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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (72315)	2/8/2003 10:59:05 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

This Bandage is amazing! COMBAT SUPPORT: Clotting Bandage for Combat Medics February 7, 2003: The fighting in Afghanistan saw several American soldiers bleed to death because they were badly hit, unable to be evacuated because of enemy fire, and the medics didn't have anything that could stop, or slow down, the bleeding. A new bandage, containing a clotting agent, is being put into service after years of development. Genetic engineering has allowed the production of the two proteins (the protein-cutting protein called thrombin and a common blood serum protein called fibrinogen) used to form clots and scabbing when you are cut This new bandage has a synthetic mesh containing the two proteins in a freeze-dried state. The proteins are activated when exposed to blood from a bleeding wound. A scab begins to form in seconds. Applying one of these special bandages will stop most bleeding in two minutes. In every war America has been in there were combat situations where this new bandage would have saved lives. The constant introduction of new medicines and emergency medical procedures have dramatically lowered the death rate of U.S. troops in combat. During World War II, antibiotics and blood transfusions made an enormous difference. Since then, hundreds of smaller, but still significant medical advances have also made a difference. The new clotting bandage has been in development since the mid-1990s. February 5, 2003: For over a decade, American combat pilots have had mission planning software than allows them to "fly their missions" on a PC before climbing into a cockpit to do it for real. Now ground troops are getting the same capability. It all has to do with PCs becoming cheaper and more powerful. Thanks to the fiercely competitive and lucrative computer games industry, tools and technologies have been created that make it possible for gamers to romp through very realistic landscapes. For combat troops, this sort of thing isn't a matter of fun and games, but life and death. Elite infantry have long recognized the importance of rehearsal. But it isn't always possible to rehearse, as this means making a mockup of the objective and running drills. But a PC with terrain and buildings rendered from satellite photographs gives the troops a realistic look at where they are going. A laptop computer, a projector and a portable screen (or any flat white surface) enables each platoon to be thoroughly briefed on where they are going and what they are up against. DVDs containing the map information, and high resolution displays present a realistic motion picture of the upcoming battleground. The same software, configured as a 3-D wargame, allows troop commanders to run through a few virtual battles before undertaking the real one. Such systems are being demo'd, but before the end of the decade, the troops will begin getting them. January 30, 2003: The latest trick in survival gear is an advanced set of dog tags. The beaded chain is replaced by a wire saw (encased in a plastic tube that can be used to siphon water). The original dog tags can be replaced by ones which contain the information but double as a mirror or razor blade. Also hung on the necklace can be any number of useful items (small whistle, compass, fire starter, etc.)--Stephen V Cole January 27, 2003: In central and southern Iraq, there are lots of water obstacles. You have rivers, irrigation canals, mudflats and fields that can be flooded. There's a lot of soft ground in general. The Tigres-Euphrates "valley" has a high water table and a lot of soft ground. The Iraqis keep their armored vehicles on the roads and known hard ground, but American troops tend to be more adventurous. That's one thing the Special Forces scout teams are no doubt checking out. Probably Navy SEALs as well (they train to go in and grab soil samples to see which vehicles might have trouble moving through.) The area north and west of Basra is crisscrossed by causeways built up over square farm fields that are flooded and dried for planting. This area was much studied by the Pentagon as that was where most of the fighting took place during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Baghdad sits in a bend of the Tigris river. Lots of bridges to be crossed if you want to take the city. But you can come at Baghdad from many directions and the Iraqis have to expect an American army to approach from an unexpected direction. Some of the bridges many not be bombed, and plans laid to take them intact using commandos. The U.S. Army has six bridging companies, units that can quickly build bridges (for M-1 tanks and all other vehicles) over wide rivers like those found in Iraq. Three of these companies are in the reserves and have been mobilized. Two of the companies are in the regular army and stationed in the United States. These are on their way to the Persian Gulf. So is the sixth company, a regular army unit stationed in Germany. Each combat division has an engineer battalion with some bridging capability, but not enough to handle wide rivers. While engineers were busy during the 1991 Gulf War (some types of sand are harder to get across), they did not have to deal with all the "wet work" that will be encountered when you enter the Tigris-Euphrates river region. strategypage.com