Technology changes how battles are fought

The U.S. military has been taking active steps since the 1900s to downsize its man power and consolidate the use of advanced technologies in the battlefield, said Jason Choi, an assistant professor of military science at UCLA.

In the past, military strategy has relied more on man power than in the present, Choi said. Now the military is moving in a direction where more aspects of war are fought and enhanced by computer systems and other technologies, such as night vision.

UCLA is one university involved in helping the military move toward new technologies.

Different organizations, such as the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, have been conducting research that has been applied to military technology use, with funding from organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

DARPA is an organization for the U.S. Department of Defense which helps pursue research and technology that will provide advances for traditional military missions for the future of warfare, according to the DARPA Web site.

A team of UCLA researchers led by Professor Sungtaek Ju recently received a multimillion dollar award from DARPA in March to conduct innovative research and development research in the area of electronics cooling, which is now an ongoing project within the department and several months away from completion.

Ann Karagozian, a professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCLA, said her department has been funded by many government and military organizations as well, and the technology they develop can have multiple applications ““ not only for warfare, but also commercially.

> “We have several projects, all of which have applications to energy-efficient propulsion systems, which is a huge issue for the military of course, especially the air force buys a lot of aircraft, because fuel costs to the Air Force have tripled over the past few years," Karagozian said.

She said her research team has also looked at ways to develop alternative fuels for jets.

“We’re looking at fuels that have not been derived from crude, such as ethanol, methanol and synthetic fuel derived from natural gas or coal,” she said.

Additionally, in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Professor Jason Speyer worked with a team of professors at UCLA on a project funded by DARPA a few years ago that would potentially use a computer program to provide military leaders with fast, easy-to-understand information to assist them in managing various military operations, from humanitarian missions to large-scale border defense.

Speyer added that this project had many potential military applications and used economic theories and games to assess different situations in war, such as being in the middle of a jungle and needing to know how many enemies you may be facing.

That is the type of information this computer program would offer to army officials during battle situations.

Looking back through history, it is evident that technology is changing the way wars are fought, Choi said.

One major area of technological development has been in tank combat, Choi said. The first advanced tank, developed in the late 1970s, was the Abrams tank. It was built with a British armor called the Chobhan, which was a turning point for military technology, Choi said.

The M1 Abrams tank significantly impacted military technology because it could shoot while in motion.

Another advancement came about in the way the military tracked locations of others through the Force 21 tracking system, which uses Global Positioning System to help soldiers find people represented by dots. A red dot indicates an enemy, while a blue dot corresponds to a comrade, Choi said.

“Instantly, everybody sees the enemy,” Choi said, adding that the increased dependence on technology changed a lot about strategy and battle.

Regarding the future face of war, Choi said the military is continuing to move in a direction that involves less human interaction and more computerized systems.

With additional reports from Adrienne Law, Bruin contributor.