The Italian army and navy have selected the Spike LR missile from Rafael of Israel as the standard antitank missile to replace the Milan and at least some Tow systems. The army is acquiring 870 missiles, 64 infantry launchers, 20 launchers integrated with the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle and 63 training systems, while the navy is procuring 120 missiles, six infantry launchers and four training systems. The €120-million ($170.6-million) program is scheduled for completion in six years. Delivery of the missiles could be completed by the end of 2010.
With the threat from short-range, high-trajectory weapons such as rockets, artillery and mortars (RAM) becoming more lethal in cross-border attacks, the development of counter-RAM technologies has accelerated.
Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are invaluable assets for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, with more than 12,000 deployed. But mobility is still an issue, especially in urban environments where a small box on tracks can have difficulty negotiating stairs, curbs and fences. This is prompting researchers to find innovative ways of increasing mobility.
The U.S. Army signed off on an unusual procurement contract in December 2007: A $322-million order for 22 Russian helicopters bought through a U.S. defense company for Iraq. The contract was a rush order, designed to deliver Mi-17 helicopters in a bid to quickly reequip the Iraqi air force and allow it to perform counterinsurgency operations. But 18 months after signing, not a single helicopter has been delivered, despite full payment. The Army now concedes the contract is over budget and nearly a year behind schedule.
If you thought a Seehake torpedo was only useful for blowing large surface combatants in half, think again. Manufacturer Atlas Elektronik found that it makes an adequate bar, here in use at May’s Imdex show in Singapore. Prosit!
In the airlift world, the unexpected is the rule. The U.S.—with by far the largest domestic market—has long dominated the segment, but may now be on the verge of losing leadership.
When Laurent Collet-Billon took over the helm of the DGA (Delegation Generale pour l’Armement, or general delegation for ordnance), France’s contracting authority for weapon programs, in July 2008, he had several issues to deal with: French President Nicolas Sarkozy had ordered a white paper on defense and security to realign the country’s defense strategy with 21st-century needs; there was a new six-year military programming law; France had just taken over the six-month revolving presidency of the European Union; the DGA had moved to temporary headquarters as part of a ma
In May the Indian air force received the first of three Phalcon AWACS aircraft it ordered five years ago from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The modified Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft cost a total of $1.5 billion. Air Chief Marshal F.H. Major says the AWACS will be based in Agra where a squadron is forming. “The other two should reach India sometime next year,” he says. “We have been awaiting them for some time, having already exercised with the U.S.
A strong argument could be made that given the recent innovations in ground-vehicle armor, and vehicle-mounted communications and sensor equipment brought about by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is in a “Golden Age” for tactical vehicles.
The U.S. Army has awarded contracts worth about $5 million each to General Dynamics C4 Systems, Raytheon and Rockwell Collins to develop “system of systems” equipment for dismounted commanders.
During a speech at the U.S. Naval War College in April, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates cited the value of developing a viable force of small warships that are better suited to face current threats in the littorals than vessels designed for blue-water operations.
“When we started in May 2008, we didn’t know how to spell nanosat.” U.S. Army Space & Missile Development Command (SMDC) Program Manager John London sums up the beginnings of a program that has already created a small constellation of ready-to-launch spacecraft, designed to demonstrate the ability to perform an operational communications mission. Dubbed SMDC-One, the first group of satellites was delivered in April, less than a year after the program started. It is the first satellite developed by the Army in decades.
The new Beretta ARX-160 assault rifle, commissioned by Italy’s defense ministry, is being operationally tested in Afghanistan by Italian troops deployed with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. The weapon will replace the AR-70/90 5.56-mm. assault rifle, also made by Beretta.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a meter for calibrating high-power lasers that is smaller and more portable than current units. One benefit of the meter is that it will let the military calibrate the lasers it uses to defuse mines faster and more easily than conventional devices. NIST reports the unit is “about the size of a crock pot” and performs continuous measurements.
Japan plans to proceed with development of the UH-X, successor to the Fuji/Bell UH-1J utility helicopter, in its midterm defense plan for 2010-14. The main contenders are Fuji and Kawasaki, the former offering a twin-engine version of the UH-1J, and the latter a design derived from its OH-1 Ninja Scout. The outcome may seal the fate of Fuji’s helicopter business. This suffered a blow when the defense ministry decided in 2007 to procure only 13 of the AH-64D Apache helicopters it builds under license instead of 60, due to higher-priority programs.
Two years ago at the Paris air show, the Joint Strike Fighter program looked unstoppable despite a major electrical glitch and emergency landing that temporarily stopped testing of the first F-35, aircraft AA-1. The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin program leaders were pushing a plan to get export customers to sign firm, penalty-backed contracts for almost 400 aircraft (DTI July/August 2008, p. 45), extinguishing the hopes of competitors and facing most with extinction by 2015. The plan was to have those deals signed by early 2008.
Not surprisingly, the black or classified budget has continued to grow from 2009 to 2010; not surprisingly because the growth trend since 9/11 has been stronger than it was before, and even in the 1990s, black budgets grew faster than white-world spending.
Researchers in New York may be on the way to neutralizing ricin, the deadly bio-agent made famous by the murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, after he was jabbed in the leg with a poison dart from an umbrella 30 years ago in London. Ricin is made from castor-oil manufacturing waste. It is poisonous if inhaled, eaten or injected. There is no antidote, and it is lethal in doses as small as a grain of salt. For any treatment to be successful, it must begin with early identification and isolation of the poison.
In areas where GPS is nonexistent or unreliable, the tactical advantages of precision attack and situational awareness suffer. Dead-reckoning sensors are an option, but the best of these have only a 2-5% margin of error. Work is underway on development of a low-power micro-navigation sensor that will fit on a boot and provide positioning accuracy of less than 1% indoors or out. InterSense Inc.
Governments manufacture secrets, and the U.S. is a top producer. In the last five years, Washington has stamped “secret” on 96.6 million items and spent $150 billion on classified programs.
The Fiscal 2010 defense budget had not been released during the annual Army Aviation Assn. of America (Quad A) show here, May 3. But leadership was fairly positive about the state of its branch. “Army aviation will be just fine,” aviation branch chief Maj. Gen. James Barclay told reporters. “We won’t get every dime we want, but we have lots of supporters.”
One conclusion of the 9/11 Commission’s unclassified Final Report in 2004 was that noncooperation between federal, state and local agencies in distributing classified or sensitive information imperils national security.
Thomas Klapoetke, an expert in fluorine chemistry and energetic materials who heads the inorganic chemistry lab at Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, has been on the trail of raw power for the better part of a decade. His team works with extremely volatile compounds, with a recent focus on substituting silicon for the usual carbon atoms in high explosives like PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate), which is used in Semtex and many weapons.
Military and civilian scientists may soon be able to exponentially increase the imaging capabilities of high-speed cameras used in research and development. Work at UCLA, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has produced a camera that’s capable of continuously recording images at the rate of 6 million frames per second—1,000 times faster than current cameras. The technology is called serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (Steam).
