-The Trimball Trimpack-
The Gulf War might be America’s first major “technological” conflict. many advancements on the battlefield were really starting to come into their own. These included cruise missiles, night vision, thermal gun sights, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System.
Saddam Hussein and his generals had thought that particularly in the western portion of Iraq, it would be difficult if not impossible to make any kind of organized attack through barren lands devoid of landmarks. Hussein was not a student of Sun Tzu. He did not know his enemy.
GPS became indispensable in a trackless desert where the coalition had to maneuver, attack, defend, and avoid friendly fire. It would help columns of armored vehicles find designated points in the sand with ease, and to report where they were at any given time. To make precise maneuvers around and through Iraqi defenses.
Unfortunately, the army did not have very many GPS units at the beginning of Desert Storm. There was a unit in inventory, the SLGR (Small Lightweight GPS Receiver) AN/PSN-10, but not enough to go around with only 500 demonstration receivers in service. By the end of the conflict, well over 4,000 of these “Slugger” units had been procured for use by the United States Army.
The “Slugger”, also known as the Trimball Trimpack commercially, was an L1/SPS receiver that is extremely basic when compared to the navigational power we now have on a common smartphone but was cutting edge in its day. With only three inputs (one switch and two buttons), it’s still able to offer range, azimuth, velocity and steering information. It also incorporates the ability to add user defined waypoints, with up to 26 of these able to be kept in memory. This means a soldier or vehicle with a Slugger can enter coordinates for an operating base, an objective, and every point in between, ensuring that they always know where they are, where they are going, and how to get back where they came from. To say this was a big deal in the desert is an understatement. General Schwarzkopf and all the other organizers of the ground war could have dreamed up the most perfect and precise plans for their soldiers, but it would mean very little if said soldiers got lost trying to carry out the mission.
There were a couple ways to power these units, including either 2 BA-5800 A/U batteries or a hardwire kit for vehicles.
Here is an example of one of these units from my personal collection. This one had a double A battery adapter tray that held a whopping 8 batteries. Unfortunately the tray and all the internals of the battery compartment were destroyed by battery acid after it was stored with alkaline batteries in it for a number of years in a depot or a closet somewhere. It probably no longer works and certainly wont without a power source and some internal refurbishment but it’s a nice physical example of the Trimpack.
For more information on the Trimble Trimpack, see PRC68’s excellent page about the device as well as the Retro GPS entry.