(C) Common Dreams
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Army Is Developing Battlefield Computers and Detection Devices [1]
['Drew Middleton']
Date: 1970-10-27
Professional soldiers con templating dwindling defense budgets believe that the new system would facilitate the use of the agile, shock army that now appears the only possible American answer to the Com munist bloc's numerical supe riority.
The Army is enthusiastic about electronic assistance on future battlefield& It will not eliminate the harsh decisions of war, however. The general still must choose his course of ac ition. The infantryman still must seize and hold terrain.
What is expected is that un der the new system the collec tion of information on which the general's choice will rest will be more rapid and accurate, as will the evaluation of the in formation by computer.
The advantage would be that command, instead of struggling to evaluate a mound of infor mation, could turn the job over to computers. The answers could then be transmitted to commanders at lower echelons, where they would become the military intelligence on which forces were committed to the battle.
Staff officers sketched a hypothetical battlefield situa tion with IBCS in operation:
An enemy column on foot and in vehicles is on the move. A wide variety of detection de vices reports the movement from the enemy's sector. The information is received at com bat headquarters and fed into a computer along with informa tion from other areas of the battlefield.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/27/archives/army-is-developing-battlefield-computers-and-detection-devices.html
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