Deployed Panzergrenadier

[Guardian 5]

Team - This Greni appears too clean to be deployed to Afghanistan; the countryside appears a little too clean and verdant as well;progress?!?!

In any event, this illustration from a recent defense industry mag provides a good study of a BRD Soldier either deployed or ready to go.

Needless to say, I wish all of our deployed NATO/ISAF Soldiers a safe journey and a happy return.

All the best - TJ

P.S. - The G-36 doesn't appear to be of the garden variety; is that a folding stock and improved optic? Is the trigger guard absent? It would appear as though this guy needs to change magazines...

[uscob]

Es ist kein Mensch es ist kein Tier,
es ist ein Panzergrenadier!

[Towarish]

Thats definitely a promotion photo.
This guy is wearing the "new" IdZ ES system.
The buttstock of the G 36 is suppose to hold batteries for the LLM (Laserlicht Modul).
Furthermore is he wearing a "new" model of the kevlar helmet(which almost looks like the British MK6 kevlar)
There's a radio stored in the huge pack on the back.



Btw there are many more photos of the IDZ ES system posted on the whq-forum.

I guess it will take ages to get this system fielded. There is already a lack of the normal IDZ system.

@ Thomas,
My best buddy is a retired Panzergrenadier (we already went to school with and served in the same unit later - well I was already in the reserves while he was still active duty)
He was deployed twice to Kunduz area and has been thru a lot of sh!t there.
I'll ask him to send me a few of his A-stan photos. As long as they are not voilating PERSEC or OPSEC I'll post them than.

[Collectinsteve]

Ah, interesting stuff!

This is similar, in concept, to the US Army's "Future Warrior" program which was changed to "Stryker Warrior" and then killed. It was costing a fortune and was not producing results. One Stryker Battalion (I don't think it was a full Brigade, but I could be mistaken) deployed with the system to Iraq *after* it was cancelled. They had trained on the system too much and didn't have time to un-train. I haven't heard anything about it since.

I don't know how similar the BW system is in comparison. I'm curious what the BW is trying to achieve with this new system. Does anybody know? For comparison, this is what the Future/Stryker Warrior system was designed to do:

1. HUD (Heads Up Display) eyepiece to display GPS information and an image from his rifle's optical sight. This would allow a soldier to shoot around a corner without exposing his head, for example.

2. Tied into the FBCB2 system so he can see the positions of enemy and friendly forces using a handheld device. Leaders could use the system to transmit reports and call for things like Air and Artillery support, arrange for medivac, etc.

3. The position of the soldier would be tracked in real time and fed into the Blue Force Tracker (part of FBCB2) so commanders would know exactly where each soldier was at any given second.

4. The vehicle assigned to a Squad would act as a FBCB2 "router", battery charger, and all around communications hub.

5. Planned, but dropped early IIRC, were live video feeds and vital statistics from the soldiers sent to HQ, very much like in the movie Aliens 2.

Probably some other stuff, but this is off the top of my head.


The problems with the system are typical:

1. Too heavy
2. Too bulky (awkward)
3. Battery life too short
4. "Fussy" about working correctly
5. Certain aspects didn't work well at all (the HUD eyepiece was rejected by Stryker vehicle commanders in a short trial)
6. Cost (not a soldier's problem, of course)
7. Bandwidth problems meant the information could not possibly be updated as frequently as needed to be useful
8. What happens if a Squad's vehicle is destroyed or broken? Overload another Squad's communications capabilities? What happens if 2 vehicles are destroyed or broken?

When soldiers go into combat they want equipment that they can depend on. This system was still too unreliable to be fielded. It was fielded in an attempt to prove it useful before the program was canceled. But I think the problems with it were too obvious.

Steve

[Collectinsteve]

Actually, looking at the Rheinmetall image again, it appears to be nearly identical to the Stryker Warrior program. So is Rheinmetall having any more success than the US military contractors?

Steve

[Gordon Craig]

Steve,

As I understand it, the BW is not having any more success in fielding this type of system than the U.S. did. Note that the photo of the system is from a firm pitching the concept. I don't think that it will ever fly in the BW, or anywhere else. Far too complicated.

Regards,

Gordon