He can see through walls, his helmet is video-connected, and his has computer precision. We check out the science (and power) behind the technology that’s making the future of the military into Halo come to life. by Stinson Carter illustration by kai lim

want the soldier to think of himself as the $6 battalions. Today we fight with Small Tactical Units. Million Man,” says Colonel Douglas Tamilio, And the heart of the Small Tactical Unit is the single project manager of Soldier for the U.S. dismounted soldier. Army. In case you haven’t heard, the future of In , as in the combat zones of the fore­ warfare belongs to the soldier. The Civil War was fought seeable future, we will fight against highly mobile, by armies. World War II was fought by divisions. Viet­ highly adaptive enemies that blend seamlessly into nam was fought by platoons. Operation Desert Storm their environments, whether that’s a boulder-strewn was fought by brigades and the second war by mountainside or the densely populated urban jungle. Enhanced Combat Helmet Made from advanced plastics rather than Kevlar, the new ECH offers 35 percent more protection Generation II than current helmets. Helmet Sensor The Gen II HS provides the wearer with analysis of explosions and any NETT Warrior other potential source This system is designed to provide of head trauma. vastly increased situational awareness on the battlefield, allowing combat leaders to track the locations and health Modular of their teams, who are viewing tactical Lightweight information via helmet-mounted Load-carrying computer screens. Equipment A very fancy-sound- ing backpack, the MOLLE (rhymes with Polly) is equipped with modular patch attachments, a plastic 72 oz. hydration bladder (the tube is coming over the soldier’s left shoulder) and a Tactical Assault Panel to protect the chest.

Solar Photo- voltaic Threads Photosensitive fibers woven into the soldier’s uniform that could convert solar radiation to electricity powering the Nett warrior system. Currently, the system runs on a chest-mounted battery pack.

Active Camoflage Woven optoelectric threads that change the appearance of XM25 Launcher the fabric to reflect The XM25 Individual Airburst changes in environ- System (IAWS) is a ment. Though still The Army’s computer-controlled, airburst hypothetical at this standard-issue 9 mm grenade launcher, dubbed the stage, it would allow sidearm allows for the Punisher. Several units are soldiers to blend right attachment of an already in use in Afghanistan; the into the background, Integrated Laser Army will field as many as Predator-style. White Light Pointer. possible in the next few years.

Interceptor Body Armor The Army’s IBA is a lightweight, modular protective system that can stop and fragments while ASEK Surival Knife System providing easy maneuverability. It Forged from carbon steel, with a consists of an outer vest, ballistic five-inch blade, this Natick-lab- plates, and attachable components tested survival knife is equipped for arms, groin, throat, and sides. with a Plexiglas breaker, hammer, saw teeth, serrations, spear holes, Knee and Elbow PadS lanyard hole, and insulated guard. Lightweight and super-durable, the Army’s Kevlar KEPs provide dismounted soldiers with protection in case they find themselves on their knees (get your mind out of the gutter).

