Maps are clearly a vital tool for any military commander, but the days when a two-dimensional, printed representation of an area will suffice have long since passed. Dynamic mapping of the battlespace is not new, but 21st century technologies are revolutionizing the collection, dissemination and analysis of tactical intelligence.
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.
Wire strikes, which can down aircraft, are a constant threat to pilots, especially at night. Sandel Avionics of Vista, Calif., has developed a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) visual depiction and aural alert system called HeliTAWS ST3400H, designed to detect and warn helicopter pilots of impending threats from wires and transmission lines—as well as terrain—within a precalculated hazard proximity.
The issue of a 37-point agreement on security and defense on Feb. 17 confirmed that, despite public spats between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, the U.K. and France have been quietly but surely moving to ever-closer defense and industrial ties. The two countries are more serious about cooperation in defense matters than they arguably have ever been before.
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.
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 recent discovery by researchers in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that the lethal H5N1 avian flu virus could be genetically modified with relative ease into an airborne vector was the talk of the scientific community going into early 2012.
Airbus Military could be one of the main beneficiaries of the Singapore air force's next round of procurements. Singapore has at the top of its procurement list aerial refueling tankers, strategic airlifters and anti-submarine warfare fixed-wing aircraft, purchases that will see that the island continues to be, for the next few years at least, the biggest spender on new defense equipment in Southeast Asia.
British troops at forward operating bases and other outposts in Afghanistan now have fast access to fuel for generators and other equipment, due to the development of flexible air-transportable containers that resemble huge circular bladders. The Air Portable Fuel Container Mk 5 was designed and fabricated by GKN Aerospace of Portsmouth, England, in a five-year, £2 million ($3.1 million) deal with the U.K. Defense Ministry. The containers are made of rubber and DuPont's Kevlar aramid fiber—the latter for ballistic and impact protection.
Robert Wall (London), David Hambling (Dubai), David Eshel (Tel Aviv)
Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been proving grounds for unmanned air vehicle technology, but they have also highlighted the value of manned fighters to provide support for forces engaging irregular opponents. At the same time, such conflicts have been characterized by weak or nonexistent challenges to airpower, so the most expensive attributes of a fighter that enable it to survive against high-end threats are not needed.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Air Force-run tests in New Mexico for the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee were flawed, according to LightSquared. (GPS IIF image: Boeing)
Military forces have faced the potential of crippling radiation exposure for decades, first during the Cold War and recently with “dirty bombs” emerging as a potential terrorist weapon. Antidotes for radiation sickness exist, but work is ongoing to develop more effective treatments that increase survival rates. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) last month announced encouraging findings from work in this area, some of which resulted from the Radiation Biodosimetry (Rabid) program that concluded last year.
One person's junk is another person's treasure—or at least that appears to be the premise behind a new effort, appropriately called Phoenix, sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). The basic idea is to harvest parts from decommissioned satellites to build new spacecraft on the cheap. Darpa wants to take advantage of leftover equipment from more than 1,000 satellites that have been launched in geostationary Earth orbit over the past 50 years, many of which are retired but still have salvageable hardware.
Portable radar that sees through walls is a growing area of development. A recent entrant is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, which developed an ultra-wideband (UWB), multiple input/multiple output phased-array sensor with real-time acquisition and processing capabilities and video-like synthetic aperture radar imaging. The device is 8.5 ft. wide and 2 ft. high. When mounted on a mobile platform, it is 5 ft. tall. Importantly, the radar reduces through-wall data collection time to less than 100 millisec., an extremely fast rate.
During a hearing in October 2011, the chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee grew misty-eyed when he could not tell one armed service member what his future prospects would be in the military in an era of declining defense budgets.
Even with the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, where combat conditions have placed a premium on both precision and volume of fire, the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) will evolve to meet new requirements. Lockheed Martin is considering various options to sustain production and introduce upgrades, building on U.S. Army and Marine Corps plans to keep the rocket and its launchers in service until 2050. Meanwhile, a number of allied customers also are expected to extend the life of their own launchers.
U.S. researchers are developing a program that will predict potential threats from employees of government agencies and defense contractors by detecting behavioral anomalies. Goals include detection before the fact of individuals planning workplace violence, espionage or other harmful activities. Researchers, supported by Darpa and the U.S. Army Research Lab, and led by Science Applications International Corp., are assembling the Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (Adams) system.
Israel is developing new ground systems after aerial experiences from Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza campaign of 2008-09. In that operation, each combat brigade had direct support of a dedicated attack helicopter squadron. Moving with the forward combat elements, joint terminal attack control teams included embedded attack helo pilots and in some cases even fighter pilots, having direct access to UAV real-time streaming imagery. Now Elbit Systems is demonstrating several systems to provide ground forces with safer air support.
As soon as the helicopter touched the ground on a dusty airfield in southern Afghanistan, the game had been forever changed. After a decade of sending vulnerable, manpower-intensive, fuel-guzzling ground convoys to resupply troops at far-flung combat outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan—and seeing those convoys consistently ambushed, blown up or just delayed—the U.S. Marine Corps had had enough. So, on Dec. 17, 2011, the Corps for the first time delivered supplies to troops using a remotely piloted helicopter.
Incidents of maritime piracy reached an all-time high since the start of the European Union's anti-piracy naval mission more than three years ago, according to the annual report by the EU on Operation Atalanta. There were 176 pirate incidents during 2011, up from 174 in 2010 and 163 in 2009. The total number of pirated ships dropped to 25 from 47 the previous year. But even those figures may be low, according to Ecoterra International, an independent organization that tracks Somali-area piracy.
Issues surrounding battery use are becoming critical as forces add more electronic gear to their loads. Chief among these are the amount of batteries needed for deployments, their service life and cost. Evgentech of Norcross, Ga., has developed a method of recharging batteries for personal electronics and other equipment that CEO Jackie Hutter says significantly reduces charge time and extends cycle life, thereby getting batteries back in use faster and potentially reducing the number needed.
For NATO, 2012 is to be year of disengagement from Kosovo—finally. Allied troops have been preoccupied there since 1999, and plans—which have been restructured several times—once called for NATO troops largely to have been withdrawn by now. But ethnic clashes in the northern part of the country—where the bulk of the Serbian minority is concentrated—in the latter half of 2011 slowed that move, and now officials are updating their plans to try again this year.
Unmanned aircraft may have garnered the headlines since 9/11, but unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) are expected to become equally standard tools for most advanced armies around the world in coming decades. While obvious applications like route clearance and cargo transport spring to mind, nascent Italian technologies indicate that UGV roles and missions could become as diverse as the imagination allows when it comes to terrestrial crawlers.
