Maintaining situational awareness in an armored vehicle with closed hatches is critical to safety and readiness. Vehicles are thus being equipped with cameras and imaging systems that create virtual windows, so crew can see around a vehicle and monitor movements and activities. At the Eurosatory exhibition here, developers showed an array of panoramic and peripheral systems.
Germany will decide by the end of the year on an unmanned aerial vehicle for the Bundeswehr’s Saateg reconnaissance program. Two teams are competing for the order—one is made up of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and German defense giant Rheinmetall; the other, U.S.-based General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) and Diehl of Germany. The initial requirement is for five unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and two ground systems—one for training and one for deployment.
Jurmo-class amphibious assault craft operated by the Finnish navy’s Nyland brigade of coastal rangers will soon be equipped with advanced remotely operated weapon and sensor mounts. The service is the launch customer for Sea Protector, a naval variant of the M151 Protector remote weapon station from Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace.
In ancient Beersheba, on the edge of Israel’s blistering Negev Desert, Ron Folman works with extreme cold, the kind that brings atoms to a standstill. This lets them be manipulated and ordered over an atom chip, the heart of an evolving technology that could yield powerful sensors.
Denmark is looking at Greece as a possible export customer for its new 6,600-metric-ton (full load) frigate design. A delegation representing Danish industry and defense materiel command visited Athens in June to promote the design as a way for the Hellenic navy to economically meet its requirement for up to six air-defense frigates.
Nearly five years after it was launched, NATO’s Network Enhanced Capability concept is near the point of system deployment. An alliance official notes, however, that achieving a network-enhanced capability has gone from being a strictly technical issue in 2003 to a comprehensive political approach.
German armored vehicle manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann is teaming with General Dynamics European Land Systems (ELS) of Vienna to develop and market an air-transportable, autonomous, remotely operated 155-mm. artillery system. Called Donar, the weapon features the same Rheinmetall-built 155-mm./52-cal. ordnance used in Krauss-Maffei Wegmann’s PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzer sold to Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands.
The Royal Norwegian Navy is evaluating one of the most advanced autonomous forward underwater sensors for mine countermeasures and rapid environmental assessment on the market. The Hisas 1030 is a synthetic aperture sonar system that is carried on board the latest Hugin 1000-MR (multirole) autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Kongsberg Maritime and Norway’s defense research agency FFI jointly developed the sonar and AUV.
Napoleon called artillery the queen of the battlefield. The French army appears to be upgrading that position to imperial status now that its artillery transformation is being led by the introduction of the highly mobile Caesar truck-mounted 155-mm./52-cal. howitzer from Nexter Systems. The new howitzer is the latest example of the French army’s efforts to transform its equipment and capabilities to meet evolving 21st-century warfighting needs (DTI June, p. 48).
As U.S. military assets are increasingly tasked for nonmilitary operations like disaster mitigation, drug interdiction and homeland security, the need for interoperability and effective information management among different organizations is more pressing than ever.
iRobot Corp. of Bedford, Mass., signed a sole licensing agreement June 10 with the University of Washington to commercialize Seaglider autonomous underwater vehicle technology. The Seaglider AUV is designed for low-cost oceanographic measurements. Seaglider uses a buoyancy-based propulsion system that allows unattended missions covering thousands of miles and lasting months. The AUV pitches up and down to “fly” through water. ”The hull compresses as it sinks, matching the compressibility of seawater,” researchers say.
Disturbing rumbles from the U.S. Navy: The service is considering canceling Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator (UCAS-D) due to tight budgets in 2010-12. The Navy’s budget is under pressure—for one thing, it’s spending tens of billions on complex, overweight and over-budget gadgets that will let the Marines invade Guadalcanal again, should the occasion arise. But scrapping UCAS-D would be dumber than dirt.
The next generation of U.S. helmets will do away with the iconic Kevlar fiber reinforcement that defined them for 30 years. In its place, manufacturers will use ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, a fiber with greater ballistic mass efficiency than Kevlar. The most immediate benefit will be 20-25% higher levels of protection. Helmets will also have improved ergonomics and integrate an array of sensors. What will make this possible is a manufacturing process developed by the Army’s ManTech (Manufacturing Technology) program.
MiG Corp. didn’t bring any aircraft to the ILA 2008 air show in Berlin, but a MiG-29 fighter was on display by a customer—the Slovak air force. The MiG-29AS, painted in new digital camouflage, is one of 12 modernized fighters that entered service in Slovakia last February. They were modernized in what MiG calls an SD variant, which focuses on upgrading avionics to comply with NATO standards and International Civil Aviation Organization requirements. Slovakia’s fighters are the first such upgrades for MiG.
The Russian air force may receive as many as 34 new MiG-29 fighters, though not by usual procurement channels. The fighters are being returned. Purchased by Algeria in 2006, officials there complained that the first batch of 15 MiG-29SMT fighters contained second-hand components and refused to accept them last October.
It is the most ambitious British defense project in two generations—building a pair of aircraft carriers to give the Royal Navy a global power projection capability for decades to come.
Monitoring of wounded, injured or sick personnel could take a major step forward if a technology for radiofrequency biotelemetry developed by NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is licensed for use. As described in NASA Tech Briefs, the technology involves surgical implantation in patients of microelectromechanical sensors and actuators that would be interrogated by handheld radio-transceivers.
Submarine designs will soon emerge in South Korea and Australia that reflect each country’s operational needs. South Korea wants submarines with vertical launchers for cruise missiles to deter North Korea. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) wants submarines with high transit speed and endurance that can operate thousands of miles from homeport.
The U.S. Army is attempting to spin out components of its Future Combat Systems so fast it’s making some people dizzy. But the service is under pressure to prove the value of its monster program in a race against congressional cost cutting. Next year looms large on the Army calendar: 2009 is the deadline for a “go/no-go” decision on FCS.
Anyone who has been on a U.S. military base or combat outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan in the past several years won’t be surprised to hear that American forces love video games. And considering that sales for the American video gaming industry shot up a jaw-dropping 43% in 2007 over the previous year, to $17.9 billion, it would seem that the American public shares the grunts’ enthusiasm.
The U.S. Army has deployed seven Stryker brigades to Iraq. “We’ve had over 16 million combat road miles on the platform,” while maintaining “an 89-96% readiness rate,” says Col. Robert Schumitz, Stryker Brigade Combat Team project manager.
With India’s defense orders projected to exceed $30 billion in the next eight years, and major offsets clauses attached to contracts, manufacturers like Boeing and Raytheon are finding innovative ways to bid for programs.
Ballistic missile defense programs are accelerating in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, as nations seek to protect their territory and deployed forces with land- and sea-based systems that detect, track and destroy a range of threats incoming from all altitudes, including space.
Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled a multipurpose version of its Lahat missile at Eurosatory in Paris, for use against soft targets. The warhead weighs 12.5 kg. (27.5 lb.) and has a fragmentation sleeve on a small shaped charge for armor penetration and blast fragmentation. It is effective against troops and unarmored and lightly armored vehicles. The missile is part of an application that protects forward operating bases and border areas. Unmanned missile stacks are erected in fixed installations, each with eight Lahats.
