NPR: It Ain't Cheap to Outfit a Soldier

It Ain't Cheap to Outfit a Soldier

Modern soldiers, with their night-vision goggles and high-tech vests, are starting to look more and more like they might have dropped out of a popular video game. But it's a pretty expensive one:

It now costs 100 times more to outfit a soldier than it did during World War II. Back then, it cost $170, even adjusted for inflation. These days, The Associated Press reports, it costs $17,000 and could reach $28,000 or even $60,000 by 2015.

In the 1940s, a GI went to war with little more than a uniform, weapon, helmet, bedroll and canteen. He carried some 35 pounds of gear that cost $170 in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars, according to Army figures. That rose to about $1,100 by the 1970s as the military added a flak vest, new weapons and other equipment during the Vietnam War.
Today, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are outfitted with advanced armor and other protection, including high-tech vests, anti-ballistic eyewear, earplugs and fire-retardant gloves. Night-vision eyewear, thermal weapons sights and other gear makes them more deadly to the adversary.

These days, soldiers are responsible for more than 80 items, weighing a total of 75 pounds. And in the future, their gear could include "a weapon that can shoot around corners so soldiers don't have to expose themselves to their enemy and a helmet-mounted 1.5-inch computer screen showing maps of the battlefield."

All this new technology stands to increase the pressure on the military to retain well-trained personnel because of the cost to train and equip new ones.

4:24 PM ET | 10- 4-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

bigbro says: This is an excellent example of the Nanotech Soldier of the Future being designed by M.I.T. This is the soldier who can climb walls like a gecko, while firing shoulder launched nuclear missiles. And here's the MIT Nanotech Soldier web. Kind of give you an idea where Iraq is headed in the near future..............bigbro aka fred call

* "Spiderman suit" may be coming:
Using technology adapted from gecko and spider feet,
we could climb walls and ceilings, a study predicts.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070829_adhesive.htm

MIT Institute For Soldier Nanotechnologies - News and Events At MIT, there are four courses with "nano" in their titles and several more that are related to the field. The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), ...
web.mit.edu/isn/newsandevents/nanotalk.html - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/ c/a/2003/04/07/BU305865.DTL
Molecular might
Nanotech 'battle suits' could amplify soldiers' powers
Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sent by fred call | 5:47 PM ET | 10-04-2007

Physicist Richard Feynman said of nanotech science that not only can a thousand angels sit on the head of a pin, each of the angels will have a computer.

To paraphrase Mr. Feynman: Each of the angels will be totting a nanotech designed automatic rifle, and a nanotech designed computer.

The equipment carried by the nanotech soldier of the near future will be able to fit easily inside a shoe box....and will be capable of easily destroying medium sized cities.

Which is why the Pentagon doesn't want or need a military draft. And why the army of the future will be comprised of a handful of soldiers easily totting immense fire power.

And since the military will need fewer infantry troops, each professional soldier will be paid accordingly. Our citizen soldier of the near future will, in effect, be a mercenary.

In the Air Force, one pilot with a joystick will fly dozens, if not hundreds, of fighter drone planes.

Which means that eventually the huge super aircraft carriers will be replaced by attack size carriers.

And military intelligence gathering computer technology will be reduced to the size of dust motes.

PHysicist Richard Feynman wrote a number of books. A witty fellow, he was, predicting the future of nanotechnology and the military.

Physicist Michu Kaku also has a number of interesting books and articles out on the subject.

fred call

Sent by fred call | 9:36 AM ET | 10-05-2007

Thanks for the info F.C. but of course this is all assuming the American people don't go broke trying to pay for the present wars.

Sent by John R. Otten | 1:33 PM ET | 10-05-2007

John.....Did you ever see Mel Gibson's Road Warrior movies?

Humankind is relegated to find a way to wage war even if it's going back to reinvent the bow and arrow and crossbow.

And if the next war is fought with battleaxes, those battleaxes will be made of superlightweight nanotech titanium that even a child could swing.

If there's one assurity about humankind, we'll find a way to wage a war like reinventing the wheel. We'll melt down on the SUVs to make catapults.

Besides, right now across America, there are enough guns and ammunition and reloading equipment stored in American homes to keep a war going in grand style for a couple of decades.

Nice thing about the Winchester rifle Billy the Kid used that they got stored in a local museum. It's been kept well oiled through the years, dang thing fires just fine. I have the M1 .30 caliber carbine my dad used in World War Two. Shoots beautifully to this day. Never jams like the modern M-16.

Besides, in a very few short years paper money won't be worth toilet paper anyway. You can use it to wrap black powder to homemake a grenade.

America is a beautiful place. I love it.

fred call

Sent by fred call | 4:48 PM ET | 10-05-2007

Can the average woman tote around this much equipment? Could this result in "resegregation" of certain of the armed forces by sex?

It seems that the "training required" might in large part be maintaining physical conditioning.

Sent by Randy Sykes | 4:51 PM ET | 10-07-2007

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