Sunday, August 26, 2007

23 years after entering service

and 5 years after entering Iraq, they are just now getting around to installing something like this on HUMVEES.
The $1.4 billion contract the Army awarded to Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace Aug. 21 will buy 6,500 Common Remotely Operated Weapons Stations over the next five years.

Despite numerous improvements to vehicle armor, soldiers are still required to man crew-served weapons in highly vulnerable turrets of Humvees and other armored security vehicles.

Their heads stick up out of the top of the vehicles, exposing them to sniper fire and shrapnel from homemade enemy bombs.

The CROWS allows the soldier to control the turret weapon with a joystick and a computer screen from relative safety inside the vehicle and shoot with near-perfect accuracy.
There should be enough in place in Iraq to reduce the number of gunners killed and wounded in the final 6 years of King George's War.

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