lo-jack explained :) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Team Tierra Buena" To: "Arizona Geocaching" Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 11:24 PM Subject: [Az-Geocaching] (LONG) Shamelessly Purloined from the New York Times > I believe access to the link of the "Times" article below is by > subscription only, so forgive me if my posting the entire item is > hogging your bandwidth. At least it's nominally on-topic. > > Every time I violate copyright law in this way I am reminded of this > wonderful lyric: > > "Plagiarize! > Let no one else's work evade your eyes! > Remember why the Good Lord made your eyes, so don't shade your eyes, > But plagiarize! Plagiarize! Plagiarize! > > Only be sure you should call it, please... research." > > Tom Lehrer > "Lobachevsky" > > Steve > Team Tierra Buena > > ======================================================================== > = > > April 17, 2003 > On the Ground in Iraq, the Best Compass Is in the Sky > By SETH SCHIESEL > > > On an afternoon early this month, in the desert near Najaf, Iraq, > elements of an elite United States Army unit received word of a column > of almost 60 vehicles, including about two dozen tanks, moving along a > nearby road. > > Some of the soldiers thought it could be Saddam Hussein's Republican > Guard. > > Then a general in his Humvee leaned over to a computer console that is > part of a satellite-based navigation system called FBCB2. He tapped in > the military grid coordinates where the mystery force was located. Then > on the screen, up popped the little blue symbols that represent friendly > units, rather than the red icons that the United States military uses to > designate enemy forces. > > It was not the Republican Guard. It was a separate United States > division. > > During the cold war and even the 1991 Persian Gulf war, satellite > technology was not an everyday part of the lives of foot soldiers or > even generals. But in the Iraqi desert, satellite technology - > specifically the Global Positioning System, or G.P.S. - has become a > fundamental and pervasive navigation tool for ground forces. > > G.P.S. gadgetry has become almost as much a part of army life as shovels > and cigarettes - whether integrated into vehicles in advanced systems > like FBCB2 (often referred to as "blue-force tracker"), used in the > hand-held receiver known to soldiers as the Plugger, or even bought off > the shelf. > > "Primarily the way that G.P.S. technologies have changed the way the > army can perform its mission is it has given us a more accurate way to > navigate the battle space," said Lt. Col. William S. Harborth, the > Army's product manager for Global Positioning System technology. > > That means the devices simply help soldiers figure out where they are. > Perhaps even more important, the ability to define location precisely > can help soldiers figure out where other units are. > > "Increased accuracy is more important because if you know better where > you are, you can ensure that you reduce fratricide," Colonel Harborth > said. "In the old days, there was some human error in determining your > location on the ground." > > Satellite navigation continues to be crucial for long-range weapons like > cruise missiles, and G.P.S. is essential in the sort of unmanned > aircraft that saw their first broad deployment in Afghanistan. In > contrast, the main such tool among ground troops, the Plugger, is in > some ways less sophisticated than gear found at Wal-Mart or in rental > cars - its utility in traversing the open desert diminished as forces > entered urban areas, for example, since roads and landmarks are not > programmed into it. > > Still, the increasing use of satellite-based systems for navigation - > and for "situational awareness," in military parlance - is one of the > biggest changes in United States ground operations since the 1991 gulf > war. > > During that war, the Global Positioning Satellite network was in its > infancy, and among front-line units, a single G.P.S. receiver might be > allotted to an army company, perhaps numbering 180 soldiers in the > infantry. Now the Army says that it has more than 100,000 Pluggers (the > name is derived from the initials for their full name, PLGR for > Precision Lightweight G.P.S. Receiver). In Iraq, the leader of each > combat squad, which might include nine soldiers, often has a Plugger at > hand; in some Army units, Pluggers are even more numerous. > > The Marines have adopted the technology more cautiously. Matthew Brandt, > the Marines' project manager for G.P.S., said the corps had purchased > only about 5,400 of the units and generally deployed them at the platoon > level. (A platoon might include three to five squads.) > > That may be one reason that at least some marines are carrying their own > civilian-grade G.P.S. devices from home. The civilian devices, made by > companies including Garmin International, are typically smaller than > Pluggers and, though not quite as precise as Pluggers, are apparently > sufficient for everyday purposes. > > Those purposes can be as trivial as finding the chow line. Before the > shooting started in Iraq, some soldiers in front-line units were using > their Pluggers to navigate through the dark and sand to the mess tent. > > As with most technologies, however, satellite navigation is only as > useful as the human intelligence guiding its use. For instance, in late > March an American military detachment was sent to pick up some prisoners > near Najaf. The soldiers were told the coordinates of the captives. > > Their Plugger unit worked fine and the soldiers reached the coordinates. > But they did not find the prisoners there. Instead, they came close to a > mortar attack. The human intelligence had failed, not the device. > > And even with the growing use of satellite navigation devices, there are > gaps. A prominent setback for the Army in the early days of the war was > the ambush of members of the 507th Maintenance Company near Nasiriya, > Iraq, in which eight soldiers were killed. A private captured in the > confrontation, Jessica D. Lynch, was later rescued, and five others > taken prisoner were found alive north of Baghdad on Sunday. > > The Nasiriya episode, which occurred while the soldiers were traveling > in a convoy of trucks and other vehicles, was initially attributed to > their having taken a wrong turn off a major highway. The Army has > refused to comment publicly on precise details of the incident, and more > recent accounts indicate that the convoy was ambushed after having > stopped to repair vehicles. > > But a technology expert with the American forces in the region and a > civilian expert on military G.P.S. both said it was unlikely in any case > that the captured unit had a G.P.S. device on board. > > While Plugger units are almost ubiquitous among front-line combat units, > they remain less common among units like maintenance companies, which > are not generally meant to engage the enemy. > > Even soldiers who have Pluggers are relying on devices that are in some > ways primitive compared with their civilian counterparts. It is a > curious position for the Pentagon, the driving force behind the creation > of the constellation of 24 G.P.S. satellites in the 1980's and 90's. > > The Plugger devices remain largely unchanged since their initial > deployment in 1994 (although their cost has fallen from about $2,000 > each to less than $1,000), and for many purposes, the relatively scant > information they provide is sufficient. Soldiers can specify their > destination, and the unit will tell them what direction to go. Using > encrypted satellite signals reserved for government use, they are > accurate to within roughly 10 yards, compared with 20 to 25 yards for > civilian devices. > > Built for resilience in combat, they are big (roughly the size of a > small shoebox), heavy (about 2.75 pounds) and have a small text-based > display incapable of showing maps or other information. In general, the > units, which are made by Rockwell Collins, display only location, > velocity (if the unit is moving) and time. > > Civilian G.P.S. devices like the NeverLost system in Hertz rental cars, > in contrast, are often able to display maps and other information. > > The advanced graphical FBCB2 system used in Army combat vehicles, in > contrast, allows commanders to electronically "see" broad swaths of a > battlefield. In the version of FBCB2 known as "blue-force tracker," > far-flung United States units not only receive their location > information from G.P.S. but also communicate with one another using > other classified satellite systems. Other versions of FBCB2 units > receive their location from G.P.S. but communicate with one another > using land-based radio. > > (In either case, the system is connected by cable to a Plugger, which > serves as the actual location-detection device. In fact, more than half > of the Pluggers in the Army are not used in a hand-held mode. Rather > they are used as "slave'' location-detection devices for other systems, > which include air-defense batteries in addition to FBCB2.) > > FBCB2, which has been in development since 1997, has been deployed in > practically every tank and Bradley fighting vehicle in the Fourth > Infantry Division, said Michael Lebrun, deputy director in the Army's > command, control, communication and computers office. Elements of the > Fourth Infantry, which in some ways is the most technically advanced of > the army's infantry divisions, are on the way to Iraq. > > The FBCB2 system displays the location of similarly equipped units in > the area as blue icons. When any of the units spot enemy forces, they > enter their location into the system. They are then displayed as red > icons, and that information is relayed to other FBCB2 trackers. > > Mr. Lebrun said that over the last seven or eight months, FBCB2 was > deployed to other army divisions, though generally company by company. A > tank company might include three platoons, each with four tanks. > > For foot soldiers without access to the FBCB2, however, satellite > navigation usually means getting their location from the Plugger and > then using a paper map to plot their location manually. > > That is why the Pentagon is ordering a new generation of hand-held > G.P.S. devices, to be known as DAGR, pronounced "Dagger," for Defense > Advanced G.P.S. Receiver. Rockwell Collins is competing with Raytheon > for the right to produce the new system, which is scheduled to reach > everyday soldiers next year. The Pentagon is to pick the winning company > in September. > > "Plugger is about 12 years old, and if you can make an analogy to the > commercial electronics marketplace, just think about your cordless phone > you had at home 10 years ago versus now," said Mark Youhanaie, > Raytheon's strategy director for G.P.S. products. "Now, we can make > these receivers more accurate. We can acquire the satellite signal more > quickly. It has higher jam immunity, and we can give you that all in a > package that is a quarter of the size of the old Plugger system." > > For now, it appears that the Rockwell Collins contender is a bit smaller > than Raytheon's, while Raytheon's boasts a bigger screen. Whichever > company wins, however, the Dagger will weigh only about a pound and will > be much smaller than the Plugger. Perhaps most important, the new > devices will allow soldiers to see not just lines of coordinate numbers, > but also a map that shows their location in relation to objects like > minefields, rivers and enemy positions. The units will also incorporate > graphical user interfaces. > > Drawing a comparison to generations of computer operating systems, Steve > Jones, the Rockwell Collins marketing manager for land navigation > products, said that "Plugger is DOS, and Dagger is Windows." > > By plugging the Dagger system into a military radio, soldiers may be > able to display their location on the screens of nearby Dagger units or > more advanced FBCB2 systems, Mr. Jones said. > > The Dagger devices, which are meant to initially cost about $2,000 each, > will be more advanced than the Plugger in other ways as well. While the > Plugger receives its encrypted signals at 1,575 megahertz, the band also > used for civilian G.P.S. devices, the Dagger will also be able to pick > up signals at the government-only 1,227-megahertz band, allowing for > additional accuracy. The 1,227 band is now used largely for military > aircraft, cruise missiles and other airborne systems, military officials > say. > > The new system will also track all 12 G.P.S. satellites in each > hemisphere at once. The old units can only track five satellites at > once, and signals from four satellites are required to establish a > three-dimensional position. In addition, current G.P.S. receivers are > somewhat vulnerable to enemy equipment that beams false G.P.S. signals > to indicate the wrong location, a technique known as spoofing. > > The Dagger is meant to include classified technology that will help the > device verify that the signal it is receiving is actually coming from a > United States G.P.S. satellite. > > It is still unclear just how many of the new devices will reach United > States soldiers. "The plan was to replace all of the Pluggers in one > year,'' said Mr. Brandt of the Marines, "and of course that depends on > how much money Congress decides to give us, which is never certain." > > But no matter how many are ultimately deployed, the new devices are > meant to give the soldiers perhaps the most precious commodity on the > modern battlefield besides life itself: information. > > "The key is greater situational awareness for our soldiers so we bring > them home alive," Colonel Harborth said. "That's it." > > > > Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company > > ____________________________________________________________ > Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com > To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: > http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching > > Arizona's Geocaching Resource > http://www.azgeocaching.com