[X] My Assistant

[Wounded Ronin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2/M3_Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle

its a "IFV" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It's "Mechanized Infantry" from Civ 1! Woohoo, let's build them and fortify them in our cities.

[hobgoblin]

hmm, dont recall that. in civ2 its a humvee with a lmg on its roof i think...

[Kagetenshi]

It's pretty much that in Civ I, IIRC.

Still remember the time I thought the Civ I tank was a meditating Buddha-figure with one arm outstretched. That was a nasty surprise.

And then Ghandi nuked me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

~J

[bibliophile20]

It's pretty much that in Civ I, IIRC.

Still remember the time I thought the Civ I tank was a meditating Buddha-figure with one arm outstretched. That was a nasty surprise.

And then Ghandi nuked me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

~J

I had Alexander the Great sue for peace once... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Ah, Civ 3... such fond memories. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[hobgoblin]

i know if someone in the neighborhood who got nuked just as he had developed the catapult...

[Kagetenshi]

I wasn't quite that badly off, but I don't think I'd gotten past cannons, at least not much.

Of course, eventually I turned eight and realized that never building a second city wasn't a good idea. When I turned ten, I discovered the joys of not staying in Despotism the entire game.

~J

[bibliophile20]

I wasn't quite that badly off, but I don't think I'd gotten past cannons, at least not much.

Of course, eventually I turned eight and realized that never building a second city wasn't a good idea. When I turned ten, I discovered the joys of not staying in Despotism the entire game.

~J

And how old are you now, Kage? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kagetenshi]

And how old are you now, Kage? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Ten and a half!

(22 for another slightly over two weeks, if I remember correctly. I actually don't remember the age I was, I'm extrapolating from how old I was when Civ I came out, plus the time between that and when I actually played it—my grandfather picked up the game pretty much immediately, but it got accidentally erased somehow before it was installed and it took about six-eight months for him to get around to picking up another copy).

~J

[bibliophile20]

Ten and a half!

(22 for another slightly over two weeks, if I remember correctly. I actually don't remember the age I was, I'm extrapolating from how old I was when Civ I came out, plus the time between that and when I actually played it—my grandfather picked up the game pretty much immediately, but it got accidentally erased somehow before it was installed and it took about six-eight months for him to get around to picking up another copy).

~J

Huh. And here I thought that you were much older than I am, instead of just six months or so... I guess that's my fault for confusing board seniority with actual seniority.

[KarmaInferno]

It also makes for one hell of a cinematic Longshot test.

No, to be a hell of a cinematic test it'd have to be done while upside down in a flip off an exploding motorcycle.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

About those periscopes... shouldn't it be possible, even today, to blast them with a high powered strobing laser in hopes of frying the retinas of the driver, or at least temporarily blind him?

For example if you don't clean enough of the mud out of the tracks, when the mud dries you could shed a track

Hmm... Quick hardening foam epoxy grenades...


-karma

[Kagetenshi]

I have spent enough time awake for a somewhat older individual, if that makes any difference (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

~J

[bibliophile20]

I have spent enough time awake for a somewhat older individual, if that makes any difference (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

~J

*snort* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

[Fuchs]

About those periscopes... shouldn't it be possible, even today, to blast them with a high powered strobing laser in hopes of frying the retinas of the driver, or at least temporarily blind him?

I think the periscopes are protected from that, on modern tanks. The latest French tank has a TV monitor for the driver, from what I heard, so that would not work.

[jago668]

Or it could have that bucky ball glass in them. That would prevent something like that from happening, and they can make that right now.

[DocTaotsu]

People using highpowered lasers to cook eyes is already a problem and they're already taking steps to try to minimize the damage. In 70 years I tend to think that the periscope is only there for situations where all the other redundant sensor bulges are all out of comission. Using some sort of virtual cockpit drivers would have much better situational awareness, even if they weren't rigging directly.

I agree with the Deep One. Drones very likely dominate the supply/maintenance side of operations in the 6th world. If the megas and the governments of the world are willing to field mobile autodocs to work on human beings, I'm sure they have similar drones for maintenance. Hell, I’d be willing to wager that having reliable drones for maintenance has a bigger impact on militaries than having drones that shoot the hell out of people. I’d be a bit like when car building switched over from hand built to assembly line. All of a sudden you don’t need these huge armies of skilled craftsmen, you just need a crew of techs who can fix drones that (hopefully) don’t breakdown all the goddamn time.

