Is Technology Letting Our Troops Down?

They have to put up with heat like we did but they also have to deal with dust, which we (for the most part) did not. The troops, pilots, support crews, and aircraft in Afghanistan also have to put up with snow and bitter cold as well as high-altitude flying, often in excess of 10,000 feet, where the air is too thin for some heavy-lift operations. If I recall correctly, the highest mountains I had to fly over in Vietnam were only a few thousand feet (if that).

However, some of the pictures and stories were not familiar to those who flew the helicopters in the ’70s. I was fortunate enough to fly a UH1 (huey). Our unit (the 7/17 Air Cavalry) also flew the AH1 (cobra) and OH6 (loach). The huey first came to Vietnam in ’63, but the aircraft we flew (model 205) were virtually new. If they were anything, they were tough and reliable. I had few missions cut short or not started by maintenance problems (at least not in Vietnam). The aircraft were really pretty simple as helicopters go, especially by today’s standards. The electronics back then were limited to tube-based radios and electromechanical flight instruments. The only computer we had access to was in Saigon—an IBM 360 used to “plot” troop movements.

Computer-Related Problems

Our Army captain just back from Afghanistan also told us of how his helicopter pilot came to the theater without sufficient armor. It seems that his CH47 (Chinook) was built in the ’80s with updated electronics and was far better equipped than the same CH47 that served as heavy lift workhorses in Vietnam. He did remark that the CH47s flown by some of the other countries had better armor and upgrades. His ships were fairly reliable but still prone to a few computer-related problems.

The most troubling reports were about the unit of Blackhawk helicopters whose mission is to support his aircraft and its missions. He told us that the Blackhawks spend more than half of the time in maintenance. It seems the numerous computers used for everything from flight control to navigation to firing its weapons are not up to the heat, dust, cold, and punishment of battle conditions. While this aging aircraft has served for decades, according to the reports from the front, it’s just not reliable enough to be alongside the CH47 when it makes an approach into a hot LZ. All of the nap-of-the-earth computer-assisted flight systems in the world don’t do any good at all if they keep the aircraft in the maintenance hangar instead of flying close-air support for the relatively unarmed CH47s.

What’s important is getting the aircraft, and the guns and troops they carry, to the places where they are needed. While the aircraft we flew in Vietnam were far less sophisticated, they were also cheaper and far more reliable. We never got to the AO (area of operations) only to find that the guns would not fire because the fire-control computer would not boot. That’s exactly what happened on at least one critical mission in Afghanistan where equipment and, more importantly, lives were lost.

Reliability vs. The Latest Technology

You’re right. I’m no longer in the military. I’m no longer a combat pilot. I am a dad and father-in-law and an American with friends, family, and a son-in-law on the front lines. I’m concerned that those who send our men and women, boys and girls into combat are more enamored with technology and making money than with the realities of combat conditions on the far edges of civilization. Sitting behind a desk in the Pentagon, these officers and the civilians who sell them the latest war machinery should think about ways to send our soldiers and sailors into battle with equipment that actually keeps working when it’s hot, cold, dry, wet, dusty, under a driving rain, or under enemy fire. Aircraft and support systems that are dependent on a spiderweb of complex computers do not seem to be worth the expense—not unless they work when needed most.

Any one of us who works on equipment that ends up at the front should take a moment to realize that if it fails to hold up, it won’t just wreck the day of some bookkeeper in Cleveland; it puts our troops in jeopardy. If it were up to me, I would send cheaper, simpler, and far more reliable equipment into battle—especially when fighting those equipped with far simpler weapons that don’t rely on a half-dozen cross-connected computers to pull the trigger.