Comment by Enginerrrd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Enginerrrd | Hacker News Reader

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I'm inclined to agree. While it might be nice in theory to have your battlefield painted with where the friendlies are or something, there are so many issues with that in practice I can't imagine it actually getting used by infantry.

Just off the top: All the electronics shit is gonna add weight, bulk, and power requirements.

It's gonna get dirty, fogs up, w/e.

It's gonna not work for one reason or another b/c it can't get a link, or it gets bashed against a humvee/wall. It doesn't get updated information, etc.

If the enemy picks it up it either shows them where to shoot your guys, or it involves some authentication system that will make it useless to guys in a gunfight anyway. (What happens if your guys accidentally switch headsets after lunch?)

It adds a bunch of extraneous bullshit in the form of information you don't need to be dealing with. Ever get lost while listening to the radio? Now raise your hand if the first thing you did was turn the music down. When shit is going south you need to REDUCE cognitive load. Pasting extra information into someone's field of view is likely to be unhelpful.

AIUR - Augmented Infantry Universal Reality headset Patch 1.76 notes

* Fixed a bug that occasionally caused friendly units to display as hostile ones.

* Corrected AR ammo counter to correctly match actual rounds in small arm.

* Adjusted networking code to ensure headsets remain synced with team leaders.

And hundreds of other potentially dangerous and hilarious patch notes...

Looking forward to everyone saying, "My life for AIUR!" while using these.

FTFY: Corrected off-by-one error in the AR ammo counter to correctly match actual rounds in small arm.

;)

New bug: Counter follows strict definition of small arm, only displays count of rounds in the chamber while ignoring the magazine/belt.

Note: Counter underflows with weapons exceeding programmed capacity. Firing negative rounds may have unpredictable behavior.

I agree with all of this.

I'll add one more: so much of what platoon leaders do now is teach about technology. There's only so many hours in the day for training, and (even back in 2013!) the load was starting to cause deficiency in basic combat tasks. We just didn't have the time between all the requirements to get everyone proficient in the myriad of sensor tech we ended up carrying. Plus, if it's possible to break something believe me a Private will figure out how to do it.

>What happens if your guys accidentally switch headsets after lunch?

This right here is a question I hope they're thinking about. In an actual fight, you may need to pick up gear off the ground. What happens if you can't, because "authentication"?

> myriad of sensor tech we ended up carrying

At that time, did you feel like that tech was useful?

No, and after a month or so I told everyone to drop it and put it back in the storage container where it sat for the rest of the deployment. There were some exceptions to this (some IED-defeat devices, for example).

> What happens if you can't, because "authentication"?

Aren't your radios already using cryptographic fills? What do you think the difference is?

It totally depends on how authentication would be handled for the headset device. If it's handled like it is for radios, where fills are added on a regular cycle and anyone can pick up and use the device, it's probably fine. If it's made unique-soldier-dependent, I don't think it's a good idea.

> If it's made unique-soldier-dependent, I don't think it's a good idea.

Lol well why would we do that? Just inventing random problems at this point.

It isn't a "random problem".

It's a legitimate question about the design principles that are being used here. Is the headset "dumb" and just shows the same HUD view for everyone, or is it custom to the soldier's position in the formation? We don't know, but it's a question to think about that has actual implications for how something like this could be used or even implemented.

God forbid anyone would imagine how this would this work. I wonder which scenario is more plausible, the one you responded to, or the one linked below?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652386

Well let's get it into troops' hands and give it a go and find out!

I take your point, but I think you're unreasonably optimistic. It's worth a try, but $22 billion?

On the other hand, maybe you're right. We're both British. What do we care if the US government spunks all this money up the wall? The only downside is if they sell it to the MOD before it's working.

I carried around the device that filled crypto for radios.

Most people don't know how to use them and don't understand how to do a basic function check with them. It takes someone who has taken a class in receiving data with them and probably a patient Gunny who has been doing this stuff way too long.

I honestly don’t see this being used by infantry for all the reasons you list foremost being that by the time the MIL STD folks are done with it, it’ll be way too heavy.

Most likely HQ so the brass can play command and conquer with the infantry and at a push on vehicles similar to the Helmets on the F-32.

Do you mean F-35?

Yes, oops.

HL2 uses eye tracking for authentication so that one should be partially solved

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