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 U.S. Navy plans carrier launch and recovery tests for its two X-47B unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV) next year—but guiding UCAV on deck is a challenge. Work at MIT with gesture-recognition software could eventually enable personnel to direct UCAV via hand and body gestures as they do with manned aircraft. Doctoral candidate Yale Song is fine-tuning software he helped develop that recognizes gestures now in use by deck crews. Song uses a stereo camera to record body movements.
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.
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.
India expects to induct its first Scorpene submarine beginning in 2015, three years behind the original schedule. All six submarines will be in service by 2018 at a revised cost of $4.7 billion, Defense Minister A.K. Antony told Indian parliamentarians last month. First delivery was expected in December 2012, with subsequent subs a year apart, Antony said. The six are being built at Mazagon Dock (MDL) under technology- transfer agreements with France's DCNS.
Getting Helicopter Development Right For The U.S. Army Getting Helicopter Development Right For The U.S. Army Getting Helicopter Development Right For The U.S. Army
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
Over the next several years, more than a few big-ticket items in the Army's annual budget will reach major milestones—transitioning from new-build production to long-term sustainment accounts. Overall, 37 Army systems will make that switch, moving Army dollars away from the production line to the often more complicated—and very expensive—world of spare parts, upgrades and reset contracts.
Reviewed By Angus Batey 21ST CENTURY CYBERWARFARE BY WILLIAM T. HAGESTAD, 2nd IT Governance Publishing, 2012 348 pp., $119 In recent months, Bill Hagestad has become a familiar yet discomfiting figure on the cyberdefense conference circuit.
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.
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.
Last August, a magnitude-5.9 earthquake shook Washington, toppling chimneys, cracking masonry and even damaging the National Cathedral and Washington Monument. In less than a minute, that same earthquake could be felt up the East Coast and in New York. But for many there and elsewhere, the first tipoff that something had hit the nation's capital was not the shockwave, but the massive outpouring on Twitter.
The U.S. government continues to hold up arms sales to Bahrain amid the kingdom's violent crackdown on political protesters. “More remains to be done on that,” said Victoria Nuland, a State Department official. “Assistance is still on pause.” The Pentagon last September notified Congress of a potential $53 million arms sales package for Bahrain, which included 44 Humvees and several hundred Tube-Launched Optically-Tracked Wire-Guided missiles.
Personal location beacons are crucial gear when it comes to rescuing downed pilots or sailors at sea. Becker Avionics of Miramar, Fla., has developed a tiny locator for search-and-rescue operations that is designed to speed the location and recovery of personnel. The BD406/PBD406 beacon locator is 2 in. long and weighs a little more than 2 lb. It decodes 406-mhz signals to depths of 100 meters (330 ft.) along with transmitted GPS locations, and identifies a beacon's serial number. Becker says it costs less to procure and operate than competitive beacon locators.
The U.S. Army is about to select improved camouflage for soldiers' uniforms. But according to one of the finalists, far more advanced camouflage, offering potential for concealment bordering on invisibility, is just around the corner.
A ground-breaking deal between Britain's Defense Ministry and BAE Systems has provided the financial foundation for the company's new munitions factory. The £75 million ($120 million) plant is already producing a range of shell casings ahead of the final transfer in June of remaining staff and equipment from the 97-year-old factory at Birtley, 2 mi. away.
The U.S. Air Force talked until recently of just a 100-aircraft fleet of new bombers, but advocates are calling for more. Dave Deptula, the retired three-star general who headed reconnaissance programs for the armed service during recent wars, says that it's easy to get to a 200-aircraft bomber fleet—with one 12-aircraft squadron for each of 10 air expeditionary forces, and other aircraft to support strategic deterrence and cover attrition and depot maintenance.
Home-grown “hacktivism”—network penetration by politically motivated groups or individuals—has long been recognized as an important element of what is routinely referred to in cybersecurity circles as Advanced Persistent Threat.
Antiship missiles and heavyweight torpedoes have been rarely used in combat against surface vessels in recent decades. But when they are, the result is so dramatic it rattles the nerves of navies everywhere, reminding them that cost-cutting in this area can be dangerous.
