In the battlefield of this Twenty-First Century, when an
entire platoon can be stalked by an overhead
UAV, without even hearing the overhead threat - everyone is
wiped out with one high explosive blast.
The use of night vision and low-light intensity cameras,
will enable all human movement at night to be observed in
real time, and hostile combatants eliminated with clean surgical
strikes.
Air strikes can make pin-point hit causing little
collateral damages - so long as the targets are clearly identified,
and the kill zone is free from causing damages to
non-combatants.
Fortunately, the threat and insecurity is placed on the
hostiles:-
UAVs and CAS will certainly have a major role to play in future
battles. That makes being a soldier on the ground more difficult.
However, it can also make soldiering easier. The technology now is
such that the average soldier has the ability to point out the
enemy position with a great deal of accuracy and call down deadly,
accurate fire. The average soldier has more firepower at his
disposal than ever before.
I have to point out though that all these low light devices
cannot see through the jungle canopy. Good field craft therefore
still has a major part to play.
Re noise of UAVs, after having heard how noisy they are, I made
that point to some bloke who operates UAVs. He said that the UAV
can fly very very high such that the noise is negated.