is why a typical infantry unit consists of a variety of specialists, but also why combined weapons like the under-slung grenade-launcher are favoured, but there is no chance that this will ever have a Judge-Dredd style selector on it, as every magazine ever made is strictly one-by-one loading: tracer always has to be pre-loaded, and only changing a belt/magazine can affect its usage pattern.

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  5. David Gillies

    @Dave

    Rorke's Drift a Pyrrhic (note spelling) victory? Not hardly. 17 killed out of 139. The idea that the braver side always wins is rubbish. Who were braver at Omdurman, Kitchener's army or the Dervishes? Who were braver on Iwo Jima, the Marines or the Japanese defenders? Courage is a very important factor, but technology can produce lopsided results irrespective of the relative bravery of the combatants. It took just as much courage to fly a bomber over Germany in 1941 as in 1945, but in 1941 crews were lucky to deliver their bombload within five miles of the target (frequently they bombed the wrong country, never mind the wrong city). By war's end average targeting error was down to 300 yards, with some specialist units achieving as little as 80 yards. The difference in combat effectiveness was profound, and it was almost wholly due to technology.

    I'm also a bit fed up with the assertion that US troops are mindless undeducated automatons given to panicking and shooting indiscriminately. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their NCOs, in particular, are absolutely excellent, and it is not uncommon to find, say, a SSG with a Bachelor's or even Master's degree.

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