A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
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A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#2Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution.
The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile does invest in different solutions, which the inventor claims are inferior.
> “I gotta give ’em credit for trying,” he said. “They spent about a billion dollars, and the thing wouldn’t work with [individual] soldiers.
To me, it seems more likely that the military has identified certain disadvantages to his proposed solution, than that there is some sort of conspiracy theory against solo inventors or this inventor specifically. I find it hard to believe that this person could come up with a solution in one year, that is superior to anything that professionals have been able to come up with after 30 years and billions of dollars of investment, but that the military dismisses his idea out of hand just because he's a solo inventor and not a big contractor.
The fact that the military has and is investing billions of dollars to try and solve friendly fire events shows they're definitely interested in reducing friendly fire, but the article over and over tries to imply the military isn't that keen on it. The title itself implies that too.
Not once in this 6000 word article is there a definitive reasoning for why his solution was rejected. It's all just conjecture and testimony from the inventor himself. Poor.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#3Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
Anything that can reliably identify you in combat, is a homing beacon for any enemy.
Even if you have to "light yourself up", that can be done with disposable drones, and then strike at the targets.
Thus, you will have to reduce battlefield id systems the more sophisticated a enemies technology becomes.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#4A very recent SBIR topic seems relevant...
A214-021 Open
Multi-Spectrum Combat Identification Target Silhouette (MCITS)
04/14/2021
blob:https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/100fb9f6-d6e7-4a2d-8ad2-f2c08808...
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#5Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
Doesn’t mention anyway to change the code either. So all the energy has to do is record the good guy IFF and gaffa tape a copy of the device to their guys and they’re good.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#6Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
Doesn’t mention anyway to change the code either. So all the energy has to do is record the good guy IFF and gaffa tape a copy of the device to their guys and they’re good.
And a solution that would require code change isn't nice either, as rekeying equipment and spreading the public keys around is a huge logistics ordeal. These problems are never as easy as "pulse some light with some crypto on top". Hell, the very existence of an active IFF signal is already something that distinguishes you as a military target, so the enemy could just use your IFF as a homing beacon.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#7Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
It sounds like the investor doesn't get the SBIR/STTR process and failed to find a Program of Record who could fund a solution, or, having found such funding sources, didn't listen to the customer need.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#8Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
I agree with what you said as one possible path to "why", but one look at the history of the Bradley Tank shows how meaningless time/money can be in large orgs. Especially political ones.
Couple this with big name/external validation, and the fact that the best and brightest techs don't flock to the military (too dogmatic)...
The F35 is the new Bradley tank, and how much was spent?
Anyhow, you're probably correct, but I take exception to the reasoning being how much the military spent, or how long they worked at it.
(note: In times of war, all the political jockeying ends, disappears, and the military becomes lean and efficient. In times of peace, politics exist, including funding games.)
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn’t mention anyway to change the code either. So all the energy has to do is record the good guy IFF and gaffa tape a copy of the device to their guys and they’re good.
And a solution that would require code change isn't nice either, as rekeying equipment and spreading the public keys around is a huge logistics ordeal. These problems are never as easy as "pulse some light with some crypto on top". Hell, the very existence of an active IFF signal is already something that distinguishes you as a military target, so the enemy could just use your IFF as a homing beacon.
From the article I understand that it’s not an active device. The beacon is passive until it is illuminated by the firing party.
Theoretically maybe still a problem if the enemy is waiting for that moment to shoot at you, but to wait for a friendly fire incident seems a bit inefficient.
Re: A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire
#10Misleading title and very long article that boils down to: solo passionate inventor comes up with invention to reduce friendly fire, in one year, after suffering a friendly fire incident, and tries to get the military to adopt it, but the military does not want his particular solution. The only testimony about why the military is not interested in his solution comes from the inventor himself. The military meanwhile d…
> The fact that the military has and is investing billions of dollars to try and solve friendly fire events shows...
...that they're willing to spend billions of dollars and account for them as "investment in prevention of FF". Whether that means they actually want to prevent friendly fire or not is a different matter altogether, because of the way the money-distributing and -spending decisions are made.