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Is the system different for Civilians? It seems like a system that is so fragile would be a pretty big vulnerability for something that is in such high use by the Military.


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Very common in military systems as well.

The US DOD uses a different system specifically for this reason!

Hardening civilian infrastructure?

I think it is both. Human lives are at risk, so I expect solid battle hardened software and hardware.

Civilian equipment is often not prepared for dealing with an unexpected war. I don't think this is a problem to be solved.

Yes and no. Special ops forces could definitely make use of it. The hard part is ensuring the deployment equipment is reliable 99.99% of the time, since bugs on the battlefield get people killed.

I'd have thought that the US army would be using its own solution, or at least an American one. Using a foreign made platform to handle such a critical aspect of your military (logistics) sounds a bit weird. Not that I think that those risks, if they even exist, haven't been thoroughly evaluated by tons of experts in the army!

The linked article talks about usage by the military

Ah yeah that's a good distinction that I should have made.

I think I read somewhere that it's used by the Canadian Forces as well, but not made available to civilians.


One problem with this technology is that it is more harmful for advanced militaries than it is against guerilla forces. If the tech ever gets into their hands, modern militaries have much more to lose since they currently rely heavily on electronic devices.

They appear to be using civilian equipment from all over. And unsecured civilian radio, too.

That really does look insane. I wonder if this type of thing would be practical in the military. I guess it would probably make soldiers too vulnerable for the most part.

How does one of these things identify civilians or hold a place like Baghdad? Armies occupy. Those weapons destroy infrastructure and people and not much else.

Or do you use them like drones paying soldiers to run them from a container in Kansas. In which case you have the soldier still.


Yep, they used these systems in Iraq and now they're setup in some of the more dangerous areas near me.

Everybody I know in the military owns a few of these, normally tied to bits of gear. They're robust enough to rely on and when they do get destroyed they're cheap enough to replace. An n+1 configuration is pretty affordable.

They certainly do; there's just no guarantee that the military will make use of them in an appropriate technical position.

Might be useful during wartime, since it's likely that lots of infrastructure will be taken down.

Unless you have a closed system like special forces usually do

You really don't seem to know how the physical world works. And your "military grade" requirement is utter horseshit, as things break all the time in the military...
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