Software for tough guys

The British army is going all hi-tech. Now when you phone them up you get a disjointed digital recording saying: "Thank you for phoning the Ministry of Defence. If you wish to declare war on the United Kingdom, please press one. If you are the American president and require British forces to join your own to give the spurious impression of international cooperation, please press two. If you wish to register a complaint about the massacre of innocent civilians press three or hold for an operator." In which case you have to listen to Vivaldi for 30 years until someone's finally prepared to listen.

This week it was announced that British service personnel are to be armed with all the latest microchip technology to assist them in the war against terrorism. With so much of today's defence budget being spent on computerised military hardware, they needed that extra £3.5bn to pay for the Dixons extended warranty. Modelling the "soldier of the future" outfit for the BBC News was an embarrassed looking squaddie weighed down by countless electrical gadgets strapped all over his body, while his face seemed to say: "I haven't the faintest bloody idea how any of this stuff works." There were satellite communicators, computerised weapons, an integrated monitor screen just above his eyeline - all in standard army camouflage colours, making the soldier impossible to pick out until the moment his mobile phone suddenly went off, playing the Dam Busters March at full volume.

Of course with the soldiers now carrying the latest in communications technology, terrorists will not be their only enemy. They're also going to have to watch their backs for teenage boys mugging them for their million-pound digital equipment, which they could flog down the pub for a tenner. The computer packs are specially designed to be light and highly mobile, it's just a shame that carrying all those enormous manuals will slow him down so much. Hostilities will be delayed for months as combatants search through the weapon manual looking for the section on "firing".

Yet the whole point of all this increased communications software is supposed to be speed. Soon Nato forces will be able to blow up the wrong building far more quickly than they have been able to do in the past. The ground forces will be in constant communication with reconnaissance aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and attack helicopters, right up until the moment the computer crashes and then all the aircraft crash as well.

But of course the test of all this technology will be the first time that this soldier is on the battlefield face to face with an enemy gunman. A split second can make the difference between life or death as he activates his computerised weaponry. But it doesn't take out the enemy; instead a little reminder wizard appears on screen: "Click here to register your Microsoft anti-terrorist software for great technical support, free upgrades and special offers on other Microsoft products." The soldier frantically clicks the "register later" icon as enemy bullets fly past his head. Grenades are now exploding on either side of him, as a smiling little animated Mr Bomb character bounces up and down on the screen saying: "Are you sure you want to register later?"

That's if the technology works at all, of course. It's one thing to have your printer refusing to respond when you were hoping to catch the last post. But you'd get even more annoyed with modern technology when surrounded by Taliban gunmen and the computerised missile launcher says: "Error in weapon configuration - refer to helpline." It's at times like this that you wish you'd sent that guarantee card back to Hewlett Packard.

With our armed forces increasingly dependent on computer software, it won't be germ warfare we are worried about but virus warfare. "Oh look, I've got an email from someone called Osama - I'll just open that attachment and see what it is!" says the soldier brightly as the entire Nato communications system goes down. Or maybe the enemy will be closer to home. I can't help worrying that the boys who left school to become squaddies tended not to be the same boys who were really brilliant with computers. The nervous brainy kids were forced to avoid all the tough boys by going along to computer soc. every lunchtime, and will have spent the last 15 years working their way up through the software industry patiently planning their revenge. So when the tattooed meathead of a squaddie is stuck in an Iraqi battlefield and has to rely on his computer equipment to save his life he'll suddenly find his software freezing as a voice from the past pops up on the monitor: "Hello Slugger; Timothy Johnson here, from Form 4B. You probably won't remember that every day for five years you broke my glasses and threw my violin case on top of the bus shelter. Well now you are really going to wish you hadn't. Click here to leave a farewell message on Enemies Reunited."