By
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on April 09, 2021 at 9:53 AM
A Michigan National Guard soldier patrols in Afghanistan alongside an Afghan soldier and a Latvian ally. Now the Army is struggling to refocus on defending allies like Latvia against great-power threats such as Russia.
WASHINGTON: The Army is still struggling to reorient itself on great power threats, said the commander of the infantry and armor training center at Fort Benning.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe
After two decades of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, “we’ve got to get east of the Vistula and north of the Han,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, referring to rivers in eastern Poland and central Korea respectively. “We have to get onto the map sheets where our near-peer competitors may operate against us – and, therefore, we’ve got to take our own trainers out of what they’re comfortable with, [i.e.] the Middle East map sheet of your choice.
By Defense Systems Staff
Apr 06, 2021
The Army plans to field more than 120,000 custom, ruggedized versions of Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets designed to project situational awareness information directly onto a soldier’s visor.
The Integrated Visual Augmentation System program looks at the soldier as a weapons system, the Army said. IVAS integrates key capabilities – such as high-resolution night, thermal and soldier-borne sensors as well as radio communications into a single, lightweight wearable device to improve information sharing and decision making for warfighters.
The system has also been fitted with facial recognition and language translation tools as well as rapid target acquisition and identification, performance assessment and biometric applications. It leverages augmented reality capabilities that enable the overlay of map displays, data or simulated images onto a soldier s view of the real environment.
Army shifts AR into high gear with $22B contract for customized HoloLens goggles -- GCN gcn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gcn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
American Soldiers to Field Microsoft HoloLens-Based Goggles, See Through Objects 1 Apr 2021, 12:00 UTC ·
by
For a while now, the American military has been trying to figure out ways for its troops to have an extra edge over enemy forces by providing them with more detailed information of their surroundings. IVAS is how the Army calls the development program, and it just got a major boost at the end of March. 1 photo
IVAS is short for Integrated Visual Augmentation System, and it basically stands for a set of goggles soldiers can pull over their eyes and get instant access to a wealth of data provided by their unit s sensors. For instance, the technology could allow soldiers to see through the vehicle that carries them to the location of their mission, thanks to the sensors feeding data to the goggles from outside of the vehicle.
Afghanistan Shootings Fast Facts
Here’s a look at former Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is serving life in prison without parole for the murders of 16 Afghan civilians in 2012.
About former Staff Sgt. Bales
Bales was assigned to the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington.
The unit was deployed in support of Special Forces troops in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.
Bales served three tours of duty in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan.
Timeline
March 11, 2012 – Bales
leaves the military base and goes on a house to house shooting spree in two nearby villages. He kills 16 people, including nine children. Eleven of the victims belong to the same family. Bales returns to the base and turns himself in.