Posted on 08/04/2011 11:05:47 PM PDT by pillut48
The little truck was used by the troops to run ahead of them on patrols and look for roadside bombs. Fessenden has had it since 2007, when Ernie and Kevin Guy, the owner of the Everything Hobby shop in Rochester, rigged it with a wireless video camera and shipped it to him.
Last week, it paid off. Chris Fessenden said he had loaned the truck to a group of fellow soldiers, who used it to check the road ahead of them on a patrol. It got tangled in a trip wire connected to what Fessenden guesses could have been 500 lbs. of explosives. The bomb went off. The six soldiers controlling the truck from their Humvee were unhurt.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
They have, it’s a multi billion dollar program that
has now been cut.
Actually that’s sarcasm, but I wouldn’t doubt it
for a second.
Earlier in the Afghan/Iraq conflicts, troops were using Silly String to reveal trip wires in houses and buildings.
Smarts like this come from grass roots boots, not from highfalutin generals in the Pentagon who have things custom made at exorbitant cost.
It’s a great story. Too bad the government procurement is too cumbersome, to be able to just go out and buy a few thousand of these toys with a sensor.
I really like this story :-)
Unless we are going to war with Pakistan, it is time to take our toys and leave that crap-hole.
This thing might have cost $200 all tricked out ...
If it had been a Pentagon approved project, it woulda cost $5 million bucks, 10 years of development, and NOT work ...
Check out the movie, “The Pentagon Wars” ...
By the time DoD asks for bids and reviews the specs of the proposed RC IED Unmanned vehicles (RCIEDUV) these will be costing taxpayers a million per.
How long before the Pentagon forbids the use of these things because they are unproven technolgy?
I think I’ll organize a bake sale and see how many we can donate: http://www.fuelmybrain.org/index.html
They need to be studied.
And I'm sure now they are working on a military grade of Silly String that will cost about $1500/bottle. [\s]
I don’t know, but I left a message on his answering machine to call me and I’ll donate whatever it takes to make another one!
This is neither a new problem nor is it confined to America but it does strike hard at a society that values lives over equipment and work to avoid collateral (civilian) injury. As well demonstrated in Vietnam, punji traps were very effective but could not be used by our troops. The most effective and inexpensive guided weapon in the world is a suicide bomber, it costs one life and is generally very cost effective.
A great and fun read from 1951 by the Science Fiction Master, Arthur C Clarke, speaks to this very phenomena and is a short story well worth reading here, "Superiority".
Thanks pillut48.
This is a great idea, given the fact that the koranimals prefer killing when they’re not around, unless they can talk the dumbest of their group to wear a bomb.
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