FAA gave a warning about this to small aircraft not long ago.
Like a modern car radio!
Mechanical hand crank car windows almost never failed.
In high-stress, high-adrenalin situations, the first thing to deteriorate is fine motor control. That do you need to work touch screens? Fine motor control. Duh.
When you are talking about a system as important as the steering of a battleship, why aren’t there redundant controls? Why not have the touchscreens but have mechanical controls in place to override the touchscreens if the need arises? Airplanes that are much, much more weight sensitive than a battleship have numerous redundant systems.
See my tagline. Sometimes the old ways are better.
I know somebody who works for a medical device company.
Their touchscreen controls have to undergo test after test after test. Ergonomic tests. Field tests with actual nurses. Focus-group type tests with other users.
The goal is to make them “idiot proof”. Impossible to hit the wrong button even in the most stressful or confused situations.
Sounds like the DOD did not do the same.
Sounds like the Russians have been designing our Navy ships.
Ships like the Zumwalt, destroyer or whatever it was supposed to be, the litoral ships/boats and this cluster with the touch screen on combat ships.
Supposedly, the Navy ships are intended to go into harms way and as a result, suffer some damage. That’s why there are numerous casualty control drills on how to keep the ship operating with some damage. All engineering/propulsion systems should be designed to be operated manually if necessary
I was an engineer on a couple of Liberty ships in which the engineering plant could be fully operational without electricity. The back-up boiler feed and fuel oil pumps were steam reciprocating pumps. . The forced draft blowers were steam turbine. Can’t get much simpler than that.
We won WW2 with ships like that. But then, the sailors were of a much sturdier stock.
I understand that there are no more steam ships, but still, there must be a way to design modern ships, with gas turbines, that can be simple to operate and repair battle damage.
I would help also if you could have an all male crew, unlike on the USS Fitzgerald where the mostly female bridge watch were having a cat fight and refused to talk to each other, wrecked the ship and killed some of their shipmates.
But you have been told that diversity is good for everyone, right?
Maybe they can go the McDonalds route where they have buttons with little pictures on them, like burger, fries, drink, etc.
Should help with our the increasingly “multicultural” armed forces that the elites have decided we shall have.
More durable for EMP situations, too. ;)
Really?
With this Generation who grew up with Xbox and PlayStation and Iphones and...
