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NH Industries announced in March that it delivered the first NH90 TTT (tactical troop transport) helicopter to the Finnish army. Finland is replacing its aging fleet of Russian-made Mi-8 helicopters with 20 NH90s. Nineteen are being assembled by the Patria Group in Finland. The first of the locally-built aircraft will be delivered this month. Patria is also responsible for the final assembly of most of the NH90 helicopters ordered by Sweden, following an industrial cooperation agreement that is part of the Nordic Standard Helicopter Program.
Researchers are making strides in pinning down the physiological causes and neurological storehouses for pain and fear, with an eye to more effectively controlling them through artificial means. So springs a vision of the ultimate soldier: one who feels no pain and has no fear. The seeds for this fearless, pain-free soldier come from the dry savannah of Ethiopia. Living there in deep burrows is the naked mole rat, a creature that is impervious to certain types of pain, in particular, the pain that comes from acid.
A U.S. Defense Science Board report on directed-energy weapons in late 2007 states: “Directed energy suffers from a history of overly optimistic expectations.” This may be the understatement of the century. The report cites canceled or delayed programs, and notes that the biggest U.S. directed-energy (DE) program—the Airborne Laser (ABL), which alone consumes more than half the Pentagon’s DE budget—was little or no closer to its crucial operational test than when the board last reported on DE in 2001.
The Israeli military has adopted “diffused warfare” as a defense concept, calling it the preferred modus operandi against low-tier threats like terrorism and for counterinsurgency operations. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) version of diffused warfare, tried for the first time in limited scope during “Operation Defensive Shield 2002” in the West Bank, proved effective in its use of small, widely distributed forces that controlled large areas of a dense urban environment. The IDF now uses similar tactics for counterinsurgency.
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that medium- and heavy-lift transport helicopters that perform well in hot and high conditions are vital—yet are always in short supply. So despite years spent mulling the prospect of a 20-ton-payload Joint Heavy Lift transport rotorcraft, the U.S. military is going ahead with new and significantly improved versions of the venerable Boeing CH-47 and Sikorsky CH-53 transport helicopters, whose origins date back some 50 years.
German industry is making progress in the development of active defense systems that protect armored vehicles against rocket-propelled grenades, kinetic-energy penetrator rounds and some types of improvised explosive devices, including those firing explosively formed penetrators. IBD Deisenroth and Rheinmetall established the joint venture ADS last year to advance Deisenroth’s AMAP-ADS system from development to production readiness, says Peter Kayser, the company’s CEO.
Driving through the countryside northwest of Baghdad means running a gauntlet of checkpoints manned by Iraqi Concerned Local Citizens groups. While some are little more than a few tires and clumps of dirt in the road, others are more professional, consisting of tight snakeruns of dirt-filled Hesco containers and concrete barriers. Made to slow up small cars and trucks, the checkpoints pose problems for the muscular U.S. military transports.
One term that’s now part of the combat lexicon is “distributed operations.” This describes a conventional army’s shift in tactics caused by an adversary that does not assemble into large formations—a hallmark of asymmetrical conflicts. Fighting small, independent groups that assume non-combatant identities at will makes it difficult for industrial armies to win decisive victories, even with their overwhelming force, high technology and intelligence-gathering capabilities.
The U.S. has a long-standing policy of guaranteeing all nations access to outer space for peaceful purposes. But when Russia and China proposed a treaty to disarm outer space at the United Nations’ Conference on Disarmament in Geneva last month, the U.S. opposed the measure.
The Fiscal 2009 U.S. defense budget is indecisive. Midway between the last change of congressional leadership and the next change of administration, with uncertainty about the future of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with a troubled economic picture, predicting the budget climate in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 is at best inexact. The result, to the frustration of many in Congress, is a budget of hedges and holds.
The market for lightweight torpedoes is served by several suppliers, each of which is improving the versatility and accuracy of its weapons. Eurotorp Group is a joint venture by DCNS, WASS and Thales that has developed and is building the MU90 Impact weapon system. Like the Black Shark heavyweight torpedo, the MU90 features a Saft-supplied Al-AgO battery system. France accepted its first batch of 25 (out of 300) MU90 Block 1 torpedoes last June. Other customers include Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Poland.
