Your smartphone and social network: Basic training for tomorrow’s battlefield?

The night was foggy with zero visibility as the foot soldiers carefully advanced with their night vision goggles. They suddenly came under enemy fire.

Did that mean that the opposing force had obtained  same advanced equipment for night combat?

Not entirely, as the allied force had the advantage of smart information superiority on their headsets, giving them instant strategic options on where to fire and how to avoid incoming salvos.

It’s a perfect example of the military strategist’s dream’ come true—lifting the fog of war”—to maintaining the winning edge.

“Armies are in a race against time to apply technologies more rapidly than their adversaries”, says Henri Chambaud from Thales, “With instantaneous knowledge of threats and opportunities, information superiority translates into military superiority. “

“It was only a matter of time for the foot soldier to become as technologically-enabled as all other components of today’s ‘Collaborative Combat”, adds Marc Dehondt from Thales, “The soldier on the battlefield today, the smart armor, helicopters, aircraft, drones and robots all must work together continuously. They all must share instantaneous information that is immediately made understandable through Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, and cyber-secured by design”.

To take just one example of Thales technology enabling Collaborative Combat, its SYNAPS radio communications systems act as the nervous system of military deployment. Deployed Smart sensors are able to detect threats and share information about the tactical situation in real-time and at high data rates. SYNAPS provides commanders with information superiority to raise the tempo of operations

Thales not only provides the technological tools; it also provides the architecture that links all the moving parts to make them work together.

Yet, becoming today’s ---and tomorrow’s—battleground soldier is may not be as challenging as it may first appear. 

Henri Chambaud observes, “If you find it easy to use your smartphone and if you are active on social networks, you already have started your basic training”.