Comments on: Military Software Sucks

By: Amgis

Amgis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:18:00 +0000

Could also be that all of the receivers would need to be able to handle this encrypted feed:
Every armored vehicle
Every forward observer radio
Every mobile command station (computers in tents)
Every state side command installation
Every Jet Fighter (they can share this too)
Every Bomber
Every Support air craft
Every Navy ship
The marines
and don’t forget the coast guard too…

The branches of the military still don’t have radios that work well with each other. Most of them aren’t configurable by software upgrades either.

I don’t know if encrypted video takes up more bandwidth but that seems to be a factor. Satellite time is expensive and in short supply.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20091218.aspx

By: igorbrejc.net » Fresh Catch For December 26th

igorbrejc.net » Fresh Catch For December 26th — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:04:11 +0000

[...] Military Software Sucks | Lessons of Failure [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:48:08 +0000

LOL! Here I am railing on the military’s poor estimation and I’m off by a factor of a 1,000. Post updated. Thanks for pointing that out, and making my comments even MORE relevant.

By: HS

HS — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:40:18 +0000

Perhaps encryption was discarded after its costs were overestimated by a couple orders of magnitude. $1,760,000 / 1,000 = $1,760.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:05:51 +0000

Yep. Agreed. And yes, I totally wrote off the hardware side of it, your points are all valid…my systems engineer friend at NASA is no doubt cringing at me right this second. But still, this is a critical flaw and poorly executed.

By: John

John — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:57:33 +0000

I agree with the incompetence, and not taking their medicine early. As an engineer with experience on commercial projects, I am sure that some engineer did mention this, and possibly even “went to the mattress” on it, but his “lead” or manager to drop it or be fired. Happens on the time. Remember the space shuttle challenger?

But, the costs are actually higher. Adding the extra processor increases the electrical power requirements on the aircraft, takes up volume, and weight. This is likely to have impacts on the aircrafts, size, weight, speed, range, and operating costs. So the number is likely many times higher than your calculations, but there is still no excuse for shipping an expensive weapon that can be defeated by a MAC.