Roadside attacks have been around almost as long as soldiers have marched down roads. Until 9/11, casualties from these attacks were less significant compared with the large numbers lost on battlefields to poisonous gas, machine guns and air assaults. But in today's often urbanized, counterinsurgency warfare, roadside attacks with homemade bombs and mines—collectively known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs)—are the principal cause of loss of life and limb among Western militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Paul McLeary (Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Aberdeen, Md.)
The U.S. Army is not sugarcoating it: The armed service is about to go through deep, emotionally wrenching changes. Even as the smell of cordite still hangs in the Afghan air, the service's chiefs are busy planning the Army's postwar posture and equipment needs.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is urging Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to stop an arms deal with Russia as Syria smolders. The March letter asks the Pentagon chief to end all business with Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms firm, to protest its continuing sale of weapons to Syria. At stake is a deal worth up to $1 billion to supply Russian Mil Mi-17 helicopters and spare parts to the Afghan military. “U.S. taxpayers should not be put in a position where they are indirectly subsidizing the mass murder of Syrian civilians,” the senators wrote.
Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is changing in the same way as warfare as a whole. Targets used to be easy to find and identify, though hard to kill, but now the reverse is usually true. ISR data used to be hard to get, which made the volumes manageable. Now, collection is cheap but meeting the demands of processing, exploitation and dissemination, or PED, is hard.
A bullet that seldom misses would be an asset in combat. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have developed a prototype self-guided round that is in effect a tiny missile, 4 in., long, with optical sensor, 8-bit CPU, guidance and control electronics, and steerable fins with electromagnetic actuators. The bullet flies at 2,400 fps.; range is 2,000 meters (1.24 mi.). The optical sensor detects a target illuminated by a laser in the rifle's optics. Fins maneuver the projectile to remain on target despite distance, crosswinds and other variables.
Harvard researchers have devised a technique for building microbots that was inspired by pop-up books. Pratheev Sreetharan and J. Peter Whitney, doctoral candidates, developed the method for the Harvard Monolithic Bee, or “Mobee,” a flying microbot that fits on a quarter and has mass of 90 mg. Making Mobees by hand is slow and difficult. The technique, called Printed Circuit MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems), is a layering process in which micro-machined materials are assembled, aligned and machined again into what will be 3-D shapes.
From the way that Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and other members of Congress grumbled when the Obama administration pulled 1,200 Army National Guard soldiers off the U.S.-Mexican border in February, you would think the White House threw open the gates and sent every uniformed U.S. service member home. “It defies logic that we would remove the National Guard from the border when the border is not secure,” Poe said. “If anything, we need more National Guard troops.”
Backing for the Assad regime in strife-torn Syria hinges on a centuries-old Russian ambition. From the Crimean War to “the great game” of the 1800s, the lack of a deep, warm-water port has cramped Russia's global desires.
It is an illusion to think that a $200M aircraft will have operating and support costs anywhere close to the $60M aircraft it is replacing. More expensive aircraft cost more to operate than less expensive ones, and it is often a proportional relationship. Partner nations may get a 'deal' on procurement as has been suggested, but will they be able to afford to operate the aircraft for 30 years?- —Talos IV on a post about Canada's commitment to the JSF
U.S. Marines began deploying BAE System's Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) in Afghanistan last month. APKWS is a mid-body attachment that converts Hydra-70 2.75-in. unguided aerial rockets to laser-guided missiles. Reported accuracy is less than 1 meter (3.3 ft.) at 3 mi. APKWS was in development for years by the Army, then, following cutbacks, the Navy, which designates it WGU-59/B. The weapon fills a niche in asymmetric warfare: destroying soft and lightly armored targets cheaply and with low collateral damage.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has achieved a land-speed record for Cheetah, a four-legged robot developed by Boston Dynamics of Waltham, Mass., for the Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program. Cheetah was clocked at 18 mph while galloping on a lab treadmill. While this is a fraction of the speed that its flesh-and-blood namesake achieves—0-60 mph in 3 sec.
A Lockheed Martin-developed advanced foliage-penetration radar has been deployed operationally to South America, as the company expands the sensor's ability to track moving vehicles and dismounted individuals. The deployment comes as the U.S. Army works toward a program of record for penetrating synthetic-aperture radar/moving-target indicators to be carried by a range of manned and unmanned fixed- and rotary-wing platforms. Delayed by budget cuts, the program may now begin in fiscal 2014.
Facing the downturn in traditional European and western defense markets, Thales Group held its first Technodays exhibition here Feb. 15-17, showcasing technology for defense, security, aerospace and ground transportation. Nearly 100 demonstrations from 15 countries included technological displays with military, security and civilian applications.
The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency is looking for a robot that can go into radiological-contaminated areas to collect soil, water and air samples. The agency recently sought industry proposals for a new generation of robotics with “even more function” to more accurately project human reach into austere or contested environments. The agency says it's looking for robots that can be controlled remotely—or even autonomously—and are able to move across diverse landscapes, everything from ice to rocks.
The U.S. State Department's plans to broaden the definition of arms brokering is drawing criticism from companies and organizations concerned about having to navigate yet another maze of export regulations. At issue is a federal proposal that seeks to eliminate loopholes in regulations and a “gray area” around arms deals. The proposed change would expand the current definition of a broker, which currently covers only people who are paid to help arrange or facilitate an arms sale on someone's behalf.
After the grinding experiences of two long ground wars, and an unrelated but simultaneous revolution in technology, Britain is re-approaching the role of the forward air controller (FAC).
The Israel Aerospace Industries RAM MkIII traces directly back to the original mine-protected RBY platform developed by IAI's Ramta unit during the early 1970s. The latest version adds antiballistic armor, counter-mine blast protection and a firewall bulkhead that separates the engine compartment and fuel tank from the crew, weapon system and power pack.
The XM25 Individual Semi-Automatic Airburst System (Isaas) offers a new solution to one of the perennial challenges in combat: how do you hit what you cannot see?
Graduate students in laboratories the world over have experiments at their fingertips. Kevin Warwick's lab may be the only one where they can say the experiments are inside their fingertips. “I have three students at the moment who have magnets implanted,” Warwick says from the University of Reading, England, where he is a professor and cybernetics researcher. “We are looking at sensory substitution. It's converting things like ultrasonic senses and infrared senses and even audio into vibrations they can feel in their fingertips via these magnets.”
At the end of February an image of a new People's Liberation Army (PLA) missile appeared on Chinese websites with the distinguishing feature of the PLA's first use for a 12 X 12 wheeled transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) from the Wosang company, part of the Sanjiang Space Group. This group also produces the DF-11 short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) and the DF-21 family of medium-range ballistic missiles. However, this new TEL is perhaps 30% larger than the 10 X 10 wheeled TEL that carries the 2,500-km-range (1,550-mi.) DF-21C, first seen in 2005.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 program made unwanted headlines in the U.K. last month after The Sunday Times revealed that BAE Systems' portion of the project had been subject to significant data theft. Sources told the newspaper that the network intrusion began in 2009 and had gone undetected for around 18 months.
Questions over cost and risk are already threatening the U.S. Navy's Flight III version of the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer fleet while the program is still in the service's developmental womb. Military analysts for a host of government watchdog agencies such as the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have questioned the Navy's Flight III plans for some time, but it is the GAO review released earlier this year that highlights newly emerging cost and schedule risks.
With the U.S. Congress looking at ways to fix the management of the three U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, one prominent former official says the solution is to move the labs from the Energy Department to the Defense Department, a move that would reverse a decades'-old management decision that some say is now detrimental to national security.