Being a person who has a long standing animosity towards military supply I can tell you I’d much rather pull out my commlink, slap a stud on the side and dictate: “Authorization: 2 Field Medical Bags, Patrol Load.” Somewhere a machine springs to life, grabs said bags, checks the contents, restocks as appropriate, and drops them off somewhere to be picked up (hopefully by another drone since I get tired of walking to that damn complex).

(RANT/)
This would be a dream compared to:

“Hey man, I need 2 med bags.”
“What do you need them for?”
“Keeping your happy ass alive.”
“Do you have the right paperwork?”
“Uhm… yes?”
“Ah, no. These are the old forms, we use new forms now.”
“That’s fine, let me get the right form.”
“Oh we don’t have them here, you need to go to office X for that.”
“I was just there, they said this is the only form they have.”
*Pause as the supply guy rolls his eyes and looks up from his free cell game*
“Well I don’t have them.”
*Fastforward through 30 minutes of ‘Who’s on first?’ hilarity. I have to talk to no less than 3 separate people in 3 separate offices to get this cleared up.*
“Okay, here’s your bag.”
“This bag is… sticky.”
“Uhm… okay.”
“My med bag shouldn’t be sticky”
“Yeah well I’m not a corpsman, so I don’t know how to check them.”
*Growing concern from me. I open the bag and start looking at dates.*
“I was in highschool when this expired.”
“Yeah well, you’re responsible for making sure the bag is properly stocked.”
“But… you’re supply. I don’t have a room full of medical supplies I can throw into this bag. If I did I wouldn’t have to be here. And this bag… it’s sticky. Just tell me why it’s sticky?”
*Supply guy gives me the dreaded ‘Not my problem’ shrug. In a perfect world I pull out my monowire k-bar and force the handle into his eye socket.*
“I guess you could go to the clinic to get it filled.”
“But… But you’re supply… you’re whole purpose in life is to supply… the battalion, the medical battalion. That would mean you have medical supplies… right?”
“Oh we do, but they’re all expired. Someone has to order new ones.”
“Someone not you?”
“I’m not sure.”
(/RANT)

Long story short the world of logistics is currently filled with people who are glorified stock boys. Human error accounts for so much waste and inefficiency I refuse to believe that they won’t soon be replaced by robots. If you can build a machine intelligent enough to fly independent combat missions or put a wounded soldier back together, you can build something that scans barcodes and moves heavy boxes from one room to another.

I’m fairly certain they’ve done this already it’s just a matter of cost and reliability.

This is of course ignoring the fact that the universe is a cruel place and that progress doesn’t necessarily make things easier.

[jago668]

to long to quote

I know that Shermin-Williams is already experimenting with this somewhat in their wharehouses, or at least they were when I worked for them several years ago. So if companies are already trying to put drone type supply systems in today, then you can sure as hell bet that it is already done in 6th world 2070.

You would probably have places operating 23 hours a day. That last hour used for recharging the drones, and general maintenance. Have a guy or two going down the line of drones while they recharge. Checking for signs of wear like tire/track damage, changing oil, etc. Though even that could be done remotely with *gasp* another drone. So you could cut down on personel on shift to about 5 or 6, 1-2 for keeping up with drones, and computer systems, maybe a site manager, and the rest on site security.

[DocTaotsu]

God... the most boring drone rigger job. Ever.

I imagine most repair drones have some sort of triage program that lets them perform normal maintenace whilst passing unusual cases up to a more advanced smart system and eventually on to a meat drone. SOTA warehouse rigging is probably where old riggers go to die.

Now if you're working for some struggling franchise that uses 1st generation automation and sketchy Thai repair routines... that'd be a feasible background for a shit hot rigger.

They probably don't even bring the drones down at all in the place you describe. They just have enough "shifts" to keep the working hours per drone down and have a handful down at any given time for extensive maintenance. There are probably a bunch of places where riggers just phone it.

[Ed_209a]

(RANT)
“Hey man, I need 2 med bags.�
“What do you need them for?�
“Keeping your happy ass alive.�
“Do you have the right paperwork?�
“Uhm… yes?�

*Supply guy gives me the dreaded ‘Not my problem’ shrug. In a perfect world I pull out my monowire k-bar and force the handle into his eye socket.*

Been there. (wish I could have) Done that.

