that can kill anything it can see.
It is also a horrible place in which to die. The Abrams holds four men.
Three of them (the tank commander, the gunner, and the loader) ride in the
crew chamber which is about the size of a large bedroom closet. The tank
commander sits on a swivel-seat with his knees at the upper back of the
gunner, who is crammed into a tiny ergonomic nook. The loader heaves
shells into the butt of the 120-millimeter cannon, which juts like a
dinosaur's rump into the turret cavity. The fourth man, the driver, lies
on his back in a padded niche much the size and shape of a coffin. He
steers the tank with a pivoting pair of black rubber handles from a metal
post over his belly. He is not inside the turret with the other men;
instead, he is squirreled away into the bowels of the machine and
communicates by headset. Like the commander and the gunner, the driver's
view of the world comes through "vision blocks," three rectangular blocks
each the size and shape of a rear-view mirror.
Almost every visible surface within the chamber is covered with readout
screens, switches, sensors, gauges, and maintenance monitors. The area
around the tank commander's tall black stool has a weirdly shaped black
joystick, a targeting scope, and two flat screens with buttons bearing
cryptic acronyms. These big square buttons are designed to be pressed by
hands encased in chemical-warfare gauntlets. They're like a lethal parody
of the child-sized buttons on a My First Sony.
Tanks are, of course, very well-armored vehicles, but there is very little
on earth that can resist a 120-millimeter uranium slug traveling at a
mile-per-second. Anything hit by this projectile instantly buckles and
splatters. Modern tank-to-tank warfare is extremely lethal and the
exchange of direct fire generally lasts only seconds.
Those seconds are precious, so time spent inside a simulator is not a
picnic. Simulators are not toys. They are "fun" in some sense, but only
about as much fun as an actual no-kidding tank. You can drive these
simulators across cyberspace landscapes, coordinate their tactics, advance
and retreat, aim their cannon, fire and be fired upon. You can smash into
obstacles, bog down in mud, fall off cliff edges, and experience various
kinds of simulated mechanical and engine trouble. You can panic, you can
screw up, you can make a fool of yourself in front of your comrades and
your commander. You can directly affect your real-life military career
through what you do in simulators. And you can be killed inside simulators
- virtually speaking.
The One-Twelve Cav deployed to their virtual tanks, opened the thick
plastic doors on their hefty refrigerator-style hinges, took their posts
at the black plastic seats, and were sealed inside. The drivers were also
formally encased in their own separate plastic sarcophagi.
They started their virtual engines. They began exchanging virtual radio
traffic. They examined their virtual navigation, and squinted at the
