Word: terrain
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Similarities exist between the Iraq and Afghan theaters of war: the enemy's weapons of choice in both countries include suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). But the river valleys of Iraq are very different terrain from the mountains and hills of Afghanistan. The equipment the U.S. used in the flatlands of Mesopotamia isn't likely to be as effective in the high crags of Central Asia. Indeed, apart from sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. is looking to redesign their equipment - from the gear they carry to the vehicles they drive to the drones that...
...plan is to issue soldiers lighter gear to help them navigate the mountainous terrain. Humvees will also have to be transformed. Those in use in Iraq have been much improved since the war began. However, they cannot be simply transfered over to Afghanistan. IEDs in Afghanistan have been delivering bigger bangs (in a seven-month period in 2008, IED incidents increased from 50 to 154) and, says, Dean Lockwood of the think tank Forecast International, "while the up-armored Humvees have good protection, it is not enough for a large IED." Furthermore, the vehicles have to be lighter...
...MULE has crossed over highway barriers in New Jersey by itself in testing. In a few years, the robot will be able to drive itself with onboard computers, navigate its way around obstacles while using sensors to beam back images of the surrounding terrain and, ultimately, fire deadly weapons on targets identified by the sensors. This last portion of the MULE's abilities - namely the capability of using lethal force by itself upon enemies - is of particular concern for the Army...
Meanwhile, the mountainous terrain and high altitudes of Afghanistan have led the Army to increasingly emphasize rapid delivery of anything that can lighten a soldier's load. As a result, the U.S. Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., is experimenting with a 4,000-lb, six-wheeled semiautonomous, supply-carrying robot vehicle called the Squad Mission Support System (SMSS), which will likely head to the mountains of Afghanistan for testing sometime next year...
...SMSS can be driven with a driver, tele-operated or remote-controlled, or be preprogrammed to go to specific, predetermined locations. During a November Army war-fighting experiment, the SMSS was able to find its way through rugged terrain during both day and nighttime operations. "We provide supervised autonomy," explains Don Nimblett, a business-development manager with SMSS maker Lockheed Martin. "You could [instruct it to go] to a point, and it would find its way to that location on the earth's surface. It is a very mobile vehicle. At one point the soldiers ran it into a ravine...