What the US Army’s ‘Soldier of Tomorrow’ 1959 Got Right About the Future of War

Then there is the matter of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), the Army’s future “smart” glasses. Currently based on a robust version of the Microsoft HoloLens 2 augmented reality headset, IVAS is both night vision goggles and a futuristic display, capable of feeding sensor input into the soldier’s line of sight. The Army has been experimenting with helmet-mounted displays for decades as part of various “future warrior” programs, and IVAS has not been immune to the pitfalls of previous efforts—namely, soldiers’ complaints about “physical performance impairments” such as headaches, nausea, and discomfort associated with prolonged use. And the future of the long-delayed headsets now looks uncertain though: According to Breaking Defense, the service may finally be going back to the drawing board with a new prime contractor for the complex system as part of its IVAS Next program after auditing its existing audits. night vision skills. However, between the ENVG-B and the IVAS, the helmet-mounted night vision equipment was far more advanced than anything Sawicki’s chain of command had previously envisioned.

Weapons Up

The combination of bulletproof vest and camouflage suite that Sawicki first donned for the AUSA, referred to in the literature of the time as “thick nylon armor” and “thick nylon vest,” is actually a little closer to modern military armor than the flat jackets associated with mid-range soldiers. and the Vietnam War. Currently under development, the Soldier Protection System (SPS) provides the modern military with a “modular, scalable and programmable system of protection,” according to the Army’s description. What this really means is that the protective kit comes in several different pieces that work together to increase the soldier’s survivability without interfering with mobility; in terms of body protection, this refers mainly to the soft armor subsystem Torso and Extremity Protection and the hard armor subsystem Vital Torso Protection which, using reinforced ceramic plates, provide improved ballistic protection against small arms fire.

Protecting soldiers from ammunition is one thing, but protecting them from the effects of a nuclear explosion, as military leaders told the New York Times Sawicki suit, is another thing entirely—at least, in terms of equipment. Although the well-worn Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) ensemble has been protecting America’s service members from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats for years, it is an entirely different system of protective gear than that incorporated into the SPS or standard-issue Army Combat Uniform. And while the 1959 design called for specially designed ‘welded’ combat boots and “molded plastic gloves” to help protect soldiers on a radioactive battlefield, modern soldiers must, unfortunately, go into battle with their Army Regulation 670-1 approved boots. and smart gloves, other than what’s in their MOPP kit. Then again, if the nukes start flying, no one will survive long enough to fight on the ground anyway.

Bullet time

While the “soldier of tomorrow” of 1959 appeared armed with the M14, advances in firearms technology had long since left the popular military rifle in the dust. The Army began replacing the M14 with the lightweight 5.56-mm M16 assault rifle in the late 1960s, which itself was replaced by the short-barreled M4 carbine during the Global War on Terror in the 2000s. Replacing the M16 and M4 family of rifles seems difficult in the past, but it’s safe to say that the promises from Army brass in 1959 for a light common rifle for the military, in particular, have been fulfilled decades ago. -even if the new XM7 rifle, recently adopted under the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program, is actually heavier than the M4.

So, too, there is the promise of “new high-speed bullets.” While the Army in the early 2000s developed the Enhanced Performance Round of 5.56-mm M855A1 to improve the performance of the M855 ammo previously adopted in the 1980s, the service conducted a major small arms study in 2017 to determine whether the Army needed different ammunition to deal with the proliferation a sudden clash of body armor between enemies. Research determined that the Army’s next round should be 6.8 mm, which would provide significantly improved performance at range compared to both the 5.56-mm and 7.62-mm rounds. From there, the Army eventually selected Sig Sauer to produce two of its 6.8mm NGSW systems in 2022, weapons the service officially began receiving earlier this year. It may take several decades, but the Army’s new high-speed round is here.

Rocket Man

Although some aspects of the Sawicki combat kit are clearly represented in the latest military innovations, others were not realized. Automatic foxhole drilling charges, for example, never materialized as a practical part of the popular hand-held tool, despite their popularity among military futurists at the time. But if there’s one idea that has persisted in military and defense circles, it’s that of jetpack-equipped soldiers.

The Department of Defense pursued a military jetpack for decades, beginning with research and development in the 1950s and culminating in October 1961 with the successful demonstration of Bell Aerosystems’s Small Rocket Lift Device (or, colloquially, the “Bell Rocket Belt”) for President John. F. Kennedy at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Army eventually abandoned the development of the Rocket Belt over fuel constraints that limited its tactical use, but US military planners would revisit the concept frequently in the following decades.