What Modern Militaries Can Learn From Battlestar Galactica 272
An anonymous reader writes "Modern warfare these days is all about a 'networked environment.' But what happens when such things that make a modern military work breakdown? How would America's armed forces fight if their computers crashed, could not communicate, or were hit with massive viruses? What then? 'There's wisdom in science fiction. The conceit behind the reboot of the sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica was that networking military forces exposes them to disaster unless commanders and weapons designers think ahead to the repercussions should an enemy exploit or break the network. The mechanical Cylons, arch foes of humanity, are able to crush the humans' battle fleet and bombard their home worlds with nukes by insinuating viruses into networked computers. They sever contact between capital ships and their fighter forces, and they shut down the fleet's and planets' defenses. Having lost the habit of fighting without networked systems, human crews make easy pickings for Cylon predators.'"
Reciprocity. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's strange about the whole concept of Battlestar Galactica and the nature of the attack by the Cylons is how one-sided it was. The humans seemed to have an awareness of what cyber warfare is (they reference firewalls and viruses in the series), yet they never seemed to develop any more than a rudimentary defensive capability (CND, in military parlance) and no intelligence or attack capabilities (CNE and CNA) whatsoever. This, despite the fact that their adversary was entirely cybernetic in nature. Um...yeah, no, I don't buy it. Makes for a good story device, yes (and I loved the series), but I don't buy it as actually realistic. Think about the long-distance communication needed for resurrection, for example...WOW. Get access via that, and think of the incredible damage you could do to Cylons...heck, just a denial of service attack would drastically alter the priorities of an attacking Cylon force, since their losses would be magnified in significance.
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a story in one of the Iraq books I read, Rise of the Vulcans or something like that where an amsemtrical warfare game sponsored by the US military was stopped when the Marine commander running the "bad guy team" used things like mopeds to move data rendering all the cool e-warfare shit we had useless. Basically the blue team guys thought they could disrupt and destroy a low tech enemy but it didn't work. Old age and treachery will over come youth and enthusiasm every time.
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
I think they also have no idea how non-critical a lot of the technology is. When I was in the service, were were constantly training for "what if" scenarios. If our radios were jammed, we would communicate with flares, smoke grenades, semaphore flags, signal mirrors, etc. Once a month we would have a "vehicle appreciation day" where we would move every piece of gear in our battalion for twenty clicks (km) using only our LPCs (leather personnel carriers (boots)). Heck, we even trained for a lack of breathable air. There are few things more difficult than trying to sleep with a gas mask on. A "network failure" is not going to stop the US military.
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The single biggest issue is GPS. How many 'smart' things simply stop working when our satellites are taken out "
Smart things? Our Pilots cant fly without GPS, they do not train them to navigate. Honestly it is mind blowing that the powers that be are that incompetent.
Re:Reciprocity. (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreover, there was the episode where the Cylons were dying of an encephalitis virus which was incurable and had a 100% fatality rate and which was so virulent, that it would infect the resurrection ship if any victims resurrected since it would be carried over.
Lee Adama put 2 and 2 together and hatched a plan to commit genocide against the Cylons, but Helo "Goody-Twoshoes" Agathon killed the captive Cylon victims before they could carry out the plan.
What I want to know is why Agathon was not blown out an airlock for that piece of mutiny that resulted in casualties against the humans due to an aborted attack.
Re: what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, and I used to TEACH celestial navigation at the USAF navigator school. Which is now closed.
GPS is too easy, too inexpensive, and too accurate, so NOBODY actually uses celestial navigation any more. But cel nav requires practice, and it is a "Use It Or Lose It!" skill.