Will it vibrate when they get hit?
Technically, yes. Possibly a very short vibration, however.
U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
161–170 of 216 posts
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#162I worked at a military contractor one summer, decades ago. Back then, nothing went out that wasn't mil-spec. My novice understanding of this was that equipment used by the military must be able to withstand a much wider variety of stress, and exhibit a much greater degree of usability under every possible scenario, than could be provided by consumer-level products. Specifically, my job at the time was sitting in a dark room helping to measure the light output of switches that were used on airplane consoles. This was understandable because this equipment is not only life-or-death but must perform in chaotic and hostile environments.
TL;DR. Does the xbox 360 controller to be used on navy submarine work when say....it gets wet? (or just how does it deal with saltwater corrosion). Not to mention the security issues I see other people mentioning here.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#163What about ratings? Military hardware typically use electronics with wider margins for temperature, humidity, power surge, etc... While consumer hardware is used a lot in R&D and testing, it normally doesn't make it to the final product. Of course, I practice, I think that a peripheral designed to withstand the wrath of gamers worldwide could handle an actual war just fine. And if not, replacements don't cost much. B…
I guarantee that they ran some tests and figured out that xBox controllers were either manufactured to tolerances "close enough to what we'd spec out that the difference is negligible" or that stuffing one more spare in a ziploc bag gave them less overall downtime than nicer hardware and carrying fewer spares.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#164What about ratings? Military hardware typically use electronics with wider margins for temperature, humidity, power surge, etc... While consumer hardware is used a lot in R&D and testing, it normally doesn't make it to the final product. Of course, I practice, I think that a peripheral designed to withstand the wrath of gamers worldwide could handle an actual war just fine. And if not, replacements don't cost much. B…
This isn't the first time our armed forces have used the venerable Xbox 360 controller, they're cheap and easy to replace, ubiquitous, and basically anyone can use one comfortably.
Sure, they aren't waterproof, dust proof, have overvoltage protection, etc. but whatever - you can carry a dozen spares for $240.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#165> The company says the photonic mast handgrip and imaging control panel that cost about $38,000 can be replaced with an Xbox controller that typically costs less than $30.
I'm curious if their supplier will give them the bargain US-government-only price of $1999.95 per controller.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely there isn't that much room on a sub. I've heard horror stories of how cramped they are.
That is because the supply rooms are crammed full of XBox 360 controllers.
Food, actually. They cram food all over them. When the embark, they don't have room for all the food in the galley. So, it gets tucked into every nook and cranny.
They don't just get to stop at neighborhood grocery stores, after all.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Microsoft going to be willing to share their original specs so you can build an identical controller years down the track? Given we're talking military here reverse engineering to remake wouldn't be acceptable.
There have been third-party Xbox controllers almost since the console came out. No doubt ONE of them will gobble up a DoD contract to continue production if it's offered. (Former Submarine FT)
The military has been buying 360 controllers to do a bunch of different things and I'm sure MS has been providing them on contract and will continue to provide them because it's easy money.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd have two big reservations about this. 1. The Virginia class was first commissioned in 2004, with a 33 year design life. The XBox 360 was first shown in public in 2005, with a design life of ...? Yup, it's consumer electronics, with a design life of much less than 33 years. Even though there are on the order of 80-100M of them in the wild, by and by XBox 360s and replacement parts will be getting scarce. (If you t…
To your second point, these things are manifactured in China. What's to prevent them from adding tracking devices or backdoors to these if they realize they're going into US military ships?
How do you know which ones are headed for a submarine? The military could literally just pick a BestBuy and go pick up a dozen controllers whenever they're at a port.
The manufacturers in China would have to put backdoors into all of them, which would be noticed pretty quickly, and the gain is what? They can control the periscope direction? That would be noticed immediately too.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it sounds more like a plot device for a "set your brain on the seat beside you" action movie.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Military procurement is indeed not the most perfect process ever invented, but it's not quite the insane caricature this and other comments make it out to be. The costs-plus accounting scheme is meant to save money. It can just as well be described as "the manufacturer charges the costs plus a fixed (single-digit) percentage of costs. This limits the contractor's margins to the agreed-upon percentage." And of course…
Explain then why our f35 program costs $1.5 trillion and counting.
Because it's a massive program that required several technologies that were never used in production aircraft be made production ready with expensive state of the art technology and deliver a result that has acceptable performance for a wide range of users with a wide range of use cases.
It was pretty obvious from day 1 that this would be expensive af.
Being cutting edge is always expensive af.
Re: U.S. Navy to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard submarines
#170The Xbox 360 wired controller is a great piece of kit, easily the best controller ever as a balance of price, reliability, and simplicity of use - the API has literally two functions, "what buttons are pressed" and "set vibration to X". The initial Xbox One controllers were a clear regression, although the recent Xbox One X are much better again. However, for use cases such as the submarine in TFA, wireless is a liab…
The Xbox One controllers send data over the USB cable when plugged in. You could make the argument that the USB cable could get pulled out of the controller, but the Xbox 360 wired models have the breakaway which is just as easy to pull out with a good yank anyway.