India’s $26.5-billion defense budget for fiscal year 2008-09 (ending Mar. 31) represents a 10% hike over the previous year but just 1.9% of GDP. While it has attracted criticism from those who claim more should be spent for security (especially after the Mumbai attacks) and to remain competitive with China, others hail it for the modernization it promises.
Roadside bombs are not only more numerous in Afghanistan these days, but more lethal. For the past six years, U.N. International Security Assistance Force troops have had to contend with roadside bombs in the 10-20-lb. range, which are potent and deadly; but in recent months the explosive devices have morphed into multigallon drums packed with 200-500 lb. of explosives.
The Pentagon has for years envisioned soldiers equipped with high-tech weapons, equipment and networked communication gear. Defense agencies and contractors have developed a range of this equipment at a cost of $160 billion and counting.
U.S. Army AH-64D Apache helicopter pilots will soon receive a new sensor that will improve their ability to spot obstacles, targets and noncombatants in low light and when flying at night.
Active defense systems (ADS) are standard on the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) latest main battle tanks (MBT) and armored infantry fighting vehicles (AIFV), as well as part of the protection suite of vehicles in the U.K.’s Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) and U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) programs.
Israel’s first Tecsar synthetic aperture radar (SAR) reconnaissance satellite was launched into low Earth orbit on an Indian rocket in January. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) established contact with the satellite 80 min. after launch. Tecsar is one of the most advanced SAR satellites, providing high-resolution images day and night and through clouds. The satellite carries a multimode X-band radar-imaging payload that provides significant near-term point and area collection capabilities to meet the needs of military and intelligence users.
For all its bloody history of military coups, sanctioned violence and insurgents of various stripes destabilizing governments, Central and South America have been quiet for some time, and in terms of security threats—both internal and geopolitical—they look likely to stay that way. Venezuela under Hugo Chavez remains a wild card, however. In September, two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 bombers flew to Venezuela, marking the first occasion since the end of the Cold War that such aircraft landed in the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency is funding work to adapt a biotech firm’s vaccine for use against bioterrorism. The vaccine fights bacterial infections and shows potential against plague, anthrax and melioidosis, a subtropical disease. It’s now used for turkeys, but that’s where the adaptation comes in. The agency paid $3.8 million to work on vaccine technology from Syntiron, in use by Syntiron’s parent company Epitopix of Willmar, Minn. The SRP vaccine originated at Willmar Poultry, which formed Epitopix to commercialize it. SRP protects turkeys from E.
Late last year, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, director of the Joint Strike Fighter program office, addressed a conference in New York. One key point: “The entire media discussion of JSF has totally missed the story on true F-35 capabilities,” Davis fumed. This is complete nonsense. The critics of JSF comprise a handful of bloggers and approximately two journalists. Davis has never seen the kind of hatchet jobs that the Baltimore Sun or 60 Minutes performed on the B-2 and F-22.
In September, the Sea-Based X-band Radar, a twin-hulled, self-propelled, $900-million platform, successfully tracked a target missile launched from Alaska while operating in the northern Pacific with the destroyer USS Russell. Cued by the radar to the missile’s approach, a ground-based interceptor was fired from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., 17 min. after the target missile was launched.
Israel has seen more armored combat in the last 60 years than any nation, and paid a heavy price for developing effective tactics. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank crews, not technology, won the day in most engagements against larger foes and, sometimes, more advanced armored technology. They did so with superior tactics and a mobile-minded leadership using rapid engagement, accurate long-range firing, fire-and-movement formations and superb communications.
In late November, NetFires LLC, a joint venture between contractors Raytheon Missile Systems and Lockheed Martin, successfully completed the first two guided test flights of the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System’s Precision Attack Missile (PAM), part of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.
The Eurofighter Typhoon is the world’s biggest fighter program, increasing production to as many as 60 aircraft per year (versus just over 40 for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet). The Royal Air Force declared the fighter combat-ready in 2008 for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. Germany and Austria also declared the aircraft operational, the latter within nine months of receiving its first jets.
U.S. Special Operations Command began taking delivery of the Boeing A160T Hummingbird, a helicopter UAV, late last year under a joint program with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency known as Special Operations Long Endurance Demonstration (SLED).
The terrorist attack last September on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, was especially ominous in that it contained a highly destructive accelerant not normally found in such attacks: aluminum powder. The truck carrying the explosives was packed with 600 kg. (1,320 lb.) of RDX and TNT, and reports had it that the temperature near the blast reached 400C (752F). The blast was so powerful that it left a crater 59 ft. across and 24 ft. deep.
Caltech researchers working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a technique for processing image data in an artificial neural network that achieves real-time recognition of moving objects under changing conditions of light and perspective. As described in NASA Tech Briefs, the process combines two object-recognition methods, which if used alone, wouldn’t yield as good a result. One is a feature-based method called adaptive principal-component analysis (APCA); the other method is called adaptive color segmentation (Acose).
Using chemical signals and genetics to trick protective anthrax spores into germinating could be a permanent part of the arsenal for combating the deadly disease, opening pathways to better treatments and more effective decontamination after a bioterrorism attack.
Even if we weren’t broke, this is no time for on-the-job training at the Pentagon. The defense establishment is a huge and sluggish beast, but some of the new administration’s first decisions will be crucial: the choices of Defense and service secretaries.
The fifth and final SAR-Lupe synthetic aperture radar satellite was launched on July 22 by a Cosmos-3M rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome south of Archangelsk, Russia, completing Germany’s first space-based reconnaissance system. The system’s full operational capability was achieved on Sept. 24, the day after it was accepted by Germany’s federal office for defense technology and procurement.
The use of quantum cryptography to secure data across a network took a major step forward in Vienna on Oct. 8, when a European Union program called Secoqc transmitted encrypted material over a commercial telecommunications network. Secoqc (Secure Communication based on Quantum Cryptography) anticipates that a system for quantum-encrypted data could be commercially available in three years. It would be of value to military as well as commercial users, since quantum cryptography is regarded as unbreakable.
Micromachines may soon be operating with barely visible microball bearings. Researchers at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, using manufacturing processes similar to those of the semiconductor industry, have produced working ball bearings that are only as wide as a few human hairs and nearly invisible to the eye.
Prototypes of wheeled vehicles that combine protection with strategic mobility and economy are undergoing performance trials in Italy and Germany. Jointly developed by Iveco Defense Vehicles of Italy and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) of Germany, the 4 X 4 and 6 X 6 vehicles are initially intended for the Italian and German armies. Series production is slated to begin next year.
Australia’s defense budget is A$400 million ($280 million) richer after fatigue testing on 49 Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 Hornets showed that only about 20% need a structural refurbishment that includes replacement of the fuselage center barrel.
Israel has officially unveiled the Namer armored infantry fighting vehicle (AIFV). Namer, which means Leopard in Hebrew, uses the same chassis as the Merkava Mk.4, the latest version of Israel’s unique infantry-carrying tank. The 60-ton Namer has a remotely operated weapon station, electro-optical observation and sighting systems and “see-through armor” optics that provide a 360-deg. view. The vehicle mounts a 12.7-mm. heavy machine gun on the weapon station, a manually operated 7.62-mm. machine gun and a 60-mm. mortar.