JUNE 2011 MAXIM 73 Our enemies are no longer soldiers in uniform, and we won’t be able to defeat them with M1 and F-16s—we will have to fight them AWARENESS with small units of technologically superior war fighters: an army of Playing Hide and Seek With the $6 Million Men aided by robot scouts, aerial drones, and battery- Person You Want to Kill powered devices able to see through walls; armed with incredibly deadly computer-equipped, laser-guided weaponry; protected with high-tech, lightweight body armor; and connected with their Like being in a real-life first-per- fellow soldiers through solar-powered, satellite-driven intel net­ son-shooter game, soldiers will be able to see battle intel unfold live on their works. It’s Halo come to life, and it’s the future of warfare. helmet- or eyewear-mounted display. “We’ve been at war for 10 years,” says Marilyn Freeman, deputy To put it simply, “think Call of Duty when you assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology. “What press pause—this is what you’re going to have we learned? It’s all about the soldier.” Dr. Freeman has a $2 see,” says James Megliola, strategic outreach billion annual budget and oversees 16 research, development, and at Natick Labs, of the Army’s new Nett Warrior engineering centers (RDECs) throughout the U.S. with more than system. All soldiers in the future will have a 12,000 scientists and engineers. It is her job to make our soldiers as series of sensors feeding them constantly lethal as possible, and to make sure they get home in one piece. updated information. Says project manager Leading these efforts are a series of facilities that make Q’s lab in Colonel Will Riggins, “The system is about knowing where you are, where your the James Bond flicks look like Geppetto’s workshop inPinocchio. teammates are, and where the bad guys are. There’s the Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts, where And then having access to information that everything from precision airdrop systems to sustainable shelters to you need at the right place at the right time.” fireproof uniforms to caffeinated chewing gum is developed. Or Portable sensors can monitor vital signs in Maryland, where satellite networks run and detect the sources of enemy gunfire. Un­- communi­cations for soldiers in the field and engineers continue manned ground sensors can relay data from developing portable generators and batteries that run on sugar. Or in outside the base; small unmanned ground Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where scientists are creating high-def thermal- vehicles that look like WALL-E can act as scouts; and unmanned aerial vehicles—small optic sensors, unmanned mine detector robots that can locate enough to fit in a backpack, launch by hand, plastic IEDs with less than a needle’s worth of metal inside them, and fly like remote-control airplanes—can and optics that can make vehicles around you literally disappear. It watch from overhead. “Higher command may all sound like some cross between Batman, Robocop, and loves this,” says Megliola. “They can see what Captain America, but this reality is right around the corner. their soldiers are doing at any given time.” “You’re dominant when you’re inside a vehicle. We’re trying to But how does it work in a firefight? In theory ensure that every kid is dominant outside a vehicle,” says Brigadier this could prevent rogue units from taking General Peter Fuller of Program Executive Office Soldier at Fort matters into their own hands, a problem that surfaced in Afghanistan. “If you spot a Belvoir. And dominance, according to PEO Soldier, boils down to machine nest, you can plot the GPS awareness, survivability, and lethality. coordinates on a map and send them instant­- ly over to your buddy who’s got a launcher. He can engage the target based on my intel even if he can’t see it.”

UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES Small enough to fit in a backpack and launch by hand, these remote-control drones can send video and thermal imaging directly to the soldier on the ground. THERMAL WEAPON SIGHT Capable of recogniz- ing a target day or night, the infrared- equipped TWS will enable soldiers to take out insurgents from a distance of 1,100 meters.

