The
U.S. Army has discovered a remote control gun turret that works, and cannot
get enough of them. The army wants over 9,000 CROWS (common remotely operated
weapon stations), but is only getting 15 a month. There should be about a
thousand CROWS in service by the end of the year. The CROWS systems cost about
$260,000 each, and can mount a variety of weapons (M2 .50 caliber machine-gun,
MK19 40-mm automatic grenade launcher, M240B 7.62mm machine-gun and M249 5.56mm
squad automatic weapon). The guys operating these systems grew up playing video
games. They developed skills in operating systems (video games) very similar to
the CROWS controls.