I feel your pain. I was in a maint unit, and our supply section was crap from the top down.

Our admin section too. I actually heard one of our admin people say, "It's your responsibility to make sure your records are still here. Its _your_ career." (IE, it's not my problem if your form xx.xx gets lost.)

I will believe to my dying day that they tossed forms for people they did not like. Minor stuff like _promotion_paperwork_.

[bibliophile20]

A friend of mine was telling me about one game that he was in and how, on one occasion, they were raiding a military base. He made certain to booby-trap the supply building with as much high explosives as he could find... said it was a longtime fantasy of his.

Doctors who work for HMOs and haven't yet been completely burned out by the bureaucracy feel much the same way; I've met more than a few doctors that have wistful dreams about getting their bureaucratic tormentors on their operating tables (what happens next depends on the proclivities of the doctor; sometimes they get to "retake" anatomy class; sometimes the 'crat is sick and they get to say that his procedure was not approved.)

[Fuchs]

Or the time my company was doing their 3 week refresher course (something like the US National Guard system), and we were limited to 10 live mortar grenades per platoon per day, always doing "dry runs". And then, on the last morning we'd get to fire, we suddenly had like 150 grenades per platoon handed out, and it was all "that has to be fired until noon, get to it!" We even shot illumination rounds in plain daylight (at 3K dollars a pop). All in all I think we wasted half a million in ordnance in a single morning.

[KarmaInferno]

And yet I turn on Discovery Channel the other day and there's a special about a tank refurbishing/repair facility in I think Connecticut, that has automated supply and delivery drones running throughout the complex.

Little robot carts that follow buried radio guide wires around the buildings. They can go to the supply depot, grab the parts off the racks, and carry them to their destinations unaided. The system is smart enough to stop carts for obstacles, and if necessary re-route the deliveries. All this timed so each repair crew is supposed to get parts and supplies at the exact moment they need them.


-karma

[Cthulhudreams]

God... the most boring drone rigger job. Ever.

I imagine most repair drones have some sort of triage program that lets them perform normal maintenance whilst passing unusual cases up to a more advanced smart system and eventually on to a meat drone. SOTA warehouse rigging is probably where old riggers go to die.

Now if you're working for some struggling franchise that uses 1st generation automation and sketchy Thai repair routines... that'd be a feasible background for a shit hot rigger.

They probably don't even bring the drones down at all in the place you describe. They just have enough "shifts" to keep the working hours per drone down and have a handful down at any given time for extensive maintenance. There are probably a bunch of places where riggers just phone it.

there is a military maint drone in Arsenal that is explicitly smart enough to figure out it cannot handle the current problem, and then dial in support from somewhere. So your riggers would just be keeping an eye on the situation, then jumping in when something raises an orange flag.

You'd probably never shut down because warfare is 24/7 now and intensity is only going to increase the more robots you deploy. You'd just run the thing with 10% extra (or whatever drones) and they'd be 'down' while the rest were up - and tell your military techs that sleep is wherever they can find it.

[hobgoblin]

and issue truckloads of cram at the same time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Wounded Ronin]

It's pretty much that in Civ I, IIRC.

Still remember the time I thought the Civ I tank was a meditating Buddha-figure with one arm outstretched. That was a nasty surprise.

And then Ghandi nuked me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

~J

AGNI BITCH! AGNI!

[DocTaotsu]

Firing off a bunch of ammunition in a single day isn't that unusual. Typically it's done because:
A. It's about to expire (I know, I was mystified that little brass shells go bad, but they do evidently)
B. It's the end of the fiscal year and they either shoot it off and mark it as expended or take it as a loss during the next round of budgeting.

Yes it's pretty wasteful but the military is an inherently wasteful operation. When they do these mass shoot offs at least someone gets some training with them before they get shit canned. If they didn't order too much they might run out before the year is over and than nobody gets training until the next fiscal year. I wish there was a better way but until we start making smart supply drones with smarter computers to run them, I doubt it will change.

Actually the changes need to be broader reaching than that, we'd have to get into how funds at appropriated to the military, who decides how they get spent and probably significantly shorten the number of half retarded links in the supply chain.