74 MAXIM JUNE 2011 The flow of information will be up to 50 meters, which “Think Call of it look like? Well, you won’t custom-tailored for each man in means you don’t have to see it. It is a covert system the squad, optimizing his ability to walk up to the building and Duty when of two hidden cameras: one destroy the enemy. hold the brick-size device you press with a wide field of view In a multiplayer shooter game, you’re not against the wall; you can do that picks out any pass­ looking at the entire battlefield at any given it from across the street—and pause,” says ing face within range, and time, and you’re not seeing your teammates’ out of IED range. (Sadly, it software another with a narrow field ammo levels and vital stats; you only see can’t see through bras. Yet.) devel­oper of view that zooms in, takes what is of immediate concern to you. This is a picture, creates a template similar to what the Army’s Consumer Unmanned hidden James Meg­ of that face using points of Research/Cognitive Science Team is working cameras will work 24-7 liola. “That’s measurement between the on at Natick: flexible, role-based displays in the enemy’s backyard what you’re eyes, nose, and mouth, and where the flow of data is specialized, the same to find high-value targets instantly checks that tem­ way one soldier might carry a grenade and help take them out. going to see plate against a database. If it launcher and another a light . In Jason Bourne’s world, CIA with this new gets a hit, so will the person In gaming the bad guys are clearly marked. agents can grab a picture in the picture. But in today’s war zones you can’t always tell from a security camera and system.” a Taliban from a goatherd. That’s where Jona­ say, “Send that over to facial Combat pilots than Cohen, Ph.D., research psychologist for recognition.” Five minutes will fly night missions the Army Cognitive Science Team, comes in. later they’ve got his girlfriend’s high school with supehero vision...instead of “We’re trying to develop algorithms of enemy transcripts and blood type. But that’s just by the seat of their pants. behavior,” he says. By breaking down enemy Hollywood. “This capability doesn’t techni­ “It’s like flying in Wonder Woman’s actions, soldiers could be able to scan a crowd cally exist at the moment,” says Benjamin airplane,” says Dr. Don Reago, the principal and instantly recognize the subtle cues that Ross, an engineer working on the ICOP pro­- director for technology and countermine indicate hostile or suspicious activity. gram (Image Capture on-the-Move Process­ at Fort Belvoir, where scientists are testing ing) at CERDEC. The reality is right now if any­ a new thermal-optic sensor system for X-ray vision will finally become one wants to take a picture to check against a vehicles and aircraft. So instead of wearing a reality with sensors that can detect biometric database, they have to be in ideal night-vision goggles and looking out the enemies through walls. lighting, at close range, with the subject look­ window, a helicopter’s aircrew sees via You know that dream of every pervy adoles­- ing at the camera. “You’d have to basically external thermal sensors. “Wherever they’ve cent, the ability to see through the wall of the be cooperating with me,” says Jeff Kuderna, got their head pointed, that’s what they’re girls’ locker room? Well, the technology isn’t technical manager of the program. And seeing outside the aircraft,” says Mark far off. The Army’s Sense-Through-the-Wall there’s nothing covert about a soldier taking Walters, the technical manager of ADAS system works exactly as advertised—the pictures of people at point-blank range. (Advanced Distributed Aperture System), AA-battery-powered device can look through “These terrorists are very smart. They know which is currently undergoing flight tests. doors, floors, ceilings, and concrete walls up the area, and they’ll just avoid it,” says Sorin “You can see through the floor, you can see to eight inches thick. It’s being developed at Davidovici, ICOP lead systems engineer. through the instrument panel, you can see Aberdeen Proving Ground in a “secured facil­- The ICOP program, due in 2012, is about through the copilot sitting next to you. None ity,” about which Communications-Electron­ to change all that. “Our goal is to extend of the structure of the aircraft is there ics Research, Development and Engineering the range out to 200 meters, with variable anymore.” This could also be mounted Center engineer Dave Patel says, “There’s lighting, and be able to identify a person with outside armored carriers so that when you stuff here I don’t even know about.” Like off-angles of their face,” says Christine Chi­ dismount you know exactly what’s waiting Superman’s X-ray vision, STTW has a range of mento, ICOP’s program manager. What does for you outside. Including goat turds.

TACTICAL MOBILE ROBOT The SUGV can gather REPPS battlefield reconnaissance The Rucksack- while keeping soldiers out Enhanced Portable of harm’s way. Power System is a lightweight charging station that unfolds like a picnic blanket.

HULC EXOSKELETON The Human Universal Load Carrier from Lockheed Martin enables soldiers to carry more than 200 pounds with little effort.

