A $22 billion Pentagon plan to develop high-tech goggles to help soldiers better target the enemy has gone from “RoboCop” promise to “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” reality.

The Integrated Visual Augmentation System — a militarized version of Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headset — has been plagued by problems since the computer giant scored its lucrative, 10-year contract in 2021.

The “augmented reality” super-vision program for the Army has so far generated gear that’s left soldiers queasy and actually thrown off their aim — leading critics to question whether it’s worth it.

The gadgets are slated to give soldiers a “heads-up display” of the battlefield, with digital pointers, live video feeds and virtual crosshairs linked to their gun sights.

But the Defense Department’s Inspector General last year warned it could all go to waste if soldiers don’t want to wear them.

Subsequent field testing was a bust, with the devices causing “mission-affecting physical impairments” that included nausea, headaches, and eyestrain, Bloomberg reported in October.

A January report from the Defense Department also said the soldiers actually “hit fewer targets and engaged targets more slowly” while wearing the wraparound goggles.

Last month, the Army said an improved model won’t be battle-ready until at least July 2025, assuming the new design fixes the flaws.

Meanwhile, the Chinese military has reportedly developed its own version and video clips that surfaced in January show a soldier purportedly aiming and firing an assault rifle while hidden around a corner and behind a wall.

In a statement last month, House Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Rob Wittman, R-Virginia, said taxpayers “have already spent $1.5 billion” on the augmented reality headset program, with the goggles costing $60,000 each.

Wittman also said the program “needs to be carefully scrutinized to ensure that soldier lethality is enhanced and that the Army’s limited budget is maximized.”

During a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense budget hearing on May 2, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., asked top Army officials why they’d tried to cut funding for existing night-vision goggles while pouring money into augmented reality even though it’s “not working yet.”

“And until it works, it seems to me that we are shortchanging those people who need the current system that does work, in a way that is not acceptable as we’re looking at war fighting,” she said.

Also during the hearing, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville predicted that the Integrated Visual Augmentation System would “fundamentally change the way our soldiers operate in the battlefield.”

“We want to give the next three to five years to get that edge that’s going to transform how our soldiers are gonna fight,” McConville said.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth also said that “if Congress gives us the money that we’ve requested for [the augmented reality system] in this year’s budget, we are going to use that to work with Microsoft to get the system to a place where our soldiers will want to use it.”

But Wormuth pledged the Army was “not going to spend $22 billion on a system if it doesn’t work.”

“We want to see if we can get it to a place where it is going to be desirable for our soldiers,” she said.

“We think it can be, but I think Microsoft knows that this is — this is it. They either get it done and get it to a place where our soldiers want to use it or we will move on.”

Last week, the Breaking Defense website said 5,000 units of the first version of the goggles, known as IVAS 1.0, were sitting in storage with no plan to distribute them.

Microsoft has completed a software upgrade that’s being tested and also found a low-light camera for a new model, IVAS 1.1, that could be ready for testing by September 2024, the site said.

A prototype of the redesigned, 1.2 version could also be ready later this year and move the unit’s computer from the chest to the rear of the helmet — but at the cost of added weight, Breaking Defense said.

Former Marine Corps Capt. Dan Grazier, senior defense policy fellow at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, told The Messenger he was “pretty skeptical” the high-priced project would pan out.

“I’ve seen this in the past, where soldiers and Marines are given a piece of equipment that doesn’t work that well and it winds up sitting in a warehouse,” he said.

Grazier also said he was “very concerned” about adding “extra equipment to our already overburdened infantrymen,” who carry more than 80 pounds of gear, including heavy body armor, weapons, and ammo.

“What we have to do is reduce weight rather than add to it,” he said.

Alexander Holderness, a defense research assistant at the bipartisan Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank, said the problems with the augmented reality goggles “seem pretty significant.”

But he also said it “makes sense” to try to find a way to share real-time feeds from drones, radar, and listening devices with soldiers in the field.

“The U.S. industrial base and the DOD routinely work to solve technical problems,” Holderness said.

“There’s no reason to think these problems won’t be solved. It’s just a question of how long and how much money it will take.”

Regarding China’s reported rival technology, Holderness also said it was “pretty difficult” to determine how much progress has actually been made “without examining the actual system.”

“I think it’s always good to show a healthy degree of skepticism when it comes to what Beijing says,” he said.

Neither the Army nor Microsoft returned requests for comment.