DARPA innovations.

• Author: Appel, John G., Jr.
• Position: Reader's Comments

I am writing regarding "DARPA Pursuing Technologies to Help Troops ID Enemies," which appeared in the May edition of National Defense.

When I read about the precision engagement part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Squad X Core Technologies initiative, I was, at first, glad to learn more specifics about the program.

Then, I found myself asking, has DARPA chosen the best mix of weapons, and are guided munitions the best approach, or is there another approach that has greater potential to provide more decisive capabilities for an infantry squad? A goal of any precision-guided munition is to achieve the desired effects with minimal expenditure of ammunition.

The M2 is a rapid fire system, so adding guidance would seem to be inefficient, unless one were to change the operating system of the weapon to, say, a single shot or very short burst. Adding guidance to the M3 Carl Gustav would create a Javelin-like system. Could the Army defend such systems with overlapping capabilities?

And 40mm grenades fired from the M320 and other systems are not inherently stable or accurate, and its relatively high angle trajectory is not ideal for precision guidance.

All of these approaches require sophisticated fire control, and one has to wonder if the Army could afford new, costly, guided munitions. Perhaps there are better approaches. The other parts of Squad X, if successful, would...