JUNE 2011 MAXIM 75 question of power becomes all the more explosion. Cue the rise of the machines. important. CERDEC engineers have Prototypes of a radar/metal-detecting robot survivability developed a lightweight foldable charging that can go right up to the IED and feed radar Extreme Fortress Makeover: station they call REPPS. Say you’re a sniper and photographic imagery to a soldier’s Behind-Enemy-Lines Edition team on a recon mission. You unfold it like Toughbook laptop are already being you would a picnic blanket and the solar developed, so no more Hurt Locker daredevil Frontline soldiers will build attack panels soak up the sun’s power, which mean routines in the future. bases out of thin air. Literally. batteries you don’t have to carry. If you’ve ever tried to set up a tent in the rain Army researchers have also spent the past The coming nano-revolution: or at night (or in the rain at night), you know five years working on a unique recipe for a soldiers will wear their sensors, power it’s about as fun as a colonoscopy. It’s the bio-battery, with a goal of creating one that source, computer system, and ballistic same for soldiers. But soon setting up a you could essentially feed with a sugar protection in a supersuit. forward operating base will be as simple as packet. i.e., just a spoonful of sugar could help “I measure our success in revolutionary “roll out your shelter, press a button, and take the enemy down. changes, not evolutionary ones,” says airbeams able to support thousands of Professor John Joannopoulos, director of the pounds pop up,” says Clinton McAdams, Soldiers will be battle-ready for Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT mechanical engineer for the Fabric Structures the coldest tundra or hottest desert at in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The sole focus Team at Natick. Call it an instant FOB. Even the pop of a pill. of ISN is soldier survivability, and Joan­ the lighting is incorporated. Claudia Quigley, At the Doriot Climatic Chambers at Natick — nopoulos says his team has recently made the team leader for the Special Projects Team, which can simulate climates ranging from significant discoveries in night vision and says that “electro-luminescence lighting” -70°F with 40 mph winds to 165°F with 90 body armor. Discoveries that, according to panels make it so that “when you put the percent humidity—scientists and engineers him, “could have revolutionary changes in airbeam tent up, everything goes up.” test how gear works with actual soldiers in the next five years.” In a place like Afghanistan’s Kandahar the environments where they operate. It In the future, Joannopoulos envisions a Valley, the existing power grid simply can’t takes 10 days for a soldier to get used to a new full-body sensing device, where all the handle the strain of our forces plugging in climate and altitude, so the question for the sensors that exist at the surface level in the and sucking up their energy. Sure, we could future is: “How do we get them to be mission- Nett Warrior system could be integrated into drink their milk shake, but “you don’t make ready quicker?” says Joshua Bulotsky, Doriot the soldier’s combat uniform. What can this a lot of friends stealing all their electricity Climatic Chambers manager. “Ideally you do for the soldier? If someone sights on you and telling them you’re there to help,” says just pop a pill and you’re ready to go from a with a laser, “you can tell where it came from,” David Accetta, chief of public affairs at cold environment to a hot environment or says Joannopoulos. “And you could use it for Natick. According to Accetta, a gallon of from hot to cold.” In fact, they’re already combat identification—shine a laser on diesel fuel costs about $400 by the time it looking into making that happen. somebody and get a signal back identifying reaches the FOB generator, not to mention them—or you can talk into a laser and it can the lives put at risk getting there. So with R2-D2 will be starring in the next communicate through the fibers and you precision GPS-enabled smart airdrop version of The Hurt Locker. could actually see it on a screen. You get hit by systems for resupply and green power Fort Belvoir houses the center for a round, you’re unconscious, but the fabric sources, the Army won’t have to truck countermine operations for the U.S. Army. “A detects the change in heat by the way the supplies and fuel through combat zones. lot of the guys I’m working with have been in blood is spreading and it can get the number country two, three times over, so they’ve got of wounds, the severity of the wounds, and G.I. Joe will be able to fold up a great feel for this stuff,” says John Fasulo, can transmit it to a medic or a field hospital.” his power system and stuff it in who works with engineers and veteran Other technologies developed by the Army his backpack…or charge it with a soldiers to adapt to changes in the use of transform solar technologies into something packet of sugar. IEDs. Many of today’s mines aren’t made of called Powerwire, in essence solar panels that Today’s average soldier carries 16 pounds of metal,so combat engineers now carry look like a strand of yarn and can be woven batteries for a typical 72-hour mission. And as dual-system metal detector/radars. But that into the soldier’s uniform. The era of the soldiers’ gear gets more high-tech, the still puts them too close to a potential supersuit is right around the corner.

XM806 MACHINE GUN M26 12-GAUGE M.A.S.S. The Army’s new .50-caliber machine gun is easily The Modular Accessory Shotgun System dismounted for speed and maneuverability. supple­ments the standard assault rifle with added lethality.

