DoD Announces New Automated Artillery Support System.

[tar]

The Defense Department announced some new changes to the organization

of military combat forces and their supporting arms. The Defense

Research Office for Standard Systems (DROSS) is seeking to deploy

commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology to streamline the

provision of services. In keeping with the philosophy of the Stryker

brigade concept, it is important to reduce the amount of support

personnel needed for each combat fighting man.

As part of the effort to provide improved service while reducing

manpower requirements, a major effort has been made to apply

state-of-the art customer service practices from the commercial

sector to military problems such as fire control support. The first

fielded operation, due for deployment late in FY 2007 will be an

Automated Artillery Support System (AASS). This will use the

transactions processing technologies pioneered by US businesses and

will allow a reduction of manpower in the fire control call center by

20% initially building to 32% as the system becomes fully deployed.

Initial testing of the prototype system has been completed, and the

following transcript of a typical user interaction has been obtained:

User: <Connect to Automated Artillery Support System>

AASS: Welcome to the U.S. Army Automated Artillery Support System.

You may choose from among the following menu options at any time:

To request a new artillery shoot, press 1

To change an existing fire mission, press 2

To inquire about the remain balance of shells in your account, press 3

For all other questions press 0 and a fire support representative

will handle your call in the order it was received. You may also

press 0 at any point during this transaction to speak to a fire

support specialist.

User: [2]

AASS: You have chosen to change an existing fire mission. Please

enter your fire mission confirmation number followed by the pound key.

User: [20050401567834#]

AASS: You have entered two, zero, zero, five, zero, four, zero, one,

five, six, seven, eight, three four. If this is correct, press 1

now. If this is incorrect, press 2 and then enter your fire mission

confirmation number again.

User: [1]

AASS: For confirmation purposes, please enter the grid coordinates

of this fire mission, followed by the pound key.

User: [453215#]

AASS: One moment while we access your mission....

Our records show that this fire mission is currently in progress. We

estimate that it will continue for an additional 4 minutes.

If you would like to cancel this mission, press 1.

If you would like to reschedule the mission, press 2.

If you would like to adjust the aim point, press 3.

If you would like to change the mission type, press 4.

If you would iike to

User: [3]

AASS: Please select from the following menu of adjustments.

To adjust azimuth right, press 1

To adjust azimuth left, press 2

To adjust range up, press 3

To adjust range down, press 4.

User [3]

AASS: Please enter the change, in meters, rounded to the nearest

10, followed by the pound key:

User: [200#]

AASS: Your fire mission will be adjusted range up 200.

If you would like to make further adjustments, press 1.

If you would like to access a different fire mission, press 2.

[Behemoth]

lol! Great read. Nice idea but I'd be afraid of mis-dialing my bank and by mistake dropping 20Tons of FASCAM all over my lawn. Would make getting to work on time a little hard.

-B

[Bonxa]

Good one!