Some years ago there was a lovely TV documentary series from the BBC following the work of various teams from DERA (the UK’s cut prince version of DARPA).
It featured FIST (Future Infantry Soldier Technology) which was basically a project created by some guys who’d watched Aliens. They created a helmet mounted HUD to project waypoints into the wearer’s vision. The squaddies said they preferred to use a map and compass.
They also over saw the dropping of a laser guided bomb from a Tornado (a gift from the Big Boys across the Pond). The bomb worked fine, but the pilot forgot to switch on the recording systems.
Their pièce de résistance was a subaquatic drone to carry a ground penetrating radar to covertly survey beaches. They purchased a commercially available radar which performed flawlessly, and limited themselves to creating the vehicle. This was a qualified success as a submersible as it sank…
