Sterling Whitehead is a Contract Specialist, Acquisition Freak and loves Star Wars way too much. He also publishes a blog called All Things Sterling.
Want to give our boys on the ground the best weapons, but want them to be affordable? Well, here are a few things that will peak your interest.
Battle RATS
This is what the military considers to be a force multiplier. Some military radio units can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that’s just for talking. Want more?
In steps Raytheon’s RATS (Raytheon Android Tactical System). Here are a few of the uses of this tool from the Raytheon website.
…such as license plate reading, streaming video camera feeds and biometric collection, such as facial recognition. These applications will enhance warfighters’ safety by providing tactical alerts based on the intelligence collected.
Essentially, this means our boys can now take pictures of terrorists on the battlefield, send them to HQ, and get immediate feedback. AWESOME!
Oh, yeah, and rumors say RATS can be used to track your squad’s movements and remotely pilot UAVs. Very cool.
Very Quiet Helicopter Rotors
Holy crap Batman! This is simply awesome. Gizmodo posted it first, and it would be amazing if our guys could a hold of these.
You know all those mountains in Afghanistan that make it such a pain in the butt? Well, helicopters are one of our best tools out there – from blowing up bad guys to transporting troops to evacuating the wounded.
Quieter helicopters would make stealthier and harder to detect our helicopters. Imagine it — the bad guys would have less time to hide when the Apaches pop up over a hill and launch Hellfire missiles down their throats. BOOM! Big win for the good guys.
I imagine these rotors just be fitted onto our choppers, so it’s not like it will be way expensive, but it will allow for more capabilities. Check out the picture below for how these new blades look.
(Disclaimer: These technologies are simply frakkin’ awesome, and I don’t get paid to talk about them).
Dude…that picture is awesome
Credit Gizmodo for the pic. They dug it up first I believe. I have to admit though, it makes helicopters look a lot deadlier.
I’d love our Apaches to get outfitted with these and start popping .50 cal-rounds into insurgents.
I agree that these are freakin’ awesome things. But why not UAV’s? Its cheaper and it saves lives.
Subroto, the US is only getting into helicopter UAVs right now, so most of its fleet flown in-vehicle by people. However, outfitting our current and new heli-UAVs with these would be great.