I watched this same program; what blew me away was the size of the 
military issued unit that (I think) they said cost a few thousand 
dollars.  It was about the size of a lunchbox.  Imagine trying to find a 
an urban micro with that and going unnoticed in a crowd of people. :-P   
Now if I could just get ahold of one of those laser range-finders they 
were using, _THAT_ would be cool!

-- Team Sprocket

>In an insomniac bout last night, I surfed into the Discovery Channel in
>the middle of a program about US armed forces in Afghanistan. In one
>segment they were showing how combat controllers (I think that was what
>they were called, perhaps it was "forward controllers") perform their
>duties.
> 
>It is their job to provide target coordinates to air strikes.  They do
>this by sighting on  a target and projecting a waypoint from where they
>are to the target, which waypoint they then report to the bombers. They
>showed a picture of a bazillion-dollar mil-spec GPS. Then the narrator
>stated that the soldiers prefer to use consumer models as they are far
>lighter and consume batteries much more slowly, while the film showed a
>soldier using a clearly-labeled Garmin Vista to do the waypoint
>projection.
> 
>I'm not posting this to add ammo to the Garmin-Maggie skirmish here. I
>just thought it was cool to be watching it and see them using a piece of
>gear I've got in my backpack.
> 
>Steve
>Team Tierra Buena
>