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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=4080922&pageNumber=0
Video Game War for U.S. 'Digital Division' in
Iraq
Tue January 6, 2004 10:59 AM ET
By Robin Pomeroy
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - The blue dots moving on the computer
screen are U.S. tanks and Humvees, the red ones are the enemy
American soldiers must kill or capture.
This is not a video game but how the most high-tech division of the
U.S. Army conducts operations in Iraq.
The 4th Infantry Division, which patrols a large chunk of northern
Iraq, caught the world's attention when it captured Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein. But in the U.S. military, it is known for the
space-age gear fitted in its vehicles.
"The 4th ID is the only division to have it," said Sgt. Jeff Mann,
an infantryman from Farmsville, Ohio. "That's why they call us the
'digital division."'
For soldiers like Mann, the navigation console on his Humvee has
replaced the map and compass as the tool to find the way across a
desert or through the streets -- in his case in Tikrit, Saddam's
hometown.
The computer uses satellite positioning technology to tell the
operator where he is and where his comrades are. Back at base,
computer operators plot the red icons showing where they believe
the enemy to be.
"It is a huge advance," said Maj. Lou Morales, a training officer
who was a company commander during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
last March.
"It freed me up to see who was around me. I knew where my
helicopters were, my trucks, my tanks ... It frees you up from
staring at a map."
With its touch screen and keyboard, the console can send instant
messages to HQ or other units and has a "line of sight" device that
tells the user what he would be able to see -- and shoot at -- if
he moved to a different position.
The console, which in the U.S. Army tradition of acronyms is
referred to as FBCB2 or Force XXI Battle Command, Battalion,
Brigade and Below, is only part of the 4th Infantry Division's
digital armory.
In a mobile office next to one of Saddam's palaces that U.S. forces
have made their home in Tikrit stand three large video screens that
replicate the information from the various consoles and give
additional data.
This is the Command Information Center, the heart of the operation,
where the troops' commander, Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, moves his
forces around a computer screen in the way generals of old pushed
model tanks across a table-top map.
On the center screen, a map can show the whole of Iraq or zoom in
on a single house, using recent satellite photographs.
The left-hand screen is used to bring up lists of data. On the
right, the screen can air live aerial video filmed by
remote-controlled planes.
The division operates eight UAVs -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- the
only ones in Iraq. The winged craft can circle, quietly and usually
undetected, above friendly or enemy forces, sending pictures and
map coordinates back to the command center.
The Iraqi army put up little defense against the U.S-led invasion
so the technology has mostly been used for fighting insurgents, who
according to the U.S. military are mainly Saddam loyalists or
foreign militants, rather than conventional forces.
"It was never envisaged to be used in the kind of environment we
are in right now," said Lt. Col. Ted Martin, the division's chief
of operations.
Instead of the tank battles the troops trained for, they face the
daily risk of snipers and low-tech but deadly roadside bombs, not
easily spotted by expensive gadgets like unmanned aircraft.
But commanders say the technology is proving its worth in the
anti-insurgency effort, for example by moving troops more quickly
to precise locations when the enemy is spotted.
"Digital systems have improved our ability to action on
intelligence, for example to cordon off a building at night,"
Martin said.
When the division's troops closed in on Saddam's hiding place last
month, they relied more on intelligence gathered by humans than
technology, but the gadgets played their part.
"The rapid movement of about 600 soldiers into the area to cordon
it off and tighten the noose was all done in a digital
environment," Martin said.
Soldiers like the gear, but say it is costly and often unreliable.
"It's like any other computer. Anything can go wrong," said Mann,
the sergeant, as his comrades tried to fix the hard drive on his
Humvee. "It's great, when it works."
CHARGE!!!
