Today's phones may not be able to withstand a hit from an RPG, but they're pretty tough. The last time you dropped your phone, did it break? No, it didn't. Many smartphones today use Gorilla Glass, which is almost impossible to scratch. Take a regular iPhone or Droid, put a rubber case around it, and for $210 you've probably got something sufficiently up-armored for the vast majority of the soldier's needs.Well let me be the first to say that my cynicism may have been misplaced. Here's a report from USA Today about how the Army is trying out off-the-shelf smartphones:But that's not how things work, of course. Why would you buy a phone from one of the companies that has produced millions of them, when you can have Lockheed Martin make one? And you know why Lockheed Martin is going to get this contract? It might have something to do with the more than $10 million to 15 million they spend on lobbying every year, which pays for hundreds of lobbyists to make sure their petitions for redress of grievances are well heard.
And how much do you want to bet that the Lockheed Martin phone that gets produced will kind of suck, yet nevertheless cost taxpayers $10,000 per phone?
The instant, relatively cheap consumer technology has shown great promise for soldiers, said the Army's No. 2 officer, Gen. Peter Chiarelli."The revolution in handhelds is huge for us," Chiarelli said.They get a quote from a defense analyst at a conservative think tank expressing skepticism about using versions of the consumer phones, which isn't too surprising, given that your average defense analyst at a conservative think tank probably has his salary paid by defense contractors (we don't know in this case, because the think tank isn't required to identify its donors). But my favorite line from the article is this: "The main benefit of the phones is that they could be keeping soldiers from accidentally killing each other." Yeah, that'd be good.The military is testing several smartphones for battle at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where nearly 4,000 soldiers are taking part in an exercise involving iPhones, Androids and computer tablet devices, said Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman.
Modifications to the phones are relatively minor, Chiarelli said. Touchscreens need to respond to gloved hands and be visible in all light conditions. The smartphones can be deactivated if they're lost, Chiarelli said.
Images of insurgents captured by airborne drones are currently distributed mostly to senior officers, Chiarelli said. With smartphones, sergeants in charge of about 10 soldiers would have access.
