Posted on 07/31/2009 4:07:02 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (July 31, 2009) — Sgt. 1st Class Darwin Johnson, of Stanberry, is a Missouri National Guardsman who is among the first in the nation to work with a new maintenance diagnostic system for military vehicles. “We’re kind of the guinea pigs,” said Johnson, of the 35th Special Troops Battalion in St. Joseph. “We’ve got to find any flaws and report them.” Johnson was one of 32 soldiers from across the state who recently trained with the Maintenance Support Device-Version 2 for two days at the Combined Surface Maintenance Shops in Jefferson City.
(Excerpt) Read more at pulaskicountydaily.com ...
Im sure the Obama Administration will cancel this effort post haste.
Great to see this technology being tested, I was afraid it had been killed as part of FCS. Maintaining operational readiness of vehicles will help keep troops safe.
Of course officers and Generals don't turn many wrenches, so what would they know? The Army, especially, didn't have one single, 50 year old technology MRAP vehicle in its inventory five years ago.
Applying technology where it is needed the most!
As an old "shade tree mechanic", I'm afraid I've become very cynical about technological overkill.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm a firm believer in proper preventive maintenance. And as an engineer, I'm also quite appreciative of technological progress.
But with the benefit of hindsight, I've begun to question what techincal "progress" we have really achieved in vehicle technology.
On the one hand, I'll be the first to admit that vehicles produced today a better and more reliable than they were 40 years ago. Almost everything lasts longer and works better: tires, brakes, plugs, ignition etc. etc. etc. But all that progress comes at the price of increased complexity. And instead of having a vehicle that's easy for anybody to fix, you need to be a highly trained electronic technician to figure out what the heck went wrong with all that electronic computer crap that's hiding the actual engine.
I find that it offends my instinctive preference for the KISS principle ("keep it simple, stupid")
Perhaps we'd be better off without all the electronic sensors and bells and whistles and utilize technology that's so fundamental and simple, there's nothing there to go wrong to begin with!
Man, it must be early. I thought I saw the word testicle in the title.
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