MILES

As promised in my previous post on military tech, I’m going to write about MILES. What is MILES? MILES stands for Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System and is pretty much a high tech training system for soldiers meant to simulate battlefield conditions with lasers. In essence, it’s a professional and high tech laser tag game. It allows simulations of tactical engagements without the need for real projectiles that could potentially injure the trainees. How in the world does this work? The weapon systems include the M1 Abrams Tank, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, M113 Armored Personnel Carrier, wheeled vehicles, and a variety of small arms including machine guns, rifles, and controller guns. The MILES system mounts coded lasers onto weapons. When these lasers are detected by a laser detector attached to a soldier or vehicles, the detector will record either a kill or a near miss. As found on the MILES training website, this system can “produce several outcomes including catastrophic kill, mobility kill and communication kill” on a wide variety of targets. There are also specialized blank firing attachments that help the soldier simulate firing their weapons as if they were on a battlefield. The US Army uses MILES and this system also included GPS data so command can get data from each player and use it to analyze tactics and efficiency.

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Why am I writing about it now? There are still new advances in the MILES technology, and the most recent technological innovation is what the US Naval Air Warfare Center is currently developing. It’s a training device that is aimed at preparing soldiers to deal with suicide bombers. It is to be used with the MILES system. The vest will simulate how much destruction would happen if a vest rigged with explosives were to really go off. It also has sensors on the vest where a shot would disable the person without triggering the explosives. For more info, check out the Firearm Blog’s post on it.

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