The US Army may spend as much as $22,000,000,000.00 on Microsoft HoloLens virtual reality goggles even though there are indications that soldiers will not use them, which would make them useless.
I think of useless and expensive weapon systems as a waste of time and money, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
The generals, on the other hand, think that these bloated programs are a great investment in their post retirement plans.
Guess who gets to cut the line?
The US Army could end up wasting much as $22 billion in taxpayer cash if soldiers aren't actually interested in using, or able to use as intended, the Microsoft HoloLens headsets it said it would purchase, a government watchdog has warned.
In 2018, the American military splashed $480 million on 100,000 prototype augmented-reality goggles from Redmond to see how they could help soldiers train for and fight in combat. The Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) project was expanded when the Army decided it wanted the Windows giant to make custom, battle-ready AR headsets in a ten-year deal worth up to $22 billion.
The project was delayed and is reportedly scheduled to roll out some time this year. But the US Dept of Defense's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) cast some doubt on whether it was worth it at all.
"Procuring IVAS without attaining user acceptance could result in wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that soldiers may not want to use or use as intended," the Pentagon oversight body wrote in an audit [PDF] report this month.
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The Army plans to purchase 121,500 IVAS units from Microsoft while admitting that "if soldiers do not love IVAS and do not find it greatly enhances accomplishing the mission, then soldiers will not use it," the report disclosed.
Bush insisted the Army has a policy to eventually test and evaluate whether or not personnel will use equipment such as Microsoft's AR techno-specs. He also disagreed that immediate user acceptance was necessary for determining whether the IVAS program would be worthwhile, and pointed out soldiers did not like night-vision goggles when they were introduced in the 1970s. But over time, they became more experienced with the technology ad developed tactics around it. Now, they are widely adopted by the Army. In other words: it's too early to tell for sure whether soldiers will use the AR technology or find it useful, according to Bush.
Yeah, sure.
This is not an upgrade to an existing system, it's something that is potentially transformative, much like the Future Combat Systems, and it imploded after more than $30 billion.
It became too heavy to be transported by a C-130 without being disassembled, its lack or armor did not work in a counter-insurgency campaign, (the most likely scenario) and it relied on a network that had to transfer so much information that it would choke.
Note that the FCS, as revolutionary as it was, was no where as intrusive as a militarized version of the Google Glass, which also failed.
Before committing to a multi-billion dollar buy of hundreds of thousands of units, at a unit price of over $180 K each, you don't just need to confirm that the basic concept works, but you need to verify the concept with prototypes, and then have a competitive bid.
Also given that Google Glass cost $1500 when it came out, there is no reason for a militarized version of such a system to cost 120 times of that.
This is a losing proposition all around.
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