What the US Army’s 1959 ‘Soldier of Tomorrow’ Got Right About the Future of Warfare

Then there’s the substance of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), the Army’s futuristic “smart” goggles. Currently based connected a ruggedized mentation of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented world headset, the IVAS is some nighttime imaginativeness goggles and futuristic heads-up display, susceptible of feeding sensor inputs into a soldier’s enactment of sight. The Army has agelong experimented with helmet-mounted displays for decades arsenic portion of assorted “future warrior” programs, and the IVAS hasn’t been immune to the pitfalls of erstwhile efforts—namely, complaints from soldiers astir “mission-affecting carnal impairments” similar headache, nausea, and discomfort associated with prolonged use. And the aboriginal of the long-delayed headset present appears uncertain anyway: According to Breaking Defense, the work whitethorn extremity up going backmost to the drafting committee with a new superior contractor for the blase strategy arsenic portion of its IVAS Next inaugural aft auditing its existing nighttime imaginativeness goggle capabilities. Still, betwixt the ENVG-B and IVAS, helmet-mounted nighttime imaginativeness devices person progressed acold beyond thing Sawicki’s concatenation of bid had antecedently imagined.

Armor Up

The bulletproof vest and camouflage suit operation that Sawicki donned for his AUSA debut, referred to successful contemporaneous publications arsenic “layered nylon armor” and “layered nylon vest,” is really a spot person to modern Army idiosyncratic protective instrumentality than the flak jackets that were accompanying soldiers downrange during the Vietnam War. Currently nether development, the Soldier Protection System (SPS) offers modern soldiers a “lightweight modular, scalable and tailorable suite of protective equipment,” according to the Army’s description. What this truly means is that the protective ensemble comes successful respective antithetic pieces that enactment unneurotic to maximize worker survivability without impairing mobility; successful presumption of assemblage armor, this refers chiefly to the brushed armor Torso and Extremity Protection subsystem and the hard armor Vital Torso Protection subsystem that, utilizing reinforced ceramic plates, connection improved ballistic extortion against tiny arms fire.

Protecting soldiers from bullets is 1 thing, but protecting them from the effects of atomic explosions, arsenic Army leaders told The New York Times Sawicki’s suit would, is different happening entirely—at least, successful presumption of equipment. While the well-worn Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) ensemble has been safeguarding Americans work members against chemical, biological, radiological, and atomic threats for years, it’s an wholly abstracted strategy of idiosyncratic protective cogwheel alternatively than 1 integrated into the SPS oregon the standard-issue Army Combat Uniform. And portion the 1959 plan calls for specially designed “‘welded’ combat boots” and “molded integrative gloves” to assistance support soldiers connected an irradiated battlefield, modern troops must, unfortunately, spell into conflict with their Army Regulation 670-1-authorized boots and tactical gloves, isolated from what’s successful their MOPP kit. Then again, if the nukes bash commencement flying, cipher volition past agelong capable for crushed combat anyway.

Bullet Time

While the 1959 “soldier of tomorrow” appears equipped with an M14, advances successful firearms exertion person agelong since near the beloved conflict firearm successful the dust. The Army began replacing the M14 with the lighter-weight 5.56-mm M16 battle firearm successful the precocious 1960s, which was itself replaced by the shorter-barreled M4 carbine during the Global War connected Terror successful the 2000s. Replacing the M16 and M4 household of rifles has proven hard successful the past, but it’s harmless to accidental that the promises from Army brass successful 1959 of a lighter standard-issue firearm for soldiers have, for the astir part, travel existent successful the intervening decades—even if the caller XM7 rifle, precocious adopted nether the service’s Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program, is really noticeably heavier than the M4.

So, too, has the promise of “new high-velocity bullets.” While the Army successful the aboriginal 2000s fielded the 5.56-mm M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round for improved show implicit the modular M855 ammo antecedently adopted successful the 1980s, the work undertook a large small arms study successful 2017 to find whether soldiers required a antithetic caliber ammunition to woody with the abrupt proliferation of assemblage armor among adversaries. The survey determined that the Army’s adjacent firearm should travel chambered successful 6.8 mm, which would purportedly connection importantly improved show astatine scope compared to some 5.56-mm and 7.62-mm rounds. From there, the Army ended up selecting Sig Sauer to nutrient its 2 6.8mm NGSW systems successful 2022, weapons the work began officially fielding earlier this year. It whitethorn person taken respective decades, but the Army’s caller high-velocity circular is yet here.

Rocket Man

While definite elements of Sawicki’s combat kit are intelligibly represented successful caller subject innovations, others simply ne'er came to fruition. The automatic foxhole-digging charges, for example, never materialized arsenic an effectual replacement for the beloved handheld entrenching tool, contempt their prevalence among subject futurists astatine the time. But if there’s 1 imaginativeness that has persisted successful subject and defence circles, it’s that of jetpack-equipped troops.

The Defense Department has pursued the militarized jetpack for decades, starting with probe and improvement successful the 1950s and culminating successful October 1961 with the palmy objection of Bell Aerosystems’s Small Rocket Lift Device (or, colloquially, the “Bell Rocket Belt”) for President John F. Kennedy astatine Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Army ended up abandoning improvement of the Rocket Belt implicit substance constraints that constricted its imaginable tactical applications, but US subject planners would revisit the conception clip and again successful consequent decades.