When is one US Marine better than three? When he has an Apple Newton squirreled away in his foxhole. At least that's what the military says it learned last March when roughly one-third of the marines in a unit of 1,500 were sent into simulated combat with a land-mobile radio and a handheld computer.
Their opponents - a conventional force of 4,500 marines armed with traditional radios - found themselves dogged at every turn by the tech-toting unit.
"The idea was to marry technologies with new organizational strategies," says Commander Ron Henderson, a US Navy officer who participated in operation Hunter Warrior. According to Henderson, the wired warriors, whose leaders had access to artificial intelligence strategy advice and virtual reality helmets allowing them to track their troops, "fought" well against their massed, heavily armed foes. "Only one high tech outfit was destroyed - virtually, of course."
ELECTRIC WORD
Battle Smarts
