Reading the title should surely result into making jokes about Samsung now being part of the U.S. Marines’ ordnance by using the exploding Samsung Note 7 for fire missions. Seriously though, the Marine Corps decided to use Samsung tablets for fire missions as part of their efforts to use commercial-off-the-shelf products that have utility in the battlefield.

As part of an upgrade of the U.S. Marines’ Target Handoff System (THS) which will be operational in 2017, the system will be loaded into Samsung tablets, reducing the weight by more than half as well as having big cost reductions according to the report at Kit-Up! of Military.com:

“Our current THS, though capable, needed to be smaller and lighter to better support dismounted operations,” Hume said in a statement. “With the new version, Marines will obtain a lightweight device equipped to provide immediate situational awareness on where friendly and enemy locations are, and the ability to hand off target data to fire support to get quick effects on the battlefield.”

Photo By: Lance Cpl. David Staten, USMC

As for the specific device that the THS will work on, it is the 8-inch Samsung Tab 2 tablet that will be distributed to joint fires observers, joint terminal attack controllers, forward air controllers, and air officers of all ground units. There are already existing tactical gear designed to protect such mobile devices that can be attached to MOLLE-equipped vests.

The THS allows the Marines to quickly point the location of a target and send the data to supporting units available, whether naval supporting fire, air support, or artillery support. The application made for the tablet receives the coordinates of the target automatically generated by the system, minimizing error that happens using the manual way, with the digitized information then sent to the fire support coordination center to determine the best way to provide support or attack the target.

As for the Note 7, rest assured that it was not selected by the Marines for this purpose.

Top photo: Taken by Lance Cpl. David Staten, USMC