76 MAXIM JUNE 2011 point of aim in the shooter’s scope. Similar Inventing the real developments are in the works for standard Captain America. Lethality assault , which would make a regular “What has changed?” asks Dr. All Any Soldier Needs to Increase infantryman who fires a few hundred rounds Marilyn Freeman of the lessons the Pieces of His Foe a year as lethal as a Special Forces soldier who we’ve learned from a decade at shoots thousands. war. “It’s all about the soldier now. Advances in technology will What hasn’t changed? We live in a make the toys of the trade deadlier A scope will allow you to spot world of persistent conflict.” than ever. Bad news for the bad guys. an enemy 1,100 yards away on a As the war in Afghanistan The XM806 is the Army’s new lightweight moonless night. continues, the soldiers report home .50-cal machine gun. The XM2010 updates Put the latest thermal weapons sight on a with a steady stream of “capability the current M110 Army sniper rifle with sniper rifle and the bad guy 11 football gaps” that must be addressed. added range, clip-on night sights, and a fields away won’t have a clue what’s about Enemies hide behind walls, we come sound/flash suppressor. The M26 is a new to hit him, thanks to an Army software up with the XM25. Can’t get fuel up compact shotgun that you mount on the training program called ROC (recognition to Afghan hilltops, we make solar bottom of your carbine rifle and can detach of combatants). That should help reduce panels and bio-batteries. Combat as a separate shotgun. civilian casualties, since soldiers will be engineers need to safely locate IEDs, And if you’re bored with the M4, the Army able to differentiate between a farmer we mount the mine detectors on has just announced a new competition in holding a shovel and a combatant holding robots. But with all this progress which manufacturers will compete an AK-47. comes an increased challenge of to create the next-generation Army carbine weight and power supply. “We can’t rifle. The future is going to be bloody fast, Your new grenade launcher will keep hanging stuff on our soldiers,” says Colonel Douglas Tamilio. “A regular take out the enemy where he hides. says Brigadier General Peter Fuller. infantryman will be able to look at a target The new XM25 “smart” grenade launcher is “We’ve got to figure out a way to 500 meters away, put his gun up, and lase it the Army’s latest game-changer, a weapon integrate all this technology and not instantaneously. Then he’ll get a reticle that could one day alter the face of warfare as weigh these kids down.” pattern and pull the trigger.” we know it. In fact, there are five of them Thanks to pop culture, we’ve downrange in Afghanistan right now, been conditioned to expect a lot of Each sniper shot will be “one hulking matte-black widowmakers that this stuff from our armed forces. shot, one kill”: no spotter needed. wouldn’t look out of place on the Death Star. But only now is reality catching up Thanks to breakthroughs in With an internal targeting with fantasy. In the world of Marvel, optical technology, sharp­- computer, a soldier simply tech­nology turns Steve Rogers into shooters will no longer have “We have to dials in the coordinates, Captain America. In 2011 those to think about whether they pushes a button, and the capabilities are practically here. will hit their target, just figure out a grenade explodes right on Will technology be the key to which target they want to hit. way to inte- the bad guy’s head, no ensuring our soldier is the dominant DARPA, the Defense Ad­- matter where he is hiding. force on the battlefields of the vanced Research Projects grate all this At the moment the future? As the pace of technology Agency, is currently devel­- technology hand-built 25 mm airburst increases, our concept of a soldier oping a little wonder it calls and not weigh rounds cost a whopping will probably change as drastically One-Shot, which mea­ $1,000 apiece, but that’s as our concepts of telephones and sures the shot to a target, these kids dropping fast, and consider­ mail have in the past decade. As taking into account every down,” says ing this new weapon can Stephen Colbert might say, enemies variable—distance, wind, Brigadier reduce a firefight from 15 of America, you’re on notice. humidity, spindrift—that minutes to five, it’s worth could affect a ’s trajec­ General Peter it. No wonder it’s been tory, and displays the exact Fuller. nicknamed the Punisher.

XM2010 SNIPER RIFLE XM25 CDTE An update to the M110 Army sniper rifle, it features This new grenade launcher, a.k.a. the Punisher, .300 Win-Mag rounds and clip-on night sights. can reduce a firefight from 15 minutes to five.

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