CROWS

Too freakin cool to be believed. Strategy page outlines the advent fo the CROWS remote controlled turrent gunner system, which came into play abvout three years ago. We now have remote controlled turret guns on many of our military vehicles today, and the young people assigned to control them are actually quite adept at using them due to the fact they grew up playing vidoe games. Even better, by withdrawing the availalbe targets from the top of the vehicle, the bad guys tend to get a bit disheartened, even going so far as to describe the system as "American magic".

"The remote turret tends to begin delivering accurate fire right away, and is much more immune to enemy fire than a human gunner. If the vehicle is a Stryker, the enemy will soon find themselves dealing with half a dozen or so heavily armed infantry, who get out of the vehicle and come at the ambushers. Iraqis don't like that. They also don't like how some of the CROWS turret equipped vehicles will come after them. All those accurately aimed bullets coming their way, and no enemy soldiers in sight, is demoralizing."

CROWS costs aobut $26k per vehicle, can be outfitted with either a M2.50 cal MG (good 'ol Ma Deuce), a MK19 40-mm automatic grenade launcher, a M240B 7.62mm machine-gun or a M249 5.56mm squad automatic weapon, any of which could totally ruin your day if you're on the receiving end. So far, the Army has ordered over 9000 of the systems.