Thales will equip the Luftwaffe’s Tornado strike and suppression aircraft with secure Saturn air-to-air and air-to-ground radios. The company was selected by the German defense procurement agency BWB and NATO’s Eurofighter and Tornado management agency based on recommendations by EADS, manufacturer of the aircraft. The model specified is the TRA 6030, part of the TR 6000 family of radios developed by Thales Land and Joint Systems. TR 6000 radios are combat-proven and comply with NATO’s Saturn waveform standard.
If the Pentagon’s secret budget were broken out from the half-trillion-dollar-plus total, it would be the sixth-largest defense budget in the world. It is assumed to be worth $45 billion plus, and it only takes a few minutes to run through each year’s budget and find more than $40 billion that is not listed or assigned to transparent cover names.
Opportunities to engage high-priority targets in urban areas occur unexpectedly and last only minutes or seconds. The ability to process information rapidly as a target situation develops, make on-the-spot decisions and respond with split-second timing means the difference between success and failure in killing or capturing terrorists, destroying illicit arms and preventing deadly incursions.
The development of regulations that permit flights of military and civilian unmanned aerial vehicles in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) is proceeding at a snail’s pace, holding back the potential of the technology and the number of non-military missions envisioned by proponents. Unlike agencies in some other countries, the FAA appears to be in no rush to establish rules for UAV operations in U.S. civil airspace (see story, p. 39).
The U.S. Air Force plans to put a Next Generation Bomber (NGB) into service by 2018. But according to the just-released Fiscal 2009 budget, the service will, over the next three years, invest nothing in the project.
Israel launched its new TecSar satellite on Jan. 21, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in India. TecSar is a high-resolution imaging satellite with synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Developed with defense ministry funding, its first images came in Jan. 31, and were reportedly of high quality. The 100-kg. (220-lb.) EL/M-2070 SAR payload has multi-beam electronic steering developed by IAI/Elta Systems. Resolution is classified, but claimed capabilities include high-resolution spot, strip, mosaic and wide-area coverage. Image enhancement is supported by multi-polarization.
Malaysia is accelerating the modernization of its maritime forces with a combination of new shipbuilding programs and upgrades for in-service platforms. Along with a fleet expansion and thousands of extra personnel, the investment in ships is part of an effort to complete the navy’s Future Fleet plan by 2020.
The Russian army will receive a new weapon this year, the tank- support combat vehicle, known by its acronym BMPT (Boevaya Mashina Podderzhki Tankov). The vehicle is primarily designed to protect tank formations from anti-armor weapons, a mission that has been carried out by motorized infantry units. It also will be tasked with suppressing artillery positions, light armored vehicles and infantry.
After changing weblog platforms, it took us awhile to ramp up our comment participation. But now we’re starting to get really good interaction at Ares. There are many great things that can happen in comments: opinion, clarification, questions and more information. Special thanks to our regular users who sign themselves Solomon, ELP, Demophilus, Sunho, Marcase, Airpower, gvg, AJBlank and ghemago for all of their contributions.
The British Army has used a geotextile cell wall developed by British companies J&S Franklin and Terram to build joint ammunition supply points (ASP) at Camp Bastion, a forward operating base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The design is the basis of what the army calls a “new generation in force protection systems”—the DefenCell blast wall, ground stabilization and vehicle barrier system. DefenCell is a honeycomb structure made of polymer fabric that’s filled with sand and rocks. It solves three problems faced by British engineers in building an ammo storage site.
The U.S. Navy has designed a speedboat for special operations that may mark a turning point in the materials it specifies for surface craft. The vessel is called the Mark V.1. It is almost an exact reproduction, in composite material, of the Mark V Special Operations Craft, an 82-ft. aluminum boat in service since the 1990s that is typically used to insert and retrieve the Navy’s SEAL commando teams.
