In older war movies, there’s often a scene in which the soldiers duck into an abandoned building or huddle in a grove of trees to take a time-out from the march forward. They usually break out the food and light cigarettes.
It’s because no army dependent on fuel, medical supplies, food, equipment and humans can move unceasingly on the attack.
But that is what the U.S. Army now is working to change, says a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
It’s using autonomous cars, which will contribute to the development of the technology in the consumer market.
The Army News Service explains that while the coalition advance into Baghdad in 2003 was ultimately a success, soldiers were forced “to take an operational pause to refuel and rest our formations.”
Col. Mark Simerly, the chief of the Combined Arms Support Command, Capability Development and Integration, explained during a media roundtable discussion at Joint Base Langely-Eustis, Virginia, the goal is to move beyond.
He explained the future of the Army is to have brigade combat teams operating independently from a “logistics chain” for extended times and extended distances.
He said the idea is being called “demand reduction,” in which the need for supplies of fuel, ammunition, water and energy isn’t such an issue.
It’s because those supplies would be provided continuously using the new technology.
Said the report: “Autonomous aerial distribution that can deliver supplies 150 kilometers out with a payload of up to 2,000 pounds is a desired capability, he said. Lighter versions of these unmanned aerial vehicles might carry about 500 pounds that could supply an infantry squad every third or fourth day with fuel, ammunition and water and fly close to the surface of the earth. Micro-UAVs with payloads of 20 to 50 pounds would be helpful as well, perhaps carrying medical supplies.”
Already being tested at a military base in Missouri, the report said, are convoys of leader-follower vehicles, in which there’s a mix of manned and unmanned trucks.
There still remains work, the report said.
Off-road work travel still hasn’t been conquered.
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
