Land Warrior
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In the Pentagon’s April 2007 Selected Acquisition Report, the US Army’s $4 billion “Infantry-21” program – Land Warrior – lists as terminated. Which is true, and Federal Computing Weekly has more. Noah Shachtman at WIRED’s Danger Room says the soldiers weren’t that crazy about it, anyway:

“But as Alpha kicks in doors, rounds up terror suspects and peals off automatic fire in deafening six-shot bursts, not one of the soldiers bothers to check his radio or look into the eyepiece to find his buddies on the electronic maps. “It’s just a bunch of stuff we don’t use, taking the place of useful stuff like guns,” says Sgt. James Young, who leads a team of four M-240 machine-gunners perched on a balcony during this training exercise at Fort Lewis, Wash. “It makes you a slower, heavier target.”

See also Noah’s Popular Mechanics article

UPDATES:

• A subsequent DefenseTech article by Christian Lowe claims that claims Land Warrior’s usefulness is becoming more apparent in Iraq – or at least, a slimmed-down version of it is.

• Could Land Warrior be ressurrected by the US Senate anyway? Danger Room wonders, but reading the FCW coverage, it seems more likely that these funds will be used to support the The 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment’s deployment in Iraq from in April 2007 onward. Any technologies that prove successful in combat may end up in in Future Combat Systems’ “Future Force Warrior” program at some point.