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.
With U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Congress pressuring the armed forces to reduce production schedules and roll new technologies out into the hands of soldiers as quickly as possible, the name of the game for contractors these days is speed.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is soliciting proposals for development of “fracture putty,” described as a “dynamic, putty-like material” which, when packed around a compound fracture, speeds up healing, minimizes rehabilitation and eliminates infection and secondary fractures. The material will additionally provide load-bearing capabilities within days of application, enabling a patient to move around sooner. It will also aid bone growth and dissolve during healing into harmless by-products.
Bourges is the center of France. It is also the heart of French efforts to counter the impact of improvised explosive devices. Just outside the medieval city, 800 military and civilian staff form the ETBS (Etablissement Technique de Bourges), the land weapons and protection technologies test center of the French defense procurement agency DGA, which is rapidly gearing up to support counter-IED programs and prepare for next-generation threats.
French companies Bertin Technologies and CEA, working with the National Institute of Advanced Technologies and the DGA defense procurement agency, developed a digital electro-optical sensor in which each of 40,000 pixels has a dedicated processor. The sensor, known as Caladiom (a French acronym for “long-range sensor for detection and identification of mobile targets”) has a programmable digital retina of 200 X 200 pixels. The detector array is controlled by electronic architecture and consumes just 1.8 watts of energy.
The development of top-end submarine sonars is part high-tech, part black art and part a bespoke business with minuscule production. Which is the problem facing Thales Underwater Systems Ltd. The unit began work in the 1980s on a new sonar for the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class subs, to restore their edge over improved Soviet boats.
Israel’s Integrated Advanced Soldier program is procuring an array of equipment to facilitate communications between dismounted combat teams and command centers. The equipment is modular, and designed for use in urban and open terrain. The program, run by the government’s defense directorate for research and development (DDRD) and Elbit Systems, began with a feasibility study in 2003, which was followed a year later with a combat lab. The first kits are now being delivered and will be used in company and battalion exercises this year.
The U.S. Air Force successfully tested an experimental data-transmission technology from Rockwell Collins that allowed two F-22 Raptors to communicate with ground stations. The test occurred during the JEFX (Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment) 08-3 exercise at Nellis AFB, Nev., in April. F-22s are not equipped with conventional data links, which can be detected by enemy sigint. They use a narrow-beam intra-flight datalink (IFDL) to relay data and synchronize situational pictures between each other.
Small European air forces are increasingly seeking innovative ways of staging realistic live-flying exercises for their fighter squadrons, due to weather restrictions and environmental rules that restrict training. One example is the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF), which completed an extended period of live-flying training exercises in North America in May.
German federal research chief Thomas Rachel has set a security agenda with an array of projects weighted toward probing the terahertz spectrum in an effort to develop see-through scanners that detect weapons and explosives. Rather than go for a home run with one detector that does it all, Berlin is making small bets around the country, with teams looking to produce different devices that do well-defined jobs. For a nation with a limited and sensitive defense appetite, and great engineering and scientific talent, there is logic to this approach.
Two weeks after Lockheed Martin issued a press release assuring the world that all was well with Joint Strike Fighter cost projections, the JSF Executive Steering Board announced at a meeting in Amsterdam that the systems development and demonstration (SDD) and testing phases will probably be extended by another year. The decision won’t be made formal before this fall.
TDA Armaments has orders for its new 120-mm. 2R2M rifled-mounted recoiling mortar from Oman and another Middle East customer. Oman ordered the system for integration in VAB 6 X 6 armored personnel carriers from Renault Trucks Defense. The second customer, understood to be Saudi Arabia, will use the system to modernize M113 mortar carriers as part of a fleet upgrade program. In a recent demonstration for DTI in Bourges, France, the 2R2M fired several rounds. It has a range of 13 km. (8 mi.) and terminal effect that “almost matches a 155-mm. howitzer,” TDA claims.
The big story online last month was Ares Goes Dutch Again. Editor-in-Chief Bill Sweetman wrote about an Ares entry being cited in the Dutch parliament on Apr. 9, concerning cost overruns for the Joint Strike Fighter. An online debate resulted, which yielded 27 comments as of this writing (May 9). Our editors helped to stoke the exchange with their expert commentary. Here are a few great observations (edited for space) from readers.
Italy’s Cavour aircraft carrier is the first ship to install the new RAN-40L radar from Selex Sistemi Integrati. It was developed to meet several needs: long range, precision detection, resistance to electronic countermeasures (ECM), low weight and economy. The navy set out to replace its 40-year-old RAN-3L radar (military designation MM/SPS-768), a 1-2-GHz. L-band (NATO D-band) system, with one that would be initially installed on the Cavour and two De La Penne-class destroyers during mid-life upgrades.
In order to have a communications network like the one the U.S. Army’s $160-billion Future Combat Systems program is trying to build, you first need to gather the information to send through the system. Key subsystems in this area are two Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS): the tactical sensor and the urban sensor. Manufactured by Textron Defense Systems, the tactical UGS and urban UGS are going through testing at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. As of May, the company had delivered about 150 sensors to the Army.
Armies are building up artillery rocket arsenals with weapons that combine increased range and greater accuracy with improved mobility and fast launch capabilities. Major players such as the U.S., Israel, Turkey and Russia are adding technologies for rapid firing, variable launch trajectories, advanced navigation, multiple warheads and precision targeting.
