Tanks just keep developing. Japan has surprised everybody. They are developing a replacement for the Type 90, their main battle tank, that is similar to the Leopard 2 tank made in Germany. Here is the incredible thing. This tank is said to only weigh 44 tons, which makes it a lightweight in the main battle tank division. You have to wonder, how can the armor on this new tank compete with something like the Abrams, that weighs about 70 tons? The Japanese claim that they have developed a new light weight armor for this vehicle. The new tank sports a 120 mm gun. The best part of the whole thing is, that it costs only seven million dollars for one, a relative bargain in today's market. The new armor is still secret and we may never know the details of its composition. It is said that when you look into the interior of this tank, it is all digital and said to look like something out of the future. The crew sits in a very comfortable area that was designed to resist fatigue. It will be interesting to see how this new tank stacks up against the rest of the world's much heavier main battle tanks.

America's newest battle tank is the Abrams M1A2. Actually it is the newest version of a main battle tank that has held us in good stead, but was designed in the 1970s. We are great observers of conflicts that don't involve us to the point that we have a fighting role in them. When the Yom Kippur war began in the Middle East, a tank battle took place that was the largest since World War II. After the battle, the U.S. decided that tanks were very important and began to develop the best tank the world had ever seen. A few years later the Abrams was born. The tank weighs almost 70 tons and holds almost 500 gallons of gas. One of the problems with the tank is that in it's original form, it had a power to weight ratio of 25 hp per ton, this went down to 23.8 on the M1A1 and 21.6 hp per ton on the M1A2. So far this has not been a problem since the tank is so well armored and very hard to disable. The main gun was upgraded from a 105 mm to a 120mm. It is said that it now costs 4.2 million dollars to replace one of these units, but I suspect that it might be closer to 5 million by now.

Please sit down before you read this one. A story ran in London’s Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sun. As hard as it is to believe, the story stated that the British have figured out how to make an invisible battle tank. I am not sure, but I believe that the technique used could be used on any tank and the tank doesn't have to be specially constructed. “This technology is incredible,” an unnamed soldier was quoted by the Daily Mail and Sun. “If I hadn’t been present I wouldn’t have believed it. I looked across the fields and just saw grass and trees — but in reality I was staring down the barrel of a tank gun.” The technology being used is simple right now, cameras and projectors. The cameras take a picture of what is behind the tank and it is projected on the front, making the tank invisible. One expert stated, “The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them — which is intricate and complicated, but possible.”

Not every U.S. vehicle is big and heavy, of course I am speaking relatively here. The army has decided that it needed lighter and quicker vehicles in it inventory. Enter the Stryker armored vehicle. This vehicle weighs only nineteen tons, remember I said I was talking relatively, and it can hit speeds of sixty-two miles per hour. It has eight wheels and is extremely quiet, so quiet that the Iraqis have referred to them as Ghost Riders. When it was developed, it had many critics. They claimed that the armor was so light that the people inside the vehicle were vulnerable to attacks by weapons like RPGs. This was addressed by the manufacturer, who created armor that can be added to the vehicle for extra protection. The vehicle has a strengthened undercarriage to protect against mines. It is said that the vehicle can withstand 14.5 mm armor piercing rounds, 50 caliber rounds and 152 mm air burst shells. The vehicles are much easier to handle in urban situations than a tank and much faster. The vehicle itself looks like a cross between a Humvee and a tank. This is understandable because it was created through a joint venture between General Motors and General Dynamics.

Sometimes there are things that a soldier needs that are not weapons, but they are necessary never the less. One thing that many of us never think about is how unbearably hot it gets in places like Iraq. The poor military people are forced to wear armor and carry a heavy kit at times. This just adds to the oppressive heat. The U.S. Army has taken note of this and has shipped an experimental air ventilation system to Iraq. Actually there are five hundred of these devices that will be tested. I think that one of the important things will be weight. If these things add too much weight to what they have to already carry, then the entire experiment will go bust. Soldiers must always remain mobile. The weight is listed as only five pounds, but some of these guys are so weighted down that even this could turn out to be a burden. They claim that the units can be installed under the body armor of a soldier. There are so many things that can be added to a soldier's kit, but the more the soldier has to wear, the more weight he has to contend with. This might change some day, if the army ever gets the exoskeleton device into service. That is an external device that the soldier steps into that allows him or her to be able to lift many times their weight with the tiniest motion. Another seven hundred and fifty of these devices are scheduled to be shipped later this year.

Integration, integration, integration, that is the keyword for the army of the future. The Future Warrior System is an integration system for individual soldiers that is scheduled to be put into effect in 2010. Communications will be one of the keys. If an individual soldier can get the capability to command all sorts of services such as calling in fighter jets, artillery and be able to monitor the exact positions of all forces, each soldier will become a formidable weapon indeed. Our capabilities in this area have increased every year. Satellite systems have become increasingly accessible through more and more powerful computers. Individual soldiers can now launch tiny planes that contain cameras and use them to scout the entire area. One of the most important things is that all communications be compatible with each service. It certainly wouldn't do to try and call in an air strike from a Navy carrier, only to find that the radio frequency you were using was incompatible with that on the navy ship.

In another few years weapons will resemble something out of a science fiction movie. Weapon's technology is moving forward at the same rate as computer technology and that is because computers are becoming one of the key components of weapons. Will it be prudent to develop weapons that will be automatic, that is fire on their own when commanded to do so by some artificial intelligence that is being guided by software that we have written? Putting machines in charge of powerful weapons may not be a smart thing. All it would take would be a misunderstanding by the computer and nuclear weapons could be launched. Even though it seems to be a bad idea, I bet that someone will eventually do it. Let's hope that this is not one of the last decisions that the